Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2259: Rated Rooker

Episode Date: December 19, 2024

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the Cody Bellinger trade, the Yankees’ and Cubs’ next moves, Guaranteed Rate Field changing to Rate Field, and the results of MLB’s inquiry into pitcher injuries. Then (31:39) they bring back A’s slugger Brent Rooker to discuss his monster 2024, his work as a World Series correspondent, misconceptions […]

Hello and welcome to episode 2259 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from FanGraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Raleigh of FanGraphs. Hello Meg. Hello. Apologies in advance for any sound issues, background noise. There's a bit of a hubbub, a commotion at my house, but we will persevere. A hullabaloo? Yeah, I think it could qualify as a hullabaloo. Nonetheless, we persist. And here's

what I want to start with. Do you remember I made a joke the other day, I'm sure many people made this joke that the Yankees would probably try to recreate Juan Soto in the aggregate. Well now that is exactly what they have done. In fact, down to the tenth of a projected win. I just, I added up the numbers for Soto. So right now the fan graphs, depth charts, projections, I assume are just drawing on the steamer projection system with the Fangrass playing time estimates and yeah, relying on that, Soto currently has a 6.8 war projection. So I have added up Devin Williams, Max Fried and Cody Bellinger.

And we have 2.5 for Bellinger, 3.3 for Fried and, and 1.0 for Williams and Meg, that adds up to exactly 6.8. So they have recreated Wonsoto in the aggregate. Hang the banner. They did it. Mission accomplished. Yeah. Granted, they've allotted three times the roster spots that W Soto will take up. And also I believe the combined salary is there.

So it's a 27 and a half for Freed, 27 and a quarter for Bellinger and a projected 7.7 in arbitration for Williams. That ups up to 62 and a half, which is a good deal more than one Soto will be receiving for at least one year, although I guess there's signing bonuses and such and they did not have to commit to as many years for any one of these free agents, though again, I guess in the aggregate it adds up.

But yeah, the Cubs are kicking in some cash for Cody as well. That's true. There's a 5 million that the Cubs are paying down of the 52 and a half million remaining on Bellinger's contract. So two and a half of next season salary, another two and a half of the 52.5 million remaining on Bellinger's contract. So two and a half of next season salary, another two and a half of the year after that, there's a buyout to and five million if he opts out of his contract after next year, which would probably mean that he had himself a nice season with the Yankees. Point is, they have

done, I guess, the best you could do with three moves to try to equal the total projected value of Juan Soto. And maybe they had to pay a little more at least for 2025 if you don't take into account the signing bonus and they have to allocate three more roster spots for those guys, but by gum, they've done it. They have done it. Like, okay. So last time I said that I wanted to make sure I was being fair to the Yankees' moves,

right? And assessing them for their own merits and not only viewing them through the lens of having failed to acquire Soto. So there's that. I think you're right, but also, but also, Ben. I think that you would point to the offense of the New York Yankees as a kind of meh point of their team last year that outside of Judge and Soto, you know, it wasn't that it was a bad offense, it was better than the year before, but also not, you know, amazing, not superlative once you extracted those acquiring Bellinger.

They have gotten a bat who could be any number of things, you know, like has been pretty variable in his production. Now I think that Bellinger is a really great roster fit for the Yankees. He's a good defender in center field. He can play first base. I think that all signs point to them continuing to sort of explore the first base market. They've been attached to Christian Walker. They've been attached to Pete Alonso. They've even been attached to Paul Goldschmidt. But if that fails to materialize, Bellinger's positional

versatility is a big boon to them. And that's not to say that his bat will be bad. We've just seen it be vacillate pretty dramatically year to year. And so what version of them they get, we're not quite sure. I think he'll, that park fits him well. So that's nice. I imagine that they're counting on sort of a bit of a boost there, but I think you're right. But also, you know, and, And I sound like I'm yucking

the Yankees yum, and I am shocked I was able to say that without stumbling over it. I don't mean to be. I liked this move for them. I like the moves that they've made. I think that having a rotation with more sort of reliable depth and to say reliable depth in relation to Max Treat is to do him a disservice, but to have a stronger rotation with a reinforced bullpen with a real shutdown closer at the back of it behind it, that's a great move. I think Bellinger is a good move. I think particularly if they land on a first baseman, they like, again, I feel like I'm really ragging on Ben Rice. Don't mean to be. I don't have anything against Ben Rice. Never met him.

Don't really know anything about him other than his last name is Rice. And I like it when people have food names. I like that about people. But anyway, I think that like if they bring in another bat of that group, you know, people know that I have a particular affinity for Christian Walker because I think that his defense at first base is actually like good enough to be noteworthy even at that end of the defensive spectrum. Alonso bops home runs plus like there is, there is kind of a like, hee hee to Alonso being a Yankee that might appeal to a certain subset of the game. I guess, maybe. The Mets might be like, yeah, that's okay. You can take Peter Alonzo being a Yankee that might appeal to a certain subset of the game.

I guess, maybe. The Mets might be like, yeah, that's okay. You can take Pete Alonzo. I mean, they'd be sad. Mets fans would miss him. But Steve Cohen is probably going to be like, okay, you got your guy, we got ours. I'm pretty pleased with the way that worked out. I'm not talking about Steve Cohen. The feelings, the heart, the mind of that man, unrelatable to your average Joe. But you give a bleacher creature, Pete Alonso, New York Yankee to work with, they're going to cook, Ben. That's a recipe for some signs, if nothing else. Again, we want to do this dance.

We want to be mindful of it still being a bummer for the New York Yankees that they did not sign Wansoto while also acknowledging that this is good. These are good moves, you know? So good for them. And really, what did they give up? Cote-a-Poteat? It's fine. Yeah.

I don't have to add him to the projected war math because he's projected to be exactly replacement level. Although, I guess to be consistent and intellectually honest, I should note that Nestor Cortez does project to be worth 1.9 war. So I guess I should debit that from the Yankees recreating Wonsodo in aggregate total and they've still got a little work to do. And to be clear, I am not suggesting that they are equally well off with these three guys who have the same projected war total as Wonsodo. I think it'd be nice to have Wonsodo, but given that they missed out on him, they've done about as good a job as they could do in a week or so to make that smart a little less because you really have to strike well that iron is hot. There are people who are pissed and

they're upset and they're lamenting the loss of one Soto. And if you want to appease the masses and also make your roster better, then you got to go get some good players. And they've done that. They've gone and gotten three guys who are good fits for them and help them. And it doesn't completely make up for the loss of Soto, but they've compensated for that as well as they could. Yeah. And I think that, you know, the story that we were starting to tell about the Yankees, particularly in relation to failing to sustain Soto was that they had created this sense

of like not having sufficient want of not being able to answer. And this was speculation on our part granted, because we haven't really gotten the full TikTok here, but not being able to answer the perception of you're not going to continue to do more and, you know, and being really haughty about sweets for some reason. I don't know. It was necessary for them to counter that perception, right? Not just for the sake of their fan base, but like as they continue to try to attract other free agents, they want to be able to say in a convincing manner, no we're the New York Yankees. We got knocked down, we didn't get the guy we wanted, but there are a lot of ways to be good and we are committed to continuing to improve this

roster and being sort of a dominant force in the AL East. And I think that they are answering that call and I hope they continue to bolster that lineup because I do think that it needs continued bolstering. It needs to be further bolstered. It needs those braces, you know, but I think that they are doing some, some nice work here. So good for them. And they'll do more. And I'm sure they'll get an outfielder or they'll get a first baseman.

And then we'll know where Cody Beler will wind up when the music stops. And if he plays center, then that's fine. Maybe the only concern there is, well, is your, are you blocking Jason Dominguez? Are you shifting him over to left and are you hurting his long-term value? But he could always move back over. He's still pretty young and Bellinger is not signed long-term. So, and you could always mix and match. He's still pretty young and Bellinger is not signed longterm. And you could always mix and match a little bit there. That's not that bad a problem really.

So yeah, I think, look, I don't want to see them sort of punt on Dominguez. It doesn't seem like they have a real interest in doing that. He obviously hasn't had an opportunity to really answer the question of like, what kind of hitter can he be at the big league level? What kind of defender can he be at the big league level? But I think that you don't necessarily want to like punt that position. Like if they go to, if they sign a first baseman, it gets marginally more complicated. But if they don't, then you go into spring with Dominguez and Bellinger sort of figuring out the distribution of playing time. And if Jason Dominguez really wows you, then I guess you just play Bellinger first. And again, Ben Rice short ended the stick.

HOFFMAN All right. So that's an intriguing move. And from the Cubs perspective, we kind of anticipated that this would happen as we were recording the last episode. So we sort of pre responded to a Bellinger trade, except that we didn't know that what they'd be getting back and mostly what they got back was salary relief. So this is a salary dump essentially. And I was saying last time that I didn't think they needed to trade him from a roster fit standpoint. Yeah, they had a lot of moving parts, but I thought they were still a better team with Bellinger than without.

And that if they were going to trade him, I hoped that it wouldn't be purely for cost cutting and savings having brought on Tucker. And if they're saying, well, we can't afford both, then that would be bad. But there is still the possibility that they might repurpose those savings and sign someone and go get some pictures. And so the jury is still out. This is still kind of a incomplete work in progress. We'll see whether they put that money to something other than the owner's pockets. Yeah, I am pessimistic about that. Because I think that if you were in a position where you felt comfortable committing

to additional payrolls, really, you probably just keep Ballinger and just spend some money. But I don't know, maybe this is the way for them to spend something. Maybe this is the way for them to spend something. Maybe this is the way for them to be within a budget. Maybe they really like Cody Poteet, you know? Poteet, Poteet, Poteet? I think. Poteet? Maybe there is a heretofore unknown part of the CBA that requires them to have a Cody at all times.

Yeah, the Cody Claus. The Cody Claus, yeah. Well, I welcome Cody Ballinger to my city. I wish him well in pinstripes, but his dad, Clay Ballinger, former Effectively Wildcast, will always be the true Bronx bomber Ballinger to me. The only other thing we might mention here, actually, I guess we could note that elsewhere in Chicago,

there's now a new name for the ballpark that the White Sox play in. It's no longer guaranteed rate field. It is rate field. They have dropped the guaranteed. How is that worse? It is, I'm trying to articulate why. Rate field.

Rate field, rate field, and then thumbs down. What are we doing? Sounds like right field. It sounds like right field. It sounds like rate the field, and everyone's gonna go It sounds like, um, rate the fields and everyone's going to go like this, this field stinks. Look at the name very highly, at least because the sponsor guaranteed rate companies is doing business as rate.

And so they want their sponsorship name to reflect, but it really, you wouldn't even necessarily associate it with a company. It just seems like it's too short and it's not, it's a word and it's a word that you might say in a baseball context sometimes. And so if I heard rate field, I don't even know that I would associate that with a company. Now granted rate, formerly guaranteed rate is a Chicago based company. So it's better known in the Chicago area.

Although I guess if it's known, then you don't necessarily need to sponsor the Chicago area. Although I guess if it's known, then you don't necessarily need to sponsor the ballpark. But it just doesn't really scan to me even as a sponsorship. No, it doesn't scan as a name. It doesn't scan as a company, Ben. Which I guess makes it less bad in some ways because sometimes like guaranteed rate was a mouthful. But I almost liked it just because it sounded

vaguely baseball-y in a way. Like we talk a lot about rate stats and guess it's better to have a guaranteed rate than the no guarantee at all. There's nothing guaranteed about the White Sox these days. Some sponsors of ballparks, some corporate sponsors sound a little more palatable than others. Like if you have American family field or something, it sounds, you know,

it's America, it's baseball, it's family, it's apple pie. It fits, I guess, right? Sure. It doesn't immediately repulse you or sound super corporate, even though it is. And you can call it AmFam and that's fun and it sounds like AbFab. And so I like that. Rate field just seems like it's, it's over before you start saying it. And maybe my main quibble with it is that the logo for rate, and also, I guess,

formerly for guaranteed rate, it's the word rate, and then it's a red arrow pointing down, which is what you want if you're taking out a mortgage and you want a low interest rate, but if you're taking out a mortgage and you want a low interest rate, but if you're at a baseball park, you usually don't want your rate to go down. That's what happened with the White Sox winning percentage. That rate went way down and that's not what you want. And I guess there are rates that you do want them to go down, like a ERA or an opponent's slugging percentage or something, but the most commonly cited rate stats in baseball probably are the triple slash stats and you

want those to go up. And even if we talk about rate stats for pitchers, like a strikeout rate, we want that to go up. And so the down red arrow and red side seems like, oh, something's going wrong here. It fits with the white socks these days, but. Right. But it's like being on the wrong end of a win probability graph. Like, what are we doing?

Well, I think we should reverse the arrow for the baseball stadium. I don't know. I don't know if, um, there was a lot of competition for the name, for the sponsorship rates to that ballpark. Although when they entered the deal with guaranteed rate, what the artists formerly known as guaranteed rate, they were, they were thriving, you know, they were a going concern at that time. We thought the White Sox were a good baseball team. 2016, they made a 13 year agreement.

Right. And so like maybe not at the right at the beginning baseball team. 2016, they made a 13 year agreement. And so maybe not at the right at the beginning of their agreement, but they had a stretch in there where they're a good baseball team. We had high expectations of the White Sox and then things went badly and now we don't, but Ben, they should say no when they don't fit. You don't want to be named after crypto, even though a lot of them still are. I still think that the only good sponsorship

is the smoothie king. Smoothie king arena, that's it. That's the only good one, because who doesn't love a smoothie? You'd almost tolerate monarchy for that. For a good smoothie, one that's like properly blended, not grainy, sometimes they're grainy, you know?

That's bad about smoothies. But- Yeah, you want it really smooth. You want it well blended. If I were a company and I were doing the naming rights to a stadium, I would be inclined to be like, okay, what is a thing that evokes the place, you know, that really speaks to the city or the region that this team is in, and then do like a weird, fancy like, you know, in Seattle, for instance, when the naming rights for what was Safecoe

were coming up and they were going to entertain new bidders. I had hoped that Rainier Brewing would be the sponsor and then it could be Rainier Fields. Now I acknowledge that that might've been marginally confusing because of the Tacoma Rainiers, but guess what? People would have gotten over it. And so I was like, oh, it should be Rainier Fields. Because yeah, that's a name, like a brand name in the Pacific Northwest, but it's also the mountain, you know? And then it would have evoked this sense of the region and it would have been so cool. And Rainier's owned by Anne Heiser-Brusch now anyway, so they have the money.

They have the money, Ben. And they didn't do it, but you could have been, I don't know, like what's a, you could have been Deep Dish Field presented by a pizza place. I don't know. Like, sorry Chicago people. I know you have more than just Deep Dish Pizza. You also have very specific opinions about hot dogs. It's fine.

It's a great city, beautiful city. Love Chicago. One of my favorites. One of my favorites in the whole country. Yes, producer Shane. He lives there. Shout out to Shane. Shout out to Shane.

Shout out to Shane. But what I'm saying is like, you should have, they could have been Frank Lloyd Wright Field presented by Frank Lloyd Wright Trust or something. I don't know. You can do a presented by if you're- Be a bit more discerning, sure. Because like, I am skeptical of the real marketing value of stadium naming rights. I think the entire enterprise is kind of suspect because, except for the smoothie king, once

again, except for smoothie king, the smoothie king has got it figured because every time I turn on a game and they're like, where is smoothie king? I'm like, oh man, I could go for a smoothie provided it's not grainy. Sometimes they're grainy. This is why people should be chill about the protein stuff. You're all obsessed with protein powder. Stop it, you're ruining your smoothies. You're making them grainy.

Just have vegetables and fruits in there and you'll be like, ah, this is so great. Not grainy. Anyway, I'm skeptical of the whole enterprise. I don't think that it really moves the needle. Has anyone been like, oh, I guess I want to go with T-Mobile as my wireless provider because of the ballpark? No, just like you probably didn't seek out Safeco insurance.

I mean, maybe you did. We're immune to advertising. I do at least. I think I'm not susceptible to it. I, this isn't your Jedi mind tricks. Aren't going to work on me, but it must, right? It must work on most people or else. I do not make such a claim. I will acknowledge my weak little brain and its weak little instincts. And you know, you go on Instagram and sometimes you need that. And I'm not saying I'm immune to advertising.

I would not make such a claim. I accept my squishy little brain. But I don't think that stadium advertising works. I just don't. I'm skeptical. Mercedes-Benz. Okay, great. I am no more capable of buying a Mercedes-Benz today than I was yesterday when I saw the

sponsorship. Anyway, this has been a... Cuddy Bellinger is a good fit. capable of buying a Mercedes Benz today than I was yesterday when I saw the sponsorship, you know? Anyway, this has been a... Cuddy Bellinger is a good fit, smoothies shouldn't be grainy and are delicious and also... That's a weird... It's just a weird corporate name, rate. It feels incomplete.

What is that? What is that? Curious. Because this is a good rate or a bad rate? It's a neutral term. I guess that's what the arrow is for, but it seems like it should be in the name somewhere. Anyway, the last thing that I want to note here, because I don't know that there's all that much new to say about it, is that MLB released its findings after spending a year or so talking to people about the pitcher injury problem and what is at the root of this injury epidemic and why are pitchers hurting themselves and what can be done.

And they talked to hundreds of people in all kinds of capacities around the game and it was known that this was happening and we talked about the fact that it was happening and I wrote about the fact that it was happening. And now it's done and the full report is not publicly released, at least not yet, but it's sort of floating around and there are many, many summaries out there that essentially say what it said. And basically they concluded that it's mostly max velo, max effort and velo and chasing stuff and speed.

And that is exactly what I guess we kind of thought it was. I mean, it's nothing particularly shocking came to light here. And I guess I kind of approve of the conclusion because this is my belief already. So it sort of reinforced my belief that this is the main problem, that it's chasing Velo and Max effort, which is partly picture approach and partly pitcher usage.

And it made some suggestions about changing training habits and don't train full strength all season. You got to off season that is, you got to give yourself some time to rest and recuperate and a little less of a rapid build up to spring training. A lot of guys get hurt early in the season. And what we talked about last time that Rob Minfred mentioned about trying to close some loopholes with recycling pitchers and maybe lowering the roster limit for pitchers on the active roster, all things that

I've been advocating for a while. And so I'm happy to see them sort of be the official tentative position here, but it wasn't as if there was some smoking gun. The research that they did seems largely to have been talking to a lot of people, which is, yeah, it's a form of evidence. It's, you know, it's good to talk to people who know what they're talking about and get their thoughts.

And if there's kind of a consensus on that, then that's valuable evidence. But it didn't seem as if there were new studies conducted or anything. The data is kind of correlation, not causation. It's hard to untangle those things, obviously. So that's why I'm saying it doesn't seem as if there's any really new compelling evidence, but it does at least present the league's official position here thus far. And you can kind of take that and run with it in some direction. I don't disagree.

The findings of this study are consistent with, I think, what we and not just just you, and I'm not saying you and I, like on an island ourselves, you know, what folks in the industry, observers of this, whether they're coaches, players, or medical professionals, have asserted for a long time, which is throwing max effort, chasing velo and spin are going to put more stress on your joints and your ligaments and all your weird little bits and make you more likely to get hurt and guys are more likely to get hurt. And I think that that conclusion is correct and I think that it goes beyond saying it feels correct. Like I do think that that is the right conclusion and you're right to say that this form of

research is real research. Also, this is like a medical and empirical question. And so I am a little wary of the way that they're talking about this because I think that they are talking about it as if it has like a rigor or they're hoping people assume a particular kind of data driven rigor to it rather than an interview based. They did like a picture ethnography basically. And I don't want to discount that as like an important research tool generally, or even in this case in particular, because I think that folks sharing their experiences

around this stuff is a useful way to point toward further research questions. But I do feel like there's a little bit of nonsense going on here. There's an attempt on their part to make it sound more robust than it was or a different form of study. Like they're using, it feels like they're using that word and hoping that people assume it to mean something different than the kind of research that they were conducting. And maybe that's paranoid on my part. And I don't know that there's like a ton of,

these conclusions aren't great for baseball. So in that respect, like why would they monkey around? They're basically, he admitted, right? Like this implicates the entire industry. It implicates teams. Amateur all the way up, yeah. All the way up. It implicates all of the shops like, you know, Drive Line that have been training for Velo.

It paints a very broad brush and it lays the blame a lot of places. And I do think that like it might give some heft to reforms that you're right. You have said, we have said, a lot of people have said for a long time, feel necessary to actually arresting the trend of injuries. But I also think that like we know that guys who don't throw super hard get hurt sometimes too. And you think it's going to be the little wasting looking boys that always get injured and that happens. And then the big lads get hurt too. I'm imagining in the secret garden, you have Colin and the other guy and that's the contrast.

And you're like, oh, it's only the ones who to worry about the spores that have their elbows blow out but no sometimes the gardener kid also gets hurt so it's like that you know baseball's like the secret garden in so many ways really. I enjoyed that book so sure yeah. And I will say the movie from the 90s is so good it's like a real it's a real classic anyway it's not even the Friday show and this is the vibe I'm bringing. So what are you going to do? Jared Ranere All right. Well, yeah, I guess, you know, they said it was a first step and more research is required and all of that. So they didn't claim it was absolutely open and shut and conclusive. But yeah.

Lauren Ruffin I don't want to accuse anyone of anything, but it just felt, I was like, I don't know that there's like a malicious intent, but it just felt a little squishy to me. And it's like, no, we should have precision here. Cause I think that people see study and they imagine like, you know, a pitcher with a bunch of stuff attached to him, like running with one of those masks, even though that doesn't have anything to do with his elbow. Like, oh, I studied them in a lab. It's a tough thing to study as rigorously as you'd like. You need a lab league and someone who's willing to sacrifice themselves essentially at the altar of baseball science.

But there are studies out there too. There's research out there. That's why we know that throwing max effort that leads to more strain. That research has been done and documented, so there wasn't really new research done here. They sort of cited existing studies, but it's not as if there's nothing out there and everyone's completely guessing. So they reached the conclusion that I have reached through my own review of the evidence such as it is. And so I'm heartened by that because my agenda is to try to fix these issues. And that's what I

have concluded is the best way to do it. But I also want to stay open-minded and you could say that maybe they reach that conclusion and then they work backward from it, or they were just eager not to implicate rules changes or anything and, you know, they didn't come up with anything that suggested there was a connection there, but were they motivated to find one, who knows? So yeah, you could poke holes in it, but I think it's at least a solid step to have this down as kind of the industry consensus if it is in fact what experts think.

And then we just have to decide what we have the will to do about it. And is MLB going to push the issue here and will everyone else get on board with that? And will that trickle down to the lower levels and how long will that take? And these are all open questions, because even if you do decide this is why it's happening, it's another matter entirely to say, and here's how we fix it. So that's gonna take some time and some effort,

but I think at least they're on the right track. All right, we are definitely on the right track with our guests today. We've got a good one. And we are pleased to say that we will be talking to Brent Rooker again, a podcast favorite, really established himself as a favorite of ours and our audiences and one mere appearance. And he is back after just a fantastic season to talk to us about

that and about so much more. If you somehow missed what Brent Rooker accomplished in 2024. He hit 293, 365, 562. Those are some rates that went up. He had a 164 WRC plus. He was somewhere in the five to five and a half war range, depending on your war metric in 145 games, 614 played appearances. He was one of the best hitters in baseball. That is not an exaggeration to say among qualified hitters.

He ranked seventh in the whole game behind brand names, Judge, Otani, Soto, Alvarez, Witt Jr, Guerrero Jr, and then Brent Rooker. He took a somewhat different path to the top of that leaderboard than many of those players did. But we will have a wide ranging discussion with Brent Rooker when we're back with him in just a moment. All right, well, we are thrilled to be rejoined now by one of our favorite guests of the year. I actually had been thinking of his previous podcast appearance as last year, but no, it

was one of our first episodes of this year and this is one of our last episodes of this year. And so we have come full circle and we are bringing back Brent Rooker of the Athletics, the Silver Slugger himself, and also now a media member. Welcome to our side of things, Brent. Yeah, guys. Good to be back. Had a good time last time, so looking forward to talking to you all again. I'm glad we were afraid that this would be the furthest thing from what you wanted to do to come back on this podcast, but leave it to us after you had this monster season that I really want

to ask you about being a correspondent for MLB during the World Series because, you know, we're media members and so it's always interesting to me when a player wants to be one of us. It's a nice little self-esteem ego boost because there's a perception that people in the media, we just went into this because we couldn't be big leaguers. Whereas in my case, I easily could have been a big leaguer. I just preferred to be a podcaster. I could not have been a big leaguer. I'm willing to take the L on that one. I had a lot of fun doing that. It was a good time.

The MLB kind of social team did a good job setting it up and coordinating everything. And I had a good time going out there and hanging out and getting to go to games. Yeah, it was you and Luisa Reiss and Ozzy Albies. What a dream team, what a trio. And you were doing sideline interviews, pre and post game interviews. The guy just comes off the field after winning a game and you have to be the one to stick a microphone in his face, which must have been

an interesting role reversal because you've been on the other side of that so many times. And I'm sure that when the microphone has been stuck in your face, you've thought, what a dumb question. This person just asked me what I was looking for up there. How do I feel or whatever? And then you're suddenly in that situation. Are you thinking to yourself actually what would be a good question to ask you? It was interesting for sure.

Uh, and I think, you know, having been on the other side of it was a little bit of an advantage just cause I know thought processes of guys, you know, throughout the game and kind of what they'd be focusing on or, or where their mind would be. So I was able to kind of tailor questions, you know, to subjects that I knew they'd be they think they would give interesting answers to. There's obviously questions you can give that just kind of always are going to receive stock answers. But I thought I could kind of come up with something that, that maybe went a little deeper or

was a little bit more detailed about certain aspects of the game or the series or, or whatever it was that would kind of lead to some more in-depth answers and both Kike and Alex for Dugo were great and they, they were, they went along with it and we had a good time doing it. Yeah. Well, Kike is a good guy to talk to. It would have been funny if you had gotten someone who just gave you sort of the standards, you know, I was just looking for a pitch to hit and I got a good

pitch to hit and I put a good swing on it and I didn't try to do too much. And you're up there like, come on, give me something, you know, feeling our pain. Yeah, no, Kike and Dougie both did a really good job with it. They had some good answers. They gave some good insight. You know, both kind of took, took whatever I asked them and ran with a little bit. So I was appreciative of the good job with it. They had some good answers. They gave some good insight, you know Both kind of took took whatever I asked him and ran with a little bit So I was appreciative of the good content for sure Did either of them seem happier to see you than a member of the full-time media?

I can imagine coming off the field and going oh, thank god. I get to talk to Brent. Yeah I can't take a and you know Just kind of started the started the question and started asking it. He hadn't really looked at me yet. And he just kind of looked at me and was like, oh, it's you. Like, this is different. This isn't, you're not normally the person

that's doing these things. So they both had kind of funny reactions to it. And I think they both enjoyed it. Is this something that you think you might wanna do down the road, way down the road? Yeah, I think so. I think, I mean, I don't know if it's specifically doing like sideline stuff like that, but I would love to be in a booth.

You know, I think the network does some really interesting things with with video breakdowns and kind of diving into, you know, D-RO does a cool job looking at swings and looking at pictures, mechanics and look at it and sequencing and all these things that I think are very, very interesting. And I think I can offer some good insight into. So yeah, several years down the road, hopefully, that kind of thing is something I think I would be interested in doing.

HOFFMAN You know, you could start a podcast, not that we need any more competition, because these days, you know, that was kind of the terrain of the people who couldn't play. And now suddenly every player has a podcast. So that's an option for you, although you're always welcome to join us. BROCK Yeah, there's a lot of guys doing it. A lot of guys doing a good job with it. I think for you, although you're always welcome to join us. Yeah, there's a lot of guys doing it. A lot of guys doing a good job with it. I think it's kind of cool kind of bridging that gap, I think.

You know, as players with social media and the media world in general, we're more accessible to fans and be able to communicate and interact with fans and share ideas and thoughts and kind of in a way try to like try to inform you know the common viewer a little bit of what's actually happening versus what may look like it's happening. So I think a lot of guys are enjoying that and taking advantage of it and it's been cool to watch. And this might be a dumb question, but I'll ask it anyway just in case. Did the proximity to the World Series light a fire under you at all and make you think,

gee, I really want to be here. I really want to be unav. I really want to be unavailable to be this correspondent the way that Mookie Betts was because he did this before, but he was unavailable because he was playing in the World Series. So were you thinking, you know, maybe you're already at the maximum desire to win a pennant and be in that position someday, but I wonder whether being that close to it made you think it really would be nice to be on the other side. Definitely. Being in that environment, experiencing it, especially at Yankee Stadium, and the atmosphere as cool as that was for those two games was really cool.

Just getting a feel and a sense for not only what playoff baseball is about, but World Series baseball, which is even a whole different animal. Yeah, being around it, seeing the intensity of the guys pre-game, how blocked in they whole different animal. So yeah, being around it, kind of seeing the intensity of the guys pregame, how blocked in they were, how focused they were, definitely made me kind of realize the magnitude, I guess, and made me want to get there even a little bit more. I know you spend a good bit of time in the off season

kind of going back and forth with folks on social media. You've had this experience at the World Series. I'm curious, you know, what do you think fans' greatest misconception is about the actual act of hitting? Because we see a lot of people on social media who, you know, just ask them. They could be big leaguers tomorrow if they were just given the opportunity. I think we know a little bit better both for ourselves and for others. But what do you... I actually just said that myself at the beginning of this podcast, so I may not know any better.

The thing is that I stopped playing before they ripped the uniform off my back. So technically, there's a chance. Right, I was never approved to be incapable of doing it. I took myself out of the running. You're one of the select few who got to retire voluntarily, so good for you. I didn't have to want.

But apart from Ben, for everyone else, as you're going back and forth with folks, which I think you do a good job of striking a balance of not taking unnecessary guff but still being approachable and having a good actual dialogue, what do you think fans get wrong the most about hitting? If I'm just speaking in terms of if a common fan got in the box and experienced Major League pitching, I think what would surprise them the most is how similar all the pitches look. I think there's just kind of an idea like, oh, you should be able to recognize every

pitch like out of the hand and like, why are you swinging at that? It was clearly a slider or why are you swinging at that? It was clearly whatever this is. And it's like, guys, they all look the same for like, almost the entire time. Right? It's like, I think I think I've read even there's the idea and hitting of like, you pick up spin, like you recognize spin, and that's how you make your swing decisions. Right. And I'm pretty sure there's research that pretty like basically says you can't recognize spin process spin and then make a decision on the spin quick enough for that to matter. So you're you're making swing decisions based on other factors,

whether it's a little bit different arm angle, whether it's the shape of the pitch or kind of different things like that. It's not like you just like he throws it and you immediately know what pitch it is. And then you're making a decision whether to swing or not. It's like they all look basically the same for like 45 at the 60 feet or whatever it is. I think the most common like thing you hear people is like, oh, why did he swing at that? Or why did he take that? And there's almost always like a very

explainable reason behind why someone swings in a pitch out of the zone or why someone takes a pitch down the middle. It's almost never just like, oh, we just didn't swing that because it's not very good or oh, he chased that pitch. He's not very good. It's like, no, he chased that pitch because it looked identical to the pitch that he threw two pitches before the other guy called the striker he took that fastball down the middle because the previous pitch he had just chased a slider in the dirt that came out of the exact same window so like he saw the same window again it looked the same as the previous pitch so his brain said we got to shut it down here we can't swing it that we just chased it i don't want to do that again it ends up being

a fastball you take it down the middle. So I think I think a combination somewhere, some combination of those two things like the pitch is pretty much all look the same like a lot of the time, unless you're like, I don't know, I guess maybe to Luis Araya's or Tony and maybe they look different because he's doing something different than the rest of us are up there. Right. But like they look the same and there's always there's pretty much always a reason why a guy does one thing or the other, whether it's swinging a pitch, take a pitch, barely miss a pitch, foul a pitch off late, early, whatever it is, it's almost always a result of something else happening.

Well, whatever you were missing prior to the season, you were missing a lot less in 2024 because clearly you learned something and improved and even from a baseline of being a really good hitter in 2023, you became one of the best hitters in baseball. And there was a fan craft post about this, which maybe you saw earlier in December. Yeah. And did you agree with the analysis? This was Esteban Rivera's. Yeah, it was really good.

It's done with the one about the fastballs up in the zone, right? Yes. Yeah. So you had a hole and you identified it and you closed it seemingly. So sounds simple, easy. So how did that happen? When you play in the same division as the Seattle Mariners, you better learn how to hit a fastball or you're really, really going to struggle. And those guys, most of 2023 and some of 2024 just wore me out with fastballs up in the

zone. So this is like, okay, I got to figure, I got to figure something out here or we're going to be in trouble. So I made some adjustments and the adjustments that were highlighted in that, in that article were pretty accurate. I stood more open. I started with my hands higher. I made sure to launch my hands from a higher position to make sure I could stay on top

of that pitch up in the zone. And then it accomplished what I wanted to in terms, strictly speaking, in terms of being able to cover the four seam up with his own better, but it also led to some other things that were kind of unintended results, but were very positive results that were also kind of highlighted in that article. So I think, um, I don't remember who wrote it. You just told me, but I forgot. It's about Rivera.

Yeah. He did a good job. Yeah. It was, it was, it was very accurate. There was a lot of truth in it. There are a lot of times when we as players read things like that and we're like, that's not at all what's happening. And like, I appreciate, I appreciate that you wrote it and that you did the research and that you tried to come up with a dirt. You came up with your own ideas as to what's happening, but like, that's

not at all what I'm thinking or what I'm trying to do or what I think is happening at all. But he did a good job. He did a good job. I appreciate it. I was it was unfortunate I think that was my last My last free article before I have to start paying Come on you're not a premium subscriber. Let's go. I need to subscribe so I get unlimited articles Yeah, you're about to be arbitration eligible here like you're getting the pay bump. I think, yeah, come on. It's about time. But that shows you how much time I spent. Uh, I spend perusing fan graphs of all your guys' content. Well, you're busy with other stuff.

We'll give you a pass on it. Um, it does. It reminds me of a dated reference, but Annie Hall, that movie where Marsha McLuhan comes out to someone's talking about his research about the medium is the message or whatever in the movie theater. And then he gets brought out and he says, you know, nothing of my work. And it's very much like a baseball player reading a blog post that purports to say what they did and they didn't actually do that.

So how and when did you decide that this was a problem and target exactly what you were going to do about it? I identified it as a problem. Like I said, it was just a bit mid May, 2023, I guess the first time Bryce Miller a pitch, his first start, his debut in Oakland, I think I've struck out three or four times he threw like 13 fastballs and I swung and missed it all of them because they're 29 inches of carry or whatever crazy number he puts up there. That was kind of when it started to get exploited.

And then teams obviously learn very quickly in the big leagues where you struggle and they go after it. And I was able to band-aid it together throughout 2023 enough to get by and still put up some pretty good numbers and have success. And then I knew coming into 2024, it was the I needed to identify and adjust and address. And I struggled to figure out how for the first probably two and a half months until mid-June

was kind of when I came up with a plan, a feel physically, an approach or a combination of all three that allowed me to have more success against it. And a lot of times it's not even when you have a hole like that, it's not like, okay, I have to go from, I have to take this pitch that I literally never do anything on to a pitch that I do damage on.

A lot of the time it's like, I just have to figure out how to foul this off. Right. I don't know. I don't have to barrel it up. Like I don't have to hit a home run it. I just got to be able to get to it enough to foul it off, to get to another pitch that I can do damage on. I think that's a lot of, that's a lot of the adjustments we make.

And I think that's one of the reasons I had some more success this year is I was able to take those pitches that would have beat me in the past and just fight them off, just foul it off, just take that fastball up in the zone, foul it off, take that singer down and then foul it off, and then get to a hanging side or get to a fastball in the middle that I could do something with. And so those adjustments with mental and physical, you know, they made me more complete hitter. I was able to cover more pitches. I was able to cover more profiles of pitchers that I could in the past, and that led to some good results. So the inspiration for the adjustment was Bryce Miller and his fastball and not you catching strays on Twitter after there were concept drawings put up of the new ballpark in Vegas having you hitting 300. You didn't quite get there, but you were very close.

No, I got lost. I was close. I was close. I had it. I mean, I had a shot at it. And then two of the last three series, we ran into, we had Seattle to finish the year. That's never fun. And then we got Garrett Cole and Carlos wrote on two of the left and then heel. So those were, we've got those three guys are our second or third to last series of the year and struggled against them and then didn't have a great series in the year in Seattle. I was close though. I was way closer than almost anyone would have given me credit for before the season. So I'll take pride in that. You should, it felt very unfair that you should catch guff for somebody else's graphic design work.

Yeah, I didn't tell him to put that up there. Yeah, I hope the silver slugger was a good consolation price. It was, it works out well. Were you closer than you expected to be? Did you see yourself becoming that type of high average hitter in the big leagues, a 362 bad-bip guy? Is that a repeatable for you?

No, did I think I got hit to anything before this year? Like, I'm not going to lie, like, candidly, no, I didn't think I could do that. I think I'm gonna do it again. Now that I have, though, I think, I think this level, I think the success is repeatable, and it's sustainable for me. And, you know, that's just coming with more experience. It's coming with I've learned a lot about myself as a hitter. I've learned a lot about the league. I've learned a lot about pitchers. I know how to put together a game plan better. I know how to better stick to a game plan, execute a game plan to give myself a better chance to have success every single bat.

Am I saying I'm going to go hit 290 every the rest of my career? No, but like, I think I can do it again. Whereas if you had asked me before the season, Hey, do you think you can hit 290 through in the big leagues? I would have been like, no, I don't think I can do that. Are you insane? Like I go, it's not, it's like, no, no, and I'm not like, I'm very confident my ability is, but I'm not, I'm not a guy who's gonna sit here and lie and tell you that I thought I could do that because I definitely did not. You also showed off some base stealing prowess that you have not flashed since Mississippi State. 11 steals, double digits.

Where did that come from? I think that's always been there. As far as speed goes, I'm above average. I'm like 50 something, 56th percentile on Savant, I think. I'm above average. And then it's just about picking and choosing your spots. I mean, if you're like a 50, 60 steal guy, it's different. But when you're like a 10 to 15 steal guy, you're more so stealing off the pitcher than you are the catcher, right? You're just trying to find the guy that didn't really care is not paying attention to you Find a situation where you're kind of irrelevant to him and his mind and take advantage of it and you know get that extra Base, so I think 1110 was my goal going to the year. We got 11

Whether you know, maybe we go for 15 next year But at some point pictures start paying attention and it gets harder to steal So I don't really know where that cutoff is. I would love to live on that line of like enough, enough steals for them to matter and not being a relevant number, but not quite enough for pitchers to pay attention to me. So I got to figure out kind of where that balance is and just sit right on that line. So you're not going to try to catch up to Shohei next year.

No, I don't think I'm going for 50. I think 15, 15 sounds good. 50 feels like a lot. 15 seems like an achievable goal. Well, sometimes you have to make adjustments because you move organizations, which you're obviously familiar with. Sometimes it's identifying a hole in your swing. And then sometimes your team is going to be playing in a different ballpark. And I'm curious, you know, as you went into

the off season, knowing that you guys are going to be in Sacramento, are there any things that you have tried to do either individually or in concert with the athletics to think about what if any changes this might bring for you? What that hitting environment is going to be like? I know, I think you played a couple of games there when you were still with the Padres on the minor league side, but I don't know that it's been all that many. So what are you anticipating you'll see in Sacramento? Yeah, I think, I mean, I think it's going to be a more hitter from the environment than Oakland. I don't think it's going to be like a crazy like top five in the league offensive

environment or anything. I mean, it's a pretty big park dimensions wise. It's at least average. I mean, it's going to fly better than in Oakland because it's hotter. But as far as like, I don't think it's going to like be first or second or play like Cincinnati or anything like that. So as far as adjustments for me, I mean, I think the adjustment for if you were to make an adjustment, it would be OK, we're going to a more flyball friendly environment. How

do I hit the ball in the air more? But that's kind of something that I already do. So there's not really a adjustment that's needed for me. If I just kind of continue to take the same approach, do what I do well, which is pull the ball in the air on the barrel, then the results will follow that no matter the park, the environment and hopefully. And hopefully, obviously, yeah, hopefully it plays about league average or a little bit better,

and there's a little bit of boost there. So that'd be great. Yeah, I was wondering about that too, because Reese Hoskins, who's from Sacramento, said it's going to be hot, but it's going to be a great place to hit. And then Sean Gelley, the Giants pitcher, said it's going to make Cincinnati

look like a pitcher's park. Aaron Judge in that park could set a new bar for homers in the series. Someone will, whether it's him or Juan Soto or Shohei Otani. He didn't mention Brent Rooker, but it seems like that's a possibility too. Right. It feels a little insulting because I'm going to play way more series than everybody else there. Whatever, Sean.

But I was wondering whether that would be true because if you look at the minor league park factors, the triple A park factors, it was actually a pitcher's park by AAA standards. Now I don't know how transferable that is because that's AAA players and then we're talking about big leaguers being in there. Maybe it's not quite the same, but as you're saying, it's what, 330 to left, 403 to center, 325 to right. Yeah. Right. It's not like it's tiny or anything. It's not an elevation. It's not like the's tiny or anything. It's not an elevation. It's not like the other PCL parks where you're playing at like 9,000 feet elevation and you're putting balls on the moon.

I think it's going to fall about league average, which I think, you know, that's, that's going to be fair. I mean, again, it will be, it will be better than Oakland just because Oakland plays so pitcher friendly for a lot of factors. It's cold, wind blows in a lot of foul territory, kind of heavy air right there in the water. But yeah, I think that's my read of it, right? I remember playing there and it felt

just like a normal stadium. It didn't feel like you're playing in Salt Lake or you're playing in Reno or El Paso or somewhere like that. It felt pretty standard. So I'm expecting it to fall about. I mean, Gary, I would love for it to go play like Cincinnati or Ireland. That would be fantastic for me, but I don't think it to fall about. I mean, Gary, I would love for it to go play like Cincinnati or Ireland. That would be fantastic for me, but I don't think it's going to.

And yeah, I'll be very pleasantly surprised if it does. One thing I wanted to ask about that, because hitters like to be in hitters parks and pitchers like to be in pitchers parks, but of course everyone knows that teams are making adjustments based on the dimensions, right? So you're not really getting extra credit in terms of stats or salary. And you look at all the stat cast stats and that's taking into account your quality of contact and everything. And so you could say on some level, it doesn't really matter where I play. Maybe it'll all just kind of be adjusted after the

fact and the teams are smart and they'll be able to evaluate what I did here and it'd all be independent of the environment. And yet I guess it kind of comes down to hitters still like to hit homers and pitchers don't like to allow them. So is there part of you that just says, Oh, it's not like it was in the old days. Like teams will take into account what I'm doing here, regardless of the outcome or regardless of where I'm playing. But does it just affect your mood if you're not really getting the results? Yeah, for sure.

I would love, I mean, I want the numbers in the back of the card to be as good as possible, right? Like if, I mean, it's, uh, you look at the expected home run numbers on Savant, you're like, oh, if I had played in, uh, Dodger Stadium, or if I had played in Cincinnati, like I want to hit 47 homers, like that's more than 39. That sounds way better. Um, but it's, I mean, it is a little bit different because you have all the adjusted things and and It's all scaled a little bit different now

But I think I mean it but that's part of the charm of baseball So it makes it unique is is the unique dimensions the unique environments unique whether that attributes or Or contributes to what the numbers look like and how the game plays. And that's just kind of part of it. And so something that has always existed and it's always going to exist. And, um, you just kind of take that and take it for what it's worth. Well, I asked you to look ahead to next season, but I want to briefly, uh, linger on this one and ask about your experience of the final game played at

the Coliseum. Ben and I both watched from home. We were emotional and we're not even on the team or A's fans. Can you take us through what that day was like for you? Yeah, it was very emotional. It was for a lot of us. I'd say for most of us in the tough house. It was emotional and it was sad. I kind of talked about this on the day of the game with some media or whatever, but I think the story kind of became about the stadium itself. And while that's understandable, because of the history there, because of the legacy, because of all the great players who played there, I think the story should have been

more focused on the people, right? It should have been like the employees who have been there for 30, 40, 50 years. I think that's kind of where our focus as players turned was, you know, our security guys sit outside the locker room every single day who you have conversations with who get to know you, who get to know your family. And it was kind of seeing their reaction to it and seeing how emotional they were about it was kind of what got us as players. And the building itself is special. And like I said, there's a lot of history there and there's a lot to be made about that. But the season ticket holders who've been coming for so many

years that this the same fans you see every single night, whether it's the group in right field and left field, the group that sits right by the right by our dugout, who come to every single game and say hello to you who check in on you as people, not just players. I think, you know, seeing how it was affecting those various groups of people is kind of what affected us the most as players. Did you keep any Coliseum mementos? I got some dirt. I think we all got that. And then I didn't really know none of that. A lot of guys got signs from the stadium. So I didn't get anything like that. I have some of my personal stuff, but I didn't go like tear down a hot dog menu or anything. You didn't try to take a seat out with you on your way out? No, there were

some fans doing that though. I saw, I wondered if they thought they were going to be successful. I'm like, I'm pretty sure security will stop you on your way out if you're hoisting a seat over your shoulder. So right at the start of this offseason, November 5th, there was a quote that circulated. ASGM David Force said, we're going to keep Rooker, just put to bed any trade speculation that might've surfaced. And since then, both he and your manager, Mark Katze have mentioned a desire to extend you and starting extension talks. I assume there's no news you would care to break right here on the podcast. No news, no news. I got no news yet. Yeah.

If and when you do, will you tell us first so that we can break it? Of course. Yeah. DePas and Rosenthal really need another scoop. If that happens, then I'll make sure that we schedule an impromptu emergency podcast. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Would they have asked you about a haunted pool? I think not. Probably not. No. Yeah. I hope that have asked you about a haunted pool? I think not. Probably not.

No, yeah. I hope that question hasn't been in your mind cause I know you have a pool, right? I think I saw on your Instagram. So I hope that hasn't. Do I? Do you? I don't know.

Maybe you were in someone else's pool. I said, do I? Like, I don't know. No, I definitely don't have a pool. Looking in my backyard right now. No, I think the video, I had the video on there. That's probably at the hotel in Dallas.

There's a hotel there. Okay, all right. Maybe that's for the best because after I brought up Night Swim, could have just scared you. But yeah, thanks for giving us the potential extension exclusive. Or I guess you could just break the news yourself

now that you're a member of the media. That's right, that's right. So you might as well. Brent Rooker had it first. But even if you cannot confirm or deny any of that, it must be nice to have people on the team coming out and expressing that desire given that you are two years removed from being claimed on waivers. It's been a pretty meteoric rise for you, for someone who was deemed expendable by other organizations or were bouncing around a bit to people at least paying lip service

to the idea that we really want to keep and build around Brent Rooker. It is for sure. It's, you know, I owe a lot to both David and Mark for taking a chance on me several times. It took a chance for me to claim me. It took a chance for me to allow me to make a team out of that first spring training. Took a chance when they put me in the lineup and kept me in the lineup and gave me some runway. So it feels great. It does feel nice, you know, working through those type things right now. And, you know,

kind of like you said, whether it ends up coming to fruition or not, just even that conversation is a special one to have and I appreciate it. And like I said, I owe a lot to both David and our whole front office and Mark too along the way. Is there any part of you that in the back of your mind is thinking, you know, we're moving to a different city for the next few seasons and then potentially another season after that and things are a little bit up in the air and is there any reluctance

to kind of commit long term? Again, I don't want to have you err anything private that you're talking about to the team, but I just wonder given that things are in flux and you could potentially be talking about a long term arrangement, might have to be in the back of your mind. No, there's nothing like that is going to affect my decision one way or the other., I think well, yeah, the next three years are going to look very different for us. And they're going to their influx and their fluid. We don't we also don't know what it's going to look like. But what we do know is that we have we have the group of guys in the clubhouse to overcome it and to handle it as well as possible and to make the best of it and to really kind of persevere and have success in spite of it.

So that's not going to, you know, weigh in or factor in because like I said, the group that we have playing together and hanging out together and spending time together is plenty good enough to make the very best of any situation that we're put in. And it seems like a group that at least from a distance looks like you guys like hanging out with each other. There seems to be a good dynamic in that dugout. And you're in a position where you're kind of one of the seasoned veterans on this team. You know, certainly as you have young guys like Lawrence Butler and Tyler Soderstrom, and I could name all the young guys in the lineup, but not that 29 is so old or anything. But I'm curious, sort of how,

how maybe a shift in role as a mentor, as a veteran presence, how has that washed over you? Because I can imagine bouncing around, you might not have an opportunity to sort of assert that part of yourself. And in a group like this with young guys who are new to the majors, you might have to. I hate to break this news to you, Meg, but Brent is 30 now. Oh, sorry. Yeah, he's in his 30s. That was just a month ago though. Yeah, recent. I'll play you all next year at 30 still. Yeah, all three of us are in our 30s and some of us in our early 30s and some of us not

so much, but same decade. Wow, I can't believe they're portraying my age on the podcast, Ben. That's very rude. No, it's been fun. It's something that, you know, there was several years there where I just wanted to have any kind of presence in the clubhouse. I wanted to just be there long enough to establish myself in any way. You know, I was doing, you know, be called up for three days, be sent back down, kind of go through that whole cycle for a year. And I just really wanted to be at a place where I could build relationships with guys,

I could be in a clubhouse long enough to have a presence and now to have that and also be seen as one of the like one of the leader veteran guys who's been around and had success is really, really cool. And it's it's fun for me because I have kind of played every role on a roster, right? I've kind of been like the young prospect who's like getting a shot. And then I've been the guy who's trying to establish himself. And then I've been the guy who's been bounced back and forth between double or between triple and the big leagues. I've been DFA and I've been traded. I've kind of had all these various experiences. I've

been the guy, you know, the bench guy who's just there to pinch hit and get the occasional start off a lefty. I've played all these different roles and been through all these different transactional things that no matter any younger guy who's in our clubhouse, no matter where he's at in his career, I've kind of been there and I've experienced it. So I'm able to help them through that and I'll talk through the talk through my experience with them to try to help them out in any way that I can, whether it's like I said, Jacob Wilson last year is coming up and he's playing shortstop every day now because he's a super prospect or there's a guy on the

bench who's getting very sporadic of bats or a guy who's had a little bit of time, but now they're just trying to establish themselves and not get with the AAA. Like I've done all that, I've experienced all that, so I'm able to help out a variety of different guys in any ways that I can, and that's something that I enjoy doing. One thing you weren't able to do so much this season, especially later in the season, is play in the field. Again, very Otani-esque season from you, just limited to DH because of an arm injury. And this was an arm injury that was bothering you, it sounds like all season, I will ask you if that's the case, but that's what David Forsh said that you were not 100% healthy all year. And this is not something you would know from looking at your offensive stats,

certainly, but this is a phenomenon that fascinates us every year because every year, immediately after the season ends, everyone has surgery for some secret injury that no one knew about. It turned out that they were playing on one leg or with one arm the entire time. You covered the World Series. That was certainly a big talking point then, and it seems like everybody's banged up by that point. So how did this injury happen and how did it affect you A in the fields and then B at the plate, if at all?

It was present all year. It was, I came in the second game of the year in a lot of pain. I didn't play that game, be MRI'd it and kind of figure out what was going on. Played through it for a while. Uh, both played both DHE and playing defense, it just kind of progressively got worse. And then got to a point where that is like the decision was just kind of made like, all right, throwing is really

bothering this thing. We need to keep it as healthy as we can for as long as we can. So just D.H. every day is the best way to do that. I played through pain all season. It was manageable. We did a great job treating it. Training staff, the number one job, keep me in the lineup, keep me on the field. I never got to a point where it was manageable. We did a great job treating it. Training, training, sapped an unbelievable job. Keep me in the lineup. Keep me on the field. I never got to a point where it was hurting bad enough

to poorly affect my performance. If that had been the case, I would have shut it down and gotten surgery during the season. We never got to the point where I thought that the pain was negatively affecting me and make me play worse. So I just kind of kept going. And we were thankfully able to get through the whole season. There's always people playing through basically everything. And like you

said, you find that out the first week of the off season when there's like 15 different surgeries that you're reported and people have no idea. But, um, no, training staff did a great job and, um, I'm looking forward to being able to, I had the surgery, PT's going great. I'm fully healthy. So I'm looking forward to being, um, fully available to do whatever next year. Yeah. By the time you get to the end of the year, especially if you make the playoffs and you've been through the grind and everything, what percentage of players are nursing something

at that point that goes beyond just the basic tiredness and fatigue, but something that would require treatment or is actually hampering them their performance in some way? Like, does almost everyone have something and do players know about their fellow players ailments even if they haven't been publicly reported? Yeah, I mean we're all in the training room every day so we all know who's dealing with what, whose hamstring hurts, who's playing through it, whose arm's aching, you know, which pitchers have to take 10 Advil to go out there and throw the sixth inning or whatever, whatever it is. I mean it's, uh-huh I mean every single guy has something throughout the year that they're dealing with at some point I see we have

incredible trainers and incredible strength coaches that help us manage it and get through it and heal and get better most of the time I mean most of them don't end up requiring surgery it's just kind of the structural injuries you have to fix the end of year and things like But no, every single guy in a clubhouse, every single guy in the field has a point during the year where they're playing through something. Did you miss playing the field more than you were able to last year? Yeah, no, I'm looking forward to getting back out there next year for sure. You know, whether

it will, however our roster is made up or whatever. I repeatedly told Mark throughout the year, like, if you need me to go play outfield, I can get through it, I can do it, I promise. My arms aren't gonna fall off if I make a throw or anything. It'll hurt for a little bit, but it's gonna stay intact. And we had the right personnel where I didn't need to do that, but yeah, I'm looking forward to getting back out there next year.

And whatever capacity that is, we'll see in terms of how our lineup shakes out and things like that. But just to be available, it will be an added benefit for sure. He didn't find my arm won't literally fall off persuasive as an argument to get out there. Yeah. I'll be fine. I'll be okay. I promise. Yeah. I always wonder about that because people on the outside looking in say, why isn't this guy doing that? Or why't he play there or why is he slumping? And sometimes there is some explanation like that that just hasn't been reported.

And yours hadn't. I don't know if this was like a Brent Rooker conspiracy or whether just no one asked, like, were you trying to keep it quiet or did it just kind of not come up until the season was over? Not really. I mean, we weren't like going out of our way to hide it. Like I was, I mean, there's media in the clubhouses and I'm walking around with a giant bag of ice on my elbow after every game. So it's not like we were like doing treatment in like a back training room or trying to hide anything. I just, I guess, I think some of our, our beat reporters, we're generally aware of what was happening just because they're around every day, obviously. But yeah, I guess it never really got reported on on a bigger scale.

Yeah. I guess it's not the biggest media contingent. Maybe that's why I don't know. It might be the smallest, but... Could have something to do with it, I guess. But yeah, I always wonder just, as a media member, you would understand, right? We have imperfect information and sometimes you just don't know what you don't know. And sometimes it's like, why didn't he put in that guy? And then you learn later, well, that guy wasn't, he couldn't go that day. He wasn't even available.

Right, exactly. Or maybe you never know. And the manager, whoever it is, just kind of eats that and like, you know, takes the punches and doesn't have the excuse because they don't want to give away what's going on with their guy or something. They think there's some competitive advantage there. So yeah, we have to keep some humility sometimes about what

we actually know and whether we're smarter than the people who are running baseball teams. So the last time you joined us, we spent some time talking about the good food that you had eaten over the course of the season. I really enjoyed that. So I wonder, do you have any new recommendations? Was there anything you ate on the road this year that really blew you away? Yeah, I had some. I got to go back to my list now because I tweeted it out.

Let me find it. All right, going back through last year, things that stood out spicy crab omelet, a blue moon cafe is fantastic. Blue moon is one of the, one of my favorite spots to hit in the league in Baltimore. It's a really cool, really cool place with some good food. The shakshuka at Lola in Seattle is fantastic. I had that several times this year. It was one of the ones like we were playing Seattle twice, obviously. And yeah, I probably had it three different times. I went back for it. It's really, really good. My home spot this year, I lived in Alamo just outside of Oakland was the was called

Alamo Cafe. Great little local, local cafe there. They had a Philly cheesesteak omelet that was fantastic. And then the peanut butter stuffed French toast at Cafe 222 in San Diego. Really, really good. Okay. Have you done any scouting of Sacramento? I haven't yet. I need to do that. I got to figure out where I'm going to live first and then figure out what's close.

Yeah. I was going to ask. I guess go from there. Priorities, yeah. Yeah. Does this necessitate a relocation for you on a more permanent home front basis? No, it'll be the same. I mean, just we renting in a different place.

We'll be renting in Sacramento instead of Oakland. So no real changes there. I saw some post of yours on some social media network about oysters. And I'm a big oyster guy and I don't even know that I have a favor because I just love them all. And I will eat an unlimited number of oysters, whatever kind you put in front of me. Yeah, I'm the same way. Do you have an oyster preference or it's just, uh, you'll take anything.

I, yeah, I like, I like the brine ear. I like really salty. I don't know which, where those come from though. I don't know if those are like East coast, Gulf, West coast. I don't know which ones come from where. Um, I do know that I prefer the brine ear ones though. Yeah. I think I'm with you.

And also maybe the slightly smaller ones, just the big meaty ones they could get chewy. Yeah. Sure. Yeah, I mean, it's more oyster, which sounds like a good thing, but it's not necessarily the best on a per bite basis. No, for sure, I'm with you.

I get that. Shooting them harder. Yeah, yeah, a little bit. So this might be a weird question. Let's see if I can ask this in a non-awkward way. There is an athletic article that just went up this week about baseball player weddings and how it's hard to coordinate because everyone gets married basically the same couple of months, just like November, December, because of the season and playoffs and you're ramping up for

spring training. And so that's the wedding sweet spot. I don't know when did you get married? Did you, did you get married in that time too? Or. Yep. I was made number 10th. Okay. And the problem is that if, you know, a lot of baseball players are in a

typical marrying age and they want to attend each other's weddings, and so that becomes problematic, I was also wondering about this from a birth perspective because you had your second daughter, your second kid and second daughter, congrats in August, Blake, I believe, adding to Blair. Is there a significance to the Blair-Blake similar name sort of sound? Yeah, I mean, I know my wife always wanted to do,

my wife's middle name is Blair. So she wanted to name a girl Blair. And then she liked, always liked Blake too. She likes the gender neutral girl names, I know. And they shared the same initials as well. They're both B-E-R. So we got to reuse all of the monogram things that we have, which is also very convenient.

So there was definitely some strategy behind that for sure. Well, that wasn't the question. The question really is, so you had to take paternity leave this summer and also in 2021 when your first daughter was born. I don't mean had to, you wanted to obviously. And we are the furthest thing from the people who give players grief for taking time off for the birth of their child. Take all the time you want, three days or whatever you get is not enough. But that's kind of what I'm wondering. And family planning is an imprecise science and life will find a way.

And I just wonder, when you look ahead, when baseball players, we don't even have to make this specific to you necessarily, but are you thinking it would be nice to have an off season baby because, Hey, then I can be around and I don't have to leave work and I can just help out and I don't have to, you know, see my new kid and help my wife for three days and then get back to business. Is there any thought of, let's try to time this so that it'll be a little more of a leisurely process? For sure. There are definitely some thoughts that goes into it in terms of timing. So you screwed up is what you're saying.

No. Blake was born in August. Blair was September. From a dad's perspective, that is ideal because you do miss the first six weeks where there's just no sleeping. And then with the time when you come home for the off season, they're kind of out of that phase. Oh, so you planned it perfectly. The moms probably have a little bit, but no, I think Ali has enjoyed that timing both ways too. I don't know. You're present for most of the like two month to six month range, which is, which is big in terms of development and then sleep, sleeping phases and leaps

or whatever all the baby stuff is. So, you know, to answer your question, yeah, there's definitely some, definitely some planning that goes into it. Okay. I can't believe I have a follow-up here. But I actually do. I've always wondered about professional athletes and managing the sleep thing when they have a newborn at home because, I mean, even if you're sleeping separately so that you can, you know, show up to the ballpark on time and do treatment and all the things you need

to do to play professional baseball, you know, having a crying infant at home can't make that easy. How do you manage the part of it that you kind of can't avoid, I suppose? A lot of caffeine is kind of the only, I mean, there are, I'm sure there are guys who, I don't know if they sleep in separate bedroom from their wife kind of during that time, so they're not woken up when the baby's crying or whatever it is. That idea is certainly not something that my wife would have gone for. So no, I just drank a lot of coffee.

That's kind of the solution. Yeah. Good deal. Yeah, I don't think my wife would have gone for that either with our daughter. Just, yeah, you take the other, yeah, just sleep in. Yeah, you got it, I'll stay asleep. Yeah, very generous.

Yeah, okay. Well, we got through the potentially creepy question there with that incident, you got it. I'll stay asleep. Yeah, very generous. Yeah. Okay. Well, we got through the potentially creepy question there with that incident. That was good. I got to do some research. This reminds me now, if I can look at the sons of big leaguers who've become big leaguers, maybe I can analyze whether there's an unusual distribution in when they have been born in the year to see, yeah, if we can crunch the numbers here. That's the bad well type stuff. Yeah, when the sex is being had so that we can kind of break down exactly.

I got through the question without making it weird anyway. Now I made it weird after I got through the question. Okay. I have one other bit of statistical research to report to you or potentially two actually, I guess. When we talked last time, we talked about crosswords because you're a crossword guy. And I had asked you whether you thought baseball is overrepresented in crossword puzzle clues relative to other sports. And you were not convinced that that was the case, but we have subsequently had one of our listeners did some serious research and took a big book of New York Times crosswords, like hundreds of them, and broke down all the clues and coded them by sport

and found pretty convincingly that baseball actually is overrepresented, at least in New York Times crossword puzzles, which could skew older audience or something, I don't know. But there is some evidence. And so now, yeah, almost a year later, I can report to you that that is in fact the case. Are you still an avid crossword doer? Yeah, I don't, I tend to not do them as often in the off season. I do them pretty much every day during the season, but no, I enjoy them a lot, but that

is, that's very interesting. And you were correct in your hypothesis last year, so I'm impressed. Do you play other kinds of games? We had a listener wonder if you play chess, given your name, or video games, or any other kind of word games or anything else? Yeah, I got very into chess this year, actually. And I'm very, very bad at it still, but I am, I am actively working to get better. So that was my thing that I got into this year.

I played a lot and I haven't been playing as much as off season, still playing a pretty good bit, but I'm very, very bad, like I said, and I would love to get better. So I'm working on that. Did you have teammates to play with? Yeah, we had a bunch of guys. I play mostly on just chess.com and play random people,

but we had a bunch of guys that played in the clubhouse and we played a lot. And the other bit of research that I have for you here, I don't know whether this will make you happy or sad, but this comes from listener Ryan who noted, so he crunched the numbers going back to the beginning of the period that the BBWA has its voting results on the website. So since 2003, and Ryan found that you were on 23 of 30 American League MVP ballots, but didn't place higher than seventh on any of them. That's a new record for most MVP ballots appeared on for either league without receiving a vote

higher than seventh. Awesome. What a great record to have. I love that for me. It is great record to have. I love that. It is really special. I know my place. I know where I fall. That's right between seven and 10.

It's perfectly accurate. It's a sweet spot. Everyone thought you deserved to be on the ballot basically. Right, yeah, I love that. But there was kind of a consensus about where. Yeah, which I get. I mean, looking at the list of other guys who are on the ballot, like I wouldn't have put myself higher

in seventh either, probably. So I respect those votes. Okay. And we talked about the weakness that you addressed coming into 2024. So that was a very Mike Trout style thing that you did. Mike Trout did the same thing actually earlier in his career when he was having trouble on high fastballs and then suddenly he decided that he was going to be good at that.

And then he was cause he's Mike Trout, but you did the same thing cause you're Brent Roker. And is there any other weakness or, or relative weakness that you're thinking of targeting next if you're not giving away any competitive advantages here? I mean, if someone could teach me how to hit a right hand and change up, that'd be fantastic. No, I mean, nothing glaring, nothing that stands out. I think just kind of continuing to improve at the margins is where my next my next kind of step of development is going to come.

Obviously, the changes that I made, not just physically and not just that one specific thing, but the changes I made my preparation and, and my process and my gameplay between 23 and 24 made a huge difference. So just trying to continue to refine those things to take the next step forward is what I'm looking to do. Just kind of make the same improvements, just make them a little bit more and then go from there. Tanner Iskra Yeah, I guess there's only so much higher you can go than a 164 WRC plus, unless you are air judge. David Right. So maybe I could grow a lot.

Tanner Iskra Right. Exactly. Were there any stats that you looked at more this year or technology or information that you were getting from the team or elsewhere that was helpful to you as your number crunching has evolved over the years? I don't think so. I use, I use the same information. I think I just better understood it, um, and better knew how to apply it this year. I think that was a, that was the biggest difference to me. It wasn't like I found some new set or found some new metric or, or added

something new in the scouting reports or whatever it was, I just kind of knew how to better apply what I had to my game and make adjustments according to it. I think that's kind of where the jump was. So you are on TikTok now. I have one TikTok. Yes, one. Yes. Are you aiming to be a TikTok star?

Is this just kind of claiming your name so that no one else can pose as Brent Rooker on there? Yeah. I had the account for a long time and I always just watch videos and scroll through mine the second like everyone does, but threw that one on there kind of just to do it because I had the video already in my phone. So we'll see where it goes. I don't know what that's going to evolve into, if anything at all.

So, you know, well, you know, just, just, um, you know, stay tuned and see what happens. It might literally be nothing, but it could be something. So who knows? Yeah. We'd like you to remain active online. Maybe not as online as we are, but you, you kind of come out of hibernation in the off season as a poster.

And it's so good that it's sort of sad when you go back into hibernation, when you come out of baseball hibernation and you actually focus on the important stuff that you do, then it's sort of sad that you're not dunking on random people on Twitter or providing actual interesting insights on there. Yeah, I'll see this year. I might stay on Twitter a little bit more. I don't know. We'll see what happens. It's such a pain during the season having to deal with people and it's just sometimes it's just not really worth it. Like it's easier. Yeah, but I would love to. I would love to. Sometimes there's good diplomacy. This isn't worth it. And I'm not going to deal with this right now. I'll deal with it. I'll deal with it in November.

Has the gambling problem gotten worse or has it hit a plateau in terms of people bugging you when you prevent them from nailing their parlay or whatever? I mean, I think last year was as bad as it's been. That's not just for me. That's a pretty universal experience for everyone who's online at any capacity. But I me, that's a pretty universal experience for everyone who's online in any capacity. But I mean, that's just kind of part of it, right? And then it's something you deal with and move on. But no, I mean, it definitely has progressively gotten worse and I don't see it getting any

better. So it's just kind of part of it at this point. Yeah, I guess you just close the DMs and try not to look at stuff and hopefully they're not bothering your family the way that people do with, yeah, that's the worst. Just don't do that. Please don't do that. All right, well, we have loved having you on again

and I hope that we can do it again sometime and happy to provide any tips if you wanna start a podcast, happy to give you a recurring gig on ours if you want to come back sooner than a year. And it's just always a pleasure to talk to you and to follow your exploits on the field, which were really superlative this season. So I wish you the best in building on that and keeping it up and also not being an all-star snub in 2025.

Because come on people. What's up with that? I appreciate that. I appreciate that. Thank you. All-Star in 2023, you know, good season, solid season, but- Way worse, not nearly as good. Way worse, way worse.

Not nearly as good. Crazy. Yeah, really. You didn't get to hang out with Shohei and ask him for autographs again at the All-Star game? Yeah. So bad. Maybe next year. Yep. All right. Well, Brent, thanks so much for your time. Great talking to you. And we'll look forward to that heads up if and when you sign that extension.

Thanks, guys. Had a good time. All right. Well, that was once again a joy. Happy to have Brent Rooker on anytime he wants to join us. Open podcast invitation for him. And if you missed his previous appearance, it was episode 2110. Go check it out. There's always one more thing I meant to ask him. And then I remember just after we finished the interview. And this time it was that I was going to ask him how many eggs he has eaten in one sitting and how many eggs he thinks it's appropriate to eat in one sitting. As someone who has food based opinions, this came up on a Patreon bonus pod and I revealed that I eat eggs in vast quantities. A dozen or more at a time, just scramble them up and house them, just vacuum them down my

gullet. Some Patreon supporters were appalled by this behavior. I'd really like to know what Brent Rooker thinks. Maybe he would have had my back. But you know what? That's something to save for next time, which is not something I say when I buy a carton of a dozen eggs and need to scramble some. And we have a next time.

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Follow the plot, Sam's in his garage, Ben with a reverb of 20 in his menage. And after 2,000 episodes, we got more inside jokes than Carrot Top's prop box before he got yoked. Lab leak, banging scheme, planting trees in trampolines, minor league free agent drafts, stat blasts and past blasts, before he got yoked.