← The Windup: A show about Baseball
The Windup: A show about Baseball
The Roundtable | Crazy on-field kerfuffles & the Playoff races are getting really interesting
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- [00:00]
Capital One Bank Guy
Banking with Capital One helps you keep more money in your wallet with no fees or minimums on checking accounts and no overdraft fees. Just ask the Capital One bank guy. It's pretty much all he talks about in a good way. He'd also tell you that this podcast is his favorite podcast too. Ah, really? Thanks. Capital One Bank Guy. What's in your wallet? Term supply see capitalone.com bank capital1na member FDIC did I talk too much? Can't I just let it go?
- [00:33]
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- [00:55]
Grant Brisby
Better.
- [00:57]
Capital One Bank Guy
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- [01:25]
Andy McCullough
This is the wind up.
- [01:39]
Sam Miller
Welcome to episode number 173 of the Roundtable. Grant Brisby. Here's Sam Miller and Andy McCullough. Andy, how you doing? I'm good. Sam, you get. You're a pitcher. Games on the line, maybe even the season's on the line. One of us gets to be your catcher and call the game for you. Do you want me or you want Andy?
- [01:59]
Grant Brisby
I mean, come on. It's. It's Andy.
- [02:00]
Sam Miller
Okay, so you think he's got. He's more catcher coded.
- [02:03]
Grant Brisby
I just feel like I can never trust that you're not going to be doing a bit. I think Andy takes what we're. You know, I think Andy takes the sport seriously.
- [02:10]
Sam Miller
Yeah, that's fair. That's fair. I mean, I'm the guy. I'm. I'm like, who's. Who's the Blue Jays utility fielder? Who? Everyone.
- [02:19]
Grant Brisby
Like Ernie Clement.
- [02:20]
Sam Miller
No, Masanori Murakami. That's my role. I'm the he.
- [02:24]
Andy McCullough
The guy from 2014.
- [02:27]
Grant Brisby
If you.
- [02:28]
Sam Miller
When baseball was good. Okay, the only time of baseball. We agreed on that last time, roughly.
- [02:34]
Grant Brisby
A quarter of Grant's tweets were purposefully dumb. Trying to get people to react to them so he could laugh at them for thinking he was serious.
- [02:44]
Sam Miller
That's really sad when you put it like that, but you're right.
- [02:46]
Grant Brisby
Like a lot of them, you were very good. At it. Like, that was your. That was your niche. Like, you were better. Better at that than most people. I mean, you're, you know, your warrior. Signing Durant 1 is probably your biggest text tweet, right?
- [02:58]
Sam Miller
I think Rage Against a Machine is probably.
- [03:00]
Andy McCullough
But yeah, wait, no, you got to tell me both of these, because I remember them, but I don't remember them, if that makes sense.
- [03:06]
Sam Miller
After the warriors signed Kevin Durant, it's like, it's not that hard. You just got a double Durant double Grant and I named six things.
- [03:13]
Grant Brisby
Say it. Double dime.
- [03:14]
Sam Miller
Oh, double Drag Curry put a big lockdown defender on Draymond, and I don't know. It's not that good.
- [03:21]
Andy McCullough
Clay. That's a good. That's a good post.
- [03:23]
Grant Brisby
It was a good post. And you, I assume, for years, years, maybe. Still, your. Your notifications will occasionally get people being mad at you.
- [03:32]
Sam Miller
Absolutely. Absolutely.
- [03:33]
Grant Brisby
Double Durant, double Curry, put a big body on Draymond and put your best lockdown defender on Clay. It's not rocket science.
- [03:40]
Sam Miller
Still tracks. Still tracks. Okay. I might do that as a catcher. All right. With that out of the way, we're going to move on to our scheduled programming here. We're going to talk about in the year 2025, the year of Willie Mays 2025. We. We have someone getting mad at staring at home runs again. I thought this was done. I thought we were in a post bat flip society. I thought that everyone was welcome to play an invisible saxophone as they trotted around. Around the bases and really kind of stop at second base to hit that solo and hit that high note. But no, we had. We had Kyle Freeland eight pitches in, getting really mad for how long? Rafael Devers watched first inning home run against the Rockies. And in one sense, I get it, because, man, not a lot's going right for the Rockies. And what are you doing? You just hit a home run off the Rockies. Big whoop. And the other point, it's a bat flip. So who. Who has takes?
- [04:34]
Grant Brisby
I have a take about Andy's take. That I think is a take about all the takes. Andy jumped into the. To the planning document to say, for the record, I, Andy, am on Kyle Freeland's side, and it's the first inning of a game against the worst team of all time. Run to first base.
- [04:52]
Andy McCullough
I mean, I don't know if that was on the record, but okay. In our private document, I don't know if that's how I wanted to phrase.
- [04:59]
Sam Miller
It on the pod courts.
- [05:01]
Grant Brisby
Exhibit A says Grant replied, how is the guy who is 10 years younger than me. Also 10 years older than me. I think we both, you know, both of us were like, oh, wow, Andy's a no fun league guy. I think that that's telling, though, because Andy is the one who would get upset because Andy is a jock. And while we, while we have kind of retconned the let the kids play movement into like a pro player expression crusade, in fact, it's the players who hate this stuff the most. They're the ones who are the hardest of all of them. They hate, hate each other. And any expression that the other team makes gets them really mad. The observer did not invent getting mad at players for showing up their opponents. Their opponents invented it. Their opponents are the ones who get really mad. Overreact. It's not surprising to me that the players still, despite all the work that's been done to normalize bat flipping and yellow socks or whatever, the players are still like the cops. And like, it was. It looked pretty. I mean, it. I'm not surprised Kyle Freeland threw a fit. Now, I think that it is a little. I think it's a little bit surprising that Kyle Freeland would expose himself here because almost everybody has some of the same reaction Andy had, like, why are you pimping your home run against the worst pitcher ever? There's a little Streisand effect going on here. Kyle Freeland just, he, he gave everybody an opportunity to talk about how bad he and the Rockies are, whereas it could have just been, you know, a pebble in a pond. It could have just passed. So he exposed himself a little bit here when he didn't need to. But you could imagine the frustration. I have another. I have a larger take about the situation, but if anybody wants to talk about the meta conversation first, my long.
- [07:09]
Andy McCullough
Standing take about this is that I am pro emotion in sports, right? Like, I am pro pimping home runs. And I am also pro getting furious when someone pimped a home run. I don't think you can police it only in one direction. You can't only allow, you know, expressions of joy and punish, you know, expressions of frustration. Now, like, if Freeland had thrown at Devers's head for this, you know, like, no, that's. No, we don't. You don't need that. Throw it as. But. But like, you know what I'm saying? Like, I think I always come back to the, The Max Muncie, Madison Bumgarner thing, right? Where Muncie is taking is running at a pace that Upsets Madison Bumgarner. Madison Bumgarner tells him to expedite his travels around the bases. And Muncie says, you should go get that baseball. It's in the ocean. That's great. That's great.
- [08:03]
Grant Brisby
I think everybody, everybody did like that. That was a high point.
- [08:06]
Sam Miller
Point of order. Point of order. That's actually the San Francisco Bay. You can continue, Andy.
- [08:13]
Andy McCullough
And just for the record, they changed the rule when it happened to Alex Avila.
- [08:17]
Sam Miller
I just want you to know.
- [08:21]
Andy McCullough
My thing with all of this is just like, it always goes in one direction. You know, it's always just like, you know, let the kids play and don't let the other kids get mad when they are embarrassed on the field. Right.
- [08:33]
Grant Brisby
They're not embarrassed.
- [08:34]
Andy McCullough
But just like my thing is just, it's not. If, if it's totally fine what Devers did. It's a little confusing given the timing. And I really wish there was any player in baseball I've like, criticized as much this year as this poor guy, Rafael Des, who does not care about me at all. But I just feel like I'm always sort of confused by his behavior.
- [08:52]
Grant Brisby
Just to defend Devers on a narrow point, I don't think he pimped the home run at all.
- [08:57]
Sam Miller
I was going to get to this point.
- [08:59]
Grant Brisby
I mean, it was a. It was a high pop up. It was.
- [09:02]
Andy McCullough
I mean, look, Raphael deserves.
- [09:04]
Grant Brisby
Raphael des hit it 103 miles an hour. The day before, he had a home run 114 miles an hour. The man knows the difference between getting it and not really getting it. You know, the ball, I, I mean to say with the barrel. And you often see this with very high, towering home runs, especially that don't get out by a ton of. And really the key thing is with a runner on first, Devers has nowhere to go. He knows the guy on first is going to be tagging up, staying near the bag. He's not going to like, get a triple on this. So you often see on these high pop ups a very slow departure from the batter's box. You're not quite sure it's going to be out. It was down. I think I'm giving him a little too much credit here, but it was kind of down the line. You're not quite sure if it's going to be fair. And I just think that he, like hit a pop up and then he leaned back in the way that you often see he does the lean back where it's like, is it going to go like it's the. Is it going to go lean. And I think that's why it was so surprising that to him that Freeland's yelling at him because he didn't put his shoulders back, he didn't stand and admire it. It was really like he had the lean going on, which I think is like common body language for a 43 degree launch angle home run.
- [10:17]
Sam Miller
But I will say that once he's out of the lean, just getting Raphael Dever started on anything, I'm assuming, making toasts, running to first. Like, anything is good. It's going to take a little bit more first base, a little bit more pedaling than the other player. And so at that point, then he's like, well, I got to watch this for a second. You know, that's what I do. And then it like adds up to, well, now someone's mad at me. Yeah, I just.
- [10:40]
Andy McCullough
I just. I think both emotions are fine.
- [10:43]
Sam Miller
I think.
- [10:44]
Andy McCullough
And even I think Sam's explanation for Devers is sort of the late approach. I think it's totally fine. And I think Freeland being mad is totally fine. And, you know, and them starting a fight is totally fine. You know, I'm pro emotion.
- [10:58]
Sam Miller
I'm going to screw up the Latin name. But the logical fallacy of reductio ad absurdum, Right? It's supposed to be a fallacy, like you say, well, like, oh, yeah, well, if everyone else would you jump off the Brooklyn Bridge, Right? That's appealing to absurdity. But I found it very useful because, okay, so I'm joking with that invisible saxophone bit. But, like, what are the upper limits of a home run celebration that everyone. Like, there is a point where you can pull a book out of your back pocket, a cigarette, and, like, light it and read a book around the bases. Like, that's funny as hell, but it's also going to get people mad. And it's not appropriate. And I can agree, like, yeah, that's too much, man. And so where's the line? It's probably maybe a little bit further than what Devers did, but I don't know if it's.
- [11:36]
Andy McCullough
Oh, yeah, I don't know. The line is. The line is like pulling out your phone out of your back pocket and getting in a bed on DraftKings that you're gonna hit a home run, you know, before the algorithm catches up.
- [11:47]
Sam Miller
Right.
- [11:48]
Andy McCullough
Just ending it all right there.
- [11:50]
Grant Brisby
Generally speaking, though, generally speaking, in the modern age, you are allowed to take your time getting out of the batter's box. It is no longer an automatic showdown if you're not Making eye contact with the pitcher. If you're not shouting something, you know, about how great you are, like, you are allowed to do what Devers did. It's. It is like way outside the norm to yell at Devers for his demonstration. Like, you have to go a lot further than that before the modern pitcher generally will react. This is not 2011 anymore.
- [12:22]
Sam Miller
Do you know what cheeses me off way more than watching a home run? Is when teams have a bit where they get to second base and then they like, pantomime, you know, rocking the cradle with a yo yo or something. Like, they all have, like, hand motions and stuff. That annoys me five times more than watching a home run. If you hit home run, you did the most amazing thing. You hit a ball so far over the fence. Kids want dream of that. If you get to second base and sometimes it's on like a broken bat, double down the line and you get there and you're, you know, sitting there and doing your little bit. I don't like that. That's what makes me old.
- [12:53]
Grant Brisby
Traditionally, there's been more acceptance of team celebration than individual celebration. And since that's a team bonding experience, I think that has always gotten a bit more of a pass.
- [13:05]
Sam Miller
Here's Jeffrey the Homer Llamas. You enter the dugout. Like, I hate that too.
- [13:09]
Andy McCullough
You know, I always think it's funny when you see one of those when the team's like 15 games under and they're down like six to two. And then, you know, like, the Red Sox had one with the laundry cart where be like, you know, and now the score's seven to three. Like, the guy getting in the laundry cart, running down. It's just like, what do we.
- [13:26]
Sam Miller
That's literally a Simpsons bit where Homer wants to be John Elway and he scores a touchdown at the Super Bowl. He's dancing and it's like. And that's the Niners 55 and the Broncos 7. Good bit. Sorry.
- [13:36]
Grant Brisby
I always found the pointing at the bullpen on your home run trot to be strangely provocative. Like, it feels like pointing out at the relievers to acknowledge it looks you're next.
- [13:48]
Sam Miller
Don't do that. Don't do that.
- [13:50]
Grant Brisby
Yeah, yeah. I don't know. I always found that to be a little bit. A little bit visible. But, Andy, your. I think that your point. I'm going to. This is going to stick with me. The idea that we all think we're pro emotion, but we only wanna see people be happy, we don't wanna see people be mad, is really Fascinating. Like not giving people room to be angry on the field. Like, I think it says something about us, like, wanting to live in this, like, illusion of positivity or something like that. I'm gonna be thinking about that for a long time. The problem with being mad, I guess, is that the expression of anger, it always feels a little dangerous when you see someone who's getting mad because you don't know what they're going to do. They might throw the next pitch at someone or they might, you know, like. I don't know, they might just, like, throw a fastball right at their catchers. You know, jugular when he called for a slider. Like, anger does things. That's a. See, like that transition Grant.
- [14:45]
Sam Miller
That's a teaser. That's a good one.
- [14:46]
Grant Brisby
Yeah, that's a segue. Anger always feels like the fences around it are shaky. It gets out, anger gets loose. We worry about what will happen.
- [14:55]
Sam Miller
That's why it's so good that we do this on zoom. So when Andy has the. We can just sit back at a safe distance and just laugh because it's the funniest thing. You haven't had it in a while.
- [15:05]
Andy McCullough
No, I'm a very happy person. Like, on a regular basis.
- [15:08]
Sam Miller
Like, I didn't used to be. We gotta get back to that.
- [15:10]
Andy McCullough
All right, now I gotta get Mark back on here. Just checking slack the whole time and then chiming in. Be like, yeah. That reminds me of something Terry Collins said one time.
- [15:18]
Sam Miller
Hey, read what he wrote about me in the group credit because I want to hear it in his voice via you.
- [15:24]
Andy McCullough
What did he write about you when.
- [15:26]
Sam Miller
He dmed us together? About me laughing?
- [15:31]
Andy McCullough
No, I'm not reading this.
- [15:34]
Sam Miller
Yeah, he's very disparaging. That's my boss. Very, very.
- [15:37]
Andy McCullough
Yeah, he was unhappy with Grant's behavior. I would just leave it at that. The Fromber thing is quite fascinating as well. First set it up, there were two sort of major, you know, sort of dust ups. One, you know, the Rockies versus the Giants, and then from Revaldez versus his own catcher was quite, you know, fascinating. So the other night, Valdez is, you know, facing the Yankees. He is pitching, you know, fine, I guess, but he gets into a bit of a jam. The catcher, who I believe is a rookie, Cesar Salazar, you know, kind of tries to get him to step off. You know, he kind of waves at him, like, mid pitch. And Valdez does not heed the instruction. He gives up. I believe it was a grand slam to Trent Grisham. The next pitch, the two guys get crossed up and Salazar just wears a 93 mile an hour fastball down the middle. Valdez said he didn't do it on purpose. His agent has been pretty vociferous saying he didn't. He didn't do it on purpose. It's a crazy thing to theoretically do on purpose. There was sort of, you know, kind of competing stories for what exactly happened there. But, I mean, I've been covering baseball 15 years. I've never seen that. Like, that's. That's a new one. But I don't know. I. I feel. I feel uncomfortable suggesting it was intentional because I'm not in the guy's head. And the guy says it. Well, wasn't. The footage does not look great. Yeah. What do you guys make of it?
- [17:17]
Grant Brisby
His reaction after. He's very. He's very like, cool guys don't look at explosions afterward, like, he just turns his back on the catcher and like. Like, yeah, you know, like, it. He's got. I did that body language. And so that's what made it look so bad and immediately kind of go viral. And I think that, like, Will Middlebrooks was talking about it, and I'm gonna appeal to authority here rather than make a conclusion myself, but Will. Will Middlebrooks, ball player, major league ball player, broadcast for the Red Sox. He was like, yeah, he did it on purpose. Everybody knows he did it on purpose. Anybody who's ever played knows he did it on purpose. So that's Will Middlebrooks saying that, right? I'm not saying that. Could I. I think we could come up with competing explanation. I mean, you know, like, the catcher said that he pushed the wrong button after the fact when they were maybe doing damage control. Maybe not said he pushed the wrong button. So you could imagine. I mean, pitchers do occasionally cross up their catcher still today. And from Valdez was frustrated and in the moment, even if it's your best friend. Look, I remember playing basketball one time and guy rolled his ankle pretty bad, and someone goes, we were talking about it, and someone goes, what? What happened? And the guy's like, best friend who had been beefing with him a few plays earlier was like, karma.
- [18:36]
Andy McCullough
So.
- [18:37]
Grant Brisby
Yeah, yeah. So you. In the moment, you react that way. Like, you know, the guy, his catcher's not like, on the ground bleeding from his ears. Took a ball off the chest protector. It's fine. So there's explanations that absolve from Ro Valdez of the situation, but. No, but that's.
- [19:00]
Capital One Bank Guy
Banking with capital One helps you keep more money in your wallet with no fees or minimums on checking accounts and no overdraft fees. Just ask the Capital One bank guy. It's pretty much all he talks about. In a good way. He'd also tell you that this podcast is his favorite podcast too. Aw, really? Thanks. Capital One Bank Guy. What's in your wallet? Term supply. See capital1.com bank capital1NA member FDIC. Did I talk too much? Can't I just let it go? Thank you so much.
- [19:33]
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- [19:56]
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- [20:32]
Sam Miller
I want to believe from Revival this. Right. I'm not sure if I do, but I want to. I feel like there is a path to a reasonable explanation.
- [20:41]
Andy McCullough
And there's.
- [20:41]
Sam Miller
There's two things that make me think.
- [20:43]
Andy McCullough
Okay, is this because he's going to be a giant next year?
- [20:47]
Sam Miller
No, no, no. We've. We've. You just said Trent Grisham. I mean, come on, man. That. That. That fits, baby.
- [20:52]
Andy McCullough
Yeah, they're true.
- [20:53]
Sam Miller
Okay.
- [20:53]
Andy McCullough
Sorry, sorry.
- [20:54]
Sam Miller
From her Valdez. He. He threw an awful pitch for that grand slam. That was just. That was not the catcher's fault. The catcher did not call Salazar did not call for a sinker down the middle that just sort of hangs out there. Are you really mad at the catcher for that dog pitch?
- [21:14]
Grant Brisby
I had a hard time figuring out why the anger started in the first place, too. Like what? It wasn't clear to me what we were supposed to think from or was blaming his catcher for originally.
- [21:26]
Sam Miller
Yeah. And so. And then also there's the idea of, okay, so you're going to cross up the signs, right? Maybe it's a 60, 40% chance that you're going to get the target, the person you want to get, which is the catcher. There's a decent chance you're going to get the umpire and really get the umpire. And that's, I see that more or as often as a catcher getting crossed up. Is the umpire just taking one of the beans, you know, when the, when a mitt's not where it should be. And those are the worst. And I just can't imagine, I mean, if you're in the middle of emotions and you just want to get anger out, you're not thinking five steps ahead. But I just can't imagine that crossing up is the safest play there.
- [22:05]
Andy McCullough
It's a new one. Yeah, I mean, it is, it is. It is. It's a new one.
- [22:10]
Sam Miller
That's what makes what Will Middlebrook saying like. Yeah, everyone knows it because what, how many times have you seen this? I've never seen it.
- [22:18]
Andy McCullough
The consensus from the sort of, you know, the, the widow Middlebrooks and just the former players in media.
- [22:24]
Grant Brisby
Widdle Middlebrooks.
- [22:26]
Sam Miller
I heard that too.
- [22:27]
Andy McCullough
Sorry, my, my voice got, I had a bubble in my mouth.
- [22:31]
Sam Miller
Widdle Milbrook.
- [22:33]
Andy McCullough
Will Middlebrook stinks. He's a big time broadcaster now. Yeah, sorry about that. I apologize to the listeners and to Will Mil.
- [22:42]
Sam Miller
Will, yeah, he did nothing wrong.
- [22:44]
Andy McCullough
Just provided us, you know, kind of a cover to say what we all think. Like, when you're watching the play, right, there's FR's reaction and he kind of, you know, turns before, as Sam said, cool guy, doesn't look at explosions. There's Salazar's reaction where he's just like, what?
- [23:00]
Capital One Bank Guy
What the.
- [23:01]
Andy McCullough
But then there's also Anthony Volpe's reaction at the plate where he's just kind of like, what the.
- [23:07]
Grant Brisby
What was.
- [23:08]
Andy McCullough
That's a, that's new. You know, like, it's like you can send like, ball players, like, they've played a lot of baseball. That's the thing about playing ball, especially guys with service time, which Volpe is gaining as the years go on. They played a lot of baseball and it's like you can sense a disturbance in the force, right? Like, you're just like, that's not a thing. Like, that's, that's new. Like, you know, they have their physical intel. I don't know how to what the exact way to describe it. I'm coming up with the wrong thing. But it's like the, the Bill Bradley a sense of where you are. Right. That John McPhee wrote about. Like, they understand how things in space move far better than normal humans. And Volpe's reaction to me is like, quite telling because he's just like, what? That's. No, that's not. That wasn't supposed to happen.
- [23:47]
Sam Miller
That.
- [23:47]
Andy McCullough
And that's not what a cross up looks like, you know, and so. Yeah, I don't know. It's a new one.
- [23:52]
Grant Brisby
It was a new one. Yeah. I mean, you've never seen it be. Grant, you're saying, like, it's hard to believe it happened because you've never seen a picture use this. But, but really, like everybody's body language was even more. I've never seen that happen.
- [24:04]
Sam Miller
His explanation to me, because we have to assume by all accounts Valdez is kind of a freak on the mound, right? A hard. He wears it when his fielders make a mistake behind him. Like, he's demonstrative. He's just, he's one of those guys that in order to succeed at the highest levels of his profession, he's got to have. Right. And that's just. Some players are like that. And I can see a plausible, you know, I'm just, I'm mad. I gave up the grand slam and I'm thinking I'm just gonna fire this one down the plate. And like, I. All I want to do is just throw my hardest pitch the hardest I can, and then not necessarily realizing that another pitch has been called plausible. I don't know if it's. I don't think Occam's razor is much help here in any side.
- [24:47]
Andy McCullough
That's interesting. I. Because my initial thought was Occam's razor says it. He clearly hit him, but it's not a thing. And that's, you know, that's sort of where you get it. Like, it's not a thing that people do. So that doesn't really apply to Occam's race.
- [25:02]
Sam Miller
This is baseball's version of really, who throws a shoe? This is an Austin Power. I mean, the kids, they're listening, so we got to keep the references current. But yeah, who throw. Really, who throws a shoe?
- [25:14]
Grant Brisby
One last thing about this cross up situation is that a lot of the response is like, wow, like, that'd be really dangerous. You know, like, if he had done that on purpose, that's like really dangerous. Like, he could have, he could have killed, you know, he could have killed his catcher. And like, I'm not denying that. Like, that's like true. You're like, wow, that's like, that feels like a, a pretty sort of violent response. But also like, it just reminds me that we used to have like six cross ups a game. We lived through the most, you know, when People talk about like growing up in the 80s and they're like, yeah, yeah. My parents used to just like let me like jump off of like third story buildings. I was just. What we did. I think that like we're gonna reminisce about the era, the hundred and some years where baseball players just routinely crossed each other up all the time.
- [26:01]
Sam Miller
It still signs and just like it was, it was a little bit, you know.
- [26:05]
Grant Brisby
Yeah, like cross ups were so common. Catchers were boxing pitches all the time.
- [26:10]
Andy McCullough
You'll have your, your grandchild on your knee and you'll be like, well, let me tell you. And then Yasmani Grandal had his fifth mound visit of the inning.
- [26:22]
Grant Brisby
You know, they always say that like a catcher, if a catcher hasn't called for a pitch, you're not gonna like. If you, if the catcher is flying blind, doesn't know what's coming, he'll catch it fine. It's the certainty that he's called a pitch that makes the cross up so damaging. Because now he's, he's like completely. He's guessed wrong. Right. And I wonder if now that cross ups are so uncommon, the cross up itself is much more dangerous because they used to have to. It was like driving without seat belts. You know, it's the Peltzman effect. Nowadays they feel a sense of security and so maybe the cross ups are much more damaging.
- [26:58]
Sam Miller
That tracks. That tracks. Now are you of the opinion that pitchcom is a net positive then or are you on the fence still?
- [27:06]
Grant Brisby
Yeah, I guess I'm pro.
- [27:08]
Andy McCullough
Basically. Getting rid of signs gets rid of the threat of illegal sign stealing.
- [27:14]
Grant Brisby
I'm not gonna throw out the whole system just because Framber Valdez might cross up his catcher. Like I'm not gonna let him, I'm not gonna let him decide what we all do.
- [27:24]
Sam Miller
No, I would say my arg. My argument has more to do with twice a game, something taking out their.
- [27:29]
Grant Brisby
Hat and looking at, oh, you don't like that?
- [27:30]
Sam Miller
Oh my gosh, there's a hat in my head, you know, and then like it looks like it fit. I don't know, like that whole, that whole game I don't necessarily like. And that turns me into an old man. Older, I should say.
- [27:41]
Grant Brisby
My smoke detectors don't have replaceable batteries anymore. Now it's just like it's got a 10 year battery and you can't replace it. And it makes me wonder why we're still using like AAA batteries for these things that are shaking all the time. Why don't you just put Whatever is in my smoke detector. Some, like, futuristic battery that just, like, is set in there and you never have to replace it. Why are the batteries, like, don't last a whole game? Why would they do that? Why would they pick a system that uses a battery that you have to replace multiple times a game? That doesn't make sense to me.
- [28:15]
Sam Miller
I think the bigger problem is that you can't see, but it's actually connected by a little, like, dental floss. Thin wire that goes all the way down. You can't see it, but it gets separated sometimes. So that's why they're. They're. That's not funny. That's not a bit.
- [28:28]
Grant Brisby
You mean there's a filament? Yeah, that connects the catcher in the pitcher. They're using tin can technology. Yeah, I like that idea. I feel like solar would work. Don't we live in could? Like, my calculator was Solar powered, like, 40 years ago. Why can't they make a pitchcom solar powered?
- [28:46]
Andy McCullough
Some stadiums have a roof.
- [28:50]
Sam Miller
Explain.
- [28:50]
Grant Brisby
Going to get rid of those, you.
- [28:52]
Andy McCullough
Know, so it blocks out the sun. Like, I don't know, if you go to Marlins park, you just. Your pitchcom stops working. Just have to call. So you have to do signs again.
- [29:00]
Grant Brisby
If they can't. If the sun goes behind a cloud, then we just stop the game until the sun comes out again.
- [29:06]
Sam Miller
What if it's powered by kinetic motion? Because these baseball players, all they do is they do physical activity. Get that baby, you know, like, I guess their heads don't move that much.
- [29:16]
Grant Brisby
Andy, what were you saying about the races? The playoff races?
- [29:19]
Andy McCullough
Oh, just like what? Like the Rays are in it now?
- [29:23]
Grant Brisby
Yeah.
- [29:24]
Sam Miller
I mean, yeah.
- [29:25]
Andy McCullough
It's sort of like nothing has changed, right? Like nothing fundamentally has changed. And then every week we're like, what the heck is going on? You know, there's just someone. Someone sort of surges up from, you know, like sediment at the bottom of the pond. Right. They, like, come. They float to the surface and then they. They go back down. You know, the Reds did that for a little while. Guardians were doing that for a little while.
- [29:49]
Sam Miller
Cardinals.
- [29:49]
Andy McCullough
And now it's the Rays. And the Giants.
- [29:52]
Grant Brisby
The Diamondbacks have got playoff odds that no longer start with the decimal point. Andy's take is coming back.
- [29:57]
Andy McCullough
Let's go.
- [30:01]
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- [31:48]
Grant Brisby
Last time we recorded was a week ago because of Labor Day and I talked about how the anybody else playoff odds were 17% that the chances of any team breaking into the top 12 was 17% and it's now up to 43%. So we're almost to a coin flip that some surprise team will get in and you know I'm here for it. All we talk about this year is that all the good teams are playing badly and and like it just doesn't like it's hard for me to explain. Like I clearly have voiced a hypothesis that there are no good teams anymore and really even no good players anymore. And yet I have no explanation for how that could happen. How could it happen that 200 good baseball players would just disappear like the leftovers and leave us with this like kind of mid league all of a sudden it doesn't make sense. Which makes me think that all the things that I've been saying to analyze the playoff teams this year and they're all bad and there are no good players and every team is massively flawed. It can't be true. It can't be true that all the same players were here two years ago? Where did all the good players go?
- [33:06]
Andy McCullough
I think all the good players are still there. I really do think that our perception of what is a quote unquote, great team was distorted by the era of extreme tanking in the sort of late 2010s. Because I'm looking at this right now, right? Like the projected standings from FanGraphs. The brewers are projected to lead the sport with 97 wins, right?
- [33:36]
Grant Brisby
No, with the.
- [33:37]
Andy McCullough
Yeah, with 15 years ago, like, that was kind of normal. Like it was Rare to win 100 games. And then we experienced a period of time where, you know, winning 100 games was like de rigueur for being a great team, right? And part of that was because, you know, like there was the Orioles and stuff like that, and now again, like we have the Rockies, right? So it's not that there are not terrible baseball teams, but I think that there sort of is a normal distribution of victories as compared to, you know, what it looked like in the earlier parts of the wild card era before there were so many teams sort of like extremely trying to tank. And so I think that some of these clubs that are like, like the Pirates, for example, right, they're not tanking, they're just not very good. But they're not like selling off every sort of, you know, like Tommy Pham is still on that team. I just think that while this year does appear very much affected by kind of every time you think a team is good, they drop five of six. It's not dissimilar from last season where, you know, I forget, I think who led this. There was no 100 win team for the first time in many years. Like, I just think that they're. You're approaching sort of a version of parody, kind of similar to what it looked like at the beginning, you know, in the earlier portion of the wild card era.
- [35:00]
Sam Miller
I think something that was easy to overlook during that period where you've got all these wild teams is, I think assuming that it's going to keep happening. Happening minimizes what the Astros, for just example, were able to do. They were able to turn their first, first round picks into Alex Bregman, into George Springer, into having these successes and even, even being able to have so many successes that you can wave off the ones you didn' have, like Marel. Like, it's remarkable what they did, player development wise, hitting on these first round picks, developing from within from players left over from the previous regime, like Jose Altuve. What they did was Remarkable and, and has very few parallels in baseball history to assume it's just going to keep happening year after year with different teams coming up and taking the mantle. I think minimizes. I mean there was the whole cheating part of it that might have, that might have added into it a little bit. But just as a, from a player development standpoint, what they did was remarkable and should be celebrated a little bit more than. Yeah, it's just one of those super teams.
- [35:59]
Grant Brisby
Again, a lot of times the statistical trends have at their root the size of the league, the how long it's been since expansion, basically how many teams there are. So again, I'm just thinking on the fly here, but in the 1980s, the last 10 years before expansion began, there were 600 win teams. And so when you talk about going back to the past to see that, you know, 96 wins leading the league was actually pretty normal for part of history. The 80s and then and the 90s, the early 90s were really like that. That time you could be the best team in baseball and have 94 wins. Like that was just how the game was. And then they expanded. And when you expand, you get more extreme performances because you start putting scar more player. There's scarcity of players, right. And the bad teams start having more competition for the Tommy Fams and the good players start putting up crazy numbers against guys who would have been in Triple A and so forth. And so it's conceivable that the 2025 distribution of wins is particularly normal when you just look at how long it's been since we've had expansion. That it's like a pretty flat distribution of talent. Like the number of players that have been needed for the majors has stayed the same now for almost 30 years. Because of that, you know, there's just like the middle class, I guess, of baseball players is, is enormous. And it goes, you know, like it's almost enough to fill the whole league. On the other hand, like this is like a very quick turnaround from the super team era. So my theory doesn't necessarily hold up when you look at what happened from 2015 to 20234 where there were 2200 win teams. So my theory doesn't make that much sense just because this just started happening in the last year or two. Probably more likely that it goes to something having to do with tanking.
- [37:50]
Sam Miller
I'm less concerned with the decline and fall of super teams or the lack of 100 win teams and more concerned with this idea that every week I've got to Care about some new team. You know what I mean? Like, it's exhausting. It. It's not for me.
- [38:06]
Andy McCullough
I thought I was done with the Rays.
- [38:08]
Sam Miller
Okay? So it's not for me. It's for the fans. Right. And it's for. The idea is you. You want to go into September feeling like your team still has a chance. Well, I mean, Giants attendance is up this year in successful mission because now the Giants are going to have more fans in September than they otherwise would have. Right? So. So, hey, great for them. Like, I had made my peace with not caring about the Giants, and that's because they're a.500 team. They are. It's built. It's in their DNA. They are just. The 500 is.500 team, even if they're two games over or seven games under. The gravity of 500 is too powerful to overcome. And so I'm done thinking about them, which is bad for my job. But in general, like, thinking about them as a. As a playoff contender, as a. What will 2025 bring? 2025 has brought it and left it on their doorstep. In my mind, I'm offended that now I have to go, okay, maybe they're not as. Because I didn't think they were a bad team. I just thought, you know, they were a team kind of under a little.
- [39:03]
Andy McCullough
Bit of a black cloud when the Royals won the pennant in 2014, and all the media is getting let into the clubhouse, right, to, like, cover the celebration. Like, all the national guys are there. You know, it's like, look at that little guy in a bow tie. Ken Rosenthal and Bob Nightingale. And, you know, Jeff Passon's here, and I'm walking in with Sam Mellinger from the Kansas City Star. And I don't remember if I said this to him or he said this to me, but we turned to each other, and one of us was like, no one here can understand how bad this team was all year, right? And, like, look, if kind of the point of the season being this long is that you can get lulled into a false sense of security either way, right? Like, oh, like the Mariners, like, they're going back to the playoffs, like, this is fine, or the Giants, they're out. Like, you don't need to care, you know? Or it's like, if you're a Mariners fan, like, I. Sorry, I can't make plans, you know, in that first weekend in October, because I'm going to be trying to get tickets, right? And I think, like, part of the charm of it is you get to See it through to the end, and a team can sort of turn it on and surprise you. I mean, that Royals team was, I believe, like, either 500 or under 500, like, going into August, you know, and then they had, like, a really good August and a mediocre September, and they went to the World Series for the first time in almost 30 years. And, like, it was a super fun time to be a Royals fan. And so I think, like, from. From our perspective, like, when we're not in it every day and we're just trying to, like, make sense of what's going on, it's kind of, like, excruciating, as you said, Grant, you know, because you're just like, I. I didn't know I had to care about this team. Like, I really. I got to go figure out who's on the Rays. Like, is Griffin Jax pitching? Well, like, why did they trade for him? I got to go, like, look into this, you know, but if you're a fan of the Rays, right, Or if you're a fan of the Texas Rangers who've been kind of, like, a miserable, you know, watch this year, like, I don't know, the fun of it is kind of being in there hanging around and getting to make some noise, maybe. I think, like, you know, if you're a fan of a franchise that is not sort of, you know, spoiled, you know, in the way that, like, Dodgers fans or Yankees fans or, you know, whatever, and coming to believe that, like, winning the division is your, you know, is your rightful inheritance every season, I think, like, part of the fun is, like, getting to see this team that you thought was, you know, Brian, bleep this dog, like, crank it up randomly and, you know, get into the postseason.
- [41:39]
Sam Miller
So when I was writing at McCovey Chronicles in 2014, so we're still back in the past, like, we always are. A co writer at McCobby Chronicles submitted a story. His name is Brian Murphy. And Brian, if you're listening, I love you. You are a peach. But he submitted a story, and the title was, should the Giants even Try to Win the Wild Card Game? And. And the premise was that this team is so awful.
- [42:02]
Andy McCullough
Which side did he come out on?
- [42:04]
Sam Miller
No, he was like, no, these. These guys are. They're going to embarrass us. They're going to embarrass the franchise. Like, this is. They're. They're playing like jagweeds. It's kind of like his brand. Like, it's. It's on brand for him. But I read it because I would edit the post before I put them on the site. And I said, I can't publish this. And so I had to make it into a counterpoint where it's like, man, this would be so funny if this team actually won the World Series. And it ended up being like one of my favorite pieces of writing. And I did it in two seconds just so I could publish the poor guy's story. But that, to me is the definitive. Just get in, baby. You know, every team's got one. I think at this point, not every team, but you've got, you know, the, the Jeff Weaver, the church of Jeff Weaver. You know what I mean? That Cardinals team where it's all of a sudden, just get in, baby. Or the Rangers 20, 23, where their bullpen was just abysmal and they went, they, they lost like 30 of their last 28 games because of the bullpen. And then they get in the postseason, it's like, hey, their bullpen's pretty cool. How about that, right?
- [43:01]
Andy McCullough
Whoa. Roll this. Chapman still got it.
- [43:03]
Sam Miller
Wow, that's neat. So that is the point that gets fun when it's happening right now. Exhausting.
- [43:09]
Andy McCullough
That's fair. No, that's fair.
- [43:11]
Grant Brisby
I used to propose that we should have a game show about relievers called Is he good? And you would just ask people who are like die hard baseball fans, you'd name a reliever and say, is he good? Like right now? And no one would know because they're, you know, everybody's like so chaotic. They're like, you're constantly looking up and seeing like the reliever who was amazing last year has an ERA of 7 this year, but his FIP is 1.6, so you can't even necessarily know if he's good. Looking at his numbers and relievers are such a big part of baseball team's success right now. I mean, so many games get, you know, end up being dependent on the relievers that I wonder if is he good? Has just been transferred to the team wide level where, you know, if your relievers are hot, it's like the hot hand goalie or the hot goalie hot goalie theory in hockey. If everybody's kind of reliever dependent and relievers are all like kind of a coin flip over the course of any three week period. You've never seen anybody more dominant. You've never seen anybody more fallible sequentially. Maybe that explains some of the swings or the lack of stability in the standings too.
- [44:23]
Sam Miller
Minute 45 is when you introduce the perfect spot for me to start Talking about Ryan Walker. Ryan Walker. Behind how the Sausage is Made. We have a document that. Where we plan the show out. And Andy and I have been going at about Ryan Walker. He's like, this. This guy would have won the Reliever of the year award last year, and that's proof that it shouldn't exist. And I'm like, that season was amazing, and of course it should have been honored.
- [44:49]
Andy McCullough
Let's be clear. Like, so grand, nice colleague Tyler Kepner in his. In his Sliders column, his weekly column last week, he lifted. He listed who he thought should have won the Reliever of the Year in recent years. And his pick for the National League for last year was a player I had never heard of. Like, I'm not doing a bit. Like, I know that. Like, that's kind of like, my shtick is like, that guy's not worth my time. I had never heard of Ryan Walker. The games are on late.
- [45:20]
Sam Miller
Like, I don't watch a lot of.
- [45:22]
Andy McCullough
Giants baseball, like, when they're not, you know, like, either playing the Dodgers or playing the Mets or Yankees or Phillies. Apparently, he was quite good last year, but Grant went in and was basically like, I'll tell you 7,000 words on Ryan Walker.
- [45:37]
Sam Miller
I might write something.
- [45:39]
Andy McCullough
The voice of reason was just like, we do not actually need to know all the Ryan Walkers. Like, we don't need an award for those guys. And so I think I won.
- [45:49]
Grant Brisby
You know how there are kids who like their party trick is they can name, like, every US President.
- [45:53]
Sam Miller
I was a Capitals kid, but yeah.
- [45:55]
Andy McCullough
Yeah, I can tell you the location of every Wrestlemania.
- [45:58]
Grant Brisby
I feel like U.S. president is MVP award, and reliever of the year is like, Secretary of Commerce. If a kid showed up to your party and could tell you every Secretary of commerce since 1789, you'd call someone on them.
- [46:16]
Andy McCullough
Yeah. Honestly, like, my reaction to thinking about that is like, I want to be friends with that kid. I think he's having a bad time.
- [46:22]
Sam Miller
I will end this by saying at camp one year, summer camp. This must have been third or fourth grade. It was a camp where I didn't know anyone. Just came kids who worked for my school was in a totally different city, and we had dress up as your sports hero Day. I dressed up as Mel Ott in the third or fourth grade. The best part, though, was that I used the catcher's mitt that was hanging on my wall or catcher's mask that was hanging on my wall. And I went and I said, I'm famous catcher Mel Ott. So I had a ways to go, but I was that kid. I was Secretary of Commerce.
- [46:53]
Andy McCullough
Have I told you about my best. I think I've talked about this on the show. My best Halloween costume in college. I put on a blazer and a batting helmet and I was John Olerude at a dinner party.
- [47:05]
Sam Miller
Good bit. That's a good bit. That's a good bit. Do you think the kids know Philip Klutznik? He was for a year. Yeah.
- [47:12]
Grant Brisby
Yeah. From like 19. Like 70. 68. 68.
- [47:18]
Sam Miller
He was a Reagan guy. He was a, you know, Klutznik. He was an 80 guy.
- [47:21]
Grant Brisby
Wow. Secretary of Commerce. By the way, I just looked up that Wikipedia page.
- [47:25]
Sam Miller
That's how I knew that Rebecca Blank. Too non consecutive. He's.
- [47:29]
Grant Brisby
She's the Grover Cleveland of the pedants out there. I just want to let you know that I have looked up the Secretary of Commerce and I do understand now that there was no Secretary of Commerce until the 1910s, and therefore my reference to 1789 was wrong. You've won again.
- [47:44]
Sam Miller
Damn it. Damn it.
- [47:46]
Andy McCullough
Back then it was just called the Secretary of Money. And that's what we're going to change it back to.
- [47:50]
Sam Miller
Secretary of Bones. All right. We are going to be back on Monday. Talk about baseball, see what goes on over the weekend. Hope you join us. See you then.
- [48:06]
Andy McCullough
I was very wrong.
- [48:15]
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Dimitri Boylan
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