Dodgers Hot Take: Hunter Feduccia Called Up

it's been a long time coming but left-handed hitting catcher Hunter fedua finally got the call as you can tell as you can imagine I am so excited so let's talk about it fedua hails from the great state of Louisiana Lake Charles to be exact he played for the legendary Glen cacini in high school there at Barb high school and then after that he he left Barb high school and went to LS Unis J and then played his final year at LSU and actually had a pretty good year there got drafted in 2018 and got off to a good start in his professional career then obviously 2020 kind of through a wren into things and then played parts of two seasons in Tulsa I had a chance to see him quite a bit with the Drillers actually interviewed him while he was with Tulsa and then has spent the parts of the last three years in tripa Oklahoma City towards the end of 2022 he got the call up from double A Tulsa spent all of last year in trip Oklahoma City and then spent obviously up until this year with Oklahoma City as well he is a sweet swinging left-hander he's always just been one of those guys that just has a really flat swing he has a swing that that really keeps his Barrel in the zone for a long time and one of the things that is very noted about Hunter fedua because his Barrel is in the zone for such a long time this guy hits vo as well as anybody so I think one big time role for Hunter producer for this team is if you have a guy blowing it 100 miles hour plus Hunter is your guy to face that guy plus he's left-handed and most of those reliever guys likely are to be right-handed so he could be a left right matchup Off the Bench so I think that is a a great position that Hunter fedua could put the club in as far as the way that they could use him I have had a chance to catch up with Hunter fedua a couple of times and and had a chance to ask him a couple things about his game first of all what it's like you know how the Dodgers have all of these great pitchers from all places across the world what's it like having to incorporate all the different personalities all the different guys from all the different parts of the world and all the different pitch mixes and having to make it look seamless yeah that's uh uh that's one thing I had to really kind of get used to getting into pro ball is kind of building relationship with all the guys and it's kind of different each year a lot of guys moving back and forth so uh yeah it's been good this year been working with a lot of big arms like you said uh our uh Team average V is 94 this year so yeah got a lot of good arms it's been fun working with the guys and that's one thing I've been kind of working on this year is building better relationships with pitchers and yeah one thing I mentioned earlier was that he has a very chill personality that works great for big moments especially when you have a pitcher that is really hyped and probably needs somebody to to kind of calm it down and keep it even kill as far as being able to focus on execution and not just being too overhyped and too over aned from that perspective and so that really is a strength for Hunter fedua I think that's just kind of how I am kind of lowkey guy uh and some yeah some pitchers love that some I kind of need a be more outgoing kind of kick him in the butt get him going a little more so yeah Hunter fuia had a great year last year he's been good I mean he's been very consistent just about every year but he made some swing changes a few I wouldn't say maybe swing changes but definitely some adjustments that really paid off for him so here's Hunter talking about some of the adjustments he made before last year that he's carried into this year as well yeah just to start with my swing um just little adjustments with my hands and uh starting to get a toe tap and uh kind of freed up my body kind of made me a little more comfortable in the box and um had some pretty good results during the Spring uh still working on some stuff getting comfortable with it but yeah it uh it worked out and still feeling good so so it's been a long grind for Hunter fua drafted back in 2018 last year we at least some of us thought hey maybe he had his chance whenever Will Smith had the concussion protocol instead that the Dodgers went out and got Austin wins in a situation where they knew they could DFA him so that delayed the major league debut for Hunter fedua for over a year but it's finally here and this is Hunter fedua talking about the grind and what it's like just keeping the Fate that someday you will make the major leagues it's been a grind for sure uh but just like you said like step by step I'm just trying to take every day uh one step at a time um but yeah it's it's it's been a fun ride along the way uh I'm try not to think about it too much just play my game stay where I'm at and uh hopefully it all works out Hunter fedua is the definition of somebody who is the most respected or one of the most respected players in the entire organization the way that he grinds the way that he shows up and does his work every day the way that he just does what he's supposed to do and is told to do and never complains he's tough he's durable he's reliable he's consistent he is a great dude he's a great teammate he's great off the field and now he's a major leager so here's Hunter fua talking about what it would mean this is of course before he he found out he was going to make his major league debut but what it would mean once he finally got that call yeah obviously um debut making my debut would be dream come true um but yeah just sticking with the process staying consistent with my routine and um being the best version of myself so what things do you think you do well enough right now to be a consistent major leager at the level you want to be what things do you think you need to continue to improve on to be that major league or you want to eventually become um I'll would say say my game planning is coming along it's obviously there's some stuff I need to work on um I say what my bad I feel like they've been pretty consistent in terms of what you're going to see from Hunter Fu on the field a sweet left-handed stroke you see that right there very tall backside very direct path to the baseball that right there friends is why he is able to hit vo as well as he is or as he can this is a Young Man Hunter fiducia that the harder you throw it the better he gets and that's because watch the path of his hands watch the backside it stays tall all of that stays simple and what I wanted to show you here is remember him talking about that adjustment he made with his toe tap there it is right there so let me actually back up and let the swing play what I want you to notice is the tall backside the direct path to the ball and whenever you have that that creates a Simplicity that allows you to hit V very well right there you saw it that is just a really simple really sweet left-handed swing 400 fedua so like I said earlier I think one big role for him to be could be to hit there's another look from the backside of Hunter fedua swing is to come in and hit very high V because he is very good at it so the next question I'm sure you're going to ask is what does his throwing arm look like hey very serviceable it's not going to be PUD Rodriguez or Bonito San dieago or anything like that but it is very serviceable this right here that you're seeing that's actually Jonathan arao who caught that ball that is a 2.1 pop time for Hunter fuia and hey 2.0 is really pretty good so you can see that that it's serviceable it's not going to be like Elite or anything like that but certainly good enough when you combine with the consist consistency of his back the way he hits vo they're very there definitely is a very good player on both sides of the ball so want to show you Hunter fedua on the pop time here so here's another one we showed you the 2.1 pop time this pop time right here of course that's help by the fact that I believe that is Brendan Davis who cuts in front of the back that's actually less than a two-point pop time so you can see man I mean this guy whenever things go right he can average around a 2.0 pop time which if your pitchers then are 1 three to plate that is a good uh sequence as far as a good combination of holding Runners so like I said nothing spectacular but he can get the ball to second base somewhere around 2.0 and do it fairly consistently and so from that perspective that is not bad at all so Hunter fedua very excited about getting the call up and I wanted to show you his arm as far as throwing Runners out from behind the plate so just know this is a celebration for DOD daily this is a celebration for all of those minor Leaguers that have sat in triaa dugouts that have sat in double A dugouts day after day after day and wondered as they've gotten older as they've gotten closer to 30 than they are 20 am I ever actually going to make it to the major leagues one of my best friends in the world Edie Daves he was in the same situation A catcher he was a first round draft pick never made it so that question is a real one and to see these guys just continue to grind with the same great attitude every single day as a matter of fact I had a chance to talk to Hunter on Tuesday and the last thing that he said to me was I'm going to make it I'm going to get there my time is coming that was literally the last comment that he made and lo and behold here we are Saturday morning and he was correct and I could not be more excited about it so I hope you enjoyed my hot take and my feature on Hunter fedua super excited can't wait to watch him at the major league level