Budner comes back for Tri-city
65-year-old comes out of retirement to work with Valleycats’ staff
Scott Budner was a retired pitching coach living in Phoenix when he got a phone call from Tri-city Valleycats manager Pete Incaviglia earlier this month.
“I’ve just been a golf bum, a wine drinker and a movie watcher through the COVID,” Budner said Sunday. “Didn’t do a lot. Stayed home and went to the golf course.”
Incaviglia lured Budner, 65, back to the game after a threeyear retirement. Now Budner is in charge of the pitching staff, including new arrival Kumar Rocker, the former Vanderbilt star and New York Mets’ unsigned first-round pick a year ago who is re-entering the Major League Baseball draft in July.
“What a great kid,” Budner said. “Great smile. Looks like a big-leaguer and throws the ball beautifully. I watched him play catch and the ball comes out of his hand just special. It’s going to be fun to watch him pitch.”
Budner said the Valleycats will follow the plan laid out by agent Scott Boras to get Rocker ready for the draft.
“I’m sure the kid is itching
to get into some games against the enemy,” Budner said.
Sunday’s series finale against the Windy City Thunderbolts was canceled by rain with the Valleycats leading 1-0 in the second inning. It will not be made up because the teams don’t play again this season.
Though this is Budner’s first time in independent ball, he is no stranger to working with highly touted pitching prospects. He worked in the minor league systems of the Oakland Athletics and the Seattle Mariners. In 2004, he was the pitching coach for the Double-a San Antonio Missions, who had future Cy Young Award winner Felix Hernandez.
Budner’s first season in the minors came in 1990 with the Southern Oregon A’s, a short-season Class A team with four rookies drafted in the first round and supplemental first round that year: Todd Van Poppel, Don Peters, Dave Zancanaro and Kirk Dressendorfer.
“I don’t care if a kid’s a No. 1 draft choice or 50th,” Budner said. “I never concerned myself with where they were drafted. Every kid’s the same to me. You start building a base and finding out what’s inside them and you pay attention to every kid the same way.”
Budner, who pitched five years in the minors for the Giants and Orioles, said he left affiliated baseball because analytics have taken over the game.
“There are a couple of things that are useful, but when it overpowers coaching and developing the man and his makeup, us old geezers can see stuff that I guess the younger generation has to see on computers and numbers and all of that,” Budner said.
Even though Rocker led Vanderbilt to the national championship game twice, winning College World Series MVP in 2019, Budner said he wasn’t familiar with Rocker until the Valleycats signed him.
That’s because Budner focused on professional baseball and coached and managed in Taiwan in 2018 and 2019 before settling into retirement.
As spring training ended this month, Incaviglia needed a pitching coach on short notice when Joe Gannon couldn’t be with the team full-time for family reasons. Gannon is still on staff as a coach.
Incaviglia and Budner didn’t know each other. Incaviglia reached out to a good friend, Tigers batting practice pitcher James Frisbie, who through a friend recommended Budner.
“We’ve never really met, but we’ve shared the same dirt, you know what I mean?” Incaviglia said. “He’s been a successful pitching coach for a long time and it just worked out. He’s doing a great job with the staff.”
Budner said he shared his disdain for most analytics with Incaviglia, who agreed with him. Budner said he “got the itch” to coach again and ran it by his girlfriend and daughters. Budner arrived in Troy and immediately hopped on a bus for a 15-hour trip to the opening series at Florence (Ky.).
“I’m still settling in, getting to know all the kids,” Budner said. “Building a rapport with them is so important so their ears are turned on so maybe you can help them with a few things. Let them know you care. I love seeing a kid get better from March to September. It’s a beautiful thing.”