P. Chadim: One of the responsibilities of a coach is to get the best out of players

After the end of this year’s Prague Baseball Week, we asked for an interview with national team manager Pavel Chadim. We talked about the finished tournament, the performances of the newcomers, but also about the next year of the tournament.

Hi Pavel, I’m going to start with the bronze medal game, because I watched you at the dugout in the last inning. You looked incredibly nervous and after the last out you blew a lot. How much did you want at least the third place?

It’s not nervousness in the sense that you don’t have your brain under control. It’s a tension that drives you to attack together with the fact that you really want the boy to be successful. To do the things that you teach him all winter and will lead to him being better. Actually. It wasn’t third place, nor did I get too much of a blow. You’re just in war mode. It’s a war and it’s about whether the last group, the last infantryman on the battlefield will stay or not. You have a plan for war and you are in tension, because it can always end in any way, but the peace must remain in your head. I’m afraid that people will think that the tension that players and coaches have is something like reckless nervousness and there is an escape. In a crisis, there is always fight or flight. And we are in that fight. We can’t even escape. I don’t know if I’m saying it clearly, but…. It’s a worry about whether we’re doing it right, but it’s not panic and fear that pulls you down and immobilizes you.

Such a bon mot. I think I’ve said it several times. When a squirrel sees a marten, it is so afraid that even though it is faster than it, it does not move. If he was watching me, I’m humming something and so on. But the main thing I experience is the fight with the pitcher, I’m on his side. But my head is calm. I know what we want to do, when we have to replace him, I know how it will continue. But of course, the biggest desire is for the battle plan to be fulfilled as the players are taught.

At that last moment, you had Ondřej Vanek on the mound as a closer. He mentioned to me that he had been preparing him for this position for this tournament. Do you have Ondřej as a closer for the national team matches in the future?

Every coach has to work with what he has. He can dream of what line-up he wants, but if he doesn’t have those players, he can’t play such a game. One of the responsibilities of a coach is to get the most out of the players. When I go through Ondřej’s percentage of strikes and balls, it doesn’t suit the starter so much. When I go through his percentage of missed strikes, strikes thrown at full strength, percentage of stopped full and percentage of handling situations with full bases, all these attributes lead me to the fact that he has a lot of potential to come in the toughest games. The fact that he is 19 years old gives us great promise for the future.

Now you are composing a new middle infield. Especially after Jakub Hajtmar retired last year. Especially Ben Morgan showed that defensively it could be very good. But the middle infield still has a problem at bat. Do you see this as the biggest problem when solving a new infield?

If I were looking at it from the point of view of a computer game, yes. When I look at it from the point of view of the European Championship next year, or the World Baseball Classic, we must not forget that we have three excellent infielders – Vojta Menšík, Willie Escala and Eric Sogard. So now we are looking for two young infielders who are able to fill in for them if they get injured, miss, or play in a tournament during their season. That has happened now, because all three are abroad. These guys are able to play at the highest level on Czech pitches. So far, I don’t meet exactly what I would like them to meet for playing in the world arenas. But we are looking for two places and Ben, Šimon Blažek and Milan Prokop are fighting for them very bravely.

Milan still has an open place in the offensive group. If I take the roster for the World Baseball Classic, which has 30 spots. We will be looking for two players who will be able to come and attack in crisis situations. So when we are looking for the army for the war, we are looking for two guys who will be able to play. We try to teach them as much as possible in attack, but the key is defensive. You have rightly pointed this out. We are looking for those who are able to play well defensively under pressure. We don’t put pressure on the offense anyway, because each team can afford one or two defenders in the lineup. I see successful teams that have three defenders. They have six forwards and three defensemen who collect a lot of pitches at bat to make it easier for the forwards. Alternatively, they move and annoy the pitchers. There can be more than one attacker’s roles.

For these two weeks, he brought 10 newcomers. They played 5 matches. Who surprised you the most?

I would say that no one disappointed, which is the most valuable. I was most impressed by the two games on Sunday, when all three played great games in the middle infield. Whether it was Bláža, Ben, or Milan. In the back field, Šimon Klacl. On this day, in 14 innings, these four youngsters caught my attention very much in defense. I always saw something there that they could play better, but this definitely caught my attention. Normally I don’t name players. I hope it won’t be the kiss of death, but Ben Morgan’s save, it was the best defensive tackle since I’ve been coaching the men’s national team.

Let’s go to the tournament overall. We beat Germany twice, but we lost to Japan and Taiwan. What else are we missing to be able to beat these great teams?

We have moved from three to five pitchers that we are able to get from the Extraliga to such a high level. We now have ten. In order to have a chance to play with these teams, we need to take five of those ten to an even higher level. And add another five to ten to those ten. My dream is to have 20 pitchers like we’ve seen in the last three games and five pitchers of the Padyšák and Koval levels.

In the autumn, you will go to Asia. What will you try to do with the team in six months? What will you work on to move even higher?

During four games, we got information about what we should improve. In the series with Germany, we will try it against an opponent who is at our level. We want to give younger pitchers a chance there. We have already agreed with David Křeček, Jan Kozel and Tomáš Hrbek, who has now thrown 87 miles, which is perfect for a left-hander. Sixteen pitchers come out of it. We will invite them 14 days before departure to Asia. We will play two matches against the Swiss. They have now told us that Trevor Bauer will come with them. We’ll see if he’ll only throw live BP or in the Swiss jersey. Our plan is to have 14 pitchers, 2 substitutes, 14 fielders and 2 substitutes on the roster. With these 32 players, we would like to have a fitness camp at Tempo, where there is a gym and there will be a specialist from the Faculty of Physical Education and Sports, Radim Jebavý. It will be such an activation 14 days before the procedure. Whoever is badly off will get up or we won’t take him. Those who will be in a good place will activate and should get into the same comfort as if it were the playoffs in September.

You are known for wanting to play matches with quality opponents. I assume that PBT met your requirements as much as possible.

One hundred percent.

What do you think about the traffic? There were concerns about what the postponement of the date would do to her. In the end, it was record-breaking.

I wasn’t afraid of it. But I said it had to be worked out. If I was afraid of something, it was that it wouldn’t work out. We have been trying to do something about that deadline for five years. Three years ago, Karel Jaksch (director of PBT – ed.) and I went to Haarlem, where we talked to Japan, the USA, Curacao, Taiwan and tried to catch up with them. We succeeded, which is incredible.

We had three goals. One of them was the audience. I am extremely satisfied with that. In general, how our media and Czech Television have worked it here…  That’s hours and hours of work. If I put it in the package, it would be maybe the same number of hours as we coaches and players devoted to preparation. So one more national team is being prepared here. In that it is comparable.

The second goal was to be able to play at this level as a team. Someone may catch on, but we didn’t want to get a difference for all pitchers to play. So that as many players as possible get a chance. To make it balanced and entertain the audience. These are connected vessels. The players showed that we can play with these teams. Yes, we see reserves, but we got those knocks at the best time. I don’t even know if I would have wanted us to beat Taiwan in the first match, when we lost 1-3 and we could have easily won. When the players get a result without working for it, they live under the false impression that they are good. On the other hand, we showed the Germans that we can beat them, but you can lose to anyone in one key match.

The third goal was for the young pitchers to show themselves. After going with them on the PRO program, Los Angeles 2028, we can’t be dissatisfied. Hrbek threw 87 MpH from the left at the All Star game. Kollmann closed the Japanese, Vank the Germans, Pacal threw 90 MpH, Lukáš Hlouch threw 92 MpH. When was it ever? How many pitchers have made it to the top European level?

There will be no Haarlem Baseball Week next year, so it will be difficult to get Japan and Taiwan to Prague Baseball Week. Will you be moving the date back? Or are you already thinking about teams to invite to Prague?

We will all definitely try to make sure that the spectators see attractive teams.  Personally, I wouldn’t change the date. Next time, you may be able to catch the USA team, but of course it costs something to take care of them here.  My dream is a tournament where the spectator sees one representative of Asian baseball, another from the American continent and two from Europe.  That would be what would appeal to me the most as a viewer.

We have a verbal invitation to Rotterdam Week. But we know that two years ago they didn’t get enough money for the tournament. It’s not easy at all to make such a tournament. There must be audience interest in it, they have to pay for a ticket, buy something, preferably merch. It’s a tough battle and as I said at the beginning, nothing can be done by itself, everything has to be worked out. I would also like to thank everyone who helped in any way.