Podcast Summary: The Windup – The Roundtable | What We Will Remember from the 2025 MLB Season (Episode #198)

Date: December 19, 2025
Hosts: Grant Brisbee, Andy McCullough, Sam Miller
Podcast: The Windup: A Show About Baseball (The Athletic)

Overview

This lively "Roundtable" episode of The Windup gathers Grant Brisbee, Andy McCullough, and Sam Miller to reflect on the 2025 MLB season. The hosts share the moments, trends, and oddities that will endure in their memories years from now—ranging from bizarre on-field plays to the shifting culture of baseball, the re-emergence of pitch tipping, and the communal joys and annoyances of baseball fandom. The tone is warm, sharp, and self-deprecating, full of inside jokes, crackling observations, and deep love for the absurdities of the sport.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Generational Disconnects & Baseball Fandom

[02:30 – 06:41]

• The episode opens with a humorous exchange about feeling out of touch as aging fans and writers, drawing analogies between not recognizing modern celebrities and being confused by new baseball trends.
• Sam describes how, even as an avid watcher, he sometimes resists learning about marginal players until forced:

  "I finally snapped and said, that's it. I'm going to find out who Adrian Houser is once and for all. So I did. And boy, was that uneventful." (Grant Brisbee, [05:36])

The "Houser Line"

• The "Houser line" becomes an inside joke: the imaginary threshold where a player’s relevance is so marginal, you resist learning about them until circumstances leave you no choice.

Most Memorable Micro-Moments of 2025

Hunter Greene's Bizarre No-Hitter-Saving Play

[07:08 – 11:39]

• Sam’s standout play:

  • In a September game, Hunter Greene has a no-hitter into the fifth.
  • Pete Crow-Armstrong hits a liner past first, which ricochets off Moises Ballesteros’s helmet at first base, sending the ball deep into center.
  • Ballesteros, dazed, is thrown out at second, preserving the no-hitter in a remarkable and chaotic sequence.
  • Quote:

    "If Hunter Greene had finished that no hitter, I think it would have gone down as maybe the most unlikely no hitter saving play ever." (Sam, [09:16])

• Noted the play’s absurd violence (hit at 105 MPH), initial worries about Ballesteros’ health, and lament that the actual no-hitter didn’t come to pass.

Pete Alonso’s Awkward Base Running

[15:06 – 16:43]

• Andy picks Pete Alonso’s hapless, almost amphibian running style as his favorite comedic moment.
• The group agrees: audio does not do justice to the physical comedy of Alonso—"he becomes amphibian as he rounds second base." (Andy, [15:23])

Game 7: The Sound of Silence

[16:43 – 19:06]

• Andy recalls being in the stadium for Game 7 of the World Series:
  • Will Smith’s ball lands in the Blue Jays' bullpen, producing a “thunk” that echoes in total silence despite a previously deafening crowd.
  • Quote:

    "Literally, when Will Smith's ball landed in the Blue Jays bullpen, it was so quiet, you could hear it thunk. I have never experienced that in my career." (Andy, [16:43])

Macro Trends & Cultural Shifts

The Return of Pitch Tipping

[21:34 – 26:40]

• Andy highlights a return to pitch tipping as a major theme, distinguishing it from the illegal (and controversial) sign-stealing scandals of prior years.

• The crew discusses how technology and analytics now augment but don't cross old ethical lines; pitchers and batters are engaging in a new cat-and-mouse game with runners on second visibly—or theatrically—signaling pitches.

• Grant dubs this “codified subterfuge”—the acceptable, playful kind of subterfuge that adds drama.

• Sam notes:

  "Offenses are playing into that paranoia, whether or not they have anything... constantly teams trying to act like they're tipping off the batter, even when they don't have anything." (Sam, [24:21])

• The intentional balk to third base becomes a common defense, sometimes even in high-leverage innings, showing how strategy adapts to paranoia about tipping.

Changing Attitudes Around Fundamentals

[37:35 – 43:00]

• Sam bemoans what he sees as a collapse in fundamentals, joking he has “folders and folders” of bad baserunning and mental mistakes.
  • His highlight: Eli White’s incomprehensible baserunning blunder, misreading a coach’s stop sign and getting tagged in the face running back to second.
  • The group muses about whether it’s realistic to expect anyone, players included, to know MLB’s labyrinthine rulebook.

Behind-the-Scenes: MLB Rules Enforcement

[27:25 – 30:27]

• New details emerge: MLB now employs three full-time “cell phone monitors” at every game to enforce no digital device usage—a job growth quip follows.
• Andy shares an old anecdote about Ned Yost being ratted out for wearing an Apple Watch—highlighting the often-petty but persistent tech-vs-regulation tug-of-war in the game.

The Emotional Texture of the Season

Catharsis, Burnout & Rediscovering Joy

[30:49 – 32:52]

• Grant describes feeling burned out and experiencing imposter syndrome while covering the Giants, only to have his passion rekindled by an improbably wild extra-innings game in Chicago:

  "I came to the ballpark and I saw something I didn't see before... [it was] just this rejuvenation of like, hell yeah, baseball is so much fun. I am so lucky." (Grant, [32:15])

Social Media & Baseball Community

[45:55 – 48:24]

• The hosts reflect on the fleeting communal magic of an 18-inning World Series game as fans revived joy and camaraderie on Blue Sky, lamenting the decline of Twitter as a locus for such shared baseball moments.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On aging out of baseball’s zeitgeist:

  "There's an element of that with baseball because, you know, like, the thing is evolving, right? Like, it's not a static experience." (Andy, [05:08])

• On baseball stats and pitcher records:

  "Baseball is so weird right now, you guys. Hunter Greene has a career ERA plus of 123... and is 25 and 29. It's like wild how like the numbers for not just wins, but decisions like in one generation, completely, completely wiped clean." (Sam, [11:39])

• On pitch tipping:

  "Now, like, pitch tipping is a thing that every pitcher thinks about constantly." (Andy, [24:14])

• On baseball’s byzantine rules:

  "I'm not actually sure that it's fair to expect players to know the rules of the game. I think we might have gone too far." (Sam, [43:23])

• On generational disdain:

  "No person feels more disdain for a group than the people who are just a few years younger than them." (Andy, [45:27])

• On rediscovering love for the game:

  "Baseball is so much fun. I am so lucky. I love this. Everything about it." (Grant, [32:15])

Timestamps for Key Segments

| Timestamp | Segment | |-------------|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 02:30–06:41 | Aging as baseball fans, pop culture disconnects, the “Houser line” | | 07:08–11:39 | Hunter Greene’s near-mythical no-hitter moment | | 15:06–16:43 | Pete Alonso’s hilariously awkward running; the physical comedy of baseball | | 16:43–19:06 | Andy’s memory from World Series Game 7—“the sound of silence” after Will Smith’s HR | | 21:34–26:40 | Return of pitch tipping, intentional balks, gamesmanship | | 27:25–30:27 | MLB’s digital device enforcement, anecdotes about the watch controversy | | 30:49–32:52 | Grant’s existential crisis and rediscovering joy in a wild Giants-Cubs game | | 37:35–43:00 | The sorry state of fundamentals—Eli White’s running blunder, rules confusion | | 45:55–48:24 | The fleeting magic of communal baseball conversations on social media/Blue Sky |

Closing Thoughts

The episode is a celebration of what makes each season distinct, from slapstick chaos to quiet, transcendent moments. The hosts emphasize that, alongside the game's evolving strategy and culture, its greatest treasure is the unexpected: moments no one—not even the experts—have seen before, and the ways those moments knit baseball people together across generations.

End of Summary.