Hello, and welcome to Badgets and Nerds the Basebook podcasts Ucious Twists by I'm
your hosts human Russels, and I'm delighted to be chatting once again to some
of my besties about baseball. We have the other stat Head, the man
who will tell you everything about stolen bases, which is quite a lot right
now, Darius Austin, how are you doing, Darius, I'm doing well.
There are so many stolen bases. I've spent about two years telling everybody
how many stolen bases there would be if the rules were here, And now
the rules are here, and there are a load of stolen bases, so
I'm feeling extremely vindicated right now. Still, there are some teams which don't
steal, and I still find that absolutely ridiculous. And there is something really
worrying about the fact that the Rockies still stuck at this, even though they've
made it so easy, the Rockies still sack. I think that's quite rassure.
Yeah, it is kind of glorious to see in that regard. I
was wondering there are going to be a few, if not maybe three or
four times, maybe five or six teams that might get out stolen by players
this season, but yeah, otherwise, I'm also joined by Rob Nevarius,
fresh off his journey to the States where he managed to see quite a few
baseball games, had an experience in Chicago that we'll get into at some point.
Rob, how is it back being in Blighty? Well, I landed
two days ago and then yesterday I had to go to but my work,
like a all of the arenas nationally, they come together and have a big
meeting followed by quite a lot of alcohol, and so I am jet lagged,
drunk, don't know what day it is, hungover all at once.
So yeah, I'm I'm good, good ish, Yeah am I? So
we explact Pringle level contributions for me. This part is what you're saying,
Come on, mate, that's that's unfair. That was too harsh, not
that bad, too far. So obviously we've we've been off for a few
weeks for a couple of various reasons. But there's just a bit of baseball.
But I think the place to start is that once again MBA Europe and
have managed to wrangle the BBC to get quite a good name of individuals Bellini,
Unhuman, White and Scrubs to head up Baseball on BBC again, and
it's going to be the Dodgers versus the Cardinals, which are probably two of
the most informed teams in baseball right now. So, Darius, what are
your Obviously it's great to have BBC on terrestrial television. We don't need to
kind of go into going to further than that, but what are your thoughts
on seeing this message kind of drop out of nowhere, even for us.
Yeah, quite quite surprising. It sounds like pretty much everybody and was a
bit blindsided by this news. I think it's yeah, great to have it,
you know, a month fish before London. Get this back in the
minds of people too. I mean, we can talk about the Cardinals a
bit later, but two ostensibly very good teams, the Dodgers are dodging again,
and obviously there's a lot of talented players in the field. So yeah,
look, a little bit surprising that this wasn't hyped up more and it
just kind of got dropped in this week. But definitely I think good to
get it in front of people, get it, get it back in their
minds, and yeah, maybe convince a few people to come down to London
and see what's going on in person. Yeah, obviously, I think that's
got to be part of it, to try and get rid of those by
enough few tickets that they have, Rob Do you have any any thoughts on
this apart from it is good? Yea, it is good? Yeah,
is accurate? Yeah? Yeah. I think the fact that we didn't need
to make a massive who are about it when it got announced, I think
that's possibly by design. I think what we're trying to do is normalize baseball
as as as a sport that's just around. And if we have to make
a song and dance about it every time, then it's saying, well,
look, look look here, it is. Here it is. But if
if we can, if we can just start drip feeding in so it's just
part of the background noise. That's that's how you make fans. That's how
pretty much all of us ended up getting there one way or another. Is
you know, it's the Channel five effect, wasn't it? You know?
And I walked past the sports bar last night and the baseball was on in
the sports bar and I pointed up and say baseball, and no one around
me gave a toss, but you know, there was baseball on the wall
in the bar. I was in, So, yeah, I think it's
about about just just getting that drip feed in. Yeah, BBC's got some
baseball. Let's not make a song and dance because that's where baseball is now,
it's on BBC. Yeah. I think some of us, I think
I may in particular, have really thought that the Sunday evening game is something
that is should be pushed so much by MLB in the UK because for people
like myself who are NFL fans, like during that part of the season,
the Sunday is like is red zone. Like, there's no British sport that
basically gets put on a Sunday evening unless it's a bank holiday weekend, So
you have such a gap in for people who are sports fans who want to
watch. So it's good that they've pushed this again. Well, as I
think we tweeted out, we're like, hey, look it's all our friends
as again that are on this podcast that they are decided to put on put
on, put on the show. So obviously we'll we'll we'll love to see
how they do. I think it's a it's a great combination of people and
will be will be very interestous to see how they deliver the game, because
in some ways we kind of have to realize that this is maybe not going
to be delivered for some of the diard fans. It's going to be a
little bit more explaining, maybe a little bit more into that kind of podcast,
the delivery of like a of a game that we see sometimes some of
the ESPN games compared to just like a standard broadcast, because they have to
explain a little bit more what's actually going on and why some of these things
matter. I think it is also good to see that one the Dodgers are
playing amazingly well right now, so we do have effectively I don't know,
are they probably the informed team in baseball right now? I think in the
last couple of weeks they've basically just shown that they that starting was a blip,
and the Cardinals are coming back after looking frankly awful and not knowing how
to bat whatsoever, they now looked like a little bit like themselves. It's
like Norah Aroronardo has remembered how to bat. Yeah, dog interest and Cardinals
are both eight and two over their last ten, so they are jointly the
most informed teams in bastball. Yeah, So that's awesome. I think while
we're here, do have to discuss the Cardinals, which has, in our
minor absence, have had one of the more bizarre escapades in baseball, at
least in my memory of kind of watching the game closely effectively. Within the
space of about two weeks, they were playing bad. A couple of their
pictures seemingly complained that Wilson Contreras wasn't Yaddy and Molina, which is like,
yes, that's the case, And then the Cardinals front office and ownership came
out and basically said, yeah, so we're gonna d h him for a
while. No, we'll put him in the outfield. Actually, no,
wait, we won't put him in the outfield. He's just gonna DH for
a bit. But he's not actually his faults. He's doing a good enough
job. This is nothing again his catching, then a week later being like,
oh yeah, he's now ready back to catch. And they seem to
have been pitching either equally bad during his absence as they were before, and
it's just because they've learned to hit theres is my summation of this. I
don't think, I don't want to know that what substance there is behind this
because the Cardinals have always seemed a relatively sensible organization and they've just basically gone,
well, we're having a bad season for the first time ever. What
do we do? What do we do? Like running around like, well,
there's a fire on in the kitchen and having no idea what's going on.
Yeah, it feels pretty much like that. I mean, I guess
two things can be true at the same time. One that you know,
Wilson Cadreris is not defensively the catcher that the idea of Malina was, which
I would have hoped that the Cardinals knew when they signed him. But maybe
they thought they could do some sort of training and they would make him better
and it hasn't worked, and then it did work in the space of the
last week. I don't know about that. If the Cardinal was really wanted,
like the guy who's going to be the stud defensively behind the plate and
they don't care how he hits. Austin Hedges was a free agent this offseason.
They could have just done what the Pirates did and gone and signed Austin
Hedges for much less money and had a guy who's great at working with pictures
and is an elite framer, and then maybe everybody would have been happy.
Who knows and Andrew k isn't It isn't that person either, so it wasn't
no. So the move to do that, yeah, felt profoundly strange,
like they were just doing it because they had to react to something, and
the most obvious thing they could do to react was to say, well,
it's Wilson Contreras's fault, seemingly just based on Jack Flatty being a bit mad.
And Jack Flatty has not pitched very well until Monday night when he had
like a ten strikeout game, which was his best in about three years with
Wilson Contreras catching. So yeah, all much to do about nothing. I
really don't like Olie Marmol's demeanor either. He's got like just this massive chip
on his shoulder. I watched some of the press conference after that Flaherty game
when they had a great game and you'd have thought they lost, Like he
was miserable. Obviously, it didn't seem like he wanted to take the questions.
I get that they're still not don't have a great record. He's probably
had a hard a few weeks, but yeah, he's just really got like
this edge to him, and we saw this with the Tyler and Neil stuff
as well earlier in the season. I'm not convinced that he's doing a super
job of managing that clubhouse. That seems like he's everybody's out to get me
and I'm going to be this tough guy and you know, like if you
can't even didn't even crack a smile while he was talking about that win,
and I'm, yeah, not really sure where he's going with it. That
Dusty Baker he ate. I guess it's what I'm saying. Yeah, I
think it's obviously it's hard to kind of you can't be Dusty Baker when literally
Dusty Baker has been a manager since before you were born. Yeah, but
I think that's probably right. Yeah, it's not that old, no,
no, yeah, money Marmal is Crisis only a couple of years older than
me. Yeah, so I think he definitely has a chip on his shoulder.
I think obviously, how everything, I still think they didn't really do
things well when they got rid of Schmidt beforehand, so it was a very
weird kind of system. But Marmal was part of the Cardinals that has been
part of the Cardinals for a very long time, so it was like an
internal promotion. You were like, well, this is somebody who's part of
the system. He understands the system. But I do agree that I think
some things have gotten to him during his tenures. Everything with Tyler Nils seems
absolutely ridiculous. I remember reading somewhere about like, you know, I can't
remember which umpire he had a tiff with last year, but one of them
basically told him that he's an upstart and like he's not from around here,
effectively calling him like young and inexperienced when an umpire had a go at him,
which is kind of funny and also kind of like ridiculous at the same
time. But yeah, this has just looked bizarre. The Cardinals are still
sold out or had like forty thousand people turning up for every single one of
the games, even though until I'd say a week ago, they were like
ten and twenty or whatever. I think they might have a ten and twenty
four when the whole mess kicked off. So it was bad. So Rob
during your your time abroad in the States, did you hear anything about this
or is this this usual thing that when you're out on holiday in America,
baseball kind of passes you by far more because you're actually doing things with your
life and not just waiting to go home every evening and turn on MLB.
It did a bit because that that bit of your life that is switched on
to baseball is when you sit down in the evening, like you know,
make it starts at very earliest six o'clock when you're in this country, and
then when you sit down at you know, you finished doing what you're done
for day by eight, nine ten, then a lot of it's done.
I did pick up a little bit on this and listening to a little bit
of what they were were saying on the talk shows in America. One of
the things had been mentioned so much is is the strength of the schedule they've
they've had, they have had and now this isn't the anticipated good teams,
but they run into the pirates they've had, you know, they've they've bumped
up against the oddly lost to the Giants, but the Dodgers, they've you
know, the Angels whilst they were high flying, they've they've played against the
braves. You know, they haven't had an easy go of it to start
with. And I think, you know, you're absolutely right. And they
were talking about how, um, when you have a couple of tough series
in a row, you you need a manager who's going to that That's that's
where the manager does his things and he brings the team together, and that
potentially was what was lacking. It was it was a perfect storm of of
that man managerial sort of sort of not being able to pick them up and
cheer the guys up and and actually quite an unexpected buzz soor of the beginning
of the season. So I think there's something to that. I think it's
the Cardinals. You know, they're they're very good at putting on at least
at least average to slightly better than average team every single year, and that's
that's what they'll do. They've got to be catching up to do. We've
seen them do that in the last couple of years. They're going to be
there or thereabouts. It's just been a scuffling start, and you know,
I don't read too much into it personally. I think I think it will
pass and then the Cardinals will be the Cardinals the rest of the way.
Yeah, that makes sense, But we're going to be lucky enough to see
the Cardinals up front in just over a month's time. Um, so far
this season, like the Chicago Cubs and the Cardinals paths had gone in the
completely opposite directions that I had anticipated. The Cubs came out at the start
of the season high flying, the Cardinals absolutely stank. Then right now the
Cubs are now two and eight and the Cardinals the raid and two, and
it feels like the world, the right of the world is kind of coming
back together. There's what are you kind of anticipating from these teams come like
June when we see them, do we think they're going to be both in
and around five hundreds? Kind of like, really, this is going to
be a really, actually important couple of games, even though we're actually only
will be less than halfway through the season. Yeah, I mean, I
think it is going to be pretty key because the Cards, despite that start,
they're only six and a half games back. Nobody has really stamped their
authority in that division. That the Pirates had a total collapse after I think
twenty and eight was it they were at one point, they've almost come back
to five hundred. Of the Brewers haven't exactly stepped on it. So I
think this could be really key. I do expect the Cardinals to be much
closer to five hundred by that point. I think if the stadium plays like
it did last time, I think we're going to see a lot of runs
again because the Card's rotation is not great and the Cubs, you know,
they've had Justine Steel's been a bright spot. Drew Smiling is a right spot,
but depending on how the rotation lines up there, you know, but
once after those two are Marcus Stroman. It's not looking back good at the
back of the Cubs rotation either, and none of those guys that you know,
Stiegler's kind of got the the r a of an ace, but he
hasn't really got the strikeout numbers. I think it could be difficult games for
all of those guys. And with you know, guys like Noland Gorman,
Patrick Wisdom, you know, huge home run power we've gotten to these teams,
not to mention you know, goldshmt Erronardo, et cetera. I think
we could see another pretty high scoring fest here. Do you think that teams
are gonna the teams might do similar to what like Boston in New York did
and not really line up their races to kind of pitch in this environment.
So we're probably actually going to get I doubt well. Obviously we've the pictures
of Struman or Flaherty is kind of part of like the promotional stuff what's going
and winning. But if I was Chicago and if I was st. Lewis,
I probably wouldn't pitch them here. Yeah, it's tough, right,
Like I mean, the card's rotation. They haven't got anybody that was of
the quality of the pictures available to the Yankees and Red Sox in that series.
Anyway, I don't think so. I don't know that you would say,
oh this guy, I definitely don't want to pitch here. Um,
they're all, you know, kind of pitch to contact you guys. I
guess in some regards maybe Flatty is a guy you'd want just because he's a
bit more likely to strike somebody out than most of the cards rotation. But
I don't know that I see somebody here when I'm like, you know,
I definitely think he's the ace, so they'll they'll save him. It's I
think it's it's going to be a mess of sort of from a pitching standpoint,
but great fund for the fans again, Rob, you got your eyes
on the Chicago Cubs. Is anything that you took away from watching a few
of your get a few of the games up there the Cubs OPPOTU. I
mean the infield's good and the infield's good. With about the infields, it
really it really gelled together, really works together. It really looked looks good
out there. The outfield. Some questions, yeah they're pitching some some questions
for sure, Um, but I was mostly the thing I took away from
the Cubs was was being Wriggley was was everything it's supposed to be. I
know we're sort of stepping aside a little bit here, but that it really
has has heart. I mean, I haven't been too many baseball stadiums.
I've been to four major league stadiums, um five if you include the London
Stadium and two minor league stadiums now. But Wriggley by far and away.
You walk in and it's it's really it's got the feel. It's it's not
made like the rest of them. It's not just concrete, you know,
it really is. It really is a special place to watch watch baseball.
And now I've heard people say Yeah, no atmosphere there at all either.
But I went there whilst the Cubs were flying high. First game I was
therefore they banked the padres and and it was it was a day game.
It was packed. It was great. It was really really good experience.
And anybody who's not not been out yet and it is thinking, oh where
am I going to go to see a see a team? If if you're
not going to go and see your team, I would say Wriggley, do
go to Ring. It's it's a cliche, it's an absolute cliche. But
that was a fantastic experience, fantastic place just to go and be able to
be in a baseball game. Yeah. Sure, the concourses weren't the biggest.
It was a little bit cramped. M it probably doesn't have the best
stuff going on the screen, which isn't pointed in quite the right direction.
But all that I really added to it. I really cannot highly enough rate
what it was like to be in Wrigley. But I get back to the
team watching them, Um, they were fine, they're they're they're a decent
team. They looked they looked like a five hundred team who were pushing over
a team that were scuffling a bit in the padres, and again it's where
the Cubs probably should be. You know, they've they've got holes, but
the holes are hunt as glaring as some mothers um. There feels like it's
quite a lot of homogenization to the middle in the In baseball in general this
year, there's a lot more sort of a lot less boom boom and bust,
a lot more towards the middle, and I think the Cubs are a
part of that, and I think that's where they'll be. They're going to
finish about five that's what they look like, a five hundred team. But
fun, yeah, I know it will be really interesting obviously with I think
with Terry bell Ringer looking a little bit better again, it's always it's a
fun thing. It'll be. It'll be fun to have him down in the
London series. There are a few players that I don't know many many other
people would be really interested in seeing, but I'm I'm interested in maybe getting
a chance to speak to Yan Gomes, a long time player, especially at
the Cleveland time he was around there. It's also like we'll have Trey Mancini
and like Eric Hosmer for Tom to have a wonderful conversation with will we have
Eric Costmer really get through customs? I looked at Eric cosmos line earlier today
and it's not going well. Yeah. The question is like, who would
you? Who would who would be there? Instead of well, I've got
I've got Marvis just playing Marvis. True, we could be in the square.
I watched a Hasma home run and honestly, I swear it did.
It did not get above the height of my head. It was as line
drivey as a line drive home run as you could possibly expect. So obviously,
some of the other news that we've heard in the last couple of weeks
or so is a potential matchup for the next London series in twenty twenty four,
being the Mets and the Phillies. If I actually remember correctly, yes
that was what it was. I nearly drew a mental blank there for a
second. This looks like it is the case. It hasn't been reported by
MLB, but pretty much most other major sources have kind of said this is
what's happening. This was what was supposed to happen in twenty twenty one as
well. So it does look like this has been in plan for a time
period. It seems like a pretty pretty sweet matchup to to be getting any
thoughts, juds. My thoughts are looking forward to the Mets. I would
rather have the Mets this year because God only knows how many of those old
guys are going to be pitching next year, and I'd like to see them
pitching. I really would like to see some of those guys. I'd like
to see the Verlanders and the Shoes as um, if they make it that
but I'm sure they will. Um, But yeah, absolutely, I think
it's a It's a decent, decent matchup. You can't can't look much further
than that all star studded team. Um, we get to see Bryce Harper,
assuming he's fit, and that would that would be that would be really
special to get to get a player like Harper over here, you know.
Um. So yeah, I think it's a great one. It's it's two
very very sort of metropolitan teams also playing in another big city. I think
there's they can really play on that and I think, yeah, I think
it's a great, great matchup. I will do my absolute danders to be
there. Think it's gonna be a great one. Yeah, I think we've
seen from from what's being kind of rumored for like the Korean game the start
of next year as well, it definitely does look to split out in the
idea that was what we thought would happen, is that we're going to see
East Coast teams coming to Europe, We're going to see West Coast teams going
to Asia, and we'll see a mixture of everybody else take part in the
Puerto Rican Games and the Mexican Games as to throw out. So sorry,
Darius, it doesn't look like you'll probably get to see your San Francisco giants
in London or parents in the next few years. Yeah. I was never
expecting it really because you know, given it's different with the NFL when they
give them the bye week afterwards and you know there's so much more time to
prepare, when it's basically just oh ye know here, have a day off,
flight to London, play two games, come back, have another day
off. I don't think they're going to do that at an our time difference.
It's not it's not happening. I think the West Coast teams would fight
that pretty strongly, so as much as it would be greed to have Giants
Dodgers in and I don't think we're going to see it. Yeah, And
also, so who is the potential for the Korean game? It was the
Dodgers and somebody I can't remember. I thought it was. Have you got
it off the top of your head? And I'm not using Google? Google?
Yeah, I think, okay, Google still is great. This is
still great content. Padres Dodgers Padres. So yeah, that is obviously a
potential barn stormer overseason. Do we think, well, this is now a
fundle throwout show here Tari's debut in Korea. Now you think the Orioles are
finally going to fish your boat out and the Oris Orioles Orioles step up from
Adam Frasier to shahead the free agent market. I'm gonna say, given the
fact that the Orioles have come out saying that they want to replicate the Rays
and not to the Astros, makes me think that they ain't going to be
big spenders at any point, which is a bitterly disappointing aspects what they want
you to think. On the other hand, it is sort of already working,
isn't it. So yes, it's one of the one of the sad
signs that constantly tanking and then having all of the top prospects means that you
can I'm definitely going to talk about the Oris again later. Yeah, So
based off that, that's a couple of like really interesting things, we thought
we'd probably get to this team and are two good two bads that we'd have
at the end of thing. But I think they need to have just their
own segment right now. Um, the Oakland Athletics on and off the field
are doing things that I'll just unprecedented. Like I think now Oakland have three
separate or the Athletics have three separate land agreements for Vegas, which so they're
doing exactly the same thing they were doing in Oakland beforehand, but still not
actually finalizing any of it, just kind of putting their way between different potential
sites. In Vegas. They're also averaging giving up seven point four runs a
game. This is like utterly ridiculous, Darius, Like, I'll come to
you because to me, like they are putting out below replacement players, which
means that they can't even scrub like the wavewire to find like replacement level pitchers.
Yeah, I mean, I think I forget what the exact current figure
is, but placement level team is set about fifty two wins. I think
forty eight. Now, yeah, they're round round fifty. The As are
not going to win fifty games at this place. They might well be the
worst team we've ever seen in the modern era. It's you know, it's
entirely possible they don't win forty games at this rate. And yeah, it's
it's not really because of the offense, it's it's the pitching. The pitching
has been just monumentally bad. It's kind of hard to believe that they're keeping
it up, really, but I'll just get the stats up, do you
that's Rob has been a probably out of the leaflow. Do you know what
the Oakland's team era is at the moment the ra it's going to be something
horrible like sticks and a half. You are too low. It's seven point
one three the entire team, not not their worst pitcher, that's the whole
team, z Ra. You've got to think there's going to be a cup
again. That's scrubbing the wave wire. A couple of guys you could just
throw in there to make some sort of difference. I will say that old
Dick Lovelady has pitched twelve for them so far. So that's that's the thing
that's happened. But Mason Miller is hurt now, Yeah, next question for
Rob on the Oakland Aids. I will tell you that the Chicago White Fox
have walked one hundred and seventy five people. That is the second worst out
of the teams so far this year. How many have the Oakland Aids walked
across forty five games? Forty five games? Okay, so if it's forty
five games, I'm going to siventy five is bad. That is really bad.
It can't be further than two hundred shortly two hundred and nineteen. Jesus,
It's like, what's what's remarkable is that they still actually struck out more
people than like Colorado, Mill Detroit, Watchington in Cleveland. Yeah, if
you watch, if you watched Fregion Army pitch, for example, you can
believe it because the stuff is nasty, but he got no idea where it's
going. Yeah, it's it's utterly kind of like remarkable. Yeah, to
see, Like I think on one of our preview podcasts were very start of
the season night, I think everybody was seeing the like opening we're going to
win like forty teams. And I didn't believe it because I didn't believe that
anybody would throw out like below average pitching because I thought that hitting was it
was bad, but it wasn't historically bad. This pitching is like historically bad.
I think Fangrafs has them at like minus three point four WAR, which
if you were to throw Rata out to a season, they'd be getting like
close to like minus eleven minus twelve WAR from their pitching across the season,
which is just after Lee ludicrous. I don't know if that's the worst of
all time. I can't imagine teams we even have to be. I don't
think any many teams have ever got below like much below zero across an entire
season. So the and the offense is fine. The offense is better than
Houston's, for example, they're they're seventeenths by WRC plus. They're actually they're
hitting all right, But the pitching is just destroying everything that you can't really
overcome that. Yeah, it looks at the Triple A team. Do we
think their Triple A team would be able to play better than their team?
So Team r A for the LAS Vegas aviator Las Vegas is a launching pad.
Yeah, it's not good. Actually I have it's not totals, but
it's not pretty. Yeah, but no, it's not a pretty it's not
pretty. But I mean you look at something. You look at some of
those the Triple A teams, do you genuinely is there a Triple A team
up there there's that would finish better than the ass here? I think,
yeah, probably a handful of them. And if that's there, I mean
the rais the Raised Triple A team would obviously better better than the Ays,
wouldn't they obviously? Well, I don't know, obviously because given the fact
that probably like nine of the players that are either in the main mid the
main team right now because they've got like ten players injured or there were ten
pitchers injured or whatever, the Rays and sets somehow still like doing it picking
up Jake Diekman and then he throws like innings without giving up runs, which
is just this is what I mean. It doesn't matter who they are,
like the right, just give them to the Raise and then they'll be good.
So so yeah, sorry, Oakland's minus three point four, which they're
already at if the season was to finish right now at minus three point four
by fangrafts war, that would be the fourth worst pitching season of all time.
If they just stayed, if they just if they just went replacement level.
From then onwards, we have, um, yeah, it's some nineteen
twenty five n LG. Who on earth is this when we now get into
like acronyms for teams that haven't existed, so like nineteen twenty five, nineteen
twenty seven, nineteen twenty five are the three teams that are worse according to
photographs wall, which is just beyond beyond amazement, Like what, well those
guys would actually beat but yeah it is it is New York Lincoln Giants.
There you go. That would make the already threw me off, but I
guess they can't use NYG. So yeah, yeah, so there we go
like this is and then we don't mean to kind of like bag on like
Oakland fans and things like like they are some of the best fans that are
out there. Like if you guys, or if you want what following,
I really suggest you follow like the Last Dive Bar, which are like a
hardcore group of oak Athletic fans to do lots of fun things down ocl State
at the Coliseum, Like they're absolutely hilarious. You'll see them out in like
left field bleachers. They're dressed up in like Mario costumes, like when like
when it was like the release of the Mario movie. And so yeah,
they're a great bunch and they're just obviously still just trying to promote what they
can as as as this kind of season goes on, and you just kind
of feel a little bit more depressed for them. I just the final point
I want to talk about is that this is kind of is this actually against
some of like MLB's rules or like the CBA at some point that they aren't
putting the money back into like the team or making a team that is actually
capable of like winning a game. Because there's there's I know that there's there's
already been some lawsuits going on for a few seasons back about teams not actually
kind of investing like the competitive balance money or whatever. But this just seems
to actually be taking the pits. Yeah. I felt mad this with like
the Das signing and that you know this that one's very much we're gonna we're
gonna give somebody a bit of money, so that we're a bit less likely
for someone to come to us and say, or your your payroll is not
high enough, which is what fifty nine million is the estimated now, so
you know, still not high. But you know they went out in Jason
Peterson, you know, have ten million, why not, so that we
looked like we're spending a bit of money. But yeah, it definitely feels
like that. And I will say the aids have not like kept the same
pitching. Like I've been doing the death charts for the al West this year
and it's driving me nuts because Oakland literally is just changing their ballpin like basically
every week. I don't think a single person in their ballpin right now was
in their ballpin on opening day. So it's not like they're like, we're
going to stick with these guys no matter how bad they are. They've just
gone out and find somebody else also bad. At a certain point, maybe
they'll just luck into people who are good. I mean, yeah, as
I said, Richard love Lady has actually pitched well. So maybe they'll just
settle upon a seven or eight guys in the end and they'll be like fine,
and that will improve them from worst pitching stuff in history. But you're
right, and they're not. They're not playing the game properly though, and
they're not playing the game properly. They're they're supposed to try and win.
That there's absolutely no way you can say that this team is trying to win.
Now, when it comes to the teams, and again a bit of
a raised bias, but it comes to the teams that don't spend any money
but seem to have either success or or a plan towards success, you you
you can have the argument, however wrong it is that that they are they're
just finding a different way to do it, that they're putting their money into
development and other things, and great, I remember, sure a lot of
that's just just washover to try and try and get out of these things.
But but what is the plan in Oakland other than to squeeze money out of
out of Las Vegas. I mean, there's there's there's just nothing here.
There's no plan, there's no their their trades the deadline were utterly nonsensical,
you know, they weren't. They're not bringing in these in prospects. They're
they're overspending on when it comes to talent, you know, it just doesn't
make any sense that you don't see how they are going to get out of
this. It's almost like, as bad as this is now and it is
terrible, it still doesn't feel like they're quite bottomed out because there's no sign
of sort of where's the way forward? So are they playing this game to
win? No, they're not, absolutely not. And and to take it
to its further further way. Is that giving it a big leg up to
their divisional rivals, you know, compared to the rest of the league.
Is is it fair that they get to pay play the A's who just don't
care. I don't think it is, um so so no. I I've
always been on the side of, well, if they're doing something else,
fair enough, let's see what they got, you know, and the Pirates
they don't spend any money. But god damn that has a fun team to
watch at the moment, and they are seemingly turning it around. Final let
them have that. The Orioles awful for years, awful and it felt really
bad. But yeah, okay, they're starting to get results. There was
always a clear plan there. What's the plan in OpenD? Where is this
going? What is next? Because I don't have the answer because they don't
even have a great prospect system, do they. There is no no,
because all these trades they've made have been for like proxy like and Ruiz has
been you know, fairly decent, but you know, Sean Murphy is like
top five player in baseball this year, and they didn't go out and say,
oh, let's get a premium prospect back for Sean Murphy. That you
know, I think, I think Reies looks like you can probably stick as
a regular major lego. But that's not what you're looking for. Really,
that's not turn your team around. That's okay, we found a guy who
can play for us every day, which I guess on this age team is
makes him like one of their three best players. But you know they've they've
not tried to do that, and that's what all of these trades have been
like for them over the last few years, you know, trading away Alston
as well. They've not got somebody like or you're like, wow, this
guy is a starred prospect. And Miller. Miller looked like a guy.
You know, he was the most exciting chip they had in that farm system.
And he has looked electric when he's pitched, but he's now also in
the IL and they're always concerned about whether he'd be able to hold up as
a starter, and you know, if he can't, then I just don't
see an awful lot here for them to turn this around. Yeah, Brent
Rigle looks great. He's twenty eight, and you can guarantee that if the
Aids find somebody who want to trade for him, then how he goes.
Yeah, he's something that always thinking we could discuss today, but I'll probably
leave it for another one in a line that he's he's potential one of those
trade deadline candidates. Also, I feel half of the Chicago Whitehocks team is
potentially a trade deadline candidate to most people. We'll move on from them,
Rob, let's just give us, give us the whistle stop of the nolva's
tour of Major League Baseball. Then, so where did you get out to
beyond the Wriggly as we've already discussed. Yeah, so oddly there was two
our contributed writers were out there, contributors hard Wood to say, we're also
out in Briggy at the same time. So I didn't actually bump into either
of them, but they were out there and I believe there is some writing
coming somewhere already up and maybe a little bit more coming about about that trip,
to keep an eye off for that. But after that, I made
it over to Guaranteed rate Field. Horrible mouthful, Darius. You'd been guaranteed
rate Field, haven't you? I have? I quite enjoyed myself a guaranteed
right, actually felt a great view of the Chicago skyline and a considerably more
pleasant experience than you had from the South. Well, so guaranteed rate Field.
First of all, I turned up to a team that was scuffling,
and that's probably the low point of of the White Sox season so far.
Unfortunately for them, they'd they'd already run into the Raised twice, you know,
they'd had the away series and they have now had the home and they
were just getting steamrolled by them the whole time, and so the atmosphere was
lacking when I got there. First of all, you you get to the
stadium, you get on the their equivalent, the Metro. The train station
is literally on this central reservation of a six six lanes of highway either side.
It's I've never seen anything like it. Just just just google it,
have a look. It's literally there are there are six lanes of freeway on
your right, then you are on a concrete platform, and then there's another
six lanes of highway to to your left, and you walk down the platform
up and over a bridge over the highway. But it's just it's so loud.
It's so loud, and you've got you've got an entire stadium's worth of
people crammed onto these platforms with with a fall to the tracks one side or
a fall into six lanes of highway the other side. It's insane place.
It's absolutely insane. The town itself. You talk about the divide the north
side of the South side of Chicago, and it's stark. It is stark,
so um and all side Wrigley, it's very sort of being redeveloped,
very bill it's all very very pleasant. A lot more edgy, a lot
more edgy down the down the south side, heading towards towards the White Sox.
So they I would say, they probably put on a better game experience
in the way that they matched music up to the what was going on.
The food offerings seemed good. Unfortunately, I went right at the very end
of the game and got some chips which were literally the scrapings from the bottom
of the can, and I stupidly ate them. And whilst I stood there
watching the fireworks, which which was super brilliant firework display, it was a
little bubbling in my tummy. And I'd like to take this opportunity to apologize
to the cleaning staff of whoever had to sort out the portoloo outside the stadium
after I'd been in there. Um, and also my hotel cleaners. Um
that's the explicit tag on this one. Rush. Yeah, obviously sided to
dest up his name fires. I did. I did so they were not
pretty. They were not pretty fireworks. UM. So yeah, I did
spend spend a day in the bathroom essentially after that one. Um. Whilst
in between brown fireworks, I got the Metro back to the hotel as quickly
as I could, and on the way there was a there was a gang
fight in in my carriage. Um, two kids at the end of the
carriage, and then someone stopped, pulled pulled the emergency stop and about twenty
people came on and literally all around me. I was I was sat sort
of two seats in from the end of the carriage and this this this twenty
person punch up started and just grabbed Becky by the wrist and dragged around of
there. And so yeah, my experience of the White Sox was was perhaps
a little bit more u edgy then and the Wrigley experience. But but but
don't let it put you off. Your boys are good place to go.
Just don't eat the chips after the fifth inning, and make sure you can
get up and move away from the doors if you need tow on the metro.
Other than that, absolutely super great game. Though, great game.
I would add that it was a fantastic game. Came right down to the
wire. Um the ra Rays clinched it right in the end, sort of
last pitch, you know, with with men on and it was it was
a very very good game. But so that was yeah, that was that
was. That was Chicago and the Chicago. The city is worth a visit
on itself. Architecture fans, you you will be in an absolute playground there.
It's fantastic. Got boat tripped down down the middle, did all the
touristy stuff as well. Really really great city just to go and visit.
You don't need to be a White Sox fan or or a Cubbs fan to
go there, there is there is plenty to keep you, keep you involved.
There a fantastic place to go and visit. And then afterwards I went
down to Tampa because that's where my team is and it's a nice sunny place
to go and visit for for some games. Saw the Pirates there and their
fans travel very very well. Um, and that team is it's got to
be one of the best teams to watch this year. Yeah, maybe they're
not winning so much anymore, but but fantastic fun team, fantastically fun team
to watch play baseball. No, it sounds awesome. I'm glad that you
managed to like enjoy yourself out there. I spent most of April or even
May being like I just to go back out after like the WBC and then
just spending three weeks in the UK of being in a bomb and all weather
that there we had, which meant all of the threason why I came back
was to have preseason training for baseball, that me playing baseball, and that
none of that happened. So I was just like, I could have just
had three more weeks in the States, So I want to move on to
one final thing before we get to our two good two bads. And this
is something that I've been thinking about for quite a while, and I don't
quite know how to articulate it. But the kind of the crux of it
is, what the f is the point of ejections? Like I genuinely think
that it is the most retarded thing in baseball. I think that this basically
allows players, managers, and umpires to act like children, to act like
vulgar children, to act like thugs, and allow them basically to get away
with being piss ants and whatever they want because they know that, oh,
I'm out of this game. Oh it doesn't matter, like unless I put
a hand on someone or actually throw a punch or something like that. I'm
not missing like more than half a game of one hundred and sixty two game
season. It's not even like a percentage of like my playing time or whatever.
I think it just allows everybody to act like whankers, and so because
there just aren't the consequences that you would have in other sports almost behaving,
So you get people ejected for stupid reasons like I feel, you get the
umpires basically just feeling like they've been shown up, and then they choose to
eject somebody. Look at real mutuo being ejected for moving his glove away from
being given a ball by an umpire. Look at somebody got ejected the other
day for clapping when an umpire made a good decision, which is like if
I know they would had said some words about something else, but if you
basically can't accept a sarcastic to clap, like what are you doing that?
Like this is the state of affair, but also just the way, like
the way that anything happens that like a player gets ejected or a manager to
get ejected, then they just go out and shout directly in somebody's face for
like three minutes. It wouldn't be acceptable anywhere in the world, but it
is acceptable on a baseball field. And I just I don't have a better
idea, which is the reason why I've not written this up as an article
yet, because I just can't work out what would be a better way to
do it, Like I obviously think it's only basically having more severe The base
level of a being ejected or being removed from a game is like a minimum
five games suspension or whatever, because then it's like the level of what you
have to do to get ejected? Is higher like just find people for stuff
below. I know major leg players probably don't care about it, but I
don't know if what you guys think about this, because I just this season.
I don't know if it's got more or worse, or maybe I've just
watched a bit more John Boy media content this year, but I just don't
get it. And I've just under sat here being like, is it just
because I've watched cricket and crickets as a gentleman's game where there hasn't been the
need for this since the eighteen since the eighteen hundred. Sort of seemingly there
has been the need for this in baseball since the eighteen hundreds. Darius or
Rob where do you want to who wants to chime in on whether I'm just
being like, Yeah, I mean, there is this peculiarity of baseball in
that this guy is calling this invisible zone and you just have to agree with
it. And you know, maybe we'll get this quasi robot ump thing at
some point in the relatively near future, and you know, players can challenge
or whatever that might misget some of that. But it's all very childish and
I do think there should be bigger suspensions. It's it's just it's dafter me.
It's so performative on both sides, you know, the managers coming out
and blowing their tops, but also the umpires, the way they react when
they toss somebody out of the game. They always have to make a show
of it. It's like, you know, yeah, they can never just
be like normal. You know, they don't say get out of here like
that. You never see any of them do just something like quiet another state.
It's always like, look at me, I'm the boss, Gary,
and I get that that's what trying to do. But it's also like,
you know, do we have to do this children? Could we all just
not be like, oh well it's a bad call, move on with our
lives. I don't really understand it. Yeah, I think we should have
bigger suspensions. I mean, I'm now imagining like if we had like Eurovision
and like you know, one of the acts just came up and like started
screaming in the presenter's faces or something that's basically like the equivalent, right if
they didn't get the votes they're wanted. Like, you know, I don't
really know what is the comp here. Because even in other sports you don't
see this level of bad behavior against the officials. And I don't think you
really see the officials do this kind of show either. No from the official
side, this doesn't exist in any other Yeah, like it just it's just
not there. Like there are some performative referees and managers, I mean referees
in some of the sports, so you can think back to maybe like Penny
Kalina or whatever, and but that they're usually like the best and therefore like
they can have a performative decide to what they're doing because they are actually regarded
in the best. And you do shut up and listen, like obviously robber,
your thoughts are gonna go completely the other way. I think if you
assume that everybody knows this is a performative act, it's a bit of silliness,
and that we're doing this for at some point some entertainment. Um,
it's also for firing up you guys behind you, and it's it's for the
panto villains in the in the in the manager or in the umpire. I
think as long as everybody kind of knows that they're not taking this home and
actually taking things to heart, I think, I think it's great. I
was in the ballpark for my first objection. I watched Pirates manager what's his
face, Derek Shelton. Watched him get booted for some some terrible calls.
And they weren't they were bad. They were bad both plays. But I
watched him get booted. It was brilliant. It was brilliant theater. It
was fantastic going off in front of me. It was it was all a
bit silly. Everyone was waving their arms. The crowd absolutely loved it,
and it was great being a part of that little crowd. And and you
know what's Yes, it's a bit flag wavy, but you know, sometimes
you want to see, yeah, my managers, he's right here, he's
going out there, he's having his words. So yeah, I enjoy it.
I do enjoy watching an ejection. I actively seek out. At the
end of the year, I go onto YouTube and I look up MLB manager
ejections twenty twenty three. I think, yeah, it's a great one.
Get on u, Terry Lavallo, you know, fantastic. He's got some
of the best. So I really like him, and I say, we
could we could have this really somber years. You have a yellow card,
so you need to be waiting for your red card, and that'd be really
bad. Oh, here's your red card, now off your pop. And
I do agree there should be there should be more fines, there should be
more suspensions. But I like the theater of it. Let's have some fun
with it. We've we've taken something that is a very somber we're going to
ruin the game now because he's done something bad and we've made it into something
a bit more performative. We can have a bit of a shout about it,
we can exercise it there and then and then it's done. We're not,
you know, vring it because we've had our shout, we've had our
scream, thank you very much. Everyone's fun. Let's be one with the
game now, so one way it continue for me, so I can see
the entertainment side of it. And this is something that like, I think,
this is one of the reasons why I don't want to just get I
don't want to get rid of it entirely. I do see that there is
a performative aspect to it all. And in the end, we are trying
to watch baseball because it is fun to watch and this kind of this does
come into it, obviou see the other side to it is obviously like it
just goes down into like every like level of the sport. So let anything
you and I think you see this more like in football probably in our side
that anything you see that basically happens at the top level also happens at like
the bottom level. And it even happens in freaking baseball in the UK,
like the people crap a crap, I don't umpire when when they say stuff
and they get ejected and you're kind of like, what are we doing here?
I just I don't know. I just think there has to be a
better way of doing it, but I can't think of what it is,
and so I just end up going round around in circles going like, well
if we just got rid of like ejections or like the bar had to be
higher to actually get ejected, and like you could see something to an umpire
like I didn't think that was the right call, and the umpire doesn't immediately
then go like and wanted you I would say something like that, like maybe
drawing a line on the floor and that sort of thing where you'll really kind
of going like no, I think you've got to completely enoughly wrong. Yeah,
maybe like you you're you're you're crossing a line out of there. I
think that arbitrary nature of it is a particular concern for me because you might
have some upsoe just like you know, they playing against him a look,
maybe he mouths up a little bit, but he doesn't do the like I
think Kyle Schwarber's last year was the one that I always think of where he's
like gesticulating wildly and at the plate and then he's like pointing in the air,
and you know, I get I get that one. But when it's
just like you know, the guy just turns and looks at the up and
he's like, come on, you know. And sometimes some amps will just
be like you're out of here, mate, and others will let it go.
But there's no like consistent. It's like the ball crawl, right,
like nobody knows the ball quares, nobody knows what you actually have to do
to get ejected. It's just like it is the umpire a little bit,
a little bit touchy today, you know, give me another reason to watch
the Royals against the Tigers. Uh. Yeah, that's a good point.
I mean, speaking of the Tigers. Now we're going to do this the
Rich Hill. Oh that was on my one should let's talk about that.
Let's go, let's go, let's go too good, too bad. Rob
leaders are good. I'm gonna go with Miggie and Rich Hill chasing to first
base. Do you remember bed nobs of broomsticks? I do. Do you
remember the football match with the Rhinos and the It was just like that.
It was brilliant. I loved it. I love watching the big guys run
and they were they were giving it, they're all and it was still really
slow, but it was brilliant. Loved it, absolutely loved it. Didn't
Hill's first sprintspeed come out in like twenty one ft per second or something?
I think I said reference like the worst in the league is like twenty four.
And he still got there first. He still got there first. He
didn't have as far to run as Mickey did. Moment afterwards as well,
you know, they both sort of stopped, looked at each other and there
was kind of this realization of yeah, we're too old for this, um
forty three and forty Yeah, And I think this is only like the second
or third time that you'd ever faced Miguel Cabrera like in his career in the
first time back in like two thousand and five in his debut. So it's
just he's just one of those wondrous little things of baseball where you have it
like it just slew brilliant. And I do love the of all of the
clips that I think MLB Europe could have tweeted out about last night, like
the first one, they do rest between two old guys. It's like I
one dopts the cap to these social media individual there for picking for picking a
good one. Have you good yourself good? I've got us off a good?
My good is Yenny a Canoe. I don't know how many people are
familiar with Yenni a Canoe. But when I said I'm going to talk about
the Orioles later, this is why I'm talking about the Orioles. Do yourself
a favor. If you want to look at a stupid stat line, just
you know, get yourself on Baseball Reference or hand Grouse or whatever your stats
side of choices and go and look at Yenni A Canoe's stat line, because
so far this season he has pitched the twenty one and two thirds innings,
he has a zero ra's that's no runs allowed, no walks allowed, four
hits, sixty seven batters faced, four hits. Everybody else he's got out.
And he sucked last season, like he absolutely sucked. The always got
him back in the or Hey Lopez trade. He was dreadful. He was
dreadful at Triple A, he was dreadful the majors. He sucked at the
start of spring training. And then he said, oh, you know what.
He was throwing from two different arm slots and he said, I'm going
to stop doing that. I just started throwing his change up in his sink
from the same arm slot. And now he's like literally the best relief for
in baseball in the space of two months. And Mike the funniest thing last
night, he was starting these stupid changeups, Oh Tani and Trout and were
just waving away. Nobody could hear him, and Michael IIAs is just sitting
in the stands laughing his head off, just like, yeah, this is
this is how you do it. So we can shout out the Orioles all
you want to spend money, but when you get this guy basically for free
and turn him into the best relief for in baseball and spoke to two months.
I don't know that I can really argue with you that much. Yeah,
I think Mike put out a piece about him Twins. I think it's
worth one. But he was from the Twins, which they'd given him up,
and he's gone back and brought It's just it's unbelievable. I think,
once again, this just shows the glorious nature of like relievers. But yeah,
there's like there will be three or four that will be consistent for a
few seasons good, and then everybody else you'll be like who like I think
the top three by like us Warries Canoe that it's like Alexis Diaz and David
Benner and always I think we already knew that like Benner and Diaz weren't bad
pictures. But the fact that like Hayda isn't up there, or Emmanuel class
A isn't up there. Obviously Da the Odas is injured. But it's just
it's remarkable that you have like Cano is eighth in the majors in war in
bastaball restaurant war for pictures, not for relievers, for all pictures, he's
eight. This is very stupid right behind Joe Ryan Ben Carter. Anytime you
want to wasshare that apology to Joe Ryan, I'm here. I'm waiting,
Yes, Okay, So I will switch on to me and I will jump
into the desert of Arizona to talk about Zach Gallen like it's not he's having
another Stella season like we I think for probably part of the way through last
year, everybody was just like, oh, he's actually like finally becoming the
picture that we all thought was possible after sputtering in twenty nineteen twenty. I
think it was pretty good in twenty twenty the shorts twenty twenty season, but
wasn't amazing in twenty twenty one. He's just had another ludicrously long like streak
of innings without giving up a run. Seems to be able to do this.
He's dropped his walk great again, like further whilst Dale's still striking out
like the most that he's done. He's sat. I think, what the
two point three five er a and he's got two point six war He's basically
leading the majors in war right now. He's been he's been great and it's
not like he's I think recently, he's faced some pretty nap teams, which
is kind of like padding the stats if you look through it. When it's
kind of like the Giants, Miami, not necessarily Texas, but Kansas,
you're like, Okay, he's faced some bad teams, but he's really kind
of put them like all in their place so far, and it's just phenomenal
to watch and it's amazing. Like I didn't think he can say, like
he got not badly lit up in the first couple of games against the Padres
and the Dodgers, but we were like, oh, it's just going to
kind of rivert back to maybe what we saw and then yeah, since then,
good game. A few hits against Texas, but yeah, looks he
looks pretty amazing. And so it's awesome to see one of those players who
were a kind of highly tarited prospect but then maybe not like the top end
of pitging prospects come out and actually hit the mark. I think you'll probably
correct me up the wrong hivid areas, but he's probably been a fantasy darling
for quite a while for quite a few people waiting for him to actually kind
of like break out. He's not quite not quite the this season will be
Nick Fervetta's year sort of picture, because that's obviously not happening, and it
looks like he's going to the ballpen. We all warned you. But Gallen
has always been one of those little darlings, hasn't he. Yeah, it's
always one of those guys that there there are always people out there who are
like, I think there's more more in here. And I think in that
that Jazz Chisselm trade, they were like both guys where people were like,
you can see that, like if they if they get it right, if
everything clicks, these could be like, you know, true stars, and
that was why it was such an interesting trade, which, you know,
speaking of bad things, Jazz is on the aisle. That's that's a shame.
But yeah, he really has realized that potential. And I think,
you know, definitely little leading so young contender right now. Oh yeah,
definitely. I think obviously I think you talked of it earlier on won't jump
into any of the other top players just in case anybody else is thinking about
discussing them, But yeah, he's he's looking good. I would say he'd
also look like an overall MVP. But Akunia is also smashing it, So
it's going to be difficult to do that. Usually picture has to win when
there isn't really a standout hitter as well, Rob, if you got a
bad I do, and it's Zach Gallen genuinely is. Zach Gallen has pulled
a Randy Johnson yes yesterday in his warmups, he has murdered another bird,
much like Randy Johnson did in his famous clip. Um So, yeah,
Zack Gallen is now in trouble for cruelty to animals. Um So don't don't
don't let him get away with it. We need to get get on the
anti Zach Gallen bird hating uh rope now, and we need to We need
to stop him from from harming birds. So let's get it with. Like
the all the weird things in baseball, two Diamondbacks pictures separately killing a bird
about twenty years apart might be like number one in the Weirdest Things about Baseball.
It's insane. I mean, it's it's insane that just just the odds
on this happening. Sam Miller fantastic piece about the Randy Johnson bird strike on
his sub stack a few weeks ago. We're worth a look if you're gonna
go back and see that. But but just the odds, the odds that
this happens twice, regardless of of it happening to two d Backs players,
just twice. Ever, it's insane. There's so much air and there's so
much space for balls ago and so much space for birds to going, Yet
it happened again. So I'm gonna say that it just happened way more than
you actually think about it, and it just isn't reported. Just happened twice
in the majors. I mean, Gallon wasn't in the game either or no,
he was just throwing a curveball in the outfield, doesn't it ye?
And I think like a curveball, like yeah, still probably eighty five miles
per hour. It's one of those ones where just feel like it wouldn't have
been anything would have been made off it. If it was many other players,
maybe it was still who's still major leagu player. I think people would
have made of it. But it takes somebody rolling a camera like pre game
that isn't probably the Diamondbacks, because I doubt the diamond Backs are releasing that
to be like, oh, yes, look he's how o a player is
because that's how I saw something. I saw something seeing Gallon um like living
on from Randy Johnson's legacy, and I was like, oh, yeah,
he's been pitching quite well. And then I looked at it and it was
him taking out a bird, and I was like, geez, Louise.
People you talk about like your tortured like tagline to go with? What what
your piece was that? Yeah, we're not going to like go that far.
That Gallan is not Randy Johnson yet it's got a little way to go,
I think with culture. Sorry, MLB players that have killed a bird
during a game September twenty twelve on the Acronox whatever that is. I'm a
little bit concerned actually from the yeah blob on the side, but I'm not
going to talk about that five players affiliated with the MLB you have killed a
bird during a game? This says, this is the ESPN encyclopedia they're citing.
I don't know what that is. But then the person writing the article
says they've found even more than five. So yes, it does happen more
often than you think. Okay, but don't go to that website because I'm
on it and I agree I'm going to read what it says now because people
are gonna be wondering. It's got a little box in the right saying mission,
and it says the Ecronox exists to promote the free flow of information,
to protect the First Amendment, to stimulate high standards and the practice of journalism,
and to fox foster excellence among dent journalists. The second half is fine.
I'm a little bit concerned about what the first part means. I haven't
actually to convert. I haven't read around this website. I'm not going to
do so. But it's possible that you know, this is not the kind
of website I would normally frequent. Okay, Darius, give us a bad
give you a bad yep in money and I'm over. But I think it's
probably the Mets, and specifically the Mets messing around the young players because why
Buck Shell Walter. So they called up Mark Fientos, Brett Bait, He's
up, Francisco Alvarez is up. He won't put them ball in the lineup.
He was asked about it. It was like, I can't play two
guys at the third base. Meanwhile, we've got like Tommy fam out here,
We've got Dann Vogel back out here. It's not you know, they're
not all Francisco. The indoor you can find room. The Mets are not
doing all that well. They have just beaten the Raid, so you know,
maybe it's working, but they only scored three runs. Like, you
know, let let the kids play, Buck, what are you doing out
here? Yeah? They seem to the kids seem to have a good night
last night? Was it homers from Alvarez and Pienthals and then well I guess
Pilance is no longer a youngster, but his walk off as well, So
yeah, yeah, ever's time the game up. With a three run homer
in the eighth, I think it was no Botmo than I either. I
think it was. Yeah, so it's working for them when they play,
and yeah, monster power out there. Lets could certainly use an injection.
But yeah, Buck is you know, being traditional? And I guess I
don't know. Tommy Famer has had a good career, but I'm not quite
sure what he's still doing on this team. Really. Yeah, yeah,
it's not great. I don't think anybody really thinks everything's going swimmingly in at
City Field. Yeah, I'm going to move on to my bad just because
I've saved my tongue for about an hour now. God damn Cleve in the
bath. I think we're currently at a two twenty nine average and a sixty
five ops all the team that is, we might as well go for it.
Fucking awful thing is that, like, this is exactly what any pessimistic
Cleveland fan, which I probably include myself instead, was going to happen.
Like this team, there's a slap hitting team with no power. They added
Josh Bell, who was off a good half bad half season and has kind
of seemingly moved onto the bad half. And they added Zannino, who is
a Mendoza aligned power catcher, which doesn't really give you anything here. And
it's like, oh, it's shocking that they're now not performing. It's not
like, yes, they've had a few injuries, so they haven't had some
of the starting pitchers out there, so they've lost maybe a few more than
they thought. But they are the lowest scoring team in baseball. They're struggling
basically to score four runs a game. I think they're averaging like three and
a half runs a game, which it is not going to do you anything.
I watched the game last night against the Chicago White Sox, and I
think they went over eleven with the runners in the scoring position, which is
just brutal to watch. Am I see the Troy Cleveland if hit twenty three
home runs, Yeah, there's nobody hitting home runs like literally, and I
would say like half of those, not half of those, but most of
those will be Joseira mirrors, like I think he's got like six or seven,
and then like Josh Naylor's got a few, and Bell's got a few,
and then everybody else will be absolutely like awful, like probably not more
than two or three for anybody else. Naylor six from Mirrors four given as
three Bell three, that's everybody above two. Yeah, and what Peterelanso just
hid his sixteenth today? So like, how how the Rays have eighty six
home runs hit nearly four times as many home runs as Cleveland. It's it's
ridiculous, Like, yes, like things are quite going in their favor,
but but then also it's like when they're on base, they're stealing like more
than anybody else. They have some of like the base running because like it's
it's some of the most exciting yet frustrating baseball to ever watch, because as
long as they stop the other team scoring, it's going to be a low
scoring like dog fight at a game. But it's bad, like this is
exactly what was going to happen if things didn't go to plant. Yes,
this is if you look at what projections would be out there, some of
the players are performing below their projections, like him and z is not having
another good season. Rosario is having a pretty bad season, like the only
people that are hitting well or like Wan who's basically just about league average and
Jose who's a little bit above in the average, but that's probably not what
you were anticipating from him either, like Miles Straw had an amazing first week
of the season and then has been done absolute garbage hitter that we've seen for
most of like the last year and a half. And as much as I
like maybe what Zannino is as an idea of a player like he is,
he's a catching Joey gallow whatever. That's sort of like level of a player.
But when he's hitting pretty one sixty five, you're not really going to
get anything positive about it. But Cleveland had the worst catching fading for I
think the last three seasons. It just feels that everything has just gone as
to pot as with peer anticipated and they're not even that far out of this
like the league, because Minnesota aren't that good. The White Socks are terrible,
Like Detroit. We're making Detroit look possible, which is well. Outside
of the two central divisions, Cleveland have the fourth worst, fourth worst results
out of anybody. Yeah, if you weren't in a central division, they
would basically be bottomed. Yeah, and this is my point, obvious Royals
are absolutely terrible like this, it's just not on Like I just don't know.
I don't don't know how to kind of like put it, like it's
such an obvious issue that was just never solved. I'm laughing because I just
sortedto teams by IVP. Should I read the bottom four? Yes, give
me, give me, give me three or four? Cleveland three h three,
Kansas City two ninety seven, Detroit two ninety four. That's right,
the four worst teams in OVP are all in the Guess what, the Twins
aren't much better. They are at three or nine, that's twenty fourth.
It's garbage out there. Yeah, Like there was the point the other week
when literally the al East Upo the Al Central was the order of the ten
teams, Like, this is how if the Red Sox win tonight that that
is still going to be the case again. Yeah, it's like it's awful.
It's just he's one of those things that actually makes me think that the
redistribution of the league's needs to happen. Yeah, yeah, Rob, pick
us up. Give me a good Well, I've got two Yankees ones.
Either of them could also be bad depending on your no, both. I
mean, let's let's let's let's talk about Aaron Jodge's dodgy eyes, shall we.
What do we think? Bugs? What do we think? No,
because it's canting it fairly cleased to come out. But the guy was tipping
his pictures? No, what was he looking at? Then? What was
he looking at? The first base coach who was telling him what was happening?
Oh? Yeah, but where was he finding this out from? Pretty
certain? Was it? Stevenson? He was pitching that he's come out and
said that basically he was tipping his pictures. So but I do love that,
like the finest thing handle. Yeah. Yes, what I was saying
is I love the scandal of it all. I love the this, this
is a continuation. Believe it not. This is a continuation of the bin
Gate, you know, this is this is the next step on from it.
This is Apple Watches. It's all still out there. It just proves
it's all still there. We're all still watching it for a teeny tiny little
move, and yes, Judge was looking as yeah, first basica, I
would be facetias. Absolutely, we all know what really happened there. But
it's the reaction to it. And for a brief while the internet court byre
with Baseball and Aaron Judge and uh yeah yeah, why why wouldn't they be
suspicious on that that Blue Jay's Blue Jay's broadcast. It was. It was
crazy, So yeah, brilliant loved it, absolutely loved it. So more
of that. I just think it was great that Judge is able to look
over its first basicoats literally immediately before the pitch is delivered and then look straight
back and hit like a four hundred and fifty home run. I think he
gets through six sliders and hung one. So yeah, it's like, you
know, we'd be like trying not to die and jud yeah, just have
a quick glance over to first face. Oh there's a pitch. It wasn't
a quick glance, it wasn't a slow one. It was a really strange
sort of the way his eyes moved. It was it was almost like someone
was moving them with like you know, yeah, it was obviously obviously behind
the painting. You know, there was something really weird about the way his
eyes moved, because body was like static, like he was in his like
position ready to to kind of to go, so like his whole body was
static. And you just you said you got that frigging ghost painting in a
friggin movie level of like just the Eyes movie. It was. It was
beautiful. I do need to correct you on one thing, Rob, We
do have to make sure that we call it the banging scheme to give it
to give it correct terminal. Mark Rowley, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
sorry, Um yeah, no, I did love it as well. And
obviously it's kind of seen movie span over into the next couple of games where
they've got pissy at the third base coaches not being in the third base coach
area. Um. Yeah. As if we talk about a manager who always
seems to permanently have a chip on his shoulder, I think Aaron Boone is
definitely one of those, like I think he needs to like either prove that
he's got something or has some worth. I don't know if that's the right
way of saying it, because he always wants to wants to look at things
or kind of get out there and shout his way into into something. Have
actually happening. Yeah, it was. It was amusing. You could tell
that Judge really like has absolutely no interest in what he was talking, just
like, yeah, Booney was doing his thing, and he's just like he
could definitely do without Boone doing his thing. Coodn't he? Yeah, one
of those ones where how many of the Yankees players would like Boone and Cashman
gone? Probably the same amount of Yankees fans if you're perfectly honest. But
Darius, give us another good. My second good is Casey Schmidt's Giants infielder,
who is just you guys have heard me bang on about Matt Chapman over
the years. Just get yourself on there. Watch some Casey Schmidt defensive highlights.
Watched him, watched him last night. He's you know, placed shortstop,
plays third base and yeah, just made a phenomenal stop and then I
think ninety four mile per hour throw over to first base hardest story in Major
this year. He's a defensive whiz and he's and he's hitting a little bit
right now too. So if you're wondering what we're going to do when Bradon
Crawford finally collapses and has to be ejected from the league, then Casey Schmidt's
the answer, because he looks great out there. The Giants, Um Giants
social media did a really good thing following it, didn't they. They did.
They followed his first day from call up to yeah that was actually and
it was a really good, really good bit of bit of work from them.
So qued us to the Giants social media guys. There's some there's some
good team social media content out there now. In general, I feel like
they've got some really you know, people who were in touch with the current
state of social media. On a lot of the content. There's quality tiktoks
and me and everything out there. I'm waiting for the first two hour video.
Okay, well we'll move on to me for my final good and I
think it has to be if we go for another Meg Rawley trademark ground Beef
himself, who is no longer ground beef. What is the bad terminology which
effectively well have come up with now because I don't think the four But no,
I am talking about the man who is currently sat at one hundred for
average exit velocity, ninety six for max exit velocity, in ninety nine for
hard hit percentage, ninety eight for x WOBER. This man is, of
course, Yandy Diaz, who has seemingly I nearly learned that hitting the ball
slightly upwards is a good thing. But that's actually not what he's doing.
It's like he's just not swinging at so many pictures that are kind of kind
of bad, so like his actually overall average of like what pictures he's either
getting or when he's actually choosing to swing he's better. It's kind of ridiculous
because I have spent i want to say, the best part of six years
fawning over the size of Andy DearS his arms ever since there seeing a Cleveland
Prospects, seeing an image of him in the gym with seeing like that the
size of his bicet was the same size as like somebody's head and you were
like, oh hello, And finally seeing him blossom into and certainly above average
hitter has just been beautiful to see. I will be tooting my own horn
a little bit, basically saying that I thought he was massively underrated, especially
in the fantasy regard at the start of this season. But as some of
the guys said in our preach out, I was not expecting him to be
like on pace for thirty five forty homers. I can't confirm that Russell was
asking everybody why isn't Yandy d As being drafted higher? He did not say
he's going to hit forty home runs, but he was in on Yandy Das.
But no, it's it's it's just it's amazing to see and they kind
of I don't know, like I don't I don't really know Yandy d As
well to say, it's like it's a good guy story of somebody like finally
kind of getting kind of like everything right or at the moment, but it
kind of feels that way to me. I also speaks a little bit to
what what the Rays are actually doing and where where there's success has come from.
It's a complete rethink of their philosophy, a philosophy at the plate.
They've talked about it a fair bit now. They were the archetypal team that
didn't mind a strikeout. You know, swing hard, doesn't matter. They
they've worked hard over over the offseasons, but they're claiming they've done It is
all about pitch selection now and only going off for the right pitches. And
it seems like that has worked better for nobody more so than Andy Daz.
So long may it continue? Yeah, it'll be interesting to see what's going
to happen. Like he's starting to see more and more breaking pitches and so
whether he manages to connect as well off those as he does a fastballs.
It by looking at the stats so far, he's been teeing off on those
breaking balls, So like, who knows what people might try to do to
him next. But um, when you kind of see like some of those
like stats, the stat line that he's kind of hunting up right now,
you're like, oh that is when you ever, when you have an ops
that starts with a one, that's always it's always a very good sign.
Rob shall We finishes off with a quick fire round of bads. What final
bads have you got? Dug out celebrations? Enough enough, folks, we've
seen silly plastic cheap hats. How we move on and find something else.
Now we are bored of dugout celebrations. They're a bit stupid. I've had
enough. I don't like it. When one or two was happening organically,
I was all about it. Now it feels contrived. It feels like,
oh, we've got to have some kind of and they've got to be stupider
than the last one. What is the twins were all about? I mean
it's just too much effort. I mean, the Orioles were dicking around with
a bloody funnel earlier. And I've had enough. I've had enough of it.
I don't want to see anymore. I don't want to see silly hats.
I don't want to see gongs. I don't want to see shopping trolleys.
I don't want to see blow up dolls. I'm done with it all.
Let's just let's just move on from that, and if in a couple
of years it happens organically, I'm all about it. Like the Sombreros,
I'm not too fussed about because that was clearly like a Mexican thing that happened,
like because they were in Mexico, great, you know, And the
cups of team drinking from Team GB great, Okay, I get why that
happened, but you know what, why does San Diego need a great,
big tacky chain with an ste on the bottom of it? Then no,
don't care, moving on, it's not for me. This feels like given
by the Hunter Pence Signs thing to me, which was like funny for maybe
a week and that everybody did it like all season long, and it was
like, yeah, okay, you know, as usual, much like the
internet does with everything, we had a joke and then it was yeah,
okay, as we drive to left field, Yeah it's not funny anymore.
Yeah, you know, the Cassiano's thing was very quickly not funny. As
as I've probably said on this podcast before, people still do it. Yeah.
I think the I think to me is as soon as there was the
fact that committees had to come together to determine what their celebrations were, they're
not fun and they're not kind of of the moment anymore. It's a good,
good life for all. I think generally, once once you've had to
introduce a committee, it no longer becomes fun. It's not some not bad,
bad bad life place that Yeah, I think obviously I don't want to
stop people having their own fun. If they're actually having fun doing it,
yes, but it does it looks contrived it I feel like, so we
have to blame Team GB for this, for taking it to the pull this
extent with the grounds and the capes in the WBC. Did everybody the teams
are doing it last year anyway, some of them were, So we can't
quite blame Harry Ford and Team GB for this. Darius one final bad,
one final bad. Well. The Astros have not been great offensively this year.
They've been very unhuston, like, certainly not your done hour's fault.
But I'll tell you whose fault it primarily is, and that's Jose Abreu.
Oh my god, is over as cooked. He had a slow start and
he's always had been a slow starting guy, and I thought, oh,
yeah, it will come around. It's Jose Brew. He's now played forty
two games, one hundred and seventy five plate appearances, no home runs,
zero home runs, flashing two twenty two sixty nine two sixty two. That's
right, the slugging lower than that terrible OVP. It's it's all gone.
It's thirty six, and the Astros little that they've just given a three year
deal to an absolutely finished first basement after having a terrible first basement last year.
I really liked the Abrain signing. I thought, great, addressed one
of your biggest weaknesses. But it's not worked and it doesn't look like it's
turning around. He is currently the worst player in the majors. So that's
sad. But yeah, that's that's my second bad. Yeah. I managed
to pick up a Brave White Sox jersey for thirty dollars from the White Sox
shop whilst I was there. And if you know how much a jersey costs
in an MLB team shop, I mean it's less than the toilet paper.
Yeah. I don't have much more to add apart from I think he might
have been close to like one of my most drafted players because of my funcy
teams this year. He's literally been one of the best sitters in the league
ever since he arrived in the US, and he's suddenly just become completely useless
like this. This has not been a gentle I know he didn't hit that
many home runs last year, but you know he had a great slash line.
He hit three or four and now it's it's complete collapsed. Yeah,
whoops. Whoops. I mean, who knows, maybe maybe firing the gym
that won you the World Series and just letting Jim Jim Crane do what he
wanted, wasn't actually Jim Crane him Crane? Did you just say, Darius,
who knows what I said? You can't prove Krim Jane. I think
that's probably well, you know, we don't want to have to get the
legal involved on this. Yeah, you know, I like the siding.
I'm not going to sit here and say I thought Jose Bray was going to
be the worst hitter in baseball, but that is what is happening a quarter
of the way through the season. Yeah, it's it is rather remarkable.
Um, so it'll come to me. Um, I don't. I don't
want to kind of just go through like a load of like relievers who've been
like utterly awful. But there have just been like some which you just can't
of like watching like Kyle Finnegan pitch for Washington is just like watching like any
Obviously, I watch a kind of like a reasonable amount of M and AL
Central games because that's just where my team is. Um. There's a pitcher
called Mason Engel, a angler for Detroit who's basically been awful, but I
still managed to pitch like twenty three innings in relief so far this year,
and you're kind of like, do you have nobody who's better? Like I
think this kind of goes back to Oakland because obviously there's a few quite a
few Oakland players on this list, with like Jara's familiar and like Oiler and
Danny Hummetz or whatever. I feel that some teams are just not trying here,
Like there's they're just kind of none of these people, Like there's a
few good names that are having what goodish names that are having bad season?
James Carracheck has shot the bet again, like it seems to just not understand
the pitch clock and and you go through all of those things, but not
to see poor of your your San Francisco Giants. But I think, um,
both Strippling and Mania have looked pretty bad. Yeah, I don't know,
Like Strippling just looks weird. What do you pictures? To be honest?
Last night? And I think the funny thing I want to get when
actually kind of discussing this is like, are these guys at fault or do
we just have another bloody ball again. But it's just behaving differently. So
we're just seeing the adverse effects of like some of these relievers just looking utterly
awful because they're throwing something that's completely different to what they were throwing last year.
I think it's a bit of that. I think there probably is like
a decent chunk of the pitch clock. You know, it's difficult to know
how much, but I think it has definitely changed the cadence of the game,
and I think it's suiting some people better than others. You know,
Danielson lamit not Danielson lamit um. Yeah. So I'm sure we'll, you
know, we'll get loads of stories after the season or whatever of players saying,
oh, you know when the pitch clocks didn't agree with me, or
you know, I got an injury and I think it was because of the
pitch clock or whatever it might be. But yeah, clearly Embid doesn't know
how to control the ball either, So it is definitely livelier than last year.
But I think also you're right that probably the Tigers are not trying all
that hard to put a great ballpen out there. Yeah, and on that
bombshell my crack analysis Tigers suck, and yet somehow they're only what five and
a half, six and a half games out of the lead. They've played
okay to be fair, but you know, if you look at the pythag
it's not good. So I do feel that we couldn't can't go through a
whole entire episode without commenting on fourteen and one, which is now the Miami
Marlins one run record. This is just utterly unbelievable. We will end on
just on this discussion point of how unbelievable is this? Darry Well, if
there was if you'd given me a list of you know, just said,
pick the teams you think might be most likely to have a stupidly good record
in one run games, I think I probably would have put the Marlins pretty
close to the top because their lineup sucks. You know, we looked at
the lineup preseason. We were like, what are they doing? And yeah,
Louis Rises worked out, but guess what, the rest of it still
sucks and the pitching is great. So that sounds like a recipe for a
lot of low scoring games to me as a Cleveland fan, I'm sure you
agree. Oh yeah, win nine and ten. We've had nineteen out of
the forty two games. Ye, speaking of terrible positions that the Marlins catches,
I think are currently the worst offensive unit in MLB history behind the plate.
I think Mike petrionoche I again, I think he tweeted that earlier because
he saw how bad Cleveland's were and he went to see how historic it was
and realized that the twenty twenty three Marlins were worse. That's how it's going
for the Marlins offensively. But yeah, the pitchings found, you know,
they just caught up a earie prayers. Sandy's not really been sandy, but
actually, you know, they've got some really good production out of the bullpens
so far and certain places as well this year. And yeah, they're not
scoring runs because when are they ever going to score runs? Plus that park
is dreadful for offense. So it's a perfect storm, and I have a
feeling that this isn't going to end all that well once again for Miami.
But if the Phillies and Mets keep sucking it up, then who knows,
maybe they're going to sneak into a wild cud spot. Anyway, Well,
on that beautiful thought for our good friend Peter to go on, Darius,
do you have any upcoming work where people can find on Baseball Prospectus. You
can find me week every week at Baseball Prospectus. I have revived my needs
for speed series so that I can write about steals literally every week. So
this week I wrote about guys who maybe are not running as much as we
might have expected them to. But I will be looking at how the urus
have kind of changed who's running as well. If it's letting slow guys run
more often they used to, that's going to be coming up. So do
you check that out? And yeah, just generally go to Baseball prospectives dot
com. Lots of outstanding content there and I recommend all of the analysis,
not just my steals. Rob. You are we going to have a surmise
of your a trip up on the site or is this this podcast is going
to be the limit of the knowledge being passed on from your journey. I
don't think people want any more details about the water toilets and they're branding or
anything like that, so I might just leave it there. Cool. I
don't have anything in the works either. I've been playing around looking at how
bad certain teams are and it's just funny. It's quite hard to find articles
when you're kind of just depressed and like looking at teams being like, oh
god, they're bad, They're just really bad. But there's always there's great
work coming out from our correspondence, with wonderful series going on about the Land
of Braves throughout this year which has been as really good fun ones to read
out. Obviously, as we head into the London series in just over a
month's time, they'll be plenty more content coming out from ourselves around that.
Next week, I'm going to go eat a load of baseball food and to
tell you all about what you can expect at the London series, So do
look forward to that. And yes there's always you can find us at back
Flips, Underscore Nerds on Twitter and bapplips and nerds dot com and search back
flips and nerds wherever you get your podcasts, which just looks like Apple podcasts
if I look at our metrics, have a good day, Rob and Darius
hope to speak to you both in the Nazidis the future and our listeners Hope
you have a good day at all, and I hope you don't throw up
when you have all that food Russell because let me tell you, it's not
a good way to end a baseball experience. Well, they told me the
boomsticks were going to be there, so I don't know if I'm going to
go for a two foot but