B (3:53)

Hey, Ben. Good morning. Thanks for having me.

A (3:55)

Thanks for coming back. We are speaking while you're on a pit stop en route to your upcoming wedding. Congrats.

B (4:02)

Thank you.

A (4:03)

Thank you. When you attend the all boys high school that we did, it does not seem like a given that you'll ever talk to a girl, let alone talk one into marrying you. So go us. We did it.

B (4:15)

Huge win for the. For the community at large.

A (4:17)

Yes, everyone, I guess it's conceivable that your high school experience as a 6 foot 4 future professional athlete was different from mine in some ways. I. I should allow for that possibility perhaps. All I'll say is that my friends and I went to A Mets game on our prom night, and the high school girls of New York were not distraught about our absence. But enough about me. I googled Declan Cronin registry to see if I could send you something. And the top three results are actually for another guy named Declan Cronin who just got married in October. Were you aware that there's another Declan Cronin who barely beat you down the aisle?

B (5:01)

I was not aware and I'll have to check out his registry maybe for some ideas. I wonder if we have similar taste or not.

A (5:08)

I looked and there's nothing left on it, unfortunately. His. Yeah, his wedding was in October, so I guess everything was crossed off the list.

B (5:15)

So maybe his. His guests who weren't so timely with their gifts will head over to my registry and make the same mistakes.

A (5:22)

Yeah, could be.

B (5:23)

One can only hope. Yeah.

A (5:25)

I have to tell you what the fourth Google result was when I searched for Declan Cronin registry. An Amazon project listing added in April for, and I quote, just a girl who loves Declan Cronin Miami Baseball MLBPA V neck T shirt. It has a baseball mitt with a ball in it and it says just a girl who loves Declan Cronin with a little MLB players logo at the bottom. It comes in black, baby blue and dark heather gray. And here's what it says in the about this item area. Whether you are a fan of Declan Cronin or just want the latest baseball apparel, this product is for you. I'm not sure that's true, honestly. If you. If you just want the latest baseball apparel and you aren't a fan of Declan Cronin, I think it. It would be an unusual choice, I guess, but nonetheless, it continues as a die hard Miami fan. This is the perfect design to show your classy style. And I know you're not with Miami anymore, which we will discuss, but the shirt doesn't say Miami or Marlin anywhere. It just. Its text is in Marlin's colors. So I think it's still good. And the page says this design is officially licensed by the MLBPA and is unique, so it's perfect to wear to show off your love for Declan Cronin.

B (6:50)

Wow. Well, you just did my Christmas shopping for me because I'm going to head over to that link right after we get off here. And everybody's getting one of those this year.

A (7:00)

I might get one too. It's for women only. I guess there's no men's version of the Just a girl who loves Declan Cronin shirt. Unfortunately, I. I wondered whether it actually was unique. Or if this is just something you could get for any MLB player, like maybe there was just an automated thing that uploaded this for every player. So I looked. There's no Just a Girl who loves Kyle Stower's shirt. There's no Just a Girl who loves Jensen junk shirt. So it actually does seem unique to you. I have no idea how this happens, but it did.

B (7:33)

Wow, that is interesting. And one can always count on you to do the deep digging on these things.

A (7:39)

Yeah. You're not googling yourself enough, clearly, because this is cursory research on my part. So.

B (7:44)

No.

A (7:45)

Yeah. If you do have a registry, just might not be a bad addition. Just 27.95 seems like a steal.

B (7:52)

Perfect.

A (7:52)

Yeah. I wanted to ask you about wedding scheduling because Brittney Giroli of the Athletic wrote an article about a year ago about how it's. It's tough to schedule your wedding as a baseball player. She wrote there are only two months for a baseball wedding, November and December. Securing a date not just for prospective venues, but to work around other engaged baseball couples is nearly its own sports. So has that been your experience?

B (8:19)

Yeah, I remember reading that article and it was right after. Around the time that I got engaged. So it's felt extremely relevant at the time. Yeah, there's definitely truth to that. I mean, obviously as a baseball player, you miss a lot of weddings. You know, I've missed a lot of close friends weddings over the years because we're in season and really have no flexibility to travel outside of, you know, whatever the game schedule demands. But when you're planning your own wedding, you're also similarly restricted by the demands of the schedule. So yeah, you really have, I guess October through technically beginning of February, but I don't think anybody wants to get married right before spring training or anything like that. So when you actually sit down and look at the calendar, you know, we wanted to do it before the new year because, you know, generally January is a pretty serious time for, for on ramping. And also my fiance plays professional soccer in the nwsl, so they report in mid January. So we also have her schedule to work around. And that just adds a layer of complexity to it. But yes, that's very real. I know there was a lot of Marlins guys that got married this offseason and that was, you know, definitely the talk in the clubhouse last spring training was, you know, how everybody's weekends were filled with weddings and some guys were going to have to unfortunately miss some for. For others or their own or whatever. It might Be. You can only plan so much and there are really only so many weekends in the off season to get married. It's definitely a real thing. We were lucky that we got a date that worked for a lot of people, but. But not for everybody.

A (9:50)

Yeah, even October is. Is kind of off limits. I mean, you hope it's off limits, right? You can't plan at least on being available in October because you hope you'll still be playing and. And your guests might too, so.

B (10:01)

Exactly. You can't. You can't schedule your wedding in October. That's a pretty bad juju.

A (10:05)

What's going on with the. The MLB NWSL love connection here because it's. It's you. I didn't even know. And then Dansby Swanson. Right. And Jeremy Pena, all engaged and. Or married to n players. Is this like. Is there some sort of matchmaking service? How does this happen?

B (10:23)

Yeah, yeah, I think. Yeah, I think we all were all on the platform now. We. I noticed I obviously knew about Dansby and Mallory for a while just because, you know, both, you know, titans of their respective games, you know, especially Mal's, you know, the face of professional women's soccer in America, I would say. But yeah, there's more of us than I. Than I realized. Maybe we should get a group together, a support group. No, I'm just kidding. But no, it's interesting. I wonder why that is. Part of. It could be just that the seasons align and it makes things a little bit easier to have somebody that can relate to our schedule, which is not necessarily easy on significant others.

A (11:06)

Yeah, I wonder about that because, I mean, it's not uncommon for people in similar lines of work to end up together just because you're in sort of the same circles. And in my circles, there are writers and journalists who end up getting married to each other, baseball writers, that sort of thing. My wife has nothing to do with the industry I'm in and I actually kind of like that, I guess because I worry that if she were in the same line of work, we'd just constantly be talking shop and we'd be like, I don't know, competing for stories or something and just. It would feel like I was kind of on the clock, even in my off hours or something. So is it good to have a fellow professional athletes to be kind of your life partner because you can identify over so many similar things and challenges and training or everything? Or does that make things even more difficult because you both have like, all of these, you know, competitive concerns and obligations and demands on Your time.

B (12:03)

I think it is ultimately a huge positive. Just someone who understands the fact that, you know, there's a limited window for a career and there's certain sacrifices you need to make during those years to, to, to maximize, you know, your potential as an athlete and your performance on the field. Like, it's very helpful when your partner is also kind of chasing those same goals, no pun intended in Paige's case. So, yeah, no, I think at least for, for us it's, it's been a huge benefit to be able to have someone that relates to, to that side of things and can understand that, you know, while others might be doing more, quote unquote fun stuff with their time. We're planning, training and stuff in our off seasons, you know, and even around the holidays and things like that and around our own wedding, you know, like just still prior. Finding a way to prioritize our career as athletes might seem, you know, a little silly to other people, but for us it's a huge deal and it's nice that we both are kind of on the same page with that.

A (13:07)

Yeah, I guess it's tough from a planning perspective also, just in the sense that you never know where you're going to get traded or whatever. I mean, that's not easy on, on any family, obviously, and having to uproot your partner potentially or your kids or just see them only part of the time. But you know, if you're a baseball player and you've gone from the White Sox to the Astros to the Marlins to the Rangers. Right. And you know, you hope you'll stay in one place for a while, but you never know for sure. And if your wife is in the same boat, then. Yeah, what, what happens, I guess if you are playing in different places and your schedules don't sync up, up.

B (13:43)

Yeah, I think we've never been in the same like even time zone, I don't think for more than a little bit at least. And Paige, my fiance, has, has done her fair share of bouncing around as well trades and she was taken a couple years ago in an expansion draft out to Salt Lake City. So she's been in Utah for the last couple years. Luckily, their season allows for a little more personal time. I would say that, you know, they have a few more two to three day chunks of off time scattered throughout a pretty long season, a little bit longer than ours. So she's the MVP during the playing season, coming to see me kind of wherever I am. But it's been funny when I was in AAA in 2022 or 3. We both had connecting flights through Atlanta, I want to say, and met in the airport for, like, a cup of coffee before she got on her flight to wherever she was going and I got on mine. So, know, sometimes it's little stuff like that that's just kind of the stars align, but more often it's Paige coming out and, you know, spending a series with me somewhere else. Obviously, this year will look a little bit different, but, yeah, she's. She's been fantastic.

A (14:56)

Well, Jersey Girl and Jersey Guy, I. I see. So, I guess, yeah, your families, your roots are in the same vicinity, at least.

B (15:04)

Yes. Yes. That is nice.

A (15:06)

Okay, well, enough prying into your personal life, at least for now. It's been an eventful year for you, and this is just the latest life event and. And a happy one. This seems like a good way to end the year on an up note. Cause it's been a challenging year, at least baseball wise, which was not the case in the two preceding seasons. I mean, they're all challenging in some way, but they were banner years for you. 2023, you make the majors. 2024, you spend the whole season in the majors. 2025, things didn't quite go as planned. So last year, you led all Marlins relievers by a lot in innings pitched. You had a very. Not allowing a home run, snapped only after I brought it up to you on effectively wild. And then you immediately gave up one. You were named the team's Rookie of the Year. So, all going well. And then spring training arrived, and I guess the first sign of trouble was some left hip discomfort. So take me through that.

B (16:09)

Yeah, um, in spring training last year, obviously, you know, as you said, was. Was feeling really good, was ready to kind of take another step forward and be an even bigger part of that bullpen and a part of a team that was looking to do some exciting things with a lot of other younger, whether in years or in experience, players on that roster. And yeah, in the. I don't know exactly when it was, but after, you know, a couple outings, maybe even one or two outings, we identified some stuff that we wanted to work on. And I use we because it was truly a collective, you know, agreement and effort. And I started adding a couple new drills to my kind of daily prep routine. And one of these ended up just completely, for lack of a better term, like shredding some of my deep internal rotators in my left hip. Maybe shredding's a little extreme, but certainly straining. And these are really delicate little muscles that Even like the first doctor in Miami that read the MRI had to look up what the names of the muscles were. That's how, you know, you're dealing with like, a pretty unique injury. And the thing was, it would feel normal until kind of foot strike. And then when I was actually completing rotation of my hips was when I would feel the pain. So, you know, obviously tried to throw through it for a little bit. We realized I was going to miss the start of the season, but thought it wouldn't be something that would keep me out out much longer. So started the year on the il, ended up, you know, missing a good chunk of spring training as well. And unfortunately, the rehab for it was very touch and go. I think what we initially thought the injury was, too, was slightly different from what it actually was. I ended up, you know, building up, throwing wise, getting kind of cleared for a rehab assignment, but still not feeling 100. And when I went like full game speed, effort, I would feel it, but I was really eager to just get back to pitching in games. And I think, you know, if anything was pushing them to, to allow me to, to kind of rehab things a little quicker, obviously, you know, Hindsight is, is 2020, and things that seem, you know, very apparent right now are rarely as apparent to, to us at the time. So, you know, what I probably should have done was taken some, some serious time off from throwing and just actually allowing the, the muscles and the tissue to fully heal before putting them through that stress again. But I, I wanted to kind of go, go, go. So we, quote, unquote, kept the arm moving, kept throwing. I was cleared for rehab assignment. I went out, I made one outing where I felt actually pretty good, and then I had a second outing either the next day or after one day's rest, and felt kind of right back to square one with the hip. So I was pulled from my rehab assignment, go back to Miami, end up getting in with a hip specialist in Nashville who saw things a little bit differently than what we had been seeing them as. And from that point on, kind of changed the rehab plan a little bit. Took a little bit more time off from throwing, but still was doing some low effort throwing just to keep the arm moving in various ways. But start to come back from that. I'm feeling much better at that point. Like the pain threshold is down. I'm not really feeling it even when I am trying to find it. So feeling really good about that. I want to say this is mid May or so. I was ramping back up, getting cleared to go on Another rehab assignment. I'm happy that I'm pain free. The team flew me up to Chicago through live abs at Wrigley and felt really good, and that was a really good day. And I was cleared to go on a rehab assignment. So I went back on a rehab assignment and this whole time, my velocity had been down a little bit. My shapes have been a little bit off. But I and everyone else kind of thought, okay, you're just getting back into the swing a bit. Like, you got to remember this is kind of like a second off season on ramp for you. Like, things aren't going to be as crisp as you want them to be. The calendar says May or June, but you know, to your body, this is like October, November, December. Right? Like, you're going to have to work through some stuff, right? So I went back out on my rehab outing. I was pain free, but, you know, I think I made three or four outings and just, you know, didn't look like myself. So I was optioned because I was healthy. And the conversation was still, look, this is going to be a one or two week thing. You're going to, you know, come back, find your stride, and you'll be back in the bullpen. Just like right now. You're just not, you know, who you. Who you are. Like, you're not pitching to your full capability. You know, the numbers aren't where we need them to be or where you need them to be.

A (20:48)

And.

B (20:48)

And I completely agreed. I mean, at the time I was saying I'm pain free, I really thought I was one or two weeks out from everything, clicking. I also didn't want to be prematurely dropped into the major leagues where, quite frankly, it's tough up there. You want to really feel like your best self, or at least something close to it when you're going out there every day. And I didn't feel like that. I didn't have the confidence or the performance kind of metrics to justify that. So I think we were all on board with that, as frustrating as it was. But yeah, so I was in aaa and honestly, I just never got back to what I felt like before the hip injury. And when I was looking at video and even speaking to the biomechanists in Miami, you know, things were just different. And unfortunately, like, I was trying to cue things and working on various drills and stuff and daily work and certainly no shortage of people trying to help me. But my body had patterned over months of low intensity throwing and. Or throwing with pain, like a certain kind of compensatory movement patterns that just totally compromised my ability to throw how I want to throw. And so, even though I was pain free, I could not convince myself to throw normally and to use my lower half specifically normally. And there were a lot of other compensations, one of which was things in my upper half were compensating around what was happening in the lower half, which led to some shoulder pain. Initially. I ended up getting a. A little brief IL stint to let that calm down. And then the All Star break. And when I came back from the All Star break, the shoulder felt good, but I was moving the same way. I remember thinking to myself, like, something has to give here, because I can't keep throwing like that. And my velocity actually started to creep up while I looked still the same kind of just bad moving, you know, bad mechanics way on the mound. And, you know, I think after a couple weeks, like, I still was starting to throw a little bit harder, but shapes were not there. Something was still not right. And eventually, obviously culminated in, you know, blowing out my elbow, which, you know, the thought crossed my mind, not that I felt anything in my elbow, but I. Looking at myself throw and looking at video and breaking things down, I was just like this. I don't know how much longer I can keep this up before something goes wrong. Like, especially adding in increased velocity and stuff like that, you know, my body was finding a way to produce better output, but it didn't look how it should have. So, yeah, it ended up kind of ending in the worst way possible.

A (23:30)

Yeah, that's a lot to go through. What was the initial drill, the fateful drill that you think could have started all of this?

B (23:39)

Yeah, I think it was a. It was a water bag drill we were doing where we had identified that there was some room for. There was some skin on the bone in terms of how I was completing rotation with my hips after landing. And I totally agreed. I mean, we had good conversations with this, myself and the staff in Miami. And I was on board that my 2024 movement was a little bit off from spring training 2025. And they thought that this was a good drill that would help kind of feel what it was like to get back into that position. And I totally agreed. And I actually really liked the feel. The problem was, I think it was just too much force and load on. On a pretty, like, end range position in the hip. And again, like, you could give that drill to 99 guys, and maybe only one guy tears those tiny little muscles that I did. Unfortunately, that that is what happens.

A (24:32)

So, yeah, yeah, it's gotta be frustrating to not know what's wrong exactly, because of. At least if you blow out your elbow, that's bad news, but at least there's kind of a clear way to treat it or a recourse or, you know, we'll get into what the actual diagnosis and treatment there was. But yeah, if you're kind of have something that's uncommon and maybe experts seem to disagree about it, then it's tough to know where to go next or. Or what exactly is wrong because you kind of have to identify the problem before you can come up with a solution.

B (25:06)

Yeah, exactly. And I think it was just one of those things where people just really didn't have an answer. And, you know, even the. The specialist that we saw in Nashville, he and his team had really only seen it in like, a couple hockey players. And usually when people have that injury that I had, it also comes with like, some serious trauma to the hip at large. Like, you know, you're also tearing a lot of other stuff and these muscles get there like no one had really seen. Everything looks fine except these two little muscles buried deep in the hip musculature. Like, that was. What was so odd about it, is there really wasn't there. There is no return to play plan for that. And so, you know, we were kind of just trying to do our best and. And I think we. We did do that, but we just didn't, you know, know, and there was really no precedent for it, especially for baseball.

A (25:54)

Yeah, you didn't get body checked into the boards or anything, which to figure out what happened.

B (26:00)

Exactly. Exactly.

A (26:02)

Yeah. So. So I guess it's. It's often called a cascade injury or an injury cascade when one thing goes wrong and then you compensate, maybe even without being aware of it, and then that places additional strain on something that's not accustomed to it, and then something else down the chain breaks too. And I guess maybe that's what happened with the hip and then forcing you to do different things and then that has an effect on the elbow. So was it a single traumatic thing where you just. You felt something give. Or was it just that things weren't feeling right? So you got checked out and. And realized there was an issue with the elbow.

B (26:41)

It was one pitch. It's. Honestly, it's so funny and strange. Like you hear people describe the feeling of what it's like to tear your ucl, but if you've never experienced it yourself, you don't quite know exactly what they're, you know, referring to. Yeah, and describing. But when it happened on that pitch, I immediately knew, Like, I immediately was. Was kind of matching what I was feeling up with, you know, the probably tens of descriptors I've heard from other people. And obviously with. With ucls, you know, it's going to be different for everybody. I forget the percentage, but I think I want to say it's actually more often that you don't feel like a pop or a one pitch that you can point to where it happens. But for me, I. I could. I mean, I remember I could feel the space in my elbow expand at ball release. If as crazy as that sounds, and we're talking about millimeters here, like, it just felt different and then was obviously quite painful, but I kind of felt that. That pop and. And release of tension.

A (27:45)

Okay. Yeah. I was gonna ask if it. If it was actually pain or if it was just sort of an unnatural sensation or a popping feeling, but I guess all of the above.

B (27:55)

Yeah. I mean, in the immediate aftermath, it was quite painful. And I actually tried to throw another pitch after and kind of. I played it off like, oh, that was weird. Even though in my head I think I knew, but I threw another pitch after, and that was quite painful. But then it was kind of weird because by, like, the next morning, nothing really hurt except the, you know, tests that are designed to hurt it. Like, so that was kind of interesting, too. Like, I. Maybe I expected it to hurt ambiently a little more than it did, but it's certainly a unique thing.

A (28:26)

So if you could go back in time, I guess you said, you know, you'd. You'd rather that you had just taken more time off. It's tough because you're coming off this successful first full season and you want to build on that, and you probably feel like your team needs you. The Marlins finished 26th in bullpen WAR this past season, although fifth in bullpen win probability added. So I guess they had great timing. So that's. That's kind of interesting. But. Yeah, how. How would you advise that teams try to counteract that tendency to rush guys back or, you know, talk players out of that idea that, like, I. I gotta keep going because it must be so hardwired into athlete?

B (29:11)

Yeah, I think it's very difficult to be off the field, especially for something that isn't like an elbow surgery or a labrum or an ACL or something like that, you know, for, like, for a kind of weird soft tissue injury, you almost want to just, you know, get it over with and get back out there. But I think there's a lot of, obviously, incentives out there, and I guess most of them are aligned. You know, they want you back out there, you want to be back out there. Maybe the timelines look a little bit different one way or the other. Usually one of the two parties is a little more cautious than the other. I think the first time around, maybe I was a little more aggressive, and then after seeing the specialists, they were. Or sorry, other way around after seeing the specialist, I think they were a little more cautious and encouraging me to take the time it took. But yeah, I mean, it's tough being off the field. And again, especially for something that doesn't have a set timeline like that or you don't really know what you're dealing with, you're going to want to kind of set that timeline yourself. And, you know, I got in my head that, okay, I want to be back in a couple weeks. So, okay, what do I need to do to get back in a couple weeks? I need to, you know, keep throwing and get ready and just hope that the hip meets me somewhere along the way. Which, which wasn't the case. But I think it's very difficult. Especially in my case, it's very difficult. But in general, I think it's difficult because obviously the best thing to do probably is to be, be extremely cautious. But that keeps players off the field longer, and you can't do that. You know, you can't just shut everybody down anytime something happens and then ramp them back up and miss half the season for something relatively minor, even though that might be the best for their longevity or something like that. We, we understand that, you know, our job is to be out on the field playing, so I think it's tough and obviously, as you said, like the cascading effects. Yes, we all, we're all aware and I think, you know, I was trying to mitigate those. You know, it's especially not lost on me that these things happen, that one thing can lead to another. But ultimately it's really tough when you're going out there and still, you know, trying to, to pitch in games and, and collect outs, whether it's in AAA or the big leagues. Like you're a competitor first and you're, you're thinking less about everything else. I think when the lights turn on.

A (31:21)

So your last outing in the minors, I assume that's when this happened, was August 16th, and then you got the surgery late September. Right. So what happened in the interim? Did you have to get multiple opinions or was it pretty clear cut what you were gonna do.

B (31:38)

It was pretty clear cut. So I decided with the Marlins and, and myself and my agent that I would have Keith Meister in Dallas do the surgery. He's obviously the hottest ticket in town these days, unfortunately, because there's so many surgeries to be done. And so while we were somewhat fast tracked to get in with him, it just took a little bit of time to, to get in, meet with his team, and then get a surgery date on the calendar. Because of when it happened, it was pretty clear that unless I got the surgery right away, I'd probably miss 20, 26 season anyway. So that gave us a little bit of, of grace there that there wasn't like a huge rush to, to, to get under the knife as. As much as I wanted as soon as possible, obviously to start that clock. So yeah, I mean, I, I did fly out to Dallas to see him. You know, the MRI was read by a number of people within Miami's kind of network of, of doctors and was pretty clear that I needed, you know, the full UCL reconstruction. But nobody really wanted to say that for sure until I had seen him.

C (32:44)

Him.

B (32:45)

And then when I saw him, you know, he was like, yeah, your, your ligaments shredded, man. Like, there's no, there's no, there's no hope here.

A (32:52)

No PRP and, and rest.

B (32:54)

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So he's like, you got two options. You can get the surgery or you can like try to rehab it and probably never throw a pitch again. So basically you're, you're getting the surgery. Yeah, it just took a little bit of time, honestly, just to get on the calendar there. So part of that was, or a result of that was, was nice that I was able to do a lot of like, prehab work. So I had really over a month to prepare my body for the surgery. So I was just kind of working out, you know, five days a week and doing a lot of prehab work for the surrounding musculature and the forearm and, and the arm itself to, to make rehab as, as, you know, easy as possible and on myself and to hit the ground running as best as possible. So in that sense, there's obviously there's been a lot of research that, that's very beneficial for ACLs, where actually delaying surgery and doing a set kind of pre habilitation program leads to better outcomes on the back end. I don't think there's research for the ucl, at least not documented. But that was kind of the attitude I had was that, you know, this will be good for me in the long run will make rehab a better road.

A (34:02)

Yeah. So there was no possibility of internal brace or one of the newer variants of the surgery. It was straight ahead traditional tj.

B (34:12)

Yeah, it's. You're really kind of at the mercy of how the ligament tears and just the kind of the. The way that mine was. Was torn, there was really nothing to brace, unfortunately. But what Keith Meister does and what a lot of surgeons now are doing is actually when they take the graft and put in your new ligament, they'll also. He adds an internal brace as well. So you're getting the best of both worlds as well. So I have a new ligament taken from right behind my knee, and I have that kind of wrapped around the internal brace. So in theory, this thing is as strong as it can get.

A (34:50)

Yeah. So you're one of the lucky 70. It looks like major or minor league pitchers as of this recording, who've undergone a documented Tommy John surgery this season. So plenty of company.

B (35:03)

Yes. No shortage of company. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, exactly.

A (35:07)

And were you talking to a bunch of other people in the game who've had it already about tips and tricks?

B (35:13)

Yeah, honestly, it was fantastic. The outpouring of. Of support from. From guys that I've, you know, played with at some point, but maybe don't keep in, you know, touch with regularly who. Who saw the news and reached out with advice and encouragement and stuff like that. It's been really helpful. Obviously, there were a fair number of guys in the Marlins org as well who. Who were the first to reach out and kind of offer me anything they could to. To help with, you know, what to expect and certain things they wish they knew, you know, going in and stuff like that. So that's been really helpful. There's obviously a huge and ever growing community of guys that have gone through it, which. Which certainly helps as somebody going through it for the first time, to know that, you know, a lot of the guys I've played with and guys I look up to, you know, have. Have undergone this and come back from it even better and. And gone on to throw a lot more innings. So.

A (36:08)

So by the time you actually went under the knife, you were no longer a member of the Marlins organization. Right. Because they.

B (36:14)

Yes.

A (36:14)

They released you in September. So. So walk me through this, because I guess they had the option. I mean, you weren't in the big leagues when this happened, but you were on the 40 man. Right. So, yes. A team could just continue to carry a player on the 40 man while he rehabs from this Surgery and you could, you know, keep using their facilities or whatever. Right. So is this. Were you expecting that to happen? Did it take you by surprise that you were released before the surgery, or how does that typically work?

B (36:48)

Yes, it was very surprising. Certainly not something that I anticipated or anybody close to me anticipated, but also kind of wasn't what we had been told, but. And nothing I'd ever seen before. But, you know, check the rule book. They're allowed to do it, so power to them to exercise their rights. I'm not one to get in the way of that, but yes, it was shocking. I was actually in North Carolina, out in Cary, like Raleigh area, and I was happy to be able to catch one of my fiance's games in September, which is a rare slash impossible occurrence with my normal schedule.

A (37:28)

Yeah.

B (37:28)

And it was the night before her game. I turned my phone off and I was just about to set my alarm. This is like 10 something at night. And I realized I have a missed call. So I call the number back and then I'm informed by Marlon's front office member that I'm being released. And that's kind of it. So that was the last I spoke to anyone over there. And that was, you know, pretty close to the surgery date at that point. Which also, you know, obviously just as a human being, was a little bit stressful to hear, you know. You know, in my head I'm thinking, okay, I'll be on the 60 day aisle next year. It's not ideal, but as situations go, it gives me a good chance to get back and get all the, you know, resources I need and have a fair shake at, you know, earning my spot back in 27. But now that's kind of thrown out the window after I received that phone call.

A (38:22)

That seems kind of callous. I wonder, I mean, is this something that you think there should be a rule change or that you would advocate for? You know, I assume it's a collective bargaining issue, but is that something you would be in favor of preventing a team from doing? What happened to you?

B (38:41)

Well, the reason it's so rare is that most teams wouldn't do that. They would rather actually hold onto the player and rehab them and, and see what they've got on the other end. You, you just don't hear about it because most organizations don't, you know, I guess operate that way. But the thing with the release versus DFA too, is in the rule that they can release me, but, you know, they are punished by. I become a free agent so I can go anywhere Right. Obviously players are protected from being DFA while they're injured because then if they clear waivers, they just end up at the same team and you've effectively just gotten the guy off the roster who's going under surgery, which is probably worse. So given the choice between the two poisons, you'd rather be released? And again, I don't think there needs to be any huge legislation about this because it doesn't happen because it doesn't usually align with what the teams want. But obviously if you're looking to. Well, I actually don't even want to speculate on what the reasons were, so. But you know, one can imagine if you don't want to, you know, pay the money for a year or something like that and that's the reason, then I guess you should be able to do that.

A (39:50)

Does that have then service time implications for you if you had been on the 40 man throughout the rehab and recovery and everything, that you could have been accruing service time or.

B (40:00)

Yeah, so I would have gotten, yeah, a full year of service time next year.

A (40:04)

Well, that sucks.

B (40:07)

Ben. It's not ideal, but. But I'm at least at peace with the logic of it. And you know, at the end of the day too, like, Miami was great to me. They gave me a lot of opportunity and you know, they selected me off waivers in 2024 right before spring training and gave me a shot and a really fair shot and I really enjoyed my time there. So I don't want to say, you know, just because of how it ended. I don't want to, you know, give the impression that I'm not grateful for everything they did do for me. Obviously how it ended is just tough, but ultimately, like, I can be pretty dispassionate about this stuff. Like they felt it was the right decision for the baseball club and they made it. So it's like it's okay. I'm okay with the logic of that at least.

A (40:55)

Yeah, I guess you come to terms pretty quickly with the whole baseball is a business maxim. So yeah, for sure it's. They do have a full 40 man roster right now, but I don't know how urgent it was. I mean, you know, I guess they're hoping to contend they had a somewhat surprisingly successful season. But you know, I haven't really gone through the 40 man to see like, was there really no room at the end that they couldn't have carried you for a year there? But that's, you know, kind of cold blooded. I mean, that seems like the sort of thing that maybe wouldn't like, lead to the best reputation for an organization when it comes to like being player friendly and everything. And you know, obviously you've gone to the Rangers. We'll talk about that. But in the immediate aftermath of it, like, do they have any obligations to you in terms of like, I mean, you know, I assume the procedure's covered by insurance and then like, if you have training facilities that you can use, like, was that even a question of like, where am I even going to recover from this?

B (41:57)

Yeah. So that, that is a nice protection that's in there is that if I had not signed with anybody, they would be still obligated to cover all of the surgery, rehab and everything until I was like cleared to play, basically.

A (42:10)

Huh. And so you would have like awkwardly been at their facilities even though they've released you?

B (42:17)

No, I would not be welcome at their facilities. I would have to be doing that somewhere else. But they would cover it. Yes, yes, exactly.

A (42:23)

Huh. Okay. Well, fortunately, that isn't an issue now because the Rangers signed you shortly after the surgery, I guess is, Is that right? And you signed a two year minor league deal, which is kind of unusual. It's, it's not uncommon to see a multi year major league deal for someone who is returning from surgery. And you figure that they're probably not going to pitch that first season or not much, and you're hoping that you can kind of catch them on the rebound in the second season. But know, you, you, you don't often, I don't think, see the, the multi year minor league deal. And maybe that's because you don't often see what happened to you because usually, usually you would just still be in your old organization. So how did, how did this take shape and when things happened very quickly.

B (43:12)

You know, my agent was down with me in Texas when I had the surgery and as soon as it was, you know, a success and Dr. Meister signed off on that, that he immediately went to work. And by the time I woke up from my anesthesia induced drowsiness that afternoon where I napped for about three hours in the hotel, he had already, you know, talked to a large percentage of the teams in baseball and gotten some, you know, obviously we had the benefit of pretty long Runway before surgery to have a lot of these conversations. But, you know, once the surgery was deemed a success, we already, we didn't have offers in hand that day, but we had a ton of interest and, and we're feeling really good about my chances to get a two year deal, which obviously is what we wanted because, you know, I'll miss this next season. So. Wanted someone who was, you know, obviously invested in, with some skin in the game for a fair shake in 27. Texas was one of those teams, but was just one of many, honestly. And then when Skip Schumacher got hired as manager there, we had a brief kind of back and forth, and then the next day I had an offer in my hands from them.

A (44:23)

He was your manager in 2024. For anyone who's not making that connection.

B (44:27)

Yeah, yeah.

A (44:27)

Yep.

B (44:28)

That's important context, honestly. And so we had an offer from them, and they were actually the quickest to get us, you know, something in writing, and we liked the way it looked. And obviously I have said it a million times to anybody who will listen that I'd play for Skills Skip any day. So I was really excited to see that he was over there. So we jumped at the opportunity to get into that. Oregon, obviously, I know a lot of other, you know, staff actually know some. Some of the medical team over there and some players, and it just felt like a really good landing spot. They have a really good reputation for just kind of how they treat players and especially on the rehab side of things, how they take care of guys and get them back, return to play wise. So the stars seem to kind of align and that. That 24 hours and. And we got the deal done, which was. Which was really exciting.

A (45:15)

Yeah. Now you can get tips from Jacob deGrom, I guess, maybe.

B (45:20)

Yeah.

A (45:20)

So.

B (45:21)

Yeah, well, there's another guy that's been through it, so.

A (45:23)

Yeah, I. I think we've wondered about this before on the podcast, you know, you call a manager Skip, so what do you call a manager whose nickname was already Skip? Do you call him Skip, or does that seem too familiar?

B (45:36)

That is really funny. We've. We've joked about that too. Skip is Skip. Yep. But sometimes maybe Skipper. I don't know. I think last year in Miami, I always called Clayton McCullough Skipper because it just felt weird to call him Skip after that was our manager's name the year before. Yeah, maybe I'll get over that one day. But yeah.

A (46:00)

What do players call you? Do you have a baseball nickname?

B (46:04)

Not really. In Miami, funny enough, a lot of the guys called me Crowbar. We were. We were joking around, around players weekend in 2024, like, what our nicknames would be if we. They went back to the jerseys that had nicknames on the back. And I think Max Meyer came up with Crowbar for me, and it actually stuck to the point where like, all of the staff and players called me that in Miami for the next year or so.

A (46:33)

Okay. We'll see if it follows you to Texas, maybe.

B (46:36)

Yeah, maybe.

A (46:37)

Maybe Skip will bring it with him. So what was the actual surgery like? I assume most listeners have had some sort of surgery, if not Tabby John surgery. Is it like any surgery that requires anesthesia? Like, how long are you under and what kind of preparations do you have to do and what's the immediate recovery like?

B (46:56)

Yeah, I might be a bad person to ask for this because it's actually the first surgery I've ever had.

A (47:01)

Okay.

B (47:02)

But, yeah, so to me, it was unlike anything I'd ever done before. But my be like any surgery you might have done to you, but pretty standard. Yes. Went under. I think it was a very quick surgery, around 45 minutes or so. Yeah. Full anesthetic, woke up, was, you know, pretty out of it and pretty uncomfortable for that next day or so. The worst part for me, my arm felt great after surgery. Like, I had no pain in my elbow from the, the. Even from the trauma of the, like the incisions and what they're, you know, the work they're doing in there. My arm has felt great ever since. But I got my graft from my leg, as I mentioned earlier. Yeah, that was a hundred times worse. Like, pain wise, restricting mobility, I couldn't really, like, bend my leg much for the first 24, 48 hours. Ish. So getting up and down, out of seats or in and out of bed was really, really difficult. And they definitely undersold that. That maybe intentionally so. But yeah, I was like on a crutch for the first four or five days and then did rapidly get better, which is what they said is they're like, oh, it'll hurt a little bit. But by a week out, nobody really complains about anymore, which ended up being true. But I think they understood how bad the first, you know, 72 hours would be. So that was like, really what I was complaining about mostly. And the next day when I went in for my post op, they were like, oh, yeah, that's what everybody says. Well, you're actually moving better than everybody. That or most people that we see. Which was hard to believe because I was like, hobbling around at, you know, a snail's pace with a crutch. But that was actually way worse. And I have had to do a lot of rehab for that as well. But I guess that was kind of the media aftermath. Yeah, flying was interesting. I was lucky that the fine folks in American Airlines took great care of me and definitely took some pity on me as well, seeing me in that pretty disheveled state the next day. But we got from point A to point B, all right. And yeah, honestly, once, about after a week or so, I was starting to feel more like myself and getting around the house and going to PT and starting the process.

A (49:10)

And now you're about three months removed, so where are you in the process?

B (49:14)

Yeah, I know, it's crazy. Time has definitely flown. I shedded my brace at six weeks, so I'm just over 11 weeks now. So I'm out of the brace. I have full range of motion. Starting to get my strength back next Monday, so a little wedding present to myself. I'll be able to get back in the gym with my right arm and start. It's kind of unrestricted weightlifting. Obviously, you know, I got a long way to go to regain the real strength there. But in terms of the little stuff and physical therapy, things have been going really well. So the arm feels great. The leg feels really good. Starting to feel more like an athlete every day, which is nice because obviously, as anyone who's been through any sort of procedure like that, you know, knows it's really tough to all of a sudden not be able to do all the things that you like to do, especially, you know, physical activity and working out and things like that, so. And then, you know, multiply that by 100 for someone whose livelihood is, you know, involved with getting into the gym and stuff like that. So. So it's been really nice to get back into the swing of things that way. And, you know, every day I'm getting closer to picking up a baseball again, so that kind of keeps me motivated.

A (50:29)

Yeah, I know. Just from what other pitchers say that it's. It's odd when you start throwing again and it just feels like you're kind of relearning how to throw and don't know where your arm is in space and all of that. So I guess that's all ahead of you. But.

B (50:42)

But it'll be.

A (50:43)

It'll be good to embark on that part of the process, at least. And it's good that you're less encumb.

B (50:50)

Yeah.

A (50:50)

Do you have any big picture thoughts about just, you know, the scourge of. Of UCL surgeries and how this just seems to be the bane of baseball's existence now? And I guess, you know, from your. I guess I should say fiance. Although by the time people hear this, it will be wife, you know, assuming she doesn't have Any second thoughts at the last second? I'm sure she won't, but in soccer, it's. It's acls, right? In women's soccer, yeah. In baseball, it's ucls. I mean, you know, it's. You are one of the. The pitchers who had a velo boost, right? That's something that you trained for. We probably talked about it on one of your previous appearances. And it. It seems like, you know, there is kind of a correlation there between guys throwing max effort and trying to throw as hard as they can. And inevitably there's going to be some weak point. And the UCL is often it, but all the incentives are aligned for a pitcher to throw as hard as they can, to throw the nastiest stuff to, you know, not really take anything off. So do you have any thoughts on how baseball can sort of solve this problem of, you know, not getting guys kind of conditioned to be the next on the table?

B (52:00)

Yeah, no. I mean, I. I probably don't have anything that hasn't been said by someone at some point. I can only really speak to my personal experience with it, which is, you know, for me, like, you spoke about, like, you know, I had. Had, you know, velocity gains and certainly stuff gains because I'm still not a guy that throws, you know, upper 90s, right. Like, you know, 93 to 95 and try to manipulate the baseball to. To be most effective. But, you know, if you gave me the choice between throwing 89 or 90 and never getting hurt or having the kind of career arc I've had now, if you gave me that choice five years ago, like, you know, I wouldn't be playing baseball still. Right. So, like, like, you have to think about it from that standpoint, right. Like the alternative to, you know, not gaining velocity or not trying to maximize your stuff and get the nastiest pitches you can is being out of baseball.

A (52:58)

Right.

B (52:58)

Like, yeah, you don't need Tommy John if you don't have a job and aren't playing baseball.

A (53:04)

Yeah.

B (53:04)

So I think obviously there's things that we can do to mitigate the risks, and I think there's a lot of people working really hard on that problem. But the incentives of the game from a pitcher standpoint are to, number one, primarily get batters out, but also to reduce contact, increase whiffs, strikeout percentage, stuff like that. And the way to do that, we know, is to throw harder, throw nastier pitches that get more whiffs, and until the object of the game changes, I just don't see this curve really flattening. To be honest. And there's certain things you can do to, like I said, like to mitigate that and to lower those risks. And I think, you know, I. I did a lot of that. Like, I think maybe, you know, if I don't train the way I do and take the kind of preventative measures I've taken in my career, I potentially blow out sooner. But it feels almost inevitable at this point. For guys, if you play long enough, you're going to have some sort of injury. It's, like, much rarer to see the guy that has a long career who hasn't gone under the knife at some point.

A (54:11)

Point, yep. And one possible solution I've advocated for is, well, if you reduce the number of pitchers on the active roster, then maybe that trickles down and eventually you get back to a place where guys are going deeper into games and, you know, they have to pace themselves more. And it's not max effort all the time. But I'm not a pitcher, so that's easy for me to say. Maybe you're thinking, wait, hold on a second. You want to lower the number of pitchers on the roster. That means fewer spots for me. So that doesn't work out in your favor either. So, yeah, there are all these competing incentives, and I guess what's good for the game, in theory, might not be good for an individual player, even if it's designed to sort of protect players. So it's all kind of an intractable problem, though I hope it won't be forever.

B (54:59)

No, and I do as well. I just. Maybe it's just above my head or my pay grade, but I don't see, like, a set solution. Because even what you suggest, like, my first thought is, but tell that to the guy that's there throwing, you know, not max effort and just getting whacked around the yard. Like, this is good for you. You know, this is good for the game.

A (55:17)

Yeah.

B (55:18)

Like, he's not going to like that very much. Right, right. He's going to want to, you know, try to strike guys out again. And. And that's really tough. I don't know. I don't know how we get around that.

A (55:27)

Yeah. And it's. It's bad for the game to not really be able to invest in. In a pitcher because you feel like, well, they might not be on the mound next year. You know, you. You buy your just. Just a girl who loves Declan Cronin shirt, and then maybe you. You can't wear it out to a Declan Cronin game for a while. Because you're, you're off the field. So that stinks. It stinks for fans. It obviously totally more for, for you, for the person who's actually getting the surgery. But do you think that because of the enforced inactivity that will benefit your hip? Do you have any concerns about the hip when your elbow is ready for action again?

B (56:03)

No, I don't. I'm, I'm feeling good there and even by the time that I did blow out my elbow, like my hip was feeling good. It was just a matter of the, the movement patterns had become so, you know, for lack of a better term, jacked up by months of, of really bad habit forming. It wasn't actually like an injury anymore, but I'm sure it'll only help with, with being able to kind of pattern things the way I want to when I get back though.

A (56:31)

Yeah, you just have to unlearn what you've learned, I guess, in those last few months, whatever it was that you were trying to compensate for. And, and I guess, you know, there's kind of a, mostly a myth, I think, of the idea that guys come back throwing harder and, and better than ever. I think maybe that's partly the perception is just because you weren't throwing as hard as you usually do before you got hurt. Like, like you, you know, your villa was down a little bit and so if you just get back to your baseline, then it looks like you got a boost, but really it was just getting back to where you were. But they do say also that just because of the training and the amount of time you're spending in the gym, just recovering from the surgery and getting back to full strength, that, I mean, it doesn't seem like, you know, not staying in shape was, was an issue for you. But I guess if you weren't fully getting after it pre surgery, then just the work it takes to get back maybe gets you in, in the best shape of your life perhaps.

B (57:24)

Yeah, I think, I think you definitely see that. And even for someone like me, I think it's still a really unique opportunity where you don't have to, you know, worry about competition for a little bit and can really just be completely developmentally focused for a 12 month period.

A (57:40)

Right? Yeah. So what will you do then with this year off, which is unusual in the middle of a career? Are you just going to be a regular at Utah Royals FC games or do you have to be or want to be around the team? I mean, like, what's your kind of connection to the Rangers while you're in this sort of transitional period while you're a member of the organization but not actually suiting up.

B (58:08)

Yeah, good question. So I'll actually be going to major league spring training with everybody else, and then I'm going to be in Arizona rehab for the. For the year. So I'll be at the complex up in surprise rehab in there. Obviously would love to be a Utah Royal super fan and hit every game. You know, I might have an opportunity to hit a few more than I normally would during the season. But, yeah, no, I'll still be. I'll be going into the complex every day and working with the pts there, train coaches there, you know, rehab, pitching staff there for 2026. Yeah.

A (58:42)

And you still have a side gig, right? We've. We've talked about your. Your job at Tread Athletics, and you still have that. So does that. You're an operations specialist there. Does this give you more time to work on things there? Is it still sort of the same workload?

B (58:58)

I anticipate the workload being, you know, fairly similar to years past, but, yeah, that will be really nice, as always, to stay kind of clued in and connected to those guys back in Charlotte when I'm gone.

A (59:11)

And it seems like the reputation of TREAD has only been enhanced because Tyler Zombro, who worked there or still works there in some capacity maybe. Yeah, he was hired by the Cubs about a year ago as a special assistant, and then they just promoted him to vice president of pitching after this most recent season. So that probably reflects well on the entirety of tread. So I. I guess that's good. And you've probably learned from being a colleague of his what's.

B (59:40)

Oh, yeah.

A (59:41)

What's the latest buzz at tread? Cause, you know, every year there's like, here's the new hot pitching trend. And it seemed like this year it was more about just like everyone having really deep repertoires and even relievers just throwing more pitch types than everything. That was the big buzz. And in the past, it's been about, you know, it's the year of the sweeper, it's the year of the splitter. Right. We saw tons of splitters on display in the postseason this year, and so people were. Or the sinkers making a comeback or, you know, the death ball was a Tread thing, right? I mean, that's right.

B (60:12)

Yeah.

A (60:13)

Yeah. So what's the cutting edge now? Or going into 2026?

B (60:18)

Yeah, that's a good question. Yeah, I think the kick change last year got a lot of press as well, and that was a really big one.

A (60:24)

Yeah.

B (60:24)

That's a good question. Maybe because I'm not throwing. I'm not as clued into or interested in that stuff right now. Like I'm not having as many of those conversations. I know right now everybody's really gearing up for their pro day, which is a huge event. It's like a three day event where you know, all 30 teams are represented and all free agents, you know, come into town or in town and throw. So that's a big point of focus. They're also doing some work with Asian teams and the KBO and the npb. So that's been really exciting. See a lot of those guys in house in Charlotte now every day from various teams from. From overseas. In terms of the next big fad, I'm not really sure if I have an answer on that one. I'm sure something will come up and we can turn back to here and say how did you not know this? But I can't. Nothing comes to the top of my head and I promise I'm not being, you know, secretive or coy. I really don't, I don't know.

A (61:21)

Yeah, yeah, me neither.

B (61:23)

But yeah, I'm sure we'll find out together though. There's always something, right?

A (61:27)

Probably. Well, I'm glad that we could catch up and I'm sorry that it was a rough year professionally speaking. But hopefully this was sort of an illuminating conversation as well because you know, we, we talked when you were riding high and things were going great and I certainly hope that that will be the case again soon. But you know, it's also probably eye openening I guess to go through a year when everything kind of goes wrong and.

B (61:54)

Yeah.

A (61:55)

And yeah. Then the insult to injury of the release and then the surgery and just all the rest of it. Yeah. Is you know, I guess this was hopefully the, the bottom and it'll only be uphill from here in 20, 26 and beyond.

B (62:09)

Yeah, yeah, that's how I feel about it too. So no, this is great. I'm always happy to talk and can't always just be talking when things are going great, so.

A (62:18)

Right. Yeah, it's the. Whatever the say if you don't love me at my worst, you don't get to love me at my best or whatever the, the Marilyn Monroe attributed saying is. So yeah, we gotta to talk to you when things aren't going so great so that we can celebrate the highs again when you get back to those. Is there anything that like given this time off, a longer term project that you are able to undertake because you normally just wouldn't have as much downtime. I mean, whether it's like learning a new pitch or something. I guess you always have the off season to work on things that are more in depth. But I wonder if it's a time to step back and take stock and say, what do I want to do with this? Time to improve myself as a pitcher while I. While I have the capacity to.

B (63:04)

Yeah, I think I want to treat myself as close to a kind of blank slate as possible when coming back. Obviously, I'll have certain touchstones that make me who I am, but I'm really excited to talk to the staff in Texas about their ideas for what I can change, improve, modify, work on moving forward to. To, you know, what they envision me being as someone that contributes to their club in 2027. So while I don't necessarily have the answers right now to what that looks like, like, I'm. I'm excited for those conversations and definitely want to use this as an opportunity to maybe work on some things that I either haven't had, you know, the time or bandwidth to in the past, but now, given this kind of unique situation, we'll actually have the opportunity to do so. Yeah, I'd be very surprised if you see me on a Mountain in 2027, and everything, you know, repertoire wise and even, you know, delivery looks the exact same. You know, I want to use this as an opportunity to, you know, right the wrongs and, you know, improve things that I can in this, you know, unique time frame that I have. So, yeah, we'll see what that looks like. I don't really know right now, but I'm definitely looking to do whatever I can.

A (64:18)

All right, well, looking forward to seeing you back out there eventually, however you look. And good luck with the rest of the rehab and the recovery. Recovery and, of course, the wedding.

B (64:27)

Thanks, Ben. Yeah, I appreciate that.

A (64:29)

And this past Saturday, Declan did indeed marry Paige Monahan. At The Church of St Ignatius Loyola, no less. That's just across the street from our high school, where we each went to Mass while we were at Regis. Somewhat reluctantly, in my case. Hey, you had to have been baptized to get in, but you didn't have to be a believer. But I am very grateful for that high school experience. And, no, I'm not giving away any secrets here. Paige put pictures on Instagram. Looks like it was a lovely ceremony, and I'm very happy that Declan was able to wrap. Wrap up a rough year professionally with a happy personal milestone. He seems to have a good head on his shoulders. But I'd expect nothing less from a fellow Regian. Now let's get to our second AAA pitcher of 2025, White Sox righty Duncan Davitt. Two, two pitch, swing and a miss. Davit's two, two got him swinging as this pitch comes in and it's a called strike three pitch. Swung on and missed. Not even close on a slider on, nobody out. The 1, 2 got him swinging. They off pitch with two on. This is a big one. Here it is and he got him swinging. It's one, two, swung on and missed. One, two coming. Swing and a miss. Two, two. Incoming slider got him for strike three. Two ball, two strike pitch and it's tipped into the mitt. Davit's got his 10th strikeout. Well, on the Friday before Christmas, the Indianola Iowa boys and girls high school basketball teams took tough losses against the Norwalk warriors coming off of convincing wins over the Lincoln Rail Splitters. I know that thanks to Duncan Davitt, sports reporter for the Indianola Independent Advocate. But Duncan doesn't just write sports stories, he's also the subject of them. He's right handed pitcher in the White Sox system who made it to AAA this year, was recently added to a 40 man roster for the first time and is one promotion away from the majors. And now instead of doing the interview doing he is the interviewee on effectively Wild. Welcome Duncan.

C (66:23)

Hi, thanks for having me on.

A (66:25)

I believe you got added to the 40 men, what, three days after you got married? Something like that. Yeah. That's quite a week.

C (66:32)

Yeah, it was, it was a good week. Meant to buy a Powerball ticket, didn't get around to doing that. But now it was a good time.

A (66:39)

Were you on a honeymoon or were you still in the post wedding high? And then you get Morgan.

C (66:45)

No. So it was, it was interesting. I, my agents were at the wedding and they came up to me at one point and they said hey, like if we, we think that some trades might happen and if that does, then we think you'll be on. So there was a pretty, there was a nice little wedding gift at the wedding that they told me about and then it didn't end up working out obviously like confirming that until later in the week. And my wife and I were not going to take our honeymoon until next fall, which, where, where we have a little bit more freedom to go where we please rather than have to find somewhere where I'd have to continue doing my workouts. So we're, we're taking a little breather before we go do the honeymoon. So we were still in Iowa at the time.

A (67:29)

And depending on how the next season goes, maybe you'll have a little more money to spend on the trip. Yeah, we'll see.

C (67:35)

That would be, that would be very nice.

A (67:38)

Well, we'll talk about the baseball, but I guess we'll, we'll bury the lead as we sports writers say here in. And talk about your side gig for a bit here. And I told you this via email, but it's, it's very flattering to the ego of a sports writer like me that you are interested in pursuing that also because it's not, it's not universal, but it's not uncommon for people to end up writing about sports because they had to stop playing them and that was their way to stay close to the game. And so here you are, you have not been forced to stop playing them. In fact, your career is ascendant and you, and yet you're still interested in doing the thing that we ink stained wretches and scribblers do. So tell me about your interest in sports writing and how and when this started.

C (68:25)

Yeah, so it was probably, I want to say the, the off season of 2023, where I had been back home. I was living in Des Moines. My parents, that's about 30 minutes from Indianola. So my parents were like, hey, we really need a sports writer. I know you studied history, so you did a lot of writing and stuff, but do you think you could write a couple sports stories for us? I was like, I mean, I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm completely terrified because I don't want to look like an idiot to all these people reading this, but I'll give it a go. So I went and covered a couple high school football games, showed up with my basically just a little black notebook to keep notes. And since then I started bringing my laptop to take a little bit more detailed notes. And it really just kind of blossomed from I need a little bit of extra cash in the off season and my parents needed a sports reporter and I found like, I kind of actually enjoy doing this. I get to see a lot of kind of up and coming players throughout the, the county in central Iowa and see some really talented players.

A (69:31)

Actually it is very funny that a professional athlete would pick up sports writing deciding to make more money because that's, it's not the most lucrative career.

C (69:41)

Yeah, right. It's the nature of minor league baseball where it's, you get paid and it's better than it's obviously 100% better than it used to be, but it's still not quite as much as you might want it to be, especially in the off season. So it's just a little extra boost to just kind of get you through the off season. It's not like a major league player may not need the money quite as much as a guy coming off of his first, first low. A high a season.

A (70:06)

Right. And if you are a major league player at some point, as you hope you will be, then how will that affect your sports writing aspirations, do you think? Will you, will you want to kind of keep a finger in just for the love of the game, so to speak?

C (70:20)

Yeah, I mean I always, like I said, my parents run the paper and I don't want to really necessarily leave them out to dry as much. And I, I've, like I've said I've come to enjoy it. So I'll probably continue doing some writing. At the very least, I'll continue writing the column that I do for the paper. Whether I do as much with the actual athletics side of it, like covering the high school side, I'm not sure, but I know for sure I'd continue doing the column. I think people, people around town really enjoy it and it acts as a sort of diary for me, for me. So I can get some stuff out when I need to.

A (70:55)

Yeah, much more material for Call to the Bullpen. Although you're working as a starter these days, right? So I guess you're not, you're not getting called in from the bullpen except unless you're warming for your first pitch.

C (71:07)

Yeah, pretty much. We couldn't, we couldn't think of a better name for it. So we're like, yeah, that's kind of a clever name. We'll, we'll go with that. So that's kind of how that one ended up.

A (71:15)

Yeah, well, I love it. I guess there are some sports writers who, who might be threatened by this. Like, oh, he's, he's a two way player. He can do it all, like get off our turf, you know, like you're encroaching on our corner like you're, you're athletically blessed and, and we're here relegated to writing. You think you could do that too, big shot?

C (71:34)

They should feel very secure because as much as my writing has improved over the last two or three years, it's still not as good as some of these very skilled sports reporters.

A (71:47)

Well, you're a sports writing prospect as well as a baseball prospect.

C (71:52)

I guess we'll Call it that. That works.

A (71:54)

I've always thought that and kind of fantasized about being the one in the clubhouse. If I were a player who the beat writers would want to talk to, like, I'd be the, the guy with the go to quote, you know, standing there. And they know they can come to me to give them some good material. Which, the fact that I've even fantasized about that as opposed to like athletic success probably goes to show that I'm in the right line of work, I guess. And your other line of work, I'm probably not quite cut out for because, yeah, the whole idea of, like, I'll be the best quote on the team, that's not exactly what you probably, probably grow up imagining when you're, you know, in the backyard with the. Yeah, it's game seven scenario.

C (72:33)

Exactly.

B (72:34)

That's exactly what I was going to say.

C (72:35)

It's, you know, more. More so pretending that I winning the World Series than that. But I kind of understand it. Just the nature of what your job is. That's kind of what you think about.

A (72:47)

Well, and has being on the other side of the tape recorder or the digital recorder or whatever it is and having to collect quotes now, has that made you more conscious of not just sor. Of spewing cliches? When someone comes to you after a game, you want to give them something good?

C (73:03)

Yeah, absolutely. It was funny, a couple weeks after being traded to the White Sox, I was doing something for their media people, some interview. I can't remember what it was for, but I remember calling my mom afterwards and I was like, mom, I just gave the worst interview of my entire life. Like, it was so bad. She's like, why? It was like I stuttered. I didn't know exactly what I wanted to say. I felt like I was talking in circles. It was, it was very funny because now that I see like all these high school kids, like, and obviously high school kids don't know how to give an interview. They're high school kids. They're just talking. So, yeah, I see all these kids talk in circles. Not really answer questions, not really give full in depth answers. And I'm like, okay, now I'm starting to see the problems of things that I did, did. And I've still, I still don't miss the landmines for them, but I know that they're there.

A (73:59)

Yeah. Do you. Have you gotten media training as a player? Just, hey, here's what to say, how to say it, what not to say, how not to get yourself into Trouble, that kind of thing.

C (74:08)

Yeah, I mean when, when I got drafted, the race did a very, maybe an hour or so long media training of hey, don't leave your teammates out to dry. Like if you messed up that day, like just take the punches. It'll be much easier than a three day story of you missing the questions rather than a one night of you having a bad game and some stuff like that. Like always make sure you're saying nice things about other people, like trying to look like a gracious person.

A (74:36)

Yeah.

C (74:36)

And I think those are all very, very good things to, to keep in mind when answering questions.

A (74:42)

There are probably some people out there who are thinking Nepo baby Duncan's parents own the paper. That's how he gets the gig. And let me tell you, you the only Nepo baby in sports journalism or the only person who is partly supported by their parents because that's how a lot of people get into the business, for better or worse. But tell me about the paper and about their journalistic careers and how they ended up in that position.

C (75:06)

Yeah. So my mom and dad have been in newspaper for sure. My mom has been in newspapers for literally my entire life. And my dad was in, in the papers in the Ames area and then a couple other places and then he took a small hiatus to be a state representative in the State House and then came back to it. But he, he does all the photography stuff or a lot of the photography things. While my mom does a lot of the edit editor, publisher role. She'll obviously write some stories because it's, it's not a very large newspaper. There's not really that many reporters that they have employed. So they run it pretty small. So they do most of the work themselves. They come cover Warren county, which is Indianola and the surrounding towns. So like Norwalk, which you had mentioned in your introduction, and then a couple other smaller high schools around, around the county. And those are kind of my responsibility when they play sports. So getting to drive out to some of these towns of maybe 700 people is always a very fun experience for me. Getting to see a different side of it.

A (76:13)

And as the paper's name suggests, this is an independent paper. And as I'm sure you're aware, it's a challenging time for local media and local papers these days. There's just been this great contraction, a death of local media and it has really negative effects. It can increase political polarization because just all politics is national now. It can reduce oversight of local government. There's no media watchdogs out There it can create a news desert where there's just no coverage of a local area. So how are they making this work and how hard has that been?

C (76:48)

You know, I would almost say that that is part of the reason that it does work. I think that, that people want to have local papers. They want to know what's going on in their town. They want to be able to look in the paper and see their kid playing basketball. So when my mom first decided she was going to start right or start doing this, she, she had relatively recently been laid off of the Gannett conglomerate, I guess with the Record Herald and the Des Moines Register. She had been with them for, for a long time and eventually was laid off as, as newspapers were contracting, as you mentioned. And then she decided she's just going to start writing a news blog, essentially just covering city council and maybe a couple other smaller stories around. And then she realized, hold on, I'm kind of getting a lot of people read this, like, let's see what happens. And they, they started this newspaper and it's been pretty successful over the last five or so years. And I, I think that one of the reasons for that is because people are interested in what's going on in their town and now that they have a place that they can go and see makes it much more accessible and much more easier for them to consume. Because my mom is a great writer and, and does a very good job of, of making things that. That may. Might seem complicated pretty easy to understand in the grand scheme of things. Yeah.

A (78:06)

Was that local coverage of you important when you were an amateur athlete? Let's say, were you saving clippings or did you think, oh, this is cool, I'm in the paper?

C (78:15)

Yeah, I definitely thought it was cool. I mean, we get our high school, there was like a clipboard of like our students in the news kind of a thing. And it was always kind of cool to like, go up to see this board as the year went on and you got to look at, oh, there's this person in the paper for doing this thing, and oh, there's this other person. So it was always, always like, people are always pretty interested in it, at least in high school, because, well, I'm in the newspaper, I'm in the newspaper. And I think that that's kind of part of the reason that I've started to look at this more as something fun to do rather than just a job, because I get to give that to some of the high school students around where they get to look at this and Say, hey, look guys, I'm in the paper.

A (78:56)

And I guess the unionization of the Miners, did that happen the year after your debut season season, just after you got drafted? And then yeah, I think I want.

C (79:06)

To say, yeah, CBA was signed. The 23. I think so.

A (79:11)

Yeah. Right, so you got in just before that happened. So as you mentioned, conditions have improved pay, has improved nutrition, all the rest of it, but it's still not the most lucrative, at least especially in the lower Miners. So yeah, how has that changed the need or the desire for guys to. To get jobs other than the year round job of prepping to be a professional athlete? But you know, it's just. It used to be commonplace in Major League Baseball for guys to get jobs in the off season and now not so much. But in the minors it's still pretty common. Guys will get coaching jobs and do something baseball related often. But is it as pressing now? Is it just because, you know, it used to be that, I mean, you play for a few months and you don't get paid well during those months and then you have to support yourself. So somehow.

C (79:58)

Yeah, I think that I would say most guys probably have something, whether it's finishing school or working, giving lessons or stuff like that. But I think you're right that it's definitely less pressing than it used to be, especially for guys that signed for a lot of money out of the draft or whatever. Yeah, they've got kind of money to fall back on, but I was an 18th round pick, I don't exactly have that. So even as the conditions improved and you get paid more during the off season and you still have to go home and you still have to make rent and whatever you were able to save during the season really only goes so far. So having something supplemental like that is always is beneficial in that way, but it's still like it, like I said, a little bit less pressing.

A (80:44)

Yeah. What did you do with your big $25,000 bonus after just. Did you just splurge on a mid tier, reasonably priced car or something?

C (80:55)

No, I actually, actually pretty much immediately put it into a high yield savings and a small mutual fund. So I tried doing my best to save it.

A (81:05)

Yeah, that's, that's a good move, I think. I've actually had an Iowa State representative On the podcast, J.D. scholten, who is, yeah, you know him, he's of course a pitcher as well. So he has multiple jobs and one of his issues was the MLB TV blackouts in Iowa, which I know have been really, really burdensome. Because you're blacked out of six teams despite most of them being very far away. And I assume that's still the case. So if you were to debut for the White Sox, your parents would have to go see you in person. I mean I'm sure they would want to anyway. But your, your friends, your extended family in Iowa would not be able to watch you I guess through legal means, through MLB tv. Because that's still an issue. Right. So has that been a problem for you just coming up as a baseball fan?

C (81:54)

Yeah, I mean I always, I mean I always would flip on a game and, and it'd be like the, I don't know, name two random teams and it would always be those teams. And if you, there's a couple local stations that would play the Cubs or occasionally the White Sox. But like if you wanted to find a Royals and, or a Cardinals game on a random Thursday night, like good luck like not having happening. But like you said, like a lot of these, my family and friends, Chicago is about a five or six hour drive from where I'm at. So it's kind of reasonable for a lot of people and a lot of my friends and family made the trip over to Omaha when we were up there. So I don't think that it would necessarily prevent a lot of people from driving over to Chicago and seeing, seeing me play there for the first time. But just in general I think, think, I think JD's on, on the nose with the, the blackouts. I think that at the very least there's room to make an extra level of the subscription to get through the blackouts and just put the local station on that broadcast. Like, I, I'm not sure why the blackouts exist. Like I, I can't imagine that any reasoning really makes up for kind of the lack of, of, of coverage of teams that people probably really care about.

A (83:16)

How do Iowans feel about Field of Dreams? Are you just like so inundated with Field of Dreams from childhood that you're sick of it or are you obligated to love it or what are your feelings about it?

C (83:28)

I mean, I, I, I'm not sure if it's so much an Iowa thing or at least for me it's not so much an Iowa thing, it's more of just how much do you love baseball? Like for me, I love the Field of Dreams. It's really cool. Don't tell Iowans. I've never actually been in. We're a good four hour drive away from Dyersville. Probably if I had to guess so it's never really been in the cards for me to get out there just because I've always been busy. But I think that the idea of it is cool and beyond just, oh, let's make a movie about a guy with a baseball field in his cornfield. It's not so much about that. It's about loving something so much that you're willing to sacrifice for it. And I think the idea behind that is.

A (84:09)

Is.

C (84:09)

Is awesome and. And it's kind of a really cool message for. For them to put out to people. And I really enjoy the. The game that they hold there. When the Yankees and the White Sox played out there back in 2022 was such a cool game. Having guys come out of the field. I mean, it's just a really cool atmosphere, and it's a place you don't get to see big league players play. So. So it's. It's an interesting spot.

A (84:37)

Yeah, you were a few years late, I guess. Maybe if the White Sox can go back there, then you can finally make it to Dyersville. You can actually just pitch. That'd be nice.

C (84:44)

Yeah, I'd be good with that.

A (84:46)

That'd be a good. Just human interest story for the game, I think. Just, you know, at least promote you. Keep you around the hometown kid playing in the field of dreams game. That would play well. So as a prospect, as a baseball player, I'm sure that you study what other pitchers do and you compare yourself to their stuff and maybe you. You model. Model yourself after them to some extent. Do you do that now as a writer? You were just the subject of a good profile from the Des Moines Register, which I. That's how I heard about your. Your other career. And so are you reading that and kind of evaluating it now as a writer and. And trying to figure out what can I pick up from this? Or reading other baseball writing or sports writing to mine it for tips and tricks?

C (85:29)

Yeah, to. To an extent, for sure, Sure. I think my biggest problem with sports writing typically is that I add too much to it. Like, it's too long. So.

A (85:39)

Yeah, you and me both.

C (85:41)

Yeah. I. I've tried to learn from people how to write interesting things, like things that sound interesting to read without adding 50 extra words that don't need to be there. That's kind of been my struggle. I also. I've picked up a couple of phrases like where kind of. It's. It's fluff, really. Sorry. There are dogs going crazy, but it's. It's fluff. If we're being Honest. But it's interesting fluff that doesn't take too long to say. So I've kind of picked up some of those short phrases as well.

A (86:15)

Yeah, it's like learning a new pitch or something. Something for sure you've done and maybe are doing. You wrote a column, I think, last offseason about just what the offseason is like, like for a player. And you've gone to an independent facility to work on things, and yet you're in communication with the team. So how have things changed since you were traded last year or earlier this year from the Rays to the White Sox? What did the White Sox tell you about what they want you to work on, if, if anything that's different from what Tampa Bay told you?

C (86:45)

Yeah, no, I think that the White Sox have done a good job with. With kind of understanding where I'm coming from. The Rays are obviously a fantastic organization all across the board, especially with their pitching side. So I think the White Sox kind of understand that and say you're coming from an org that does a really good job of pitching. These are our suggestions. We kind of know that you understand this. So, for example, like, this offseason, I really was not looking to change a whole lot pitch wise. And then I was throwing some change ups. I was like, man, I really don't like this changeup. So I was texting with Zach Bove, the new pitching coach, and he's like, have you ever tried the kick change? So we're kind of. It's. It's less like we. We think you need to work on this and more almost like spitballing ideas.

A (87:31)

But don't do an actual spitball. That's still against, right?

C (87:34)

Yeah, that'd be gross. And I think it might be illegal.

A (87:36)

It is, but it's.

C (87:37)

It's that kind of idea where you're just kind of. You're bouncing ideas off of each other rather than one person telling you to do something. Something.

A (87:44)

Yeah. And I noticed that it's kind of the opposite of the typical progression in the minors. You sort of started as a swing man or maybe even mostly a reliever and kind of struggled in that role out of the gate. And then you were converted to starting. And you've had a lot of success in that role, which is. It's kind of backwards. Right. Because often guys will start their professional careers as starters, and then maybe they'll struggle, and then they get moved to the bull pen and you've kind of gone in the other direction.

C (88:14)

Yeah. And it's an interesting Story just because it was really just luck. I got lucky that I got to start because we had a guy get hurt when I was in Bowling Green. I was the only guy who hadn't thrown. I was capable of going multiple innings. They're like, all right, you got it. Get out there. So I, I kind of went back to what my college pit or pre pitch routine was and, and threw well and, and they're like, okay, well we'll see what happens. And the guy was hurt another week and I got to continue starting and continued to improve. And it was very clear that the, the routine was helpful for me. I wasn't, wasn't as sure how to throw out of the bullpen as I was as a starter. I think that since being in professional baseball longer, I think I might have a better understanding of how it might work. But at the time I really had zero idea. I was kind of just, just doing things and either wasn't prepared or was even slightly too like. I don't want to say over prepared, but like to a point where it was detrimental, if that makes sense. So kind of understanding. I was more comfortable for sure in that new role. I think the routine made a big difference. It's obviously a lot easier to pitch when you have a, an idea of what situations you're going to be put into and when you're always put into. Nobody on, nobody out, first inning, clean inning, you kind of know what to expect at least a little bit.

A (89:39)

So describe yourself as a pitcher as if you were writing about yourself, I guess. How would you describe your repertoire, your approach to pitching?

C (89:48)

I would say low slot carry. It's relatively average carry, but the low slot kind of allows me to get away with it if you will. Not necessarily overpowering with Velo, but it'll get on you just a little bit. Deceptive. Three different shapes of breaking balls, short hard curveball, sweeper and a cutter. The changeup is more or less a non factor at this point, but it's developing. I would say those are the main ideas.

A (90:15)

Well, Eric Longenhagen, who's the lead prospect analyst for fan graphs, I looked up what he's written about you and when you were on the raise prospect list a year ago or before this past season, he said that you would have a sneaky 40 man case nine months from now. So he nailed that good projection. And he did describe you as a funky low slot guy at Iowa who has successfully been turned into a backend starter prospect in pro ball. His arm slot has been raised some and he's throwing strikes with a rise. Slash run, fastball and sweeper both play as average due to Davit's ability to hide the ball. And that's what you were just talking about, I guess, with the deception. And I'm. I'm always fascinated by deception. And people mean more than one thing sometimes when they say deception. And it can be just the way your pitches move relative to your release. But that ability to hide the ball I always find really fascinating. So is that something that you hear from hitters, that they don't see the ball that well? Is that just because, I don't know, is it coming out from behind your back late or something along those lines?

C (91:20)

That's funny because they're what I've always heard. I think deception is basically just being weird or like having something weird. Right. So when I throw, people have told me it looks like you're gonna throw from a pretty normal slot, and then all of a sudden it's coming out of your armpit. I was like, oh, okay. That's an interesting way of thinking about it. But that's. That's how people have described it to me. So it's. It's essentially, if you can get somebody to expect a certain release point. Point, and you're two feet away from that release point, you're probably in pretty decent shape at that point because you're. You're not picking up the ball quite as. As soon.

A (91:57)

Yeah.

C (91:58)

And that's. That's going to put you ahead as a pitcher.

A (92:01)

And I assume that wasn't intentional. It wasn't as if you crafted this release to maximize the deception. It was just sort of natural. So I always wonder how teachable that is. Do you think that you could have just developed that if someone had said, hey, we need you to be a little more deceptive? Like, once you get that to this stage, are you sort of locked into that kind of characteristic, or can you tinker with that even after you're pretty established?

C (92:28)

You know, I'm not really sure because I will say the slot and some of the release stuff is kind of a side effect of some mechanical work I did as a freshman or between my freshman and sophomore year of college. I had a massive elbow hike at the time, which is obviously very dangerous. So they spent a summer fixing it, and this is kind of the release that ended up coming out of it. So I'm not sure how. How much you could teach somebody to do it. I'm not sure you would teach somebody to do it, but there are. There are Big leaguers you can point to nowadays that have that similar low slot carry like you have a Max Scherzer. Obviously Brian Wu is the famous one now.

A (93:06)

Yeah.

C (93:06)

You had asked earlier if I model people for writing. Well, these are the guys I model after for baseball because we're kind of in the similar release heights, similar arm angles. So what they do is something that might work for me. But no, I don't think I would try and teach a, teach a 12 year old to throw like me. I think I'm a little too weird.

A (93:26)

Well, I guess it's good that that kind of thing can be quantified now where, you know, maybe if, if the radar gun reading, which isn't even really a radar gun anymore, but if, if that doesn't blow people away, then you can still figure out why does this work? Why is this guy having some success? And, and you could always have a scout just say, oh, you know, hitters have a hard time hitting off of him or something. But when you can actually say it's because of the slot and the way the pitches move and you can kind of identify it in a more objective way and maybe that gives you a better opportunity for sure.

C (93:59)

I think that's one of my favorite parts about baseball is that there's a million and one different things that are being tracked to understand why something works and why it doesn't. So yeah, that's one of my favorite things to understand, especially coming from Iowa that did a really good job of doing their analytics stuff as well as well as the raise, but obviously on different budgets. But kind of getting to see those two high level analytics departments go to work is always fun for me because you get to understand a little bit more than you maybe would have.

A (94:31)

And by modern pitching development standards, you're kind of an ironman. You threw 152innings this past year season that was third in minor league baseball and you were less than an inning behind the leaders. So what do you think of, of pitcher development these days? Because there are a lot of people who think, gosh, these guys coming up, they never go deep into games, they never have an opportunity to really build their arms up. And you know, it makes some sense because then you get to the majors and guys aren't going as deep into games there either. But sometimes you, you have never seen the seventh or eighth inning, you know, by the time you get promoted to the majors and then are you conditioned to do that? Do you know how to work through a lineup multiple times? So do you think that it's a good way to prepare people for that ultimate assignment. Or is that impulse to protect pitchers? Is there a downside to that?

C (95:24)

I think that you maybe lose some of the fun like oh, he went nine or like you went eight and two thirds or whatever, you lose some of those stories. But I think in the grand scheme of things, things like your goal is to win as many games as possible. And if the best way to do that is to have your first, second and third starters pitch as many games as possible and then just get it to your bullpen arms that you're paying an exorbitant amount of money to to win you baseball games from the six, six standing on. I feel like that's the way that it would work normally. And then you start getting into the analytics part of it. But essentially my thought is like if you run your first three starters out and just run them down and they're all throwing a hundred, like there's only so many pitches you can do. You can throw, throwing a hundred. Right. At some point your, your body's just not going to be able to take it. So that's why we see a little bit dip in workload as far as like the volume.

A (96:23)

Yep.

C (96:24)

I would almost argue that the, the workload itself isn't necessarily changing. It's just changing from the volume to I guess the intensity of it where you're just putting all of it into one pitch rather than expanding it over a hundred, if that makes sense. But then you start talking about analytics and the third time through and putting your guys in the best situation to have success and, and that kind of factors into it as a lot as well.

A (96:50)

Yeah, there's still some old school sports writers around who, who hate to talk about and think about this stuff. So you're, you're ahead of the game game when it comes to your, your second job. I think just being aware of, of these concepts and interested in them.

C (97:02)

Yeah, I think that that gives, I think my, my first job gives me an interesting perspective on that sort of stuff.

A (97:08)

So. In the aforementioned profile in the Register, Paul Janisz, who is a former big leaguer, director of player development for the White Sox, is quoted saying, I do think he gets the chance this year. That is the call to the big leagues. I'm sure it's exciting and encouraging to read the. That probably also causes some nerves, I would imagine. So when you see that, how does that make you feel? And you know, of course it's going to come down to both your performance and the opportunity. Just like that Start. You mentioned in the minors where someone had to get hurt for you to, to get that assignment. But what are you thinking that you're going to be doing and working on to make Janish's prediction come true?

C (97:49)

Yeah, I think that there's a lot of just be where your feet are at, you know what I mean? Like just execute what you can control, do, just do your best, and whatever happens is what's going to happen. There's. There's only so much you can control with that stuff. So for me, it's just, it's just show up, throw my innings, limit the runs, and if the team wants me up there, they'll have me up there. And nothing I do beyond be successful is going to get me there any faster. Unfortunately, sometimes that's just the way it works and I've come to terms with that. I think that it's, that's the way baseball is, is if you don't like it, play better. So you play better. And the team, you make the team make the decision. And so for me, I think that comes down to improving some, some change of stuff, improving execution within the zone to better locations in the zone and better execution of two strikes and those sorts of things. So if I can, if I can execute and manage those things, I think things can go my way.

A (98:49)

And I assume you'll be in big league camp when spring starts this year. Is that, have you gotten the invite or.

C (98:55)

Right, so the 40 man players are always invited to big league camp.

A (98:58)

Right. So that's exciting.

C (99:00)

Yeah, it's my first one, so I'm pretty, pretty excited about it.

A (99:04)

One thing I was wondering, you know, it was easy to contact you, which was a relief because when you want a player on the pot podcast, sometimes you've got to go through the team media relations folks and, you know, or maybe you can follow them on social media and hope they follow you back or something. But you have your email address on your author page, which is handy. I wonder whether that will continue to be the case because, you know, we hear so much from players in baseball, but also other sports about just the abuse that they get online from sports bettors. Right. And you know, some parley goes wrong and they take it out on them and just death threats and the most heinous stuff. I wonder, have you gotten some of that even in the minor leagues? Does it extend down there?

C (99:47)

You know, I haven't. Yeah. Which I, I mean, if. So if somebody's placing bets on minor league baseball, they need to probably have some help.

A (99:55)

Yeah.

C (99:56)

But no, I've been fortunate enough not to have any of that abuse. And like you mentioned, like, if I do make it to the big leagues, that. That that email may have to go.

A (100:05)

Go. Yes.

C (100:06)

Which is unfortunate. It's. It's one of the ways that some of the. Some people that read my column are able to interact with me. And. And I enjoy that interaction because I get to answer deeper questions. I get to have suggestions for future columns. So those sorts of things will be missed, obviously, but I'd prefer not to have more stories or more war stories. I can trade with other players who have had similar threats in the locker room. So, yeah, we'll. We'll see what happens.

A (100:36)

Hope.

C (100:36)

Hopefully people are gracious enough and I can keep the email there if it doesn't work out. It doesn't work out.

A (100:43)

Yeah. And did you. How did you find out that you were traded? Were you expecting that on any level?

C (100:51)

Not really. It was funny. So I was in Durham, and we were playing in Gwinnett at the time, and we. We obviously all knew the trade deadline was coming up. And one of my team teammates, it's kind of looking around the room. We're all predicting who's going to get traded. And he points to me and goes, you're going to the Cubs. I'm like, me, because, okay, yeah, sure, dude.

B (101:12)

Close.

C (101:12)

No. Yeah. Which, of course, this guy ends up getting traded anyway, so. Or as well. But, no, the actual stories I find funny because the trade wasn't announced until maybe 15 or 20 minutes after the deadline had already passed, I think something like that. So I had been sitting in the training room. We were in a rain delay, and I was sitting in the training room watching the race game, and they had a little ticker of the trade deadline falling. And it's like, okay, like, trade deadline's over. Like, I'm sticking around. And then next thing I know, I'm looking at Morgan Enzberg poking his head around the corner, giving me the come here finger. And I was like, I look at somebody, I'm like, did he point at me? And the guy just shrugged. So I'm like, you're super helpful, thanks, and walked in and he told me the news with myself and Ben Peoples. And from there, we packed up our lockers, and we're on a flight the next morning back to Durham to pack up our apartments and drive over to Charlotte.

A (102:09)

Do you have to disclose that you are a sports writer either to your teammates or to the team? I mean, we're. We're way past you know, Jim Bouton and Balfour and it being controversial to write about what happens in the clubhouse, but I wonder, just to sort of be on the safe side, did you ever run this by anyone and say, hey, what are the ground rules here? Or is there anything I can't disclose?

C (102:31)

You know, I talk to people or I tell people when they ask what I do in the off season. I really don't write a whole lot about what goes on specifically in the clubhouse. And if I ever did, I would say, hey, I'm planning on writing this and I'm going to include a story that involves you. Do you care if I write this? I'll leave your name out of it. Kind of a deal. But I've never had issues. When people find out that I'm a sports reporter, they kind of just laugh and they're like, oh, that's interesting. Like, I've never heard of that job in the off season. But I've never had any, any issues of like sitting down with an HR person saying like, you can't write about this, this, this and this. And I like to believe I have enough discretion not to write about things that people wouldn't want in the newspaper paper, if that makes sense.

A (103:18)

So. Okay. Can I ask you a weird one?

C (103:22)

Go for it.

A (103:23)

Okay. This is a listener email we got a while back, but I've been waiting to spring this on a players from listener Patreon supporter Sam, who. Who apologized and said this is a weird one. Can't even say I'm high this time. What. What percentage of pitchers wear hard cups while pitching? And the question continues. I recently spoke to a guy from my hometown who was in the Philly system. System. He mentioned it was frustrating because all pitchers were forced to wear cups while pitching. Has there been any reporting on forced cup usage in mlb? Not to my knowledge. But maybe you can make that your next column. On a more general level, is there an incident you can recall where a player has ever publicly blamed an athletic cup for something related to on field performance? I'm mostly interested in. In that first question.

C (104:09)

Yeah.

A (104:09)

How common is the cup for pitchers?

C (104:12)

I would say exceedingly rare. I don't know if I know any, any pitchers that wear one. I'm sure that there are, but I don't think I've ever been on it. I don't think I've been on a team that. With a guy that wears one. Wow. I did back in high school because I also played a position. So if, if for whatever reason my pitch count was a little bit Lower. I would go play a position afterwards. So I would wear one in high school, but since as soon as I got to college, I was like, like, man, this thing sucks. So I stopped. I stopped wearing it at that point. And. And I think I'm. I'm definitely a majority of people that don't wear it. I would imagine that it's. It's a pretty small number. I couldn't give you a percentage, but I would imagine it's a very small percentage of professional pitchers wearing protective cuffs.

A (104:58)

Interesting. So I don't know how closely you observe this, but what do you think the positional percentages are then? I mean, if you're an outfield, I'm sure you're going cupless, but the closer you are to the action, if you're on the corners, if you're a middle infield, like, is everyone other than the pitcher cupping up on the infield?

C (105:17)

You know, I don't know. I know that. I know the catchers do. Thank God.

A (105:21)

Yes. Of course.

C (105:23)

I don't know about the infielders. I know that it's definitely more common than the pitchers.

A (105:28)

Yeah.

C (105:29)

But, yeah, I certainly have not been keeping a list of, okay, this guy wears one, this guy wears one, this guy doesn't, and what position they are. So I. I don't think that's a study. I think I'm gonna do either. I think that that one might cause some issues.

A (105:45)

Yeah. And definitely have to anonymize that one.

C (105:48)

Yeah.

A (105:50)

Keep the names out of it, certainly. Yeah. Because I would imagine. I mean, I don't know if you've had any close calls, but you are. You're quite close to the action. Now, if you're a pitcher, of course, you're worrying more about just like being hit in the head or something by a hacker. You know, that's actually dangerous, life threatening, even. So maybe you're worried about that. More so. But there's room to worry about both. I guess it's just that maybe you can't be conscious of that and perform well because, you know, it would just make you kind of tentative. And I suppose the discomfort factor, which is something that, you know, people ask us all the time, well, why don't pitchers wear more protective headgear and they're cap liners. But, you know, there are also other things. I mean, you could have sort of a softball style mask of some sort, but pitchers in baseball, they just generally don't do that. And, you know, people wonder, like, is this a macho thing? Is it just old habits, dying Hard, like, is it going to have to take someone getting seriously hurt for pitchers to embrace that? So I assume with the cup it's just that there'd be some chafing or something. You know, you're, you're doing a full wind up. It might, it might impact your mobility, perhaps. So I assume that comes into it. But with the protective gear in general, is, is it that you feel like you're invulnerable out there or is it just that, well, you're playing the odds and you're hoping that you will perform well and that nothing bad will happen?

C (107:15)

Yeah, I think it's probably more so on that last part. The not you really don't think about it, like, yeah, I've known a couple players that have been hit and in the heads and, and one of them, I was playing summer ball with it back in 2020 and he had some lingering health issues with it. So it is, it is something that people need to understand, like, this is a real danger, but at the same time, like, if you're walking out on that mound, like, you can't be thinking about this. You can't be thinking like, what if I, what if I hurt my arm? What if I tweak my elbow? Like, what if I do this thing saying, like, if you're thinking about those things, you're not, you're certainly not going to have a good day.

A (107:54)

Yeah.

C (107:54)

Because your, your mind's not in the right place. You're, like you said, you're going to be tentative and scared. I don't want to get hit, so I'm not going to throw this ball in the strike zone. I don't want him hitting it back at me, those sorts of things. So it's not something that ever really crosses my mind. And I would imagine that's the case with most players. Now. That said, I think that if the league mandated some kind of headgear, I think, think that people would have a big, pretty big issue with it just in terms of whether, oh, this is so uncomfortable, or wow, I feel like such a, like such a wussy kind of a thing. I think that you would have both of those as, as reactions, but for me, it's just something I never, I tried or I, I really don't ever think about.

A (108:35)

Lastly, this is the week of Christmas, so it may be atypical, but take me through atypical day or week in the off season of Duncan Davitt as you're trying to balance your, you know, gym time and pitch prep and you're going to be ramping up for spring training fairly soon. But you're also covering high school basketball, so how does that all work?

C (108:56)

Yeah. So before the basketball season we put together a whole spreadsheet of these are all the games we're going to cover or we think that we're going to cover with some room for adjustment based on how good a team is. So that helps. But a typical day, I would usually get to the gym or get to go throw or wherever, typically around between 10 or 11 and then if I have a lift that day, I'll get the lift in afterwards. I'm usually done by one, one or two depending on how, how long everything takes and how much talking I do with, with people around and get back, eat, shower, do all the good things and then, then games don't start until 6. So I usually have a little bit of downtime between working out and, and the game that I'm covering that night and usually drive over there wherever, wherever it may be, whether it's in Indianola, which is about a couple minutes from where I live or further out, which out to like 20 or 30 minutes. But it's usually pretty easy of a balance as far as like date, like within the day. Um, the week to week gets a little hectic sometimes because we just do a short write up every week on how the teams fared in the previous week. So Sundays can get a little bit hectic just because that's a little bit longer of a story.

A (110:12)

Well, I will be reading your writing and watching your pitching and rooting for you as a writer and a pitcher. I hope both of these dreams come true and that you hit your word count targets and your pitch count targets and your, your deadlines and, and all the rest. So good luck with all of it, Duncan.

C (110:29)

Yeah, I appreciate it. Thanks for having me me on.

A (110:31)

All right. Thanks to Declan and Duncan and also Patreon supporter Luke, who emailed us recently to flag Duncan as a potential future meet a major leaguer subject. You know, this is relevant to both Declan's and Duncan's interests. I was reading a recent edition of David Laurel's Sunday Notes at Fan Graphs and he writes, Derek Shelton is now managing in Minnesota after being at the helm in Pittsburgh for four full seasons and parts of two others. He was asked at the winter meetings what he learned about developing young hitters during his time with the Pirates. Spirits quote. I learned the AAA does not prepare you for the big leagues, said Shelton. I think that's the biggest thing. It's why we're seeing as an industry, so many young players come to the big leagues and struggle. They just don't hit. The pitching is just too good here. The distance between the talent and AAA and the big leagues is probably the greatest it's ever been. Well, I'm not sure I would apply the Pirates struggles to the rest of the league. I have harped on this before. I've written about this topic twice. You hear this a lot these days. Buy it. And I just don't buy it. I mean, maybe the gap is the greatest it's been, but barely. It's not much bigger than it's been before, if at all. I wrote about this in the spring at the Ringer with some help from Dan Simborski of fangraphs and we looked at the statistical translations over time. How did players fare in AAA and in the majors after being promoted? And we looked at an almost 50 year period and I wrote the strength of AAA relative to the majors has fluctuated within a fairly narrow range range from about 76% of MLB to about 86%. It's certainly at the low end of that range now, so it's fair to say that the Triple A to MLB leap has never been more daunting. The thing is, these effects are subtle, which is why I said it's sort of true that moving from the minors to the majors is harder than ever. It is, but only by a few percentage points. Probably not by enough that anyone would make much of it if not for the much more salient, albeit superficial, effects of offensive flood tides and ebb and tides lifting or lowering all bats in leagues across multiple levels. And that's what I thought was the real reason why you hear this refrain frequently these days, and why you heard it often about a decade ago when I first wrote about this for Grantland. The level of offense is just higher in AAA relative to the majors than it typically is. And so on the surface, a hitter's stats do tend to take a pretty big hit post promotion, but their performance relative to the league doesn't actually change that much. And for the article earlier this year, one front office analyst told me, I went poking around and never really find especially compelling evidence that rookies are struggling to a disproportionate degree. It feels like they are, but they aren't. And maybe we just notice more when they struggle because they're more young players and fewer veterans than ever. These days the pitching gap has definitely widened between AAA and mlb, and that does have an effect. But said effect appears greatly overstated and actually, just now I found an article by Baseball Prospectus co founder Clay Davenport which was published this past September, and Clay did some research as well and concluded included the gap between AAA and the majors, at least in terms of same year transitions, is essentially unchanged since 2006. You could say that it has gotten a little more difficult in recent years, especially compared to the 2010s. So again, the gap is not as enormous by historical standards as you sometimes hear these days. And I guess that's good news for Declan and Duncan Also got another email about a baseball show, Abbott Elementary. It's an ABC mockumentary sitcom set in a Philadelphia public school. There's a good chance you're aware of it. It's quite popular. Popular. My wife and I watched it for the first three seasons, then we drifted away. For me, it falls into the Modern Family zone of being pleasant, likable, very bingeable, but rarely makes me actually laugh anyway, because I haven't been watching it much anymore. I missed an episode that aired this past October, Season 5, Episode 3 Ball Game, about which listener Andy writes In August, the cast and crew of Abbott elementary shot an episode live at a Phillies game, and they picked the night that Kyle Schwartz Schwaber hit four home runs. Incredible luck. Congrats to them. It really was because Schwarber was featured in the episode, and it just so happened that they were there on a huge night for him. He actually makes a cameo in the episode, and he does quite well, mostly because it just seems like he's not that conscious of the cameras. He's just acting like Kyle Schwarber would act. Doesn't sound like he's reading off a cue card or anything, or like he memorized his lines. Kudos to Kyle. Anyway, andy writes, not content with that magic, they piled another rarity on top of top of it, inserting a fictional triple play into the game. One character narrated it as Sosa to Turner to Harper. And yes, that's Gregory, played by Tyler James Williams. And here he is narrating that play. Oh no. The other team hit the ball and it is stopped by Sosa.

B (115:01)

Sosa fires to Turner.

C (115:03)

Turner fires the Harper oh my God.

A (115:04)

It'S in the Andy continues. Another character later described it as a 643 triple play. And here's that clip featuring Janine, played by Abbott elementary creator Quinta Brunson.

B (115:15)

I just wanted you to love baseball as much as I did, but I forced it.

A (115:19)

And now you I love it.

B (115:22)

You what?

A (115:23)

Yes. I mean, look, I might not know what a 643 triple play is or how to read a scoreboard or where we even parked. But I do know this. I'm going to walk out of this ballpark with stories I'm going to tell forever and even more love for my city. Now, as Andy notes, 6, 4, 3 triple play means Trey Turner would have been playing second base, something he hasn't done since 2021. And the triple play would have been started by Edmundo Sosa. Not in the game at the time from the shortstop position. Nope. In an article on MLB.com about the creation of the episode, a league executive takes credit for nailing the details. Do you think we could shoot the episode at a game? The show asked. Absolutely. Both parties got to work. Quote, they're pitching story and characters. We're pitching how to make it baseball authentic, says Nick Trotta, who is MLB's vice president of global media programming and licensing. Okay, so it's kind of a gotcha. MLB tried to make the baseball authentic. And here is the description of the play by Janine not matching the narration of the play by Gregory. Not only is their narration of the play, but we actually see it briefly. There's a clip of actual game action and I'm here to sort of support what Andy is saying, but also to say it's okay. So here's the thing. They're inserting a play that did not happen, a triple play, into a game that did happen, the Kyle Schorber for homer game. So already we're departing from authenticity somewhat, and maybe they didn't need to do that. But when we do briefly see the play that they are saying is a triple play and Gregory references Sosa, well, as Andy said, Sosa was not in that game. And you can see Bryson Stott at second base. So if anything, it would have been Stott to Turner to Harper. And it's not clear where the third out is coming from in that exchange. So yeah, the whole thing is fairly unrealistic. And so Janine describing it as a 6, 4, 3 triple play, when if anything it was a 4, 6, 3. Well, whatever, I'll let it slide. Especially because you can defend it in Universe on the basis that Janine is not supposed to know anything about baseball, as she says she doesn't know what that means. And actually later in that exchange where she references the 643 triple play to Gregory, she says this. 40,000 people watching the same game, eating.

C (117:25)

The same snacks, waiting for a fumble strike out.

A (117:29)

I get why they call it the beautiful game Soccer So that's the running gag throughout the episode that she does not know anything about baseball. And so for her to say 643 instead of 463, you could say that if anything, it supports the pre established character trait. Now I suspect that this was sort of a small mistake in the script that they didn't realize that their description of the play as Sosa to Turner to Harper was not consistent with her description of the 643 triple play. Because it's not something that most people would notice. The comedy tends to be a bit broad. She's referencing fumbles and the Beautiful Game. I doubt the 463 to 643 was also added in there to reinforce how little she knows about baseball, but this one is at least defensible on those grounds. So not a big deal, especially if we're allowing for the fictional triple play in the first place. It's the fun though. Quite cool that things worked out that way with Schwarber. So we've gone from AAA to triple play. And it strikes me by the way that the conversation we had earlier this week about Munetaka Murakami actually is kind of related to that idea that I just discussed about the gap between AAA and the majors. Well, NPB is generally appraised to be about AAA level, if not kind of quadruple A. And the Murakami detractors are essentially calling him a quadruple A player. That idea that someone can produce prodigiously at one level level but then completely get exposed at the next level up. That's something that I talked to Brent Rooker about on this podcast because he was sort of seen as a quadruple A player at one point until he proved that no, actually he could be a quite successful MLB player. So we'll find out whether Murakami is really that kind of talent. I tend to think that the quadruple A archetype is a bit overblown, that if you give a player enough chances, the performance will translate somewhat. Also, thanks to listener Brock and some others I believe in our Discord group for notifying us that Effectively Wild was mentioned in a recent online survey by Major League Baseball. Brock says Effectively Wild was name dropped in an MLB survey earlier this week, and the question in one of these MLB Fans At Bat surveys was which, if any, of the following baseball podcasts do you listen to regularly? Please select all that apply and it lists several, most of which are either MLB productions or MLB affiliated, but it also includes Effectively Wild. So for whatever reason, MLB is interested in learning whether its fans listen to this podcast. If you're hearing these words, then I know that you do listen to Effectively Wild Wild. And if you'd like to continue to, perhaps you'll consider supporting Effectively Wild on Patreon, which you can do by going to patreon.com effectively wild and signing up to pledge some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going. Help us stay ad free and get yourself access to some perks as have the following five listeners, Kyle S, Nick Fontaine, Josh Eisenberg, and Catherine Sobolo. Thanks to all of you. Remember that you can give gift subscriptions to Effectively Wild's Patreon and Patreon Perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord Group, monthly bonus episodes off live streams, prioritized email answers, personalized messages, shoutouts at the end of episodes, potential podcast appearances, and so much more. Check out all the offerings@patreon.com effectively wild. If you are a Patreon supporter, you can message us through the Patreon site. If not, you can contact us via email. Send your questions, comments, intro and outro themes to podcastancrafts.com One more reminder to submit stories we missed from 2025. You can rate, review and subscribe to Fan Effectively Wild on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Music and other podcast platforms. You can join our facebook group@facebook.com group effectively wild. You can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at R Effectively Wild and you can check the show notes in the podcast, posted fan graphs or the episode description in your podcast app for links to the stories and stats we cited today. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance that will do it for today and for this holiday week. We hope you have a wonderful weekend and we will be back to talk to you next week.

C (121:11)

I want to know about baseball. I want to know about every single team. I want to know about stat blast, some fan graphs and about oh oh oh Tony. I'm a very modern fan reading up on all the analytics. I want to know about baseball, presenting it by Patreon supporters.