WEBVTT

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Toby bell Ringer. Welcome to Batflip
and Nerds. Hello and welcome to Batflips

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and the Steve Baseball Podcast with a
British twist. I am your host this

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evening, Russell Esum and we've had
another week of MLB, so it's time

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for another recap and I'm delighted to
have with me Rob Navera's who has delightfully

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called himself potentially John's daughter I La
Fisher on our zoom call. Hi,

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I don't go by bye. I've
dropped the Navera. I'm just Rob.

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Now just Rob the Rob, Just
just Rob. I no longer have a

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location name, okay, and also
joining me my follows. That's the Darius

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Austin. How are you doing.
I'm all right. I'm just wondering if

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Robes done that because he's second time
of people getting his centem. Now I'm

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moving, but nobody knows where.
And yes, so yeah, we are

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here once again to give you our
thoughts on the week of baseball. And

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I think there's nowhere we can really
start apart from the great arm explosion epidemic

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that has fallen upon us, the
slow and slowly gains that we were seeing

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of injuries seems to have catapulted to
the point where cy Young candidates Cy Young

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winners are falling left, right and
center. Darius, it's kind of I'll

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come to you first. It's pretty
clear that most of the evidence points to

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the fact that below and spin play
a massive kind of like impact on this

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that effectively, analytics in the last
ten to fifteen years of baseball has managed

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to show that having a better velo
and having better spin leads to higher with

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rates, leads to like lower batting
averages against, and so players and teams

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have pushed towards these these factors over
like the last ten to fifteen years.

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It's am I oversimplifying it, but're
basically seeing like this is something that started

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fifteen years ago, and we probably
should have been talking about it five years

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ago, but maybe it's got a
lot worse recently. Yeah, we've had

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some confounding factors. Obviously, the
pandemic has thrown a wrench into all sorts

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of trends, So that's kind of
messed up a lot of data, I

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think. And yeah, there's always
been an element of pictures getting hurt,

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you know, I read the book
about Old Hoss Radbourne wearing fifty nine games,

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and there's a decent chunk of that
dedicated to how his shoulder was completely

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messed up for the first portion of
the season. You know, this is

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not a new phenomenon. Pitching is
not particularly natural thing to do. But

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as analytics has sort of gained pace
and the things we know about pitching have

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sort of been adopted by all thirty
teams or maybe twenty nine and the Rockies,

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these things are only accelerated, I
guess. And yeah, when you

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can tell pitch as well, you
know you'll strike more guys out if you

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put this grip on your ball and
throw with a bit more spin, or

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you know, go to drive line
and had a couple of miles per hour

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or whatever it might be, and
then you know that's that's just an arm

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dress then isn't it that it's going
to accelerate. So yeah, I think

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justin Valand had some pretty good comments
about it, and you know, having

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a fairly nuanced view of it's not
the pitch clock, and it's not just

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velocity, and it's a combination of
all these things. But chasing you know,

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triple digits, chasing maximum spin rates, it's not good for your arm.

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I don't think so. Yeah,
I think I think that's a fair

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summary. And Rob like, we
obviously there are people that can do this.

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We have people like or Oldest Chapman. We have people who have like

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managed to maintain pitching at a high
velocity for a lot of the time.

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But they're the exceptions. When we
have people saying like, oh, well,

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look at what like Nolan Ryan did
or what like Maddox did in the

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past. They're the exceptions, not
the average, aren't they. Oh?

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Absolutely, they're saying now that it's
goods in school getting it done. You

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know, it's it seems to be
everywhere it has been going. I mean

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you're talking to a race fan.
I mean, no one knows about Tommy

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John Surgery is more than a race
fan over the last few years. You

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know, it's it is. It
is kind of crushing to a season as

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well. So so yeah, you
can point to these one or two guys

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who aren't getting it done. We're
getting to the point now where we have

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to ask, all, right,
do we do we just accept this as

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part of the game, and this
is going to have to happen, and

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these people are making these decisions to
play anyway knowing knowing the risks, or

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does something need to be done about
it, because because you're absolutely right,

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it's not. It's not contained to
a certain type of picture anymore. Either.

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You know, you're seeing the finesse
guys, you're seeing the velocity guys.

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You're seeing the guys are somewhere in
the middle. It's not it's quite

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indiscriminates at this point that the elbows
are blowing up all over the place.

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Yeah, And I think, like
when I was initially saying that, kind

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of what analytics has done is that
there are certain things that are easy to

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track and certain things that are hard
to track. Like people have known that

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things like tunneling and control are great
for a picture, but it's very been

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very hard to quantify those sorts of
things, whereas velocity and spin became very

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easy to quantify. And that meant
that you could see is this good?

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Is this bad? Well, this
is great. And so people from a

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very young age have basically now been
seeing that velocity equals money, velocity equals

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a contract or, velocity equals going
to college. Gove lost Eagles getting drafted,

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Velocity Eagles kind of like making it
in the Major leagues. So we've

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kind of pushed down this road because
it's the easiest way to track, I

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would assume in your industry, Rabbi, or assuming your industry, Darius.

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There are times where people talk about
like quantifiable things and unquantifiable things, and

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everybody falls back on like, well, we'll make the changes to the things

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that are quantifiable because we can actually
see that we've made a difference, Whereas

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sometimes you actually need to try and
change the unquantifiable things and concentrate on those,

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but you just don't know actually if
you've made the change. Whereas teams,

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players, organizations have been like,
this is the thing that I can

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definitely see that I've changed that's really
pushed us down this direction. I think

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we may already be a part of
the way down that down that path.

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I think there is a perception right
now because there's been a little clump together

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of quite high profile players. But
I've just googled it now and you can

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get up to the list of Tommy
John's surgeries. You can search for them

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by day. I'm just on Wikipedia, but I've seen plenty of other players.

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You can get this information, and
if you actually look at it,

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we seem to have peaked around twenty
fourteen, twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen,

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and there does seem to be a
slight trend towards slightly downwards in the last

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couple of years. Now. Again, absolutely you mentioned the pandemic already and

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how that may have changed things a
little bit. I don't know. Maybe

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that was a bit of a stop. But it may well be that these

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forward thinking, progressive athletes and people
who look after athletes are actually a few

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steps ahead of us. And maybe
they're not panicking quite as much as the

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rest of us because we're seeing this
happening now, but they may already be

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a few steps down the line towards
getting this sorted. But we've looked at,

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you know, the different ways they
train and weighted balls and what they're

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doing at driveline, and yes,
soa but perhaps this is what's causing it.

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But equally, perhaps these people who
are out in front of these problems

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when it's you know, how to
make the pitching better, how to bat

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better, perhaps the people are already
also taking those steps. And this is

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more of a media circus issue than
it is an actual trend of getting worse

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with these with these elbow in possibly, I don't know. Yeah, I

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think there's been a couple of articles. I think Bendlenberg put one out that

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it's kind of shown that twenty twenty
one was the worst year and this is

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now looking like twenty twenty four,
even as it is so far as looking

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close to being out like twenty twenty
one's levels. So yeah, there are

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there are times where it's it's peaked
and like come back up again. I

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think that the extra factors that are
potentially put into play. I think that

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personally think the removing sticky stuff a
couple of years back has actually played a

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massive thing on this, because players
got to the point where either they had

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to kind of lose velocity and lose
spin rate, which would have shown everybody

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that they were using sticky stuff,
or they all had to learn to grip

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the ball a bit harder and take
a bit more stress, like on their

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forearms in other areas to kind of
keep up with the speed that they had

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before. So I personally think that
that has probably had a part of it,

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But I personally don't think the pitch
clock has had a little has anything

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to do with it. And the
moaning that we've had from the union is

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more around the fact that this was
something that was unilaterally imposed on the league,

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from the league to the players,
and not something that was like agreed

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upon. Do you see it similarly, Darius, Yeah, as with most

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of these things, there's obviously an
element of bargaining chip in here. If

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the union can sort of leverage this
as well, you know, this is

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really bad for pictures health, and
you need to give us something back in

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compensation, then great. But yeah, that BP and Derek Rhad's have recently

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shown, you know, it didn't
really make much of a difference in twenty

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twenty three. Maybe over a long
period of time we'll see some trend,

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but it's going to be incredibly hard
to pick out from anything else. I

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think this is much more likely to
be a combination of the other things that

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we've mentioned. And yeah, maybe
there are very specific pictures for whom it

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has changed their style of pitching so
significantly that it has resulted in them getting

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hurt because they've had to take five
ten seconds off between pitches. But for

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the vast majority, it wasn't that
big a change, and we haven't seen

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the numbers to back that up really
in terms of you know, what what

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happened to picture last season? It
wasn't such a sudden spike in injuries,

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which is what you would expect if
it was the pitch clock driving it.

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So yeah, I think that's a
fair assessment, and the Union is just

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trying to jump on this for leverage. So open floor here. Do we

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have any short term fixes? Are
ideas that we think could actually kind of

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can can help here? Yeah,
we could make the picture face the other

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way and he has to throw it
like over his head, like behind him

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every other inning, So like he
does one overarm where he's throwing it forward,

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which is going to have some kind
of strain on the arm, and

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then every odd number is even number
inning. Sorry, to get right,

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he has to turn around to face
second base and he throws it over his

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shoulder, so he's using a different
set of ligaments and muscle. Yeah,

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so you're you're on load management.
That is Rob Navera's here, Darius.

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Is there anything that can be done
in the short term? I mean people

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have talked about, you know,
restricting the number of pictures to sort of

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try and incentivize starters to basically pace
themselves and stay in the game longer.

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I think there's something around that,
but I think you've also got to do

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it quite carefully, and you know, the current restrictions don't seem to be

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enough. I don't even think dropping
by another picture would really do it.

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I think we'd probably just see more
cycling in and out of guys. I

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know there are restrictions on options now, but you know, we just see

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those those last men in the ballpen
get dfaid more often, I think,

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and somebody else would come in to
eat up those innings instead. I quite

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like the idea of sort of having
a match day squad or something like,

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you know, you've got to name
your guys. Here's here's the four or

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five guys who are allowed to pitch
you tonight. And if you want to

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take one of the you know,
if you reach your limit and you want

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to take somebody out, then you
know they have to have thrown forty pitches,

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or if you take them out before
that, you have to put them

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on the injured list or something,
you know, just so we kind of

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like you need to cover these innings
with an extremely limited amount of pictures to

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what you used to. If somebody
goes you know, three and drops out

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of the game, then you're in
trouble. You know, you've really got

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a work card to cover those innings
rather than what we've got now, which

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is just well, we can pull
the picture in the third because we've got

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seven other guys ready to come out
of the bullpen and cover for him,

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limiting the max efforts. Yeah,
yeah, just so that so people know,

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you know, like we only have
this limited pool of people to cover

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this game for us today. And
if I, you know, only throw

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seventy pitches, yeah, because I'm
pumping one hundred miles per hour and I'm

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gassing the fourth, then We're going
to be in trouble basically. No,

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it's it's definitely like an interesting idea. I think the worry I have with

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something like that is that we're basically
already in an environment where we're like four

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four and a half runs being scored
a game like we make it easier for

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the hitters, like that goes up, like and to keep baseball as what

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it is that at that like the
professional level, we want to there's kind

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of some kind of like historical sanctity
to kind of like roughly what like a

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game level should actually be. Yes, there's been some like various like run

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environments over time where it's been vastly
different. But I think we'd want to

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try and keep it still at like, oh, I don't know, maximum

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five maybe five and a half like
runs per game. So the A feel

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MLB would have to do something else
to kind of compensate for, like bringing

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in like making pitching less effort and
so therefo it would be easier for the

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hitters. It was like, if
the MLB could do it, you would

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I don't know, damn for the
ball, or you would increase that's increase

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the size of the strike zone or
something like that. That kind of makes

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it like to compensate with these things
across, but we just don't know.

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This would take the trial and error
to work out, like what's actually a

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good combination of things to do?
And if you get to that, that

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gives you the idea of how do
you fix this long term? Because until

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you disincentifize players and teams to do
this at the M or B level,

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everybody who's below that level is still
good to be incentifized to throw as fast

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as as they can. Right,
I totally lost you. Yeah, but

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it's like you could also have maybe
have something like, hey, if you

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get too many Tommy Dron surgeries on
your team, like you lose a draft

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pick, you lose two draft picks
or whatever, where it's like, man,

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pitch through it. But that that
becomes that historical thing that Darius is

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talking about. This comes from what
I've been reading about Shane Bieber, is

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the fact that he was feeling sore
for both of his games that he pitched.

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So you're like, he knew something
wasn't right, but he was obviously

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hoping that it wasn't this, and
it wasn't. He didn't think it was

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serious enough. And it shows that
actually major leaguers can pitch through injuries for

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a certain time period. In the
past, they would have done that,

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maybe for a season or two,
and then just their arm would have been

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completely interitly blown and they would never
would have played again. Yeah, there'll

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be lots of guys who just you
know, you look at their stats and

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they got terrible, you know,
in their late twenties, and actually,

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yeah, they probably had it to
on UCL but they just kept pitching until

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they physically couldn't. Instead of but
when were men having a surgery that didn't

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exist yet? Yeah, well,
but in Japan. Am I right in

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saying that the rates in Japan are
not nearly as bad as they are in

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the US. Could be as simple
as you're allowed one start per week,

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but the Japan has various other issues
about how it trains its youth baseball players

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and how they come through the koshin
and people end up pitching five hundred to

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seven hundred pitches in the space of
six or seven days, which some of

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them blow out their arms and never
make it into the professional system. But

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the concept of maybe like how they
use their starters and how they their system

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kind of like rolls out could be
something that could be implemented. I don't

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want people. I've seen people going
like, oh, yeah, but it's

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just not the way in Japan,
and it's like, yeah, like they

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don't get pome John surgery at like
high school, Like in Japan, they

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just pitch until their arm is basically
dead and then they don't get drafted.

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They could they go into the same
What we could do is just filter out

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the week they go like, I'm
gonna it's really gon annoy me because I'm

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gonna forget the player's name. But
effectively somebody like pitch like five to set

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with the nearly seven hundred pitches like
in a coach in one year, effectively

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was injured afterwards, one was injured
afterwards. He effectively now has a job

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like a corporate job, but he's
effectively there just as like a greater at

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all of the major business meetings because
they're just like, oh my god,

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like you won the coach in amazing, Like he's just like almost like an

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icebreaker for this business. But he's
well paid and gets like endorsements and all

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of these other things. But it's
just like that's what his world is because

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he won coachin but couldn't go on
to become like a professionals player. Yeah,

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this is the other thing, right, Like the people who is happening

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to don't actually care enough to stop
it happening. You know, they've made

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that choice. Most of them know
that they's a pretty good chance that they

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will need Tommy John at some point, and they've said, if I made

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it to the majors, fine,
And you know, we don't want it

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to happen because it's bad for us. We like watching the best pictures.

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It's not good entertainment. If the
guys you thought you were going to see

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at the top of the game of
set on the injured list all year.

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But those guys are making this decision
to grow as hard as they can.

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Yeah, half a million quid to
not play baseball for a year, and

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I'm all good. Yeah, And
you know, if that's the difference,

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if they'm throwing, you know,
ninety seven instead of ninety four, is

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the difference between them making to the
majors a lot, then that's a pretty

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big difference to their lives. I
said this to Gav when he brought this

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up a few weeks ago. But
we're not talking about the CDE here.

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These guys are not, like,
you know, finishing their career, like,

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oh, I can't use my arm
anymore. Loads of regular people have

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torn the UC on. They just
don't get surgery because it doesn't matter if

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you're not running through a baseball not
five miles brow. So you know,

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I understand it, like, if
that's the choice, I'm going to make

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it to the majors or I'm not, and this might be the thing that

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determines it, well, you know
that's that's fair enough. So that's why

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I think the incentives need change somewhat. The way that we're currently incentivizing pictures.

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Is just the harder you throw,
the more spin you have, you

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know, the better you're going to
be. Basically, so if we continue

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to talk about people who can't play
baseball, let's move on to the Oakland

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Athletic. That was the other bit
of news that we had pretty much just

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after we recorded our pod last week. There were some rumblings, and then

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the day afterwards it came out that
John Fisher has signed a deal with the

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Sacramento river Cats owner whose names has
left me just right now. But they

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are going to Sacramento for at least
three years, with a fourth option year

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before they go to Vegas. And
I will put a question mark on the

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end of that statement and we'll come
back to it at some point. But

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Darius, why Sacramento And this is
obviously the final, seemingly the final part

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of the the A's in Oakland.
Yeah, well, second Rento. Basically,

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the A's want to keep some portion
of their TV deal and staying in

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a relatively local place is going to
enable them to do that. I believe

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there will be some renegotiation of that
TV deal now that they are not actually

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in Oakland, but the terms of
that have not yet been disclosed, but

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this at least allows them to retain
a big chunk of that money, I

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believe, which is obviously John Fisher's
number one priority, so that's why they're

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doing it. Obviously, the park
is going to be a little bit smaller

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than the Colosseum, but they don't
tend to use the full capacity these days,

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so I think the fourteen thousand is
going to be plenty. To be

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honest, I kind of hope that
the TV people are like, you know,

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you know what, John, We're
not We're not really interested, Like,

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who's really going to miss these baseball
on TV? Like we can all

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just watch the other feed, can't
we? Well, everyone wants to see

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Aaron Judge in home runs and what's
happening. So that's the second part of

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my thought on this. So we
had them talking about this, We had

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them championing the close nature of the
facility that they will be using in Sacramento,

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which is like, well, do
you do the same championing of your

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facility that you play in Arizona for
spring training. I'm not saying you talk

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about it the same way then,
but yes, when he was given a

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chance, John Fisher was given a
chance to talk to people and about what's

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going on and give us the virtues
of the baseball that we were going to

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be seen. He did not name
one of his own players too. He

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said, you'll see the Oakland players
and you'll see people like Aaron Judge hitting

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home runs. Now, I don't
know about you, but when I try

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and promote something, I generally don't
promote it by saying, yes, one

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of our people that will compete against
will be very good against us. Here

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seems like a bit of a bit
of another faux par rob Well. Yeah,

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either that or there'sn be one head
of a trade deadline for them that

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we did not see coming. That's
a real term for John Fisher. Uh.

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I mean the blokes a fool,
isn't it. I almost think he's

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I'm starting to believe is he doing
this like to be funny? At this

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00:19:59.759 --> 00:20:03.720
point? It's just just what a
bumbling oath. He's just an idiot,

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isn't he. I mean, the
failed son who's done nothing with the business

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he's got, And it's just this
Every step of this process has been has

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been done by moral I mean,
I know nothing about big business. I

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am not a millionaire. I will
never be a millionaire, but I have

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a feeling I would not have bogged
this up quite as badly as him,

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just just if I'd sat down for
ten minutes and thought, right, okay,

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what should we say? Like just
ask the people around you. Ask

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the people around you, John,
There's no way they're feeding you information this

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00:20:33.720 --> 00:20:37.519
bad and making you say this stuff, like get a speech writer. You

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know you clearly don't know what you're
talking about. Don't march up to this

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baying mob who you know want to
take you down to shreds, and just

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open and say the first thing that
pops into your head. So honestly,

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the blokes and born absolutely idiot allegedly
smooth Rob smooth. So the other side

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of this theris is that I think
I've got his name now, Vivic Ranadivit,

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00:21:00.160 --> 00:21:03.160
who's probably completely and utterly wrong,
who is the owner of the Sacramento

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river Cats as well as the Sacramento
Kings. He spoke about almost like using

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this as a trial run for Sacramento
to say we can host an MLB team.

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Like that's the kind of little extra
twist I think that we're seeing in

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this trying to do what Oakland's not
what Oakland? Who am I thinking of

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what Oklahoma City did when they took
one of the basketball teams in from New

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Orleans during after Katrina. They effectively
hosted a team for a couple of years,

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and then afterwards they were like,
yeah, you can have an expansion

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team. So thoughts on that,
Darius, Yeah, there's definitely you know

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lines here. He already owns a
major franchise. You know, he's had

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this minor league team for a couple
of years. He knows that expansion is

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00:21:45.839 --> 00:21:48.920
coming. You don't have to do
like a ton of Galaxy Broan thinking to

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draw the lines between this and him
sort of pitching Sacramento as a proper major

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league location. It is already one
of the best minor league parks, which

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is part of the reason that the
A's are actually going to be able play

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there relatively so it's not major league
stadium quality. But I don't think it's

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going to be the same kind of
case as what the Blue Jays had to

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deal with when they were stuck in
the US during the early part of COVID.

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I don't think they're going to need
to make too many idents to bring

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up to major League standard. So
yeah, I would be shocked if they

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didn't take this opportunity to showcase it
as a potential relocation option. And obviously

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Manfred was sort of very grateful in
his statements when he was talking about this

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move as well. So I think, yeah, he's in there now,

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00:22:30.720 --> 00:22:33.039
he's got his opportunity. He's got
three years to make the case for them

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hosting an actual major League team,
and yeah, providing this isn't a total

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disaster, I feel like there's a
pretty good chance that he might be one

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of the choices for the next two
So Rob, as our contributor who knows

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most about expansion, please tell us
what Sacramento has for us. Well,

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I went to I found a piece
online. It was sponsored by the Visit

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Sacramento Partnership has written in partnership with
them Visit Sacramento, and it listed a

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number of fun facts about Sacramento which
bear in mind. This is this is

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the group of people who are trying
to get you to come to Sacramento because

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it's a fantastic place. So I've
got five of them here. What I'd

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like you guys to do is rate
them out of ten on how how fun

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and alluring these facts are so okay, so let's let's start at the top.

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Then, So number one, Sacramento
has the most trees per capita than

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any city in the world other than
maybe Paris. But they're not sure.

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Okay, they're not sure. We
have to hear them on five. And

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00:23:33.440 --> 00:23:37.599
then aside, they essentially said that
said that there was too many trees to

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00:23:37.640 --> 00:23:41.119
count. But no, no,
that one out of ten. How do

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you think that one rates is an
attractive fun fact to get you to Sacramento

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as a city to live in.
It would probably make it maybe like city

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to visit. I don't know two
and I'm not really bothered about there being

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trees and cities. O visit ten
facts and this is five of them.

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So this is one of the top
ten things about Sacramento. If they both

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count them, I would give it
a six or seven. But the fact

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that they don't actually know, I'm
giving them a one for lack of effort.

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Excellent, Okay, all right.
The second one was Sacramento has the

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oldest public art museum west of the
Mississippi. I was waiting for, like,

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what like the little addition was going
to be what was like the what

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was the you said the oldest,
and I was like, oh, hello,

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here we go west of the Mississippi. You mean the bit of the

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US that they didn't really live in
for like half of its history. That's

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the one. And if you like
qualifiers, good news for you. There's

377
00:24:34.200 --> 00:24:38.640
more coming. I do not like
qualifiers. And to give that a one

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as well, they didn't even say
it's good. It's just old. Yes,

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it's just old. The thing is
that, knowing me on, if

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I would, I would probably go
to this place, so like it's definitely

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00:24:48.720 --> 00:24:52.559
like three maybe for me, but
it's not like, uh, it's not

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it's not really pulling me in there. I would probably go too, But

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00:24:56.599 --> 00:25:00.839
I'm not gonna I'm not gonna call
it a fun fact. I hear qualifiers.

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This next one, next one can't
even really be classed as a fact.

385
00:25:06.559 --> 00:25:10.200
Parts of the city are said to
be haunted. That's the whole that's

386
00:25:10.200 --> 00:25:14.839
the whole fact. Isn't that like
every city ever where can you go and

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00:25:14.880 --> 00:25:18.000
like not find some sort of ghost
tour that's a zero to be haunted as

388
00:25:18.000 --> 00:25:22.319
well? Not even saying is it's
no example, have got I've got a

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00:25:22.319 --> 00:25:26.039
famous ghost? Come on, give
us something. I got a famous haunted

390
00:25:26.079 --> 00:25:29.599
building that they detail in that in
that thing or no, no, no,

391
00:25:29.640 --> 00:25:32.440
there's no there's no. Parts of
the city used to be underground,

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00:25:32.440 --> 00:25:37.680
so they think people might have died
down there. Probably we died everywhere people

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00:25:37.759 --> 00:25:41.279
died. Okay, this one.
I really like this one. So it's

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00:25:41.319 --> 00:25:47.200
the home to the world's oldest and
only non swim triathlon, as in,

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00:25:47.240 --> 00:25:49.880
they don't do swimming one part,
I'm curious, but they do kayaking,

396
00:25:51.240 --> 00:25:56.480
kaka the oldest and only. That
is quite a combination of like being oldest

397
00:25:56.519 --> 00:26:03.160
and only, like I think,
so the newest. Yeah, I wonder

398
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if anybody else tried it, or
if they all just thought you idiots and

399
00:26:07.440 --> 00:26:11.519
didn't bother. I'm just thinking of
triathlon. I think of the tryat.

400
00:26:11.559 --> 00:26:15.079
I'm thinking of the transition in and
out of the kayak right now. That's

401
00:26:15.119 --> 00:26:18.839
why I'm curious about. Yeah,
they're getting it out of the kayak and

402
00:26:18.839 --> 00:26:21.680
the chaos that might cause, like
with all the boats lined up. I'm

403
00:26:21.680 --> 00:26:25.279
going to give that since the triathlon
of it, I'm interested in that.

404
00:26:25.359 --> 00:26:30.240
Yeah, I'm way more interested.
Okay, So here's some qualifiers for you.

405
00:26:30.279 --> 00:26:33.759
So this is the final one.
Since nineteen hundred, there have only

406
00:26:33.799 --> 00:26:38.839
been three recorded events of significant snowfall. So basically, it's a warm place.

407
00:26:40.119 --> 00:26:42.880
It's a warm place. Yeah,
it snowed significantly three times, but

408
00:26:42.920 --> 00:26:47.759
it has They do then further go
on to admit snowed many times separately,

409
00:26:47.960 --> 00:26:52.039
just significant. They they don't tell
us what significant is either. Yeah,

410
00:26:52.119 --> 00:26:55.279
that's that's a big fat zero.
Okay, Well there you go. You

411
00:26:55.279 --> 00:26:57.200
know we can visit Sacramento. You
now know some stuff about it. So

412
00:26:59.799 --> 00:27:03.799
I'm not sure that they're going to
be leaning too heavily on visit Sacramento for

413
00:27:03.799 --> 00:27:07.599
their application for a major league team. Well I don't know about you,

414
00:27:07.680 --> 00:27:11.960
Darius, but I'm going to be
looking up the Sacramento Kayak Triathlon after this.

415
00:27:11.359 --> 00:27:17.279
But our final thing, I think
that when talking about the Sacramento Athletics,

416
00:27:17.359 --> 00:27:19.039
it's one that seemingly John Fisher said
that they were not going to be

417
00:27:19.039 --> 00:27:22.440
called the Sacramento Athletics. They were
going to be called the Athletics. But

418
00:27:22.559 --> 00:27:29.160
they have put in trademarks for Sacramento
Athletics, So maybe just covering all their

419
00:27:29.160 --> 00:27:33.759
bases, do we think they will
actually ever make it too Las Vegas like,

420
00:27:33.880 --> 00:27:37.359
given the state of everything that has
happened with the bumbling Thus so far,

421
00:27:37.920 --> 00:27:41.200
I think I'll start with you,
Rob, Do we think that there

422
00:27:41.200 --> 00:27:45.160
will ever be the Las Vegas Athletics. Well, that's my first point is

423
00:27:45.160 --> 00:27:48.720
when you say they've covered all their
points allegedly they do not actually have the

424
00:27:48.799 --> 00:27:52.839
rights to the phrase Las Vegas Athletics, that that has already been bought by

425
00:27:52.440 --> 00:27:57.119
another group of people, specifically protest
group. I believe, so well done

426
00:27:57.119 --> 00:28:00.240
for them. They So if they
do ever, in fact actually managed to

427
00:28:00.240 --> 00:28:04.640
get to Las Vegas, they cannot
call themselves the Las Vegas Athletics without paying

428
00:28:04.640 --> 00:28:08.279
an awful lot of money to a
bunch of people in Oakland. So well

429
00:28:08.279 --> 00:28:11.000
they get yeah, I mean,
flip of a coin. Really at this

430
00:28:11.039 --> 00:28:15.799
point, isn't it. The thing
is that they're clearly but the bridges in

431
00:28:15.839 --> 00:28:19.960
Oakland Sacramento. They can end up
sat there for a lot longer, I

432
00:28:19.960 --> 00:28:23.160
think than they're supposed to end up
sat there. Will they go to Las

433
00:28:23.240 --> 00:28:27.599
Vegas? Possibly? I've got a
more of a feeling that John Fisher won't

434
00:28:27.599 --> 00:28:33.079
be the owner of the team when
this gets sorted the case. I have

435
00:28:33.160 --> 00:28:37.759
a horrible thought that there's there's probably
more chance of the team just folding all

436
00:28:37.799 --> 00:28:41.839
together at some point with a with
a one team contraction and then eventually an

437
00:28:41.920 --> 00:28:45.119
expansion afterwards. But flip of a
coin mean nobody at this point, nobody

438
00:28:45.160 --> 00:28:49.200
in Las Vegas, nobody in Oakland, nobody in Sacramento has any clue at

439
00:28:49.200 --> 00:28:52.720
this point whether or not there will
finally actually be a team in because there's

440
00:28:52.759 --> 00:28:56.480
too many twists and it's coming.
So flip of a coin for me,

441
00:28:56.559 --> 00:28:59.480
But I can see a lot of
other things going on instead of that.

442
00:28:59.599 --> 00:29:03.039
Darius, are you more than fifty
to fifty? Yeah, I'm not.

443
00:29:03.160 --> 00:29:07.160
I'm not confident that Fisher's going to
get it done. I think he needs

444
00:29:07.279 --> 00:29:10.599
he needs some outside help that doesn't
seem to be there right now. I

445
00:29:10.640 --> 00:29:14.400
think it's like maybe the saving graces, that it's a bad look for Manfred

446
00:29:14.400 --> 00:29:17.920
and the other owners if they let
this fall through. But at the same

447
00:29:17.960 --> 00:29:21.160
time, I don't know they're going
to help Fisher pay up for his new

448
00:29:21.359 --> 00:29:26.039
ballpark, et cetera. So yeah, I'm not really very confident at all

449
00:29:26.559 --> 00:29:30.039
that they it will get done with
John Fisher at the Helm. Perhaps somebody

450
00:29:30.039 --> 00:29:33.279
else comes in who is interested in
putting a team in the Vegas area and

451
00:29:33.319 --> 00:29:37.319
makes some offer. You know that
I want control of the team and in

452
00:29:37.359 --> 00:29:40.480
Returnal you know, chip in for
the ballpark and Fisher gets what he wants

453
00:29:40.880 --> 00:29:44.359
without actually having to look after the
baseball team he doesn't like very much.

454
00:29:44.519 --> 00:29:48.200
So but yeah, I would I
would say less than less than fifty chance

455
00:29:48.279 --> 00:29:53.160
that just the current John Fisher plan
actually happens as it has been advertised.

456
00:29:53.400 --> 00:29:57.400
Yes, so we will see how
that one goes. I'm firmly on Hill

457
00:29:57.400 --> 00:30:02.079
balls it up. Then the the
MLB will take the club away from him,

458
00:30:02.079 --> 00:30:04.440
the same thing which happened like with
the National and all of that.

459
00:30:04.680 --> 00:30:07.839
So we'll look to see if that
happens. I feel like we might actually

460
00:30:07.880 --> 00:30:12.599
want to talk about some baseball and
not just the things happening in and around

461
00:30:12.640 --> 00:30:17.640
the league. So I like this
On a few podcasts that I listen to

462
00:30:17.680 --> 00:30:21.119
sometimes we kind of look at,
like who are the leaders like in the

463
00:30:21.119 --> 00:30:25.359
division and basically say does this feel
real to you? Like would you kind

464
00:30:25.400 --> 00:30:27.240
of expect this to be something like
this at the end of the season.

465
00:30:27.400 --> 00:30:32.079
So we'll start with like the al
So we have the Yankees who are at

466
00:30:32.119 --> 00:30:36.720
ten and two, the Guardians at
eight and three, and the Angels and

467
00:30:36.880 --> 00:30:41.160
Rangers are both at six and five. Darius, are you taking three for

468
00:30:41.279 --> 00:30:44.799
three or are you thinking there's going
to be one at one out of those

469
00:30:44.799 --> 00:30:48.279
three? Are you thinking that's going
to be somewhere in between come the end

470
00:30:48.319 --> 00:30:51.920
of the season. I believe in
the Yankees as currently constructed. We all

471
00:30:51.960 --> 00:30:53.960
saw what happened to them when Judge
with hurt last season. That'sn't great,

472
00:30:55.279 --> 00:30:59.720
and you know Stanton is going to
get hurt at some point, so that's

473
00:30:59.799 --> 00:31:03.279
not what you're looking for really,
But the current Yankees thing that they are

474
00:31:03.319 --> 00:31:06.119
putting out there, you know,
with rid On pitching, well, Cortez

475
00:31:06.160 --> 00:31:10.680
has looked good after a shaky start. Oldpi seems to have got that next

476
00:31:10.799 --> 00:31:14.480
level. Garrett Cole is making progress. It sounds like going to be throwing

477
00:31:14.480 --> 00:31:15.720
again. And if they get him
back, you know, I think a

478
00:31:15.720 --> 00:31:18.799
lot of people thought that that was
over, but it sounds like, you

479
00:31:18.799 --> 00:31:23.599
know, he's going to be starting
to make his roadback soon. So if

480
00:31:23.599 --> 00:31:27.000
that happens, then yeah, I
think I'm buying them. I don't think

481
00:31:27.000 --> 00:31:30.960
I'm buying that Cleveland are this good, but the Centrals, so I'm not

482
00:31:32.079 --> 00:31:33.960
definitely not going to be shocked if
they win the division. Obviously no on

483
00:31:34.000 --> 00:31:37.519
the Angel I think the Rangers are
fine and up there, and the Astros

484
00:31:37.640 --> 00:31:41.799
do not look great right now,
so I think they've got a clear opportunity

485
00:31:41.799 --> 00:31:44.759
to actually win the division this time
around. Your thoughts are up. I

486
00:31:44.839 --> 00:31:47.599
don't think any of them are going
to win those divisions. I think we're

487
00:31:47.599 --> 00:31:51.799
going to be a nil on that
one. I think any team in the

488
00:31:51.799 --> 00:31:55.599
American League East is still firmly in
it. I think they're all still very

489
00:31:55.599 --> 00:31:59.839
capable. It's surprised by how well
the Red Sox are doing. You know,

490
00:32:00.160 --> 00:32:04.160
the Orioles just just before we started
recording called up Jackson Holiday, so

491
00:32:04.440 --> 00:32:08.359
you know that that strength is starting
the odd timing given that they couldn't.

492
00:32:08.400 --> 00:32:14.400
They're not even manipulating his service time
properly, so that's fun. So yeah,

493
00:32:14.440 --> 00:32:17.599
they're still got more to come.
I've liked the look of the Tigers

494
00:32:17.839 --> 00:32:22.640
more I think in the central so
far, and obviously the Rangers are just

495
00:32:22.680 --> 00:32:27.400
really really lucky. So I don't
know what they're doing at the top of

496
00:32:27.400 --> 00:32:31.279
that or so I have heard it
said. No, realistically, yeah,

497
00:32:31.359 --> 00:32:35.319
you look at all three of these
that they're they're all fine, but it's

498
00:32:35.359 --> 00:32:39.759
just so much of a coin flip. Right now, the American League West,

499
00:32:39.759 --> 00:32:42.839
I think looks at the most the
most blown open. To me,

500
00:32:42.960 --> 00:32:45.480
that that one is really interesting.
I can't see which way that's going right

501
00:32:45.519 --> 00:32:51.279
now. I think the rest are
all steadily sort of starting to sort of

502
00:32:51.279 --> 00:32:52.759
fil trap where they'll be. I
mean, you look look at the winning

503
00:32:52.799 --> 00:32:54.880
percentagees and I think a lot of
them are like, okay, yeah,

504
00:32:54.880 --> 00:32:59.079
fair enough, fair enough. Yankees
are a bit high. But yeah,

505
00:32:59.200 --> 00:33:01.200
that that Americally West is the one
that I think is going to juggle it.

506
00:33:01.440 --> 00:33:07.240
Okay. Even I started the season
thinking that Cleveland weren't actually going to

507
00:33:07.279 --> 00:33:10.519
be that good, and Biba being
injured, I kind of I'm inclined to

508
00:33:10.519 --> 00:33:14.880
agree that I don't think they'll manage
to hold this out. But they're actually

509
00:33:14.880 --> 00:33:19.240
been hitting relatively well, which was
what I was not expecting, So who

510
00:33:19.279 --> 00:33:21.599
knows. But I do agree that
the Tigers as well as the Royals have

511
00:33:21.720 --> 00:33:27.920
actually come out come out strong.
I generally think this Yankees team is like

512
00:33:28.000 --> 00:33:30.559
the juggernaut that we've kind of been
thinking that it could be for quite a

513
00:33:30.559 --> 00:33:32.880
long time, and this is just
the one year where it actually all works

514
00:33:32.920 --> 00:33:37.039
together, and I just think it
would be funny if the Angel somehow managed

515
00:33:37.039 --> 00:33:40.240
to make it over five hundred and
make the postseason. Now at Andy's gone

516
00:33:40.559 --> 00:33:45.240
and we get like the we get
the judge, the judge, the trout,

517
00:33:45.599 --> 00:33:50.319
like fifty homer thirty stolen base season
that Darius has always wanted, so

518
00:33:50.319 --> 00:33:53.400
so that I'm inclined to go with
one out of these three. I think

519
00:33:53.400 --> 00:33:58.319
the Yankees will still win Cob the
end of the season. If we move

520
00:33:58.359 --> 00:34:01.319
on to the NL, I think
we might be a bit more optimistic.

521
00:34:01.680 --> 00:34:05.640
But maybe I don't think anybody is
going to take a three for three here

522
00:34:05.960 --> 00:34:07.800
because we have the Braves at seven
and three, we have the Dodgers at

523
00:34:07.800 --> 00:34:13.960
ten and four, and we have
the Pittsburgh Pirates at nine and three.

524
00:34:14.559 --> 00:34:17.760
Darius, what is going on?
I know they went twenty and eight to

525
00:34:17.800 --> 00:34:22.320
start the season last year, but
they went absolutely awful from then onwards.

526
00:34:22.559 --> 00:34:28.159
Why are Pirates win in games?
It's you know, let's not get excited.

527
00:34:28.400 --> 00:34:31.360
Connage does this every single year,
like every single year, Like it's

528
00:34:31.360 --> 00:34:34.599
like Connage is having a hot April. Then you just can do nothing the

529
00:34:34.679 --> 00:34:37.079
rest of the year. We talked
about the Pirates a bit last week.

530
00:34:37.679 --> 00:34:42.719
We think they have some nice core
pieces, but the bottom half of the

531
00:34:42.800 --> 00:34:46.599
roster is not good. And maybe
Bob Nothing will do something and you know,

532
00:34:46.679 --> 00:34:50.119
allow them to invest in it.
But it seems much more likely that

533
00:34:50.159 --> 00:34:52.039
they'll do nothing at all and they'll
fall out of the rest again, So

534
00:34:52.440 --> 00:34:55.480
not buying for me. I think
they will be, you know, an

535
00:34:55.480 --> 00:34:59.400
improvement, but I still think there
are better teams than that division. Obviously

536
00:34:59.400 --> 00:35:02.760
the Dodgers West that is not interesting. And obviously the Braves are winning the

537
00:35:04.440 --> 00:35:07.760
an Alice soazing. Yeah, I
mean, I can't disagree with the Dodgers

538
00:35:07.760 --> 00:35:12.000
and the Braves, but yeah,
I'm choosing to believe the Pirates, like

539
00:35:12.320 --> 00:35:15.880
it happened last year, and so
like there's a bit of something there,

540
00:35:15.880 --> 00:35:20.840
like that it's happening twice now,
you know, lightning striking twice. I

541
00:35:20.920 --> 00:35:23.480
am choosing to get on the Pirates
bandwagon. I thought they were really fun

542
00:35:23.519 --> 00:35:28.920
watched last year as well. I
really enjoyed watching the Pirates when I saw

543
00:35:28.960 --> 00:35:31.679
them, even if they weren't particularly
great towards the end. So I'm just

544
00:35:31.920 --> 00:35:36.639
it's more of a hope than a
particular thing. But no, I'm believing

545
00:35:36.679 --> 00:35:38.320
in the Pirates. There's always at
least one team that comes out of nowhere

546
00:35:38.320 --> 00:35:42.280
and does a little bit of something
more than expected. Will they run away

547
00:35:42.280 --> 00:35:45.039
with a division of the seven to
fifty winning percentage? No, they won't.

548
00:35:45.400 --> 00:35:46.840
Will they maybe sneak a wild card? I can see that. I

549
00:35:46.840 --> 00:35:51.480
can genuinely see that with this team. There's decent bits to that, as

550
00:35:51.480 --> 00:35:53.400
you alluded to last week. So
yeah, I can see the Pirates winning

551
00:35:53.400 --> 00:36:00.559
it. Why not? You are? Yes, I to sound like a

552
00:36:00.559 --> 00:36:04.400
broken record, but I think I
agree. It's gonna take a little bit

553
00:36:04.480 --> 00:36:07.960
longer. It's probably gonna take more
than the Pirates being at twenty and eight

554
00:36:07.199 --> 00:36:12.960
come like may for me to actually
think that the Pirates maybe will will win

555
00:36:13.280 --> 00:36:16.320
the division this season. But as
I think one of us may talk about

556
00:36:16.559 --> 00:36:21.639
and sort of long may it continue, because we're about to get into our

557
00:36:22.159 --> 00:36:28.039
two good too bad trademark BBC Match
of the Day, too Rob start us

558
00:36:28.039 --> 00:36:30.920
off with a good good, Well, we've just been talking about the crap

559
00:36:31.000 --> 00:36:35.280
teams are still in it. Literally
one of the points I had written down

560
00:36:35.280 --> 00:36:38.119
here. This is the wonderful part
of the season where unless you are the

561
00:36:38.119 --> 00:36:42.920
White Sox on the Marlins, you
can genuinely look at it and everybody's still

562
00:36:42.920 --> 00:36:45.239
there, Like it doesn't matter who
you've you could put on pretty much any

563
00:36:45.239 --> 00:36:49.880
baseball game again unless the White Socks
are playing the Marlins, and you can

564
00:36:49.920 --> 00:36:52.039
look at meaningful baseball. At this
point, the guys has still got something

565
00:36:52.079 --> 00:36:54.320
to play for and that's just fun. Like any time of the day you

566
00:36:54.360 --> 00:37:00.719
switch it on and sure it could
be the Diamondbacks against the Reds. You

567
00:37:00.760 --> 00:37:04.519
know what, the Reds currently they
are a winning record despite being in fourth,

568
00:37:04.840 --> 00:37:07.559
and the Diamondbacks are only two games
out of five hundred. So like,

569
00:37:07.599 --> 00:37:10.440
that's genuinely great baseball. There's there
are There are twenty eight teams still

570
00:37:10.440 --> 00:37:15.039
playing proper baseball right now, and
that's that's fantastic. It's exciting. And

571
00:37:15.360 --> 00:37:19.039
you know, we don't like those
doll drums when we get to like August,

572
00:37:19.440 --> 00:37:22.599
and it's traditionally recently been you know, the Royals playing the Tigers on

573
00:37:22.679 --> 00:37:27.599
a you know, on a Tuesday
night. Ugh, So so right now,

574
00:37:28.000 --> 00:37:30.559
it's all good stuff. It's all
interesting, it all means something.

575
00:37:30.679 --> 00:37:34.679
So I'm all about that great loving
it. That's awesome, Darius, give

576
00:37:34.719 --> 00:37:38.360
us another good Mike Trout, just
Mike Trout. Mike Trout's not currently hurt.

577
00:37:38.519 --> 00:37:43.920
Mike Trout's a six home runs already, Mike Trout's actually standing bases while

578
00:37:44.000 --> 00:37:46.480
Mike Trout is not her. I
will continue to enjoy Mike Trout and I

579
00:37:46.559 --> 00:37:51.000
desperately hope that Mike Trout has an
EMP level season. I'll probably say this

580
00:37:51.039 --> 00:37:54.280
every week until it gets hurt.
I like Mike Trout too, because like

581
00:37:54.280 --> 00:37:58.119
it needs to pull out the kind
of like if we were American Starius that

582
00:37:58.239 --> 00:38:02.880
have his Microut, like favorite Baseball
or whatever. I don't have a Watch

583
00:38:02.920 --> 00:38:06.840
Out Baseball card, but I should
get what good point. Yeah, so

584
00:38:06.880 --> 00:38:09.920
I'm going to stick on a serious
similar note to to Darius, and just

585
00:38:09.960 --> 00:38:14.519
that I quickly looked at to see
who the top hitters were for the last

586
00:38:14.559 --> 00:38:19.159
like seven days, and it is
your Nanne Alvarez Showiotani Aaron Judge. And

587
00:38:19.239 --> 00:38:22.480
sometimes you're just like I quite like
it sometimes when baseball plays out the way

588
00:38:22.480 --> 00:38:27.119
that I kind of like anticipate that
it should because it makes me feel the

589
00:38:27.199 --> 00:38:30.199
kind of sometimes that there's just a
nice swamp, that blanket of like things

590
00:38:30.239 --> 00:38:35.000
that are actually predicted happening. There
are lots of things that aren't happening that

591
00:38:35.239 --> 00:38:37.519
like other are happening that weren't predicted
and aren't happening that were predicted. But

592
00:38:37.880 --> 00:38:42.199
seeing the three weeks that all of
them have given, they kind of all

593
00:38:42.239 --> 00:38:45.360
had a pretty slow start to the
season with just like oh yeah there was

594
00:38:45.400 --> 00:38:52.000
there was no doubts anyway, but
just seeing a bonds galore from these these

595
00:38:52.000 --> 00:38:55.840
three fine gentlemen was definitely always will
perk me up when it comes to kind

596
00:38:55.880 --> 00:39:00.360
of like watching baseball games. So
that's where I'm at. As we'll go

597
00:39:00.400 --> 00:39:06.039
into bad, I will double dip
and go go again and talk about there's

598
00:39:06.079 --> 00:39:09.280
only one empire we ever really talk
about, isn't there? But I think

599
00:39:09.280 --> 00:39:14.280
I think Angel had a moment that
I think could be one of his greatest

600
00:39:14.679 --> 00:39:19.360
by beinglish in one of his worst
moments that in a game the other day,

601
00:39:20.119 --> 00:39:23.880
but because the Yankees a picture walked
and then threw the pitch outside of

602
00:39:23.880 --> 00:39:29.480
the strike zone and Hanandez struck the
picture. But the bad are out and

603
00:39:29.519 --> 00:39:31.880
you were like, not only did
you do two things, you didn't even

604
00:39:31.960 --> 00:39:36.320
do one thing. More, you
did two things completely and utterly wrong,

605
00:39:36.639 --> 00:39:39.719
and it was just it's ridiculous.
It shows so many times I'm not necessarily

606
00:39:39.800 --> 00:39:44.440
talking about like we need robot empires, like immediately, we just need to

607
00:39:44.440 --> 00:39:47.360
be able to get rid of like
the bad calls. And you're then like,

608
00:39:47.719 --> 00:39:52.840
what, we have replayed, but
we can't ask for a balk and

609
00:39:52.880 --> 00:39:55.360
we have replay and we can't see
that that was clearly not a stroke and

610
00:39:55.480 --> 00:40:00.079
do anything about it. And you're
like, that's what frustrates me about this

611
00:40:00.119 --> 00:40:04.880
game, where you're like, ah, what this game doesn't mean anything,

612
00:40:05.000 --> 00:40:08.159
but it's just so bad. And
obviously it was against the Yankees, so

613
00:40:08.639 --> 00:40:14.920
half of Twitter was like ha ha
ha against the well, the other half

614
00:40:14.960 --> 00:40:19.239
of Twitter was Yankees fans and very
very very very mad at My argument would

615
00:40:19.239 --> 00:40:22.840
be how much enjoyment has angel Hernand
has given us over the years at this

616
00:40:22.920 --> 00:40:28.360
point, Like can you like there
is just a handful of of umpires you

617
00:40:28.440 --> 00:40:31.880
even know the name of, Like
he has made you smile more than you

618
00:40:31.920 --> 00:40:35.679
know, I can't even think of
another one off my head right now,

619
00:40:35.760 --> 00:40:38.400
So like yeah, like great,
good old angel As, you couldn't remember

620
00:40:38.440 --> 00:40:43.760
the cowboy Joe West, Yeah,
when he's insane, but you know,

621
00:40:43.960 --> 00:40:46.119
like I'm looking at that that that
bios. Now, let's have a look,

622
00:40:46.480 --> 00:40:51.880
Dan Bellino, how many times have
you smiled about Dan Billino? True?

623
00:40:52.079 --> 00:40:58.079
True, exactly, Darius give us
a bad the Chicago White Sox,

624
00:41:00.639 --> 00:41:05.280
no, specifically the White Sox.
I'm not really sure what they're doing with

625
00:41:05.280 --> 00:41:08.639
the Ruster construction. They seem to
be giving Robbie Grossman an opportunity to hit

626
00:41:08.719 --> 00:41:14.400
leadoff for them every day, which
he's thirty four. I mean, I

627
00:41:14.440 --> 00:41:16.039
know, like they might think we
want a bit of veteran presence, but

628
00:41:16.119 --> 00:41:20.840
like you know, Monkard has been
around, Andrew Benintendi's been around. They've

629
00:41:20.840 --> 00:41:23.880
got Martin Maldonardo, for God's sake. They don't need more veteran presence than

630
00:41:23.880 --> 00:41:28.800
Martin Malzardo, are they. Why
is Robbie Grossman playing hitting leadoff for this

631
00:41:28.840 --> 00:41:31.760
team that's going to win fifty games. It's just ridiculous. Just play some

632
00:41:31.800 --> 00:41:36.400
prospects. Get over it. I
take umbradge to that. I'm looking at

633
00:41:36.440 --> 00:41:38.880
my Robbie Grossman ball that I got
from from Tropicana Field. It's one of

634
00:41:38.880 --> 00:41:44.719
my one of my favorite possessions.
I like Robbi, Robbie Grosman should probably

635
00:41:44.719 --> 00:41:46.559
be like the fourth outfielder on like
a good team. I just want somebody

636
00:41:46.599 --> 00:41:50.119
to get on base. Occasionally.
You know, as a pinch hitter,

637
00:41:50.320 --> 00:41:52.519
he should not be hitting leadoff for
anybody. That an only team we should

638
00:41:52.519 --> 00:41:57.199
be building into the future. Rob
was that your ball which you obtained by

639
00:41:57.440 --> 00:42:00.119
bending down and pretending to be a
kid and putting your handover or no,

640
00:42:00.119 --> 00:42:02.440
no, no, this one,
this one. I I just screamed Robbie

641
00:42:02.440 --> 00:42:06.400
over and over and over and over
and over until he finally kind of threw

642
00:42:06.400 --> 00:42:09.599
it to me, looking really annoyed. That was the logan Morrison with the

643
00:42:09.639 --> 00:42:13.519
kid ball, wasn't it? It
was? Yes? I already had that.

644
00:42:13.559 --> 00:42:16.440
He signed my hat. Do you
have to say from going to watch

645
00:42:16.440 --> 00:42:22.960
bring training in Arizona? I do
not know how any MLB catcher deals with

646
00:42:23.000 --> 00:42:27.880
it, because like you have free
access to like the bullpens, like before

647
00:42:27.920 --> 00:42:30.119
the game, and as the games
go on, and there are kids just

648
00:42:30.159 --> 00:42:34.440
being like hey catcher, Hey catcher, can have a ball. Please can

649
00:42:34.519 --> 00:42:36.880
have a ball? Please? Hey
catcher, can have a ball, can

650
00:42:36.960 --> 00:42:38.679
have a ball? Can have a
ball? Please catch you can have a

651
00:42:38.719 --> 00:42:43.400
ball? Hey catcher? Who's your
favorite player? And it's like Russell,

652
00:42:44.000 --> 00:42:47.599
how how do you cope like it? Like me and like my friends went

653
00:42:47.639 --> 00:42:50.960
to go down to look at some
of the pictures, does this kind of

654
00:42:51.239 --> 00:42:55.440
see how insanely ludicrous the movement on
a pitch actually is at at a major

655
00:42:55.519 --> 00:42:59.159
league level and up closed and you're
like, oh, you pau, you

656
00:42:59.239 --> 00:43:05.039
pour sons of a gu So rob, oh I have my my first bad.

657
00:43:05.079 --> 00:43:07.559
Actually it's moved back and forth from
my good to my bad. The

658
00:43:07.639 --> 00:43:13.760
Rays and the Rockies played a ludicrous
game last week in such incredibly high winds

659
00:43:14.519 --> 00:43:17.400
and freezing wins at that that first
of all, everyone was balaclaved up,

660
00:43:17.480 --> 00:43:21.480
so you couldn't see who anybody was
because all you could see was their eyes

661
00:43:21.480 --> 00:43:24.519
poking through the ballet clavas, especially
the poor Floridian team. And secondly,

662
00:43:24.559 --> 00:43:30.000
every single ball that got hit in
the air was was everyone was wrong footed

663
00:43:30.039 --> 00:43:34.880
every time, Like we we had
infielders catching balls that were that that would

664
00:43:34.880 --> 00:43:37.559
normally be caught by by an outfielder. Like people were running back and then

665
00:43:37.599 --> 00:43:40.119
turning around and running the other way
again. So it was it was.

666
00:43:40.199 --> 00:43:43.800
It was a fast. It was
an absolute fast of a game. It

667
00:43:44.000 --> 00:43:46.840
made it just a dice roll rather
than than than you know, a skill

668
00:43:46.880 --> 00:43:52.159
based competition. But it was quite
funny, so uh, you know,

669
00:43:52.000 --> 00:43:58.159
and and there's there's a there's a
unique sort of bagginess to an umpire's trousers

670
00:43:58.239 --> 00:44:00.519
that has only shown when it's exceedingly
windy in a baseball game as well,

671
00:44:01.400 --> 00:44:05.639
and they sort of, you know, like mc hammer wanted his trousers back

672
00:44:06.199 --> 00:44:08.960
because they were flapping. They were
flapping around and I must have put pictures

673
00:44:09.000 --> 00:44:12.880
off. But yeah, that was
It was a ridiculous game. I think

674
00:44:12.840 --> 00:44:15.079
there was a second game in that
series, but it was ridiculous. We

675
00:44:15.480 --> 00:44:20.280
really need to find a better way
of dealing with wind at baseball games.

676
00:44:20.480 --> 00:44:22.960
Some people might think that you have
for stadiums that could be closed so that

677
00:44:23.000 --> 00:44:29.960
the roof maybe, especially if you
live up in the bloody mountains. Okay,

678
00:44:30.920 --> 00:44:34.320
Rob will switch buck over to you
and give us your your second good.

679
00:44:34.840 --> 00:44:38.920
I'm going controversial. I like the
Phillies city connects. I think they're

680
00:44:38.920 --> 00:44:43.960
good. I think they're different.
I think they're the whole point of these

681
00:44:43.960 --> 00:44:45.960
city Connects is that I don't want
to be bored by them. And I've

682
00:44:45.960 --> 00:44:50.000
said it on here before. I
want them to make my eyes bleed.

683
00:44:50.239 --> 00:44:52.400
And you know what, these these
billy jerseys make my eyes bleed. They're

684
00:44:52.480 --> 00:44:58.559
ridiculous. They got the silly gradient
on which doesn't exist in other baseball jerseys.

685
00:44:58.679 --> 00:45:04.320
They got a that makes no sense, and the color scheme is completely

686
00:45:04.400 --> 00:45:07.800
wacky for that team. It follows
the flag, it makes more sense rather

687
00:45:07.800 --> 00:45:09.679
than the red they play in.
So I'm all about it, Like I

688
00:45:09.719 --> 00:45:16.440
don't want like a cleverly put together
sartorial, sartorially elegant jersey, like you

689
00:45:16.480 --> 00:45:20.039
know, I don't want another lost
Dodgers where yes, it's a very nice

690
00:45:20.039 --> 00:45:22.880
shade of blue, but it's boring. It's boring, make my eyes bleed.

691
00:45:23.079 --> 00:45:30.239
I want more gradiated, you know, ridiculous sponted fluorescent yellow trimmed jerseys,

692
00:45:30.239 --> 00:45:31.880
please, because because that is interesting, that's something worth looking at.

693
00:45:32.159 --> 00:45:37.199
Only one of these teams has may
managed to make one interesting and quite elegant,

694
00:45:37.239 --> 00:45:38.440
and that's the National. The rest
of them, the best ones are

695
00:45:38.440 --> 00:45:43.199
the ones where where the colors are
stupid and they make no sense, like

696
00:45:43.440 --> 00:45:47.119
you know, since the boring Baltimore
boring, God, what's going on in

697
00:45:47.159 --> 00:45:52.679
Wrigley Absolutely boring? But you know, Miamis that's a bit different. Like

698
00:45:52.760 --> 00:45:54.519
that's some silly colors, that's blue
and red stripes. That doesn't go well

699
00:45:54.519 --> 00:45:57.760
together. But it makes my eyes
be that's good. That's what I want.

700
00:45:57.760 --> 00:46:00.760
It's interesting more of those. I
think you make a good point that,

701
00:46:00.239 --> 00:46:04.119
like people in the seem to say
that they're boring or that. Yeah,

702
00:46:04.199 --> 00:46:07.880
then it's like the eyes bladed and
they're terrible. But this is better.

703
00:46:07.039 --> 00:46:12.360
This is definitely better than just are
we slightly resigned our regular uniform,

704
00:46:12.480 --> 00:46:15.320
which, like, what was even
the point of doing this activity? Like

705
00:46:15.400 --> 00:46:16.679
I'd rather this, I'm not.
I don't love the shirt design. I

706
00:46:16.719 --> 00:46:20.599
think that hat's kind of cool.
I think that's the shirt design looks a

707
00:46:20.599 --> 00:46:25.480
bit mismatched to me, especially in
the fond but that's cool. And yeah,

708
00:46:25.679 --> 00:46:30.000
I agree with you. Let's have
eyes bladed rather than boring. Yeah,

709
00:46:30.079 --> 00:46:37.039
I think these for me personally fall
in the Colorado Rockies corporate softball kind

710
00:46:37.079 --> 00:46:40.280
of like level of jersey where it
kind of it doesn't feel quite feel professional

711
00:46:40.480 --> 00:46:45.840
enough to actually be like a major
league jersey, but it's different enough that

712
00:46:45.079 --> 00:46:47.639
makes me like it. At the
same time, I'm definitely with you there,

713
00:46:47.679 --> 00:46:53.000
rob On, I want different from
these jerseys. I'm wearing a Spendezzpiendez

714
00:46:53.079 --> 00:46:58.119
hat from the Diamondbacks. I like
that because it's like it's it's different enough

715
00:46:58.320 --> 00:47:02.079
to kind up to go with that. So yeah, I it would be

716
00:47:02.119 --> 00:47:06.559
solid mid I think for me.
But it's it's good for you to like

717
00:47:06.599 --> 00:47:09.719
it. Rob. I think some
of our other members of the podcast will

718
00:47:09.719 --> 00:47:15.000
come down on you strong on social
media when they listen to listen to this.

719
00:47:15.719 --> 00:47:17.280
Also, if I was ranking teams
in terms of professionalism, I don't

720
00:47:17.280 --> 00:47:21.960
mean the quality of their baseball,
I mean literally have our professional I think

721
00:47:22.000 --> 00:47:25.880
of the most people that would probably
be last. So well, there's there's

722
00:47:25.960 --> 00:47:30.760
Jokers, Rangers, it is Lucky
Darius. Your next good, My it's

723
00:47:30.800 --> 00:47:37.679
good is Ryan Pepio going into cause
field striking out eleven no runs, no

724
00:47:37.800 --> 00:47:42.159
walks. First picture ever with double
digit strikeouts and their runs or walks at

725
00:47:42.239 --> 00:47:45.920
course field, So hats off Ryan
Pepier. Rays have apparently done it again

726
00:47:46.360 --> 00:47:52.639
about the bullpen. Wow, isn't
it just so yes? Shame about the

727
00:47:52.639 --> 00:47:58.360
bullpen? Yeah, my next good. I was having a deep think and

728
00:47:58.400 --> 00:48:00.400
then I did my usual thing of
let's go have a look at some how

729
00:48:00.559 --> 00:48:06.880
some of the minor league British players
are doing. And Chaffez Young has switched

730
00:48:06.880 --> 00:48:12.440
over to the Milwaukee Brewers during being
picked up and he's actually having a very

731
00:48:12.480 --> 00:48:15.519
good start to the season that has
one hundred and fifty two WRC plus over

732
00:48:16.039 --> 00:48:21.920
only like four or five games,
And so me and Gavin watching that man

733
00:48:21.960 --> 00:48:24.760
in a play for GB in the
WBC last year was one of the highlights

734
00:48:24.840 --> 00:48:29.119
of probably all of my life kind
of like, especially when it comes to

735
00:48:29.119 --> 00:48:34.800
sporting stuff. So seeing him perform
so well is pretty pretty awesome. And

736
00:48:34.840 --> 00:48:37.679
also a note on the fact that
Michael Peterson, who's now with the Dodgers

737
00:48:37.719 --> 00:48:43.320
and who pitched very well at the
start of spring training before being down to

738
00:48:43.360 --> 00:48:46.000
triple A, he has has had
a very good start to his kind of

739
00:48:46.000 --> 00:48:52.159
like triple A career. So he's
pitched in four games and has like five

740
00:48:52.199 --> 00:48:55.800
strikeouts so far across like three and
two thirds innings. So hopefully, I

741
00:48:55.840 --> 00:48:59.599
don't know, Dodgers seem to be
a team to me that are willing to

742
00:49:00.119 --> 00:49:05.679
mess around with their relief pictures,
so we could be seeing one or both

743
00:49:05.679 --> 00:49:07.079
of those players at some point this
year, because I don't think the Brewers

744
00:49:07.119 --> 00:49:12.079
have really got any chance at actually
staying relatively good across all of their outfield

745
00:49:12.119 --> 00:49:15.400
for the entire season, So there
are some fingers crossed here that we might

746
00:49:15.440 --> 00:49:22.199
see some more GB legends making the
Major League this year. About it great

747
00:49:22.239 --> 00:49:24.800
stuff, Bring them on, yes, and then let's have these final rounds

748
00:49:24.840 --> 00:49:29.079
of bads. We always end on
a bad. Yes. That's the way

749
00:49:29.119 --> 00:49:34.440
that the phrasing, historical phrasing goes. These are unis. We can't stop

750
00:49:34.480 --> 00:49:39.400
talking about it because they are bad. They are really really bad. I

751
00:49:39.519 --> 00:49:43.119
was watching one of the Yankees games
the other day when they were in their

752
00:49:43.199 --> 00:49:47.480
road graze, and every single picture
looked like they were one of those kind

753
00:49:47.519 --> 00:49:54.000
of massively obese, overweight guys who
just had like their shirts were like dripping

754
00:49:54.400 --> 00:49:59.280
wet that looked like the sweat was
not like absorbed or passed out. It

755
00:49:59.360 --> 00:50:04.639
looked like they were all likes were
like stuck onto them because of like how

756
00:50:04.800 --> 00:50:07.559
like seemingly it had absorbed the sweat. It looked naff. It looked like

757
00:50:07.599 --> 00:50:12.199
the quality of stuff that you would
buy off d H Gate, or probably

758
00:50:12.320 --> 00:50:15.440
this quality of stuff you would buy
off fanatics. And it just really kind

759
00:50:15.480 --> 00:50:21.559
of like brings down like the level
of like the professionalism of this game.

760
00:50:21.679 --> 00:50:24.079
And then I lost I couldn't find
a link again because I saw it.

761
00:50:24.119 --> 00:50:29.639
I think on my real speed today. But somebody slid into home and they're

762
00:50:29.679 --> 00:50:32.800
basically their pants broke, and I
was like, what, I don't remember

763
00:50:32.840 --> 00:50:37.000
this at any point, Like to
me, this is something that if it

764
00:50:37.039 --> 00:50:39.079
had happened in the last three or
four years, Twitter would have exploded with

765
00:50:39.119 --> 00:50:42.519
it, like we would have been
laughing and making a joke about it,

766
00:50:42.599 --> 00:50:45.760
like any sort of thing. But
now it's just like everybody's just in this

767
00:50:45.880 --> 00:50:49.840
malaise already where it's just like,
yeah, they're just they're bad. And

768
00:50:51.199 --> 00:50:53.199
Mets wasn't It was the Mets trousers. I don't know, it was right,

769
00:50:53.440 --> 00:50:58.599
Roddy Green's pants that ripped on the
slide in town. Okay, yes,

770
00:50:58.639 --> 00:51:01.159
I've got it here now, yeah, absolutely Green. Yeah, luckily

771
00:51:01.199 --> 00:51:05.280
he seems to be wearing some under
trousers he thought ahead. Well, yeah,

772
00:51:05.440 --> 00:51:07.360
generally it's base for the players,
you do. But yeah, it's

773
00:51:07.480 --> 00:51:12.800
just oh man, I would have
been balls out. I mean, you're

774
00:51:12.800 --> 00:51:15.239
probably the type of person who doesn't
wear a cup, So you can take

775
00:51:15.280 --> 00:51:22.199
the a kill Badoo award for continually
doing that until you tell what does that

776
00:51:22.280 --> 00:51:24.400
mean? You're the kind of person
who probably doesn't wear a cup. What

777
00:51:24.599 --> 00:51:30.760
exactly does that mean, well,
you were saying that you weren't be wearing

778
00:51:30.880 --> 00:51:36.519
like under things, just not going
to go with anything. Yeah, so

779
00:51:36.679 --> 00:51:39.920
I'd like the listeners to please rank
all of the BFM crew by likelihood to

780
00:51:39.920 --> 00:51:46.880
wear a cup, use any criteria
you want, Darius, go on,

781
00:51:47.440 --> 00:51:53.679
let's move away from my bad.
I'm just taking portrait of Story, who

782
00:51:53.800 --> 00:52:00.440
is once again out for the season
after dislocating his shoulder and fracturing his glenoid

783
00:52:00.599 --> 00:52:05.360
apparently. But yeah, just a
brutal set of years for Story in Boston.

784
00:52:05.400 --> 00:52:09.880
Seems like he's basically basically hurt everybody
part available to him. And yeah,

785
00:52:10.119 --> 00:52:14.599
I was kind of looking forward to
seeing him have a healthier year and

786
00:52:15.000 --> 00:52:17.320
it's barely started and now he's gone. So it's been a tough tough start

787
00:52:17.320 --> 00:52:21.239
for the Red Sox injury wise.
And yeah, it's a shame that we

788
00:52:21.239 --> 00:52:23.039
don't get to see Story that middle
infield is like pretty rough right now.

789
00:52:23.519 --> 00:52:29.880
Glenoid, could you help me out
with what a glenoid? It's part of

790
00:52:29.880 --> 00:52:31.679
the laboram in your knee, I
think, or it's a specific laborhm in

791
00:52:31.679 --> 00:52:36.239
your knee. I think shoulders,
shoulders, the shoulder, the shoulder.

792
00:52:36.719 --> 00:52:40.360
He dislocated the shoulder. Should Yeah, he disslocated his shoulder and then held

793
00:52:40.360 --> 00:52:44.760
his knee, screaming. I know
there are labrums in knees and shoulders,

794
00:52:44.800 --> 00:52:46.880
so I just took a guess.
But yeah, it's a cavity, a

795
00:52:46.920 --> 00:52:52.920
glenoid cavity. Apparently he hurt his
cavity. I know it's the miniscus.

796
00:52:52.079 --> 00:52:57.000
He whoops, I'm getting in my
head. Lenoyd, good word there is

797
00:52:57.079 --> 00:53:00.719
hi. Hips have labrums? Do
they have glenoids? Though I don't think

798
00:53:00.760 --> 00:53:05.880
so. Hip glenoid? Does Glennoyd
Labraam sound like a player that you would

799
00:53:05.920 --> 00:53:09.920
find either in like the nineteen thirties, play baseball in the nineteen thirties,

800
00:53:10.400 --> 00:53:21.800
or is an out of the park
baseball region thirties. Okay, Rob,

801
00:53:22.679 --> 00:53:24.960
where are you? Where are you
ending up on today? I am ending

802
00:53:25.000 --> 00:53:30.199
on Baseball Zen having lost its way. We all remember when Baseball Zen first

803
00:53:30.239 --> 00:53:37.480
appeared in the adverts MLB TV in
between innings, we had uh oh,

804
00:53:37.480 --> 00:53:40.559
we had the bat hitting the ground
softly. We had we had slow motion

805
00:53:40.719 --> 00:53:45.519
g man Choi doing the splits like
really really slow, and it was it

806
00:53:45.559 --> 00:53:47.800
was his foot slowly scuffing along the
floor with a sound, we had the

807
00:53:49.000 --> 00:53:52.119
My favorite was always the line painting
machine. You know, it was the

808
00:53:52.400 --> 00:53:53.599
painting the line and you could see
it coming out, and then they had

809
00:53:53.639 --> 00:53:57.320
the it was obviously fake noid,
but as it gently came out, or

810
00:53:57.360 --> 00:54:00.440
the sprinkler. We had the sprinkler
and it was it was just wait for

811
00:54:00.599 --> 00:54:04.079
sort of slow motion going over there. Now we seem to have zen moments

812
00:54:04.119 --> 00:54:07.880
which are like people screaming and dugout, violent home runs and batflet which are

813
00:54:07.920 --> 00:54:12.800
all fantastic things, don't get me
wrong, but these zen level to them

814
00:54:13.199 --> 00:54:16.239
seems to seems seems to be missing
that. That's not what I associate with

815
00:54:16.480 --> 00:54:21.199
beating zen. So I think I
think those zen moments are no longer zen.

816
00:54:21.519 --> 00:54:23.920
They are just highlights. They've they've
found a branding they like and stuck

817
00:54:23.960 --> 00:54:27.800
over it. I think it should
just be like Tristan Kassa sleeping in the

818
00:54:27.840 --> 00:54:30.199
outfield. That should be bang on
there you go, that's baseball zen.

819
00:54:30.320 --> 00:54:35.559
You know, like or you know, a seagull landing next to a discarded

820
00:54:35.639 --> 00:54:40.000
chip, fine, no problem,
but but you know, like cruise like

821
00:54:40.159 --> 00:54:46.440
ruining a base. Seagulls are like
the least zen bird. Actually I was

822
00:54:46.480 --> 00:54:50.639
totally expecting you to then be like
a plastic bag floating in the wind.

823
00:54:52.519 --> 00:54:54.679
All that is great, All that
is great, but yeah, no,

824
00:54:54.840 --> 00:54:59.559
I mean there's one where Jazz chiers
and breaks his back and it's it's genuinely

825
00:54:59.679 --> 00:55:04.920
terrified moment because there's like literal wooden
shards of bats flying through the air and

826
00:55:05.079 --> 00:55:08.079
this is supposed to be zen.
Apparently I'm trying to relax. There's bats.

827
00:55:12.559 --> 00:55:15.119
Yeah, they've ruined the zen.
I feel for you, Rob,

828
00:55:15.400 --> 00:55:19.639
these were never things that I particularly
enjoy it. I kind of find the

829
00:55:19.639 --> 00:55:23.800
whole concept of like ASMR on all
of these things more kind of like creepy

830
00:55:23.960 --> 00:55:28.159
than enjoyable. So if you start
to whisper into your thing, I will

831
00:55:28.199 --> 00:55:32.800
just mute you. Rob. This
is going to be a great podcast with

832
00:55:32.960 --> 00:55:37.159
rusts both of us greatly. Have
you like this now? Thank you everybody.

833
00:55:37.239 --> 00:55:39.320
Yeah, so when I do the
truncation work, you will have not

834
00:55:39.360 --> 00:55:45.119
realized that those two just spent five
minutes doing ASMR to annoy me, and

835
00:55:45.159 --> 00:55:51.320
I I forget the chance to edit
and remove it. So obviously, Rob,

836
00:55:51.639 --> 00:55:55.440
Darius, thank you for joining me
today. Do you have anything you

837
00:55:55.480 --> 00:55:59.639
want to plug? Darius? Yeah, Me and Robertin to do an ASMR

838
00:55:59.639 --> 00:56:05.320
podcast together next week. No,
just just go totall Prospectives dot com.

839
00:56:05.320 --> 00:56:07.639
That said great content there, That's
all I'll say, Rob, Have you

840
00:56:08.039 --> 00:56:12.000
even had the concept of writing anything? Or did you just manage to survive

841
00:56:12.039 --> 00:56:15.400
the protests that you're having at work? And that's that's a living protest.

842
00:56:15.719 --> 00:56:20.840
That was it. I'm actually going
out to San Francisco and Oakland in a

843
00:56:20.880 --> 00:56:22.480
couple of weeks, So if anyone
has any recommendations of things I should go

844
00:56:22.559 --> 00:56:27.559
and see whilst I'm there, other
than not the a's, then yeah,

845
00:56:27.599 --> 00:56:30.960
let me know what. I'm still
like open for tourism and stuff. So

846
00:56:30.039 --> 00:56:34.480
yeah, let us know anyone,
any any giants and as fans who who

847
00:56:34.920 --> 00:56:37.480
have been out that way know some
good places. Hit me up, let

848
00:56:37.480 --> 00:56:39.480
me know, because I'm in I
will very much recommend you a place called

849
00:56:39.480 --> 00:56:45.639
Takorea, which does Korean like taco
food, so absolutely amazing. But the

850
00:56:45.719 --> 00:56:49.880
listeners do give Rob other things otherwise
as usual, I would say, please

851
00:56:49.920 --> 00:56:52.599
do, please do, go and
look on the website. There's great work

852
00:56:52.639 --> 00:56:57.360
that's been put out there. The
series on People's Favorite Players, the preview

853
00:56:57.440 --> 00:57:00.159
series that we've had coming through there
is some great pieces that do deserve your

854
00:57:00.199 --> 00:57:05.480
time and attention, and as always, thank you to our contributors and editors

855
00:57:05.519 --> 00:57:08.519
that get that up a running and
as always you can find us at backflips,

856
00:57:08.599 --> 00:57:13.800
Underscore Nerds on Twitter and backflips and
nerds dot com. Thank you very much