Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2316: Brebbia is the Soul of Wit

Episode Date: May 2, 2025

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the unexpected power of Meg’s Mariners (and Jorge Polanco, specifically), in contrast to the Rangers’ unexpectedly light-hitting lineup. They also discuss a Jackson Chourio comment about Julio Rodríguez, the long-awaited comeback of Lance McCullers Jr. and the thus-far-deflating comeback of Sandy Alcantara, the literally diminished Mookie Betts, Jose […]

Hello and welcome to episode 2316 of Effectively Who's that in the wild? Hello and welcome to episode 2316 of Effectively Wild, a FanGraphs baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Raleigh of FanGraphs and I'm joined by Ben Lindberg of The Ringer. Ben, how are you? I've never been better because I've never been Brebbier than I am today. And this is a momentous episode of Effectively Wild. John Brebbia is here.

My baseball boyfriend, who I formed an attachment to this spring. And when I fall, I fall hard. And I shared some of my findings on the podcast. We talked about why he seemed to be such a charming fellow. And now he is here to show that himself. So, very exciting. And I have a long conversation with John Brebbia, which sadly you were not party to,

because right before we were going to record, you had a cat situation to sort out. And so... Yes, and I know that you had a legitimate cat situation to sort out, but it seemed like it was almost as if, you know, you sort of set up two people and then you excuse yourself. You know, it's like you make some excuse,

oh, I better check on whatever's cooking in the kitchen or something, like let them have some alone time. Just gonna let you guys talk while I deal with... Yeah, it felt like that. Yeah, or that like that. Yeah. Or that you just didn't wanna be exposed to the professing of affection for John Brebbia that I was about to display.

But I know it was not that, but it worked out okay because I had even more alone time with my man. I just want you to be happy, Ben. I know that you can be trusted to have a delightful, well-boundaried conversation. Which you have not heard yet, to be clear. So you're hoping that that's the case. Yeah. I have confidence in you. I have faith in your professionalism and comportment as a journalist and a podcaster. And also I cannot wait to listen to see how much flirting with that line you loved to

do, you know? Those limits were tested, certainly. I bet. Hopefully, they didn't break. But my boy, Brebbia, took it all in stride and was a good sport about it all, as I knew he would be because he's John Brebbia. So charming as always. You'll all hopefully be attached to him

as I am by the end of this episode. So we'll get to him shortly. And a few things before we roll Mr. Brebbia in here. I feel like I should give you an opportunity to talk about your Mariners for a moment and specifically Jorge Polanco, who might be reaching Brebbia levels of fondness with you right now.

Cause I don't know how long this will last. So let's quickly banter about it while it does. Cause I have been surprised by the offensive ineptitude of the Texas Rangers, division rivals of the Seattle Mariners. And I was going to banter about that the other day and we didn't get to it. And then I was glad that I didn't because they scored 15 runs that day with no homers. But then the next day they scored one run and they were back to being pretty bad.

And so I feel like I can bring it up again. So the Texas Rangers having a 90 WRC plus, that surprised me much as their offensive decline last season surprised me because they were such a offensive powerhouse in 2023. Right. And then they brought back most of the same guys and then some of them got hurt and some of them slumped. And I thought, okay, this year they'll bounce back at least to be between those

two seasons. And so far it hasn't happened. Maybe, maybe it will. We'll see. But all of the offensive prowess that I had attributed to the Texas Rangers seems to have been sprinkled on the Seattle Mariners who trail only Aaron judges Yankees with a 125 WRC plus so they are Polanco powered I

Look, you know, everyone has heard me talk about sort of my Disappointment in the Mariners lack of ambition this offseason in the Mariners' lack of ambition this offseason. In a division that looked quite winnable, it didn't feel like they were making big moves to try to really run away with it. They were sort of counting on some positive regression from underperformers, from the sort of improvement

in their offense that they saw at the tail end of last year herring into this year, And mostly they were just, um, it seemed like counting on 80 some odd wins, um, you know, more than 80, but, uh, an 85 ish win total being kind of enough maybe, right? That they wouldn't even have to crest 90 because the division was weak. The Astros are not what they once were. They have some under performances in their lineup that are pretty surprising. Like, you know, we could talk about what's going on with Yordan Alvarez if we wanted to, but you know, with a team that had one of the better projected rotations coming into the season,

a still very young Julio Rodriguez, the big jumper, it felt underwhelming. as the big dumper, it felt underwhelming. And part of my reaction to that was that last season I found myself very frustrated with Jorge Polanco a lot of the time. And some of that wasn't totally fair on my part because Polanco played parts of last season injured. It clearly compromised him at the plate. His defense has never really been much to write home about, but he had a couple of games where he had like pretty damaging flubs. He just doesn't, he didn't look good in the field, Ben. And when you don't look good in the field and you're not hitting a very frustrating player, you can be. And I often found myself just really annoyed with the state of his

defense in particular. And, and it was transference, right? I was projecting my broader frustration with the club onto Polanco. Again, not entirely fair, both for reasons related to his health and the fact that he is but one man and famously is not the general manager or Pobo of the Seattle Mariners. So that was sort of the background. And then they hilariously brought him back and were like, look, we have a perfectly good Jorge Polanco for you, Meg. And I was like, I am furious with you again. And I got to hand it to our guy, Jorge.

I got to tip my cap. I must acknowledge that he has been, not just by the standards of the Seattle Mariners, but as you outlined, by the standards of Major League Baseball, a league that includes hitters like Aaron Judge and Shohei Otani, just a fabulous hitter. I am so happy to have been wrong and fascinated, right? Because

savvy listeners might recall from Jorge's earlier career tenure with the twins that he is a switch hitter by trade. And this year he is only hitting from the left side because of an injury. He is dealing with a minor oblique strain and it has kept him from hitting right-handed basically since the very end of March, so practically the entire season. And to your point, he has been incandescent.

He has been sparkling. He has been superlative, he has been one of the very best hitters in baseball. As we are recording this on Thursday at 1140 AM weird-ass Arizona time, he has a 253 WRC plus. He has been worth almost a one and a half already. And you know, the defense isn't better, really. It's just totally survivable in this mode. And obviously he hasn't really been in the

field for a while. So I don't want to overstate the case. I think he's played like fewer than 10 games in the field. So like, whatever he's mostly when you look at his defensive war column on fan grass, really what you're looking at is the DH positional adjustment more than anything else. But he's not getting a boost, you know, from like having become a wizard at the hot corner, which again is where they intended to play him because they were like, we do not need a Joshua, we will simply have a Jorge Polanco. And it did feel like a Psy-op, Ben. It felt like it was about making me individually crazy. And I was like, first of all, pick a harder task, you guys, like, you know, set again, show some ambition in podcasts, I ops, why don't you.

Jorge Blanco, man, he's just been powering this offense that is being held together by spit and like duct tape, but still has some highlights. Like, Polanco has been great. Cal Raleigh has been fantastic. J.P. Crawford started slow, but has really turned it on. Dylan Moore, who is on the IL right now, has been very good. Julio still starting very slow. We're not talking about that though, because guess what? Julio has time to figure his stuff out because of Jorge Polanco, right? This is also an offense that is missing Victor Robles, which, you know, from a hitting perspective, less important, but just sent Luke Railey to the IL. He is also dinged up, like Leo Rivas is playing an important role here. Ryan Bliss is going to be out for months if he comes back at all because he has a torn

back or something. So anyway, do I expect the Seattle Mariners to persist in their offensive excellence? I am skeptical that that will be true, Ben. If I were going to lay odds on it, they wouldn't be favorable, but it's not, you know? They're not. Here's the thing about them. They have a plus 23 run differential, which isn't amazing, is behind, say, the Milwaukee Brewers, but isn't bad. And when you look at their Pythagorean expectation and their base runs record, they're mildly outperforming that, but not very, very much like up a game on their expected record.

And fascinatingly, the rotation, which is granted hurts and is going to be hurt for a bit longer because Logan Gilbert went on the IL this past weekend has been meh. It's been pretty meh, Ben. It's been a pretty meh kind of time. Yeah. Pitching staff as a whole, middle of the pack, 16th and FanGraphs were. They're just an offensive powerhouse and kind of, you know, mediocre pitching as we all projected. As we all predicted, this is why baseball rocks. And granted, I am happy to say that now because at this moment, my Seattle Mariners, 18 and 12, two games up on the Astros in the West.

So here's my plea. Here's my plea to the folks who run the Mariners who I know are smart and I know are looking at like, you know, the composition of this roster and perhaps are able to point to a couple of weak points, you know? There's like a real reliance on Ben Williamson right now. I like Ben Williamson, but like relax you guys have some ambition. Now, would it shock me if some of that ambition came in the form of trying to reinforce the pitching side of things? I'll be in a maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe.

But I don't know, man. It's pretty good right now. Like not the pitching, the pitching is middle of the road. But like in terms of where the team is sitting, was, you know, it could be much worse. And you know, anytime that you are only like three wins back of the Los Angeles Dodgers, of the New York Mets, you know, they have the same number of wins as the Yankees

and one fewer loss for the trouble. That's cause they've played one fewer game. Yeah. I suspected you might have something to say on this subject. I'm just so happy. And my suspicions were confirmed. Yeah, I wanted to clear the floor for you when you were in a happy Mariners mood

because that doesn't happen all the time. And often when you talk at length about the Mariners on this podcast, it's not for positive reasons. And so we're switching things up. Happy for you, happy for Jorge. He is not currently qualified for the batting title, but if I lower the playing time minimum to 80 plate appearances, which is how many he's made,

he is second only to Aaron Judge. 262 WRC plus for Judge, 253 for Jorge Polanco, and then you have to go down another 40 points or so to get to lowly Pete Alonso. So yeah, it's been kind of incredible. And for your sake, I hope it continues. Although you noted, yeah, Julio, as usual, off to a slow start, not his slowest start,

but you said, still young, I think that was how you described him. And that is also how I would describe him. He is 24 years old. And so it made me feel ancient for a moment that in an interview with Val Territory, Jackson Churio of the Brewers, he was asked who he watched growing up. And he said, he said Julio Rodriguez. No. He said Julio. Yeah, no, he was speaking in Spanish, I believe,

and I can't quite make out what he actually said because the clip I saw, at least there was someone speaking over it, and he was sort of speaking in the background. So I don't know exactly how he put this. I think he didn't have access to all of the baseball. And so he just mentioned watching Julio now Jackson Turio he's 21.

So that's not enough of an age gap. I don't think to say that you watch someone when you're growing up. Cause often players will say this and it will make you feel old. It'll, what do you say? Make you crumble into dust. That happens. And, and you'll be like, no, surely that guy can't have been old enough for this guy to have watched him when he was growing up.

And then you do the math and you say, well, well, yeah, actually it kind of does check out. In this case though, I think there has to be a minimum age gap to say that you watched someone growing up. Now granted Jackson Trillo is still growing up essentially. I mean, he's 21 years old. So if he was watching Julio a few years ago, he was a teenager. I guess that's kind of someone he was watching when he was growing up, pedantically speaking, it's accurate. But

I don't know, he debuted in the big leagues just a couple of years after Julio did. It's only a three year age gap. I think that's, that's not enough to qualify as someone you watched growing up. That's not exactly what people are asking. That's just like who was good two years ago. I don't know. Maybe this is just, it's making me feel old, but also I think I have a leg to stand on here protesting that there has to be, I don't know, there has to be some formula for like your age and you know when people do the math about age gaps in romantic relationships, there has to be something like that for this that you're not allowed to name a player who is essentially your contemporary.

I agree with everything you say. I will note that he is like a very new 21. He is still new 21. He is still only barely 21. He turned 21 in the early part of March. But I take your point and I would agree. And I wonder if it's just that like he was noting Julio's play while he was watching him or Julio's in the majors and he was in the minors. It could be, you know, it could be something as simple as that. Cause they didn't even really,

they wouldn't really have had an overlap, you know, cause he signed in 2021. So that was his first DSL year, Churio that is. And so yeah, the timing there, it's not like he and Julio played against one another really for any stretch in the miners because Julio was in, Julio was in the miners in 2021, but he was in high and then double A. They wouldn't have overlapped and Churio wasn't even stateside yet.

So. He and Julio were down by the schoolyard at the same time, essentially, not the same schoolyard, but they were both at the schoolyard at the same time, essentially, not the same schoolyard, but they were both at a schoolyard, presumably overlapping. It's just, it's not enough. I get what maybe he just, you know, he probably just meant he appreciated Julio.

Yeah, I'm sure that's all he meant. I'm just saying, cause all the replies I saw to this were like, what? I'm ancient, how old is Julio? I think it made us all feel that. And maybe that was a translation thing or social media, how it was presented thing. But also, I do think we need to establish some ground rules here when it comes to like who your idols can be. not like you could imagine a player maybe seeing Julio,

like while he was still playing in the DR and being like, oh, I want to model my game, but Trio is Venezuelan, isn't he? So he wouldn't have been, you know, knocking around the, the DR, I don't think before he had a DSL assignment. So I'm sure it's just like a quirk of how it was presented and translated or whatever, but yeah, it's just like Jackson, my guy, please. We know you're young.

You don't have to make us feel even older than we already do, yeah. Congrats on finally being able to drink in the US. Right. Speaking of age and aging on the opposite end of the spectrum, people have had some laughs at the expense of Jose Altuve, who has asked out of the leadoff spot for the Astros because now that he is playing left field, he needs more time to get

to the dugout from left field. So he actually asked manager Joe Espada to move him from the leadoff spot to the number two spot in the lineup because he wants more time to get from left field to the tug out. So. Wait, that's a, that was a real thing? Yeah, no, this is real. This is not, this is not like a joke about how little his legs are or something.

I thought it was a joke about how little his legs are. I did not realize that this was a true phenomena. Yeah, I'm looking at ESPN news services out of left field. Altuve asks out of Astro's lead-out spot, then Homer's. So it paid dividends immediately. He said, I just need like 10 more seconds. Which I thought, I thought this was very relatable, frankly. I thought, you know, know yourself.

Exactly. Ask for what you need and to put yourself and your team by extension in a better position. And look, he's getting up there in years by pro athlete standards. And so he has lost a step or two. You know, you look at the sprint speeds, it's down considerably from where it was when he was younger.

Oh, he's still so much younger than I am. He's not even, he's barely in his mid thirties. Yeah. So now I'm making you feel like Jackson Trujillo. 35 yet. Close though. Soon. Happy early birthday.

Yeah. Jose. Early. Yeah. Next week, I guess. So, but, uh, you know, he's, uh, hitting 35. He's dealing with the outfield. He's, uh, running around, he's learning a new position.

Yeah, and so he just said, hey, I need a little extra time here. And I think that's nice, because players, they have to make certain compromises if they want to remain effective, and he has. And sometimes it's, you have to change your routine, and maybe you lift a little lighter, maybe you run a little less,

maybe you change your diet, whatever it is. And I can't really recall this specific thing happening. Like I need a little more time to get from left field to the batter's box when I'm leading off. But hey, if he needs that, then you want him to be not out of breath when he's in the batter's box. You don't want him to feel rushed. You want him to be not out of breath when he's in the batter's box. You don't want him to feel rushed.

You want him to be in the right head space and get to take his hacks and look at the picture warming up and whatever his routine is. And so I think this is good. You know, you have to, when you get up there, you have to look at yourself and realize your limitations and say, here's how I can make up for that. And we'll see if it works.

I am going to let that go. I, he's not even, I just, you're not wrong, you know? It's like, look, sometimes you need to not bat lead off. Sometimes you need a standing desk. Like you just, you have to adapt to the body you have, not the one you remember. They're not always the same, Ben. Yeah, mm-hmm. And it's particularly tough, I'm sure,

when you're a pro athlete and you've, you know, your body has been your meal ticket and you've been among the best in the world at what you do and it doesn't seem like that long ago and it's hard to have that, no, it's hard to have that humility to realize, okay, I can't do what I used to do. I have to do this, cut a corner, get a little more time. And hey, he can bat in an even more important lineup spot potentially.

So good for him. We spend our whole lives trying to know ourselves and it's an unfair, we're at a disadvantage because like on the one hand, you know, we're in our own heads, so we're knocking around up there, but we're always changing. You know, you're in flux and not always in a big, big way, but always at least a little bit as a person. And, and then you go through a position change and you have, you know, you're the last man standing really from your hay day, at least on the offensive side. I know they're getting McCullers back soon,

but you've seen everybody leave. Now you're playing left. So to be able to say, hey man, this is what I need right now. I don't know, I agree with you. There's something kind of admirable about that. And it does take a certain amount of humility to be like, I can't sprint out there the way I maybe used to. Nice for Altuve that McCullers is coming back. One of the last other links to the

storied, spotless tradition of the Houston Astros, the glory days. No, I'm happy for McCullers. I had gotten beyond the point of counting on seeing him again, because gosh, it's been almost three years. And even in 2022, when he was excellent, he only made eight starts that year. And so there was just surgery after surgery and setback after setback. And yeah, I don't want to jinx anything, but it looks like he's about to be back. And they could use him if he's still effective.

But the other thing about him is that, I don't know whether this made me feel older young, but because he's been gone so long, I kind of had forgotten how old he was. He's only 31 years old, Flints McCullers. That's shocking to me. He came up when he was like, Cheerio age, basically. He was 21 when he came up a decade ago, and gosh, he's been through the Ringer. I don't know what the biological age on that arm is these days, but 31 years old. Lance McCullers. Who knew? I would have thought it was longer than that.

I really would have, because it just feels like he's been around forever. It does. Yeah. Well, speaking of knowing thyself, wanted to mention Mookie Betts, who has not been himself. And when he had his travails in the spring and had a hard time keeping food down and lost a lot of weight, as we discussed. And I think I said something to the effect at the time of like, well, you have to adjust your expectations

for him, especially early in the season, having lost that much weight, that much muscle, presumably that much strength. And you can see that, I think, pretty clearly reflected in his numbers, some of the numbers at least. He has actually managed to make it work.

And it's a testament to how amazing Mookie Betts is that he has been an above average hitter and he's been worth a win above replacement. And you know, he's still absolutely worth playing and a good player, but you can see, especially in the stat cast stats, there do seem to be some severe declines here, exactly where you would expect them to be,

just in how hard he's hitting the ball. If you look at his stat cast percentiles from last season, it's almost all red. And this season it's at least half blue. Like the hard hit rate, the barrel rate is way down. And, you know, not that he was like one of the biggest barrelers or hard hitters before, but he was at least when it came to like exit velocity, he was above average. Now he's well below 26th percentile.

He's in single digits in barrel rate percentile. He's down there in hard hit rate as well. I don't know what to make of swing speeds, but he's very low in that. He was low in that before too, but you know, it's harder to correlate that exactly to good or bad, but he's still like squaring up pitches and he's not striking out much. In fact, I wonder whether maybe he's cut down on his swing, knowing his limitations,

knowing that he's not swinging it with the force that he was before. And so he's turned into maybe a bit more of a contact hitter for now. before and so he's turned into maybe a bit more of a contact hitter for now, but this is one of those things that I always think this will be invisible to future generations who evaluate Mookie. Because he didn't go on the injured list, arguably he should have, he certainly could have, but other than missing the Japan games you wouldn't really know that anything was amiss. You look at this later, it's not like he missed time exactly.

And there are so many examples of this throughout baseball history of someone who is playing through a nagging injury or they were sick or they lost weight or whatever it was, off the field distractions that we never know about. And even these things that we know about in the moment that are big news, Unless you just remember the spring when Mookie Pets was constantly vomiting,

like you just won't know. And you'll look at his stat line and you'll say, huh, he had a down year that year, or he had a slow start that season. And you won't really know why that was unless you really do your research. And you could repeat that for so many players and so many seasons throughout history.

And it's just lost to time unless you're combing through newspaper archives. And I just think of that often because we always muse about what is the nature of a hot streak and a slump and is it random or is there a true talent difference here or what do we not know about what is ailing that player, some little nagging complaint. And this was a pretty well-known one, but one that will probably fade out of memory for most people. But now you can absolutely see it. It turns out that losing like 20 pounds

and just being super sick immediately before the season starts. Yeah, that might actually impact the performance. Yeah. I worry about the like lost to time piece of it getting worse and worse and not just for injuries, but just in general, because it's like so much of that writing now is online and the degree to which it is successfully archived and maintained very spotty, you know? I think everyone who has ever written on the internet has had the experience of going back and and attempting to like locate clips that you want to send to demonstrate work and they're just gone.

You know, it's really hard to find stuff. You like want to get a printer to print them all out, but then you can't do the gifts. Also, your printer is like liable to be bricked at any moment by a Dell or whatever, because you won't subscribe to their HP, because you won't subscribe to their ink service. We live in a nightmare, you know? And it's like there are all these screens. I want a knob. Why aren't there more knobs on things anymore, Ben?

Give me a knob back. Like, that's not the point of this. But so I do think that we run the risk of that stuff sort of being lost to time because there's even if you wanted to go back and be like, Hey, what was going on with that? This was so weird. Like, was he hurt? Yeah. Are you going to be able to find that? I don't know. Like, I guess in some respects, it makes the athletic being part of the New York Times like a really positive thing because if, if ever there was something that I thought was gonna be like archived successfully,

it's that, but who knows, you know? It costs money, it costs server space. So yeah, I don't know. Yeah, the link rat is real, the digital decay. Yeah, so I'll be monitoring those stats to see if they improve as you gain strength as the season goes along. It's hard to lose all that weight to put it back on

while you're being as active as you have to be as a big league player, which kind of, a lot of players that melts the weight off them and they sort of bulk up over the off season because they know that they're gonna slim down inadvertently as the season goes on. So we'll see if Mookie can bulk up at the same time as he is playing.

But even if he keeps this up, he's still absolutely worth running out there because that's how as he is playing. But even if he keeps this up, he's still absolutely worth running out there because that's how good he is. So one other player who has not been to this point, Sandy Alcantara, he has had a really rough start to the season and that kind of changes the shape of the trade market, especially the early season trade market because he was seeing, I mean,

coming into the season, it was very much like, well, anyone who needs an ace, Orioles, Sandy Alcantara is out there for you. And to this point, at least he has definitely not demonstrated the skills or the results at least that would make a team want to take that plunge or enable the Marlins to get a big prospect package back for him. So it's six starts and he still throws hard and everything, but boy, it's been bad. He has not been missing bats. He's been wild.

It's not unexpected to have some rust after you come back from a long absence and a surgery and we'll see how Lance McCullers fares after how long he's been out. But yeah, given that Alcantara was sort of leading the potential pitching trade targets, he's going to have to show more than this in order to retain that status or to be the solution for some team that needs pitching. Well, and look, I don't want to say that he won't be able to rebound at some point, but it does sort of, I think, demonstrate how tenuous a strategy can be to rely on trading really good big leaguers, particularly pitchers, as a way of continuing to reinforce your farm

system. And, you know, it's not like the Marlins were the only team to have done that. It's not like they haven't been able to execute that strategy at points in the past, but you are relying on these guys being healthy and productive and attractive as a potential, you know, down the stretch guy for a contender. And if something goes wrong, if he gets hurt again, if he's just taking longer to come back than they were hoping, it puts you kind of in a spot, you know? It makes you wonder, like, would you be better off making more proactive acquisitions rather than, you know, relying on being able to dump talented players? So, I don't know. Just something to think about.

On the other end of that, yeah, theoretical trade transaction, yeah, if you're sitting on your hands over the offseason and you're saying, oh, we'll just do our in-season pick-up. We'll just go get a guy at the deadline. Yeah. Well, one guy gets hurt or falters and suddenly it's sort of a thin market. So fortunately everything's going great for the Orioles, so they don't need Sandy Alcantara.

But they do have Maverick Handley now. That was a Major League player I was pleased to meet. Maverick Handley, new Orioles catcher, whose given name is Maverick. His given name meet Maverick Handley, new Orioles catcher, whose given name is Maverick. His given name is Maverick. It's not a call sign, it's his name. He is 27 years old. Yeah, Maverick Dane Handley,

one of my favorite new names in Major League Baseball. Just delightful. Wow. Yeah. Maverick. Maverick Handley is a Denver native, which provides an excellent segue to the last thing that I wanted to ask you about, which was, do you think, here's my hypothesis about the Rockies who actually pulled out a close one, a one run win over Atlanta on Wednesday, but it's been bleak as we all know. Yeah. The Rockies have

mostly been bad during their history and they've rarely been great, but until very recently, they had not been abjectly terrible. This is a new thing for them. They just lost 100 games in a season for the first time two years ago. And evidently they loved it so much

that they decided that this is what we're gonna do every year. Why not 110? Why not 120? Let's see how what we're gonna do every year. Why not 110? Why not 120? Let's see how high we can go or how low. Could it be that the Rockies haven't gotten worse at baseball? It's that everyone else has gotten better and that they are the team that is lost in time,

like the knowledge of Mookie Betts' intestinal issues. That this is, it's kind of like, one of the only things that I miss about pitcher hitting is that it gave us a way to assess the improvement in the caliber of play over time because pitchers, yeah, they got bigger and stronger and more athletic, but they didn't really work on their hitting and they weren't selected for their hitting. And so we could kind of chart the improvement in the league baseline for hitting talent in a way by looking at how much worse pitchers got at hitting over time. Because early on, two-way play was more common and there just wasn't as specialized and there

wasn't as much of a skill disparity between the real hitters and the guys who had to hit because that's what the rule said. And then that got starker and starker over time. And so if you chart pitcher WRC plus over time league wide, it's just a steady decline. And that reflects really not so much the decline of the pitchers as the improvement of everyone else. And yeah, they probably worked on it a little less and then the DH came in and they had less experience. I get that. But mostly they just, you know, for most of history, it wasn't an emphasis for pitchers hitting. And that was reflected in the results more and more clearly.

So could the same thing be happening here with the Rockies where the Rockies are sort of stuck in time from a team construction player evaluation standpoint? Yeah. And so they're standing still and I know that they have a pitching lab and everything these days, but you got to assume that even if they've tried to play catch up here, they've fallen far behind. So could that be what's happening here? That it's just that everyone else has gotten better around them and so they're not just a 90 something win loss team when they bottom out, but way worse than that. Can we just kind of judge the caliber of play in baseball by the Rockies being the constant?

On the one hand, I think you're onto something. I think it can be a little of both, you know? I think the answer probably is is that it's a little bit of both where the rest of the teams have been, you know, more consistently interested in... it's not even that I think that the Rockies always don't want to win because they don't not spend, you know? They just don't spend wisely.

They want to, they just don't know how. Yeah, they don't always do a good job of spending. They sometimes are just kind of dopey about it. So one thing that I might offer is that they, they are a good barometer for like the, the typical investment in infrastructure and personnel beyond the field. Um, and that the, how they are maybe a, a constant. They are, uh, they are maybe a constant. Yeah. Cause you can see it in that infrastructure. Like if you ported the Rockies, we answer time travel questions every now and then. If you just, if the Rockies could rewind to decades ago, they'd be advanced

as these things go, because they're doing some sort of analysis. They have some type of technology. And if we go old school enough, when the school was still new, that's how old it is, then they would have been ahead of the game. And they have just fallen behind as the rising tide has lifted most of the boats. There's many of them, but not all. Ironically, the one that is at the highest elevation. So I think there could be something to that. And also, yeah, maybe things have just gone even worse.

So it's not that they're, they've gone backwards perhaps in some respects too, but yeah, I like this. This is my new theory. Or at least even if they haven't gone backward like organizationally that there have been seemingly clear mis-evaluations and so the performance is regressing even if like the underlying tools aren't, but then it's like if you have better tools, would you make better assessments? Maybe you would, you know?

Yeah. What's the guy's name? Maverick Handley. Maverick Handley. aren't, but then it's like, if you have better tools, would you make better assessmentsley and he's, you know, he's engaged in some very violent and unbecoming union busting perhaps. Maverick Handley is probably like, hey, I'm a union guy. I'm in the MLBPA. But your fictional railroad robber baron proxy, not a good guy Maverick, you know, Maverick Handley, right? Like, doesn't he sound like he's some sort of railroad tycoon? Could be, yeah. No monocle, no mustache, as far as I can tell. So outwardly, one would not know him as a Maverick Handley, but he could get there. All right.

Speaking of players with prominent facial hair, let's take a quick break, and then I will be back with Detroit Tigers reliever and seemingly all around delightful human being, John Brebbia. Can you send a tweet from the Tigers account? I mean, I can't. Would you like me to? I would love you to.

We would love that. What was your favorite subject in school? Go for it. What was your favorite subject in school? Just go for it. What was your favorite subject in school? Oh, mine? Oh. English. English.

That's perfect. One of my favorite fun facts. Apple products are ridiculous. Have you ever tried an Android? They're incredible. How long can these things be? Where are the commas? Thank you.

I'm telling you, this keyboard, this is not, okay. This is a giraffe. What direction do I go? In the doors. Okay. Okay. I shouldn't have even insulted you by asking if you were an AirPods guy,

cause I know that you're not. I know that's part of- Android for life. Thank you. That's part of why I wanted to have you on the show. I guess we could just start on that note because that is sort of the origin story of this conversation. I'm here with John Brevius, by the way, Detroit Tigers reliever, man of the world, amateur

comedian, notable beard grower, et cetera. I'll take it all. I don't believe any of it, but I'll take it all. I'll tell you how this interview happened. Well, I guess how it happened is I emailed your agent an invitation and he said you'd do it. So fascinating story, but why it happened, you're not a social media guy. Is that right? That is correct, yes.

It's our loss, the public's loss. You don't even, do you lurk? Do you have a secret hidden account that you don't post from? I wish, I wish I did, because I will screen peek at my wife sometimes. She's watching funny short clips of something and I'm over there like leaning over like,

oh, what's that? Oh, what's that? But I have not found the time, effort, or willpower to do my own. I think I would get too sucked into it. So I try and stay away. Yeah, I was gonna say, cause you're a funny fellow. And I hate to put people on the spot like that to say,

oh, you're funny. Cause then people are like, say something funny. Tell me a joke. Like dance, dance. But you probably would be good on Twitter or whatever people are using in place of Twitter these days. But yeah, you might go full Joey Vato where he was kind of like, you know, everyone knew he was sort of a cerebral guy and he was funny, but then he, he transitioned into like an influencer phase and he was just like on TikTok and he's on Instagram and he was funny, but then he, he transitioned into like an influencer phase and he was just like on tick tock

and he's on Instagram and he's dressing up and everything. And it was almost like he was trying too hard suddenly. So maybe your influencer phase is still ahead of you, but I respect that that you've just cut yourself off from that. Yeah. I think the, the stream of consciousness that I feel like I would have to put out is just too, I can barely handle it inside my own head. I couldn't imagine putting anyone else up to the task

of having to deal with what might come out. So I'll stay away from it for now. Well, podcasts will be great for you then. But in spring training, you got ambushed by a well-meaning Tiger's PR person who asked you to tweet something from her phone. And you did, and you tweeted the longest grammatically correct sentence in the English language, which you just had off the dome. I was pretty impressed because you asked her what was her favorite subject in school, and she said English. And then you just had that holstered, you had that ready to go. And so did you have something for every subject?

What if she had said chemistry or something? Do you have a fun fact for every possible field? I, you know, I don't have, I should have one just chambered so I don't get caught off guard. I will say the, the, the Buffalo sentence, I have heard it before and it is one of my favorite fun facts. I just, every bit of it delights me so much to think about and to talk about. So when she said English, I was like, darn, it's almost like we staged this conversation

because this is the one that if I can go to it, I will. I love it so much. Right. So we went with it. That was the second take of the video. The first time you strolled up and she said some other subject and you're like, I got nothing. Say English and we'll make it casual.

I'll show up again. I'll act surprised. Exactly. You have math. No, no, no. Run this package. But the best part of it was that she had an iPhone and she handed you an iPhone and the disdain in your voice and on your face when you were forced to interact with an Apple product and to hunt for a comma on the keyboard, which wasn't there.

And I've, I've never felt so connected to another human being. I felt so seen by this because this is me and the struggle is real because you go through life and if you're an Android guy, as we are, there's a real social cost to this. There's a ostracization. There's, you know, depending on the bubbles of your texts and what color they are, we're outnumbered.

I don't know what the percentages are, but it's, it's this tribal thing. And I guess it works both ways because we feel the same toward the Apple people, but it's just so nice to see someone in the wild who feels about this the way that I do. Yeah. Well, and then imagine the connection when Apple people meet someone else with an Apple phone. There's no... You too?

They don't love that. An iPhone? They don't connect like that. No way. Yeah, but you get a couple of Android users together and all of a sudden it's a little party. You have this bond. You've been through it together.

So you just made a friend for life and that's all it took. All it took was a superior phone. Exactly. How did you become an Android or anti-Apple guy? I've just always had one. Well, really, I couldn't even tell you what the first handful of phones I had were. I know that they weren't iPhones. And then by the time they were really popular and everyone loved them, they were just so different than what I had been used to. So I just stuck with what I was used to. I've cheated a little bit.

You know, I hate to say it, I'm on a MacBook computer right now. My laptop is a Mac. Gotta let you go, John. Yeah, oh, darn, our time's up. Yeah. So yeah, and the Our time's up. Yeah. Um, so yeah, that's, and like I, the laptop is, uh, just fine. But the, the phone to me is so different that the amount of work that goes into using it

is, uh, is unbearable the right way. It's so when I don't have the time, the effort or the willpower for social media, I don't have the time, the effort or the willpower to learn how to use the Apple phone. I think if you like Apple, that's great. You might not like my phone to each their own. I'm just so used to it. And now I connect with people like I haven't connected before. Yeah, no, it's a great icebreaker. It really brought us together unbeknownst to you. And yeah, I do when I sometimes have to in an emergency, in a desperate situation if I have to handle an iPhone, it does feel like I'm teaching my grandma how to use a computer or something.

And I'm like, how do I go back? Where's the comma? Yeah, I'm the grandma. That's right. Yeah. And of course the selling point of the iPhone is that it's supposed to be so intuitive and so easy to use, which is maybe part of why I instinctively recoil against it. It's just Apple with the whole, oh, we're going to be user friendly and we won't even let you tinker with the settings. Don't worry about it. We'll take care of it for you. And I want to be the guy who's tinkering with everything and doing stuff my way. And that's the whole Apple's ecosystem, our way or the highway. And I just reject the whole ethos.

And yet, yeah, you'd think that we could pick up and tweet or text immediately. And it turns out not to be the case. Yeah. And then when so little changes from one iteration to the next, of course it's gonna feel intuitive because it's the same thing that you've been doing. It's just, I'm absolutely not a tech person to get into any real facts or attributes of a phone, but yeah, that's, oh, you upgraded the camera on the new phone.

Everything else is so intuitively, of course it is. I'm touching all the same stuff I always have. So good. And they're doing great. And their company is galing it. So keep doing what they're doing. They don't need our business to be clear. Yeah, they're like, we don't care at all.

I would assume that in baseball, you're vastly outnumbered when it comes to Androids. I something in my mind, it just seems to me like probably as well represented as iPhones are in the general population. It's gotta be overrepresented in baseball circles. Am I off base there? Are you, are you alone? Do you ever meet another player who's an Android guy? So I can only think of one player that currently uses an Android phone. I have run into, let's

see, last year there was one, possibly two staff members if I remember correctly. The prior year I don't know anybody. The brother of one of a staff member had an Android. We connected pretty closely on that. So, I mean, we're, you got to think about it. We're going to, you know, family of people to find Android users a lot of time. But this year there is a player with an Android phone and we're as close as we can be.

We're locker mates and everything. Are you afraid of outing him here publicly? Is this like confidentiality? Are you, you know, you can't disclose this publicly? I think if anything, he would be quite proud of it. Um, but I don't know. Well, this is how I'll skirt. I'll find a loophole.

It rhymes with shmami shmainly. So if you can think of a name that rhymes with shmami shmainly, maybe that's a, maybe that's a good way for me not to completely out them, but to be able to figure it out. Yeah. He's one heck of a pitcher and he throws a lot of changeups. Brings a bill. I was going to say, yeah. Yeah. It rings a bell, I was going to say.

Yeah. But after your social media debut, this video, which went viral among me and my close acquaintances, I then fell down the Brebia rabbit hole because Meg, my cohost and I, we talked about this charming video on the podcast and then people emailed us that people came out of the woodwork to be like, oh, you like John Brebbia, I like John Brebbia too. And it became this kind of thing like you're using an Android phone was. I just made a bunch of Brebbia friends because there's a lot of lore to you. And I was familiar with you as a pitcher, but not as a personality.

And I haven't really covered or rooted for the teams that you've played with personally. And so I just haven't been exposed to all of the just insights into the Brebbia psyche. And we actually received submissions from listeners. Someone put together a multiple page Google doc with just all of your media clips, essentially. This was not your agent.

Oh no. Although your agent might be interested in this document potentially, but it just, it was your greatest hits basically, all the times that you've appeared on radio shows or broadcasts or, you know, TV shows, whatever it is and said something funny. And so I then had to brush up on my Brebia

and I was sort of passing around Brebia videos, like they were grateful dead tapes or something like, Hey, have you seen this one? Have you seen this one? So it was, it was intense. And of course I wanted to have you on the show. It's like, have you seen step brothers? Yes, yes, I have. Okay.

So there's the step brothers scene where John C. Riley and Will Ferrell, you know, they're enemies at first. And then they start to realize that they have a lot in common. And there's the one scene where John C. Riley is like, you know, let's just on the count of three, we'll, we'll say whatever comes to our mind and what's your favorite dinosaur, that kind of thing. And they say exactly the same thing. And after three questions, he's just like, did we just become best friends?

And that's what happened with me and you, except that you weren't there. It was sort of a one-way interaction where I became... Hey, I can feel it. Yeah, you became my best friend. I felt something out of the atmosphere a little bit ago, and that must have been it. Yeah, so usually when we invite a player onto the podcast,

it's more about, you know, asking them about some specific baseball thing. Whereas in this case, the plan was basically to befriend you. So we'll see how this conversation goes and we'll take it from there. Yeah. You've done it. I'm a huge fan. Okay. Yeah, I think we could be friends. Not in a weird way, but you know, it's like. Totally normal. When you're a man and you're in your mid-30s

and you have kids and you know, like your social circles become kind of closed off sometimes. Maybe not when you're a baseball player and you're changing teams and suddenly you have 25 new friends, I guess potentially. Whereas me, I work from home and I see no one except my wife and my dog most of the time. So I don't really get out much. And so this was my version of that. Perfect. Perfect. Yeah. So you are a Major League Baseball player. That's inherently interesting, especially to us as baseball podcasters.

And you got off to a fantastic start to the season. Maybe too good. Maybe it was like a Icarus situation. You were flying too close to the sun and the baseball gods punished you and said, who are you Jacob deGrom? What is this? One ERA and cursed you with triceps strain. So-

Yeah, that's not right. How you doing? How's the arm feeling? It's good, it's good. It was something that we, man, it was so minor to the point where we were seeing if we could just sort of get through it. And, you know, of course, the limit's a little bit

and unfortunately couldn't, but it seems like everything's tracking well. So it seems like if it keeps tracking well, it'll be a relatively short stint. It's one of those things, like a tricep, it's not really doing a ton for throwing a baseball. I mean, it's working obviously, as all of the muscles in your body do something.

But if all the things to put enough stress or strain on to injure a tricep really isn't towards the top of the list, which is good and bad because it's bad because it's like, well, how did this happen? But it's good because it's like, well, we can get through this relatively quickly because it's not something that's constantly stressed all the time and I have to take a ton of time off. So there's just like anything, there's good and there's bad news to it. But we're tracking well and we're hoping to be back before too long. Excellent. Yeah, I guess it's one of those things where you worry about some

kind of compensation that you might make because of the strain and then there's a trickle down effect and then something serious gets damaged. Exactly. Yeah. If you can, you know, with that kind of stuff, it's unfortunately almost all theoretical, but like if you can point to the direction it may go, that's where the professional opinions are leading. Like, let's not, let's not let anything else get worse or so maybe something wasn't great. So your tricep was taking over. So let's just kind of clear it, clear it and move on.

Yeah. And at the velocities that you're usually working at, you can't take any chances because your arm could just fly off at that speed. Yeah, I'm moving this wing as quick as I can. So there's not a lot of room for less than ideal. I mean, you do. I looked at your max pitch speeds compared to your average pitch speeds.

And there's some daylight there. There are a few miles per hour where even if you're sitting 93, 94, whatever it is, you can hump it up there at 97 or so, you know, when you need to. So are those the situations where it's high leverage and you just have to reach back for a little extra as they say, or is that overthrowing? Is that like, if I hit that number, something went wrong or is it just, I'm feeling it this, today I just,

I woke up on the right side of the bed? There is a lot that goes into it. I think for me, the biggest factor is like, you know, what's our freshness? When you're out of the bullpen, there are times where you may go four, five, six days without throwing and there are times where you're throwing three times in four days or four times in five days or something like that. And when you throw a lot, the fatigue can catch up and you start to possibly lose some of that velocity, you know, for some people. And then there are days when you're actually five or six days off might also be too much.

And you're like, you've lost your feel for pitching. But there's there can be that sweet spot where it's like, okay, I'm my most fresh legs feel good arm feels good. We can our ceiling for velocity is 5% higher today, 10%, you know, not 10%, you know, 1.5% higher today. And those are nice days to have, especially when you throw on them. But then if you throw a lot, it can be tough to get up there. So I think that's the biggest mover. And then, yeah, for, depending on who you are, the situation can play into it. You got bases loaded, nobody out, and it's the bottom of the ninth.

Whether you like it or not, your adrenaline's probably going a little harder because there's a ton on the line. And no matter how calm, cool, and collected you look, your body on the inside is like, brother, we gotta go. It's time like it's never been time before. And that stuff can all factor into

it. And for some people, if it's 15 to nothing, and it's an O2 count, two outs, bottom of the ninth on a road trip, and you're like, well, this, this doesn't quite choose me up like the playoffs to with runners in scoring position, you know, there's, there's all those different factors that can go into it. So you try to find as much consistency as possible if you can. Yeah.

I was going to ask you about that intensity because I think in one of my many Brebia videos that I watched during my copious research, my prep for this podcast, that you were talking about how you had at some point realized that you didn't have to artificially amp yourself up, that you kind of about how you had at some point realized that you didn't have to artificially amp yourself up, that you kind of felt like you had to do that because that's what some other guys do or that's what you're expected to do, but that that's not you necessarily.

And you seem like sort of a laid-back guy, and I'm sure on the inside it's sometimes different, but you're not really that like, you know, when you hear someone has a bullpen mentality or something, and it's like you're envisioning like this big, hairy flamethrower. I guess you got the hairy part, but... Yeah, scowling all the time. Yeah, like, you know, you're not stalking around the mound,

you're not just like, you know, firing the rosin bag to the ground in anger or something. Like I'd like to see you do that one day for fun. Just like do your impression of a super amped up reliever. But like, were you ever that guy and what percentage of pitchers are that guy legitimately as opposed to just in a performative way? That's a really good question.

And I think that, so I don't think I've ever inherently been that person. I've certainly tried. Being in high school or college and watching major league baseball and watching some of the best major league baseball players play, you see that intensity a lot. And you see, you know, sometimes it's anger and rage,

a guy throwing his glove against the bullpera, against the dugout wall, cause they give up a run or something like that. Yeah, or punching it and breaking their hands. Yeah, or you read about IELTS stints because someone got so upset, they put a hole in their locker. Yeah, just to interrupt for a second,

I have met at one of my hobby horses here that they should pad the walls in the vicinity of the dugout, the tunnel, the clubhouse. I've suggested just having like a boxing, just like a hanging bag that people, and I think a couple parks have that sort of thing where you could take your fresh air. But to this point, like it's clear that every year there's a guy or two who goes down

because they punched some surface that was unyielding and physics took over and they lost. And evidently you can't just coach that out of guys. And I do understand the intensity and everything and the emotions and the adrenaline and the testosterone and everything. So if we can't fix that, then it seems to me that we just need to make all the surfaces soft. And the fact that teams haven't done that yet

makes me think there's a competitive advantage here that is going unclaimed. Yeah, I'm excited for the day where all of the home clubhouses are padded and they leave the road clubhouses. They start putting little bumps and spikes in the walls, you know, open for it. Yeah, just left a nail not hammered in. Yeah, exactly.

Right. Yeah. I think people's, you know, people's competitiveness can come out in so many different ways. And so much of it you see is like that high intensity fire closer mentality where, yeah, you know, maybe it's the mad Hungarian yelling at people with his giant mustache or the Brian Wilson big beard, like, I don't know if that guy's got teeth or not because he never smiled. It's stuff like that that you see and you're like, that's what it takes to be the best. And I tried it. I tried it so much, college, early minor league baseball. And boy, did I stink when I was doing it. It just wasn't,

it didn't work for me. So when I finally got released by the Yankees, didn't take that long. I just was like, ah, let's go out having some fun. You know, like, let's just, let's just enjoy it because it should be enjoyable. And that, and that I feel like totally changed my, my approach. I think it's less, my competitiveness doesn't so much come out in my facial expressions and my body language as it does.

And, you know, I don't know the, the self-deprecation afterwards is my way of punching a hole in a computer so it's just different I think you see a lot of guys who are more physical when they're competitive but you just you see it more I think that's the most probably the most normal way for it to come out because I think that's how most people do it yeah you get you get so many different you play with so many different guys, you see so many different people

that you see some different ways of how people handle it. Yeah, we had Paul Skeens on the podcast recently and after that we were like, well, where do we go from Paul Skeens? We got a book, Brebia, that's the only bigger name that we can get here. And I was talking to him about that because he has that sort of low affect, slow heartbeat, people kind of rag on him for not really showing his emotions

or being super demonstrative even when he wins some major award or something, he like might not be smiling, you know? And I kind of have that too. And it's, it's just a, you know, can't judge a book by its cover kind of thing. Yeah, yeah. I'm sure he's real happy about his awards. I'd be surprised if he wasn't. And even if he's not happy about him, that's okay, too. He doesn't have to be happy. He's doing a heck of a job. Yeah, that's I think his expectations have got to be fairly high for him. So I don't mean I don't know him personally, but he's obviously got some pretty good stuff.

So I think his expectations are if he wins the Sai Yung and if I don't know him personally, but he's obviously got some pretty good stuff. So I think his expectations are if he wins the Cy Young and if I win the Cy Young, you're going to see two very different people. This one's a complete shock. And it means that everyone else in baseball retired before they could hand out the award except for me. And if he wins it, it's like, that feels right. Yeah.

Well, speaking of seeing a different person, I went back and I watched your first pitch of the season and then your last pitch to date. And so there was a difference there of about three weeks, I suppose. And you were considerably hairier in the second pitch than the first. And I imagine that when Tigers fans see you

on the mound again, hopefully soon, they may not recognize you. Has there been additional growth since then? Yeah, we're we're letting it ride. I'd say the All-Star break is usually when it becomes John's got a beard. It doesn't look that great. What's he doing?

And then the All-Star break happens and I come back and it's like, why did we give John's number away so quick? It's only been a few days. So that's usually where it happens, but we're just going to keep going, keep going and see what happens. Yeah, and of course this came up in my research as well. You have been asked about the beard many a time and I don't know if I'd even describe it as a love-hate relationship that you have with the beard. It seems like it's largely hate, and yet the hate fuels you in sort of a Sith Lord way, maybe, but it's like a reminder of the fact

that a career can end at any time, right? So you could give the origin story of the beard, but it seems like you find having it pretty unpleasant, and yet you regrow it over the course of each season. Yeah, there's nothing, it's not like it's comfortable on my face, and as it grows more the weather gets warmer and that can add to the discomfort. It certainly doesn't look good. Sometimes it can be like tough to eat because I'm just shoving hair in my mouth. All things that are, I wouldn't consider positives.

They're, those are negatives, but they're not detrimental to my, to my everyday life. So not worth changing anything for, but yeah, I started when I was playing indie ball, when I didn't think that baseball was an option anymore. I was just kind of doing it. All right, last year, I want to have some fun playing. Let's go to Indie Ball, enjoy the game, move on with my life. So now keeping it is just, I do it to remind me that you're not supposed to be here, buddy.

You were supposed to go to Sioux Falls, have a little fun, and then find a job somewhere else and spend time at home with your wife and all that stuff. And it's a nice, when I have a good outing, it's a nice reminder that there's more important things and when I have a bad outing, it's a nice reminder that there's more important things. Yeah. Does your wife prefer bearded or beardless Brebbio, or does she like the variety? It's just, you know, keeps things fresh in the relationship. She's been a no comment type of person for maybe eight years now. That speaks volumes.

That's a comment in itself. That means she doesn't like it one bit. She's way too nice to say anything. It means I outkicked my coverage and she's just not going to be mean about how much she doesn't like it. Yeah. It's funny, you were in Indie Ball 2014, 2015, and I was in Indie Ball in 2015 in a sense. I co-wrote a book where we took over an Indie Ball team and kind of ran it in sort of a saberm metric way.

And it was just an experiment. It was in the Pacific association. So the lowest rung on the ladder at that point, the Sonoma Stompers. And yeah, most people look at Indie ball and you're like, Oh, wow, you came from all the way down there. Whereas I look at the fact that you were in Sioux Falls and Laredo in the American Association. And I was like, wow, like we couldn't have afforded Brebia in 2015. We could guy with a one six eight ERA in Laredo would have been way out of our price range. You would have had no interest in playing for the Sonoma Stompers. So there's really a hierarchy there where like you're in Indie Ball. A lot of people look at that as down and out, but the tiers of Indie Ball,

it's an enormous difference from the bottom to the top. There are so many. And even so, after I got out of independent ball, I don't remember the exact year, but there was a big kind of overhaul of how many minor league teams organizations could have. And they, orgs were dropping at least one, two more teams from their minor league system. So you were drafted in the 30th round, which does not exist anymore. Exactly. Yeah. And I don't even, what is it now?

20, 30, 20. Okay. Yeah. So it's, yeah, as, as many different levels as there were in 2014 and 15, there's even more now, um, which I think is great. I mean, I had a great experience playing and I know a lot of people that I know had a great experience playing too. So I'm glad with that, but it is,

boy, there's a lot of baseball. It's hard to go somewhere and not see baseball. Yeah, it's nice. Yeah, and you've been in several organizations. I don't know whether you would classify yourself as a journeyman. We've debated the definition of that, like how many teams and what span of time

do you need to have played for to qualify as a journeyman. But you've played for a handful of major league organizations and some others at other rungs. And so I guess you're accustomed to having to come into a situation where you're the new guy and you have to meet a bunch of other guys who've been there for a while. And I don't know whether it's difficult to break into those cliques and friend groups. Cause I was wondering about that with the tigers because you were almost the only new guy in the tigers bullpen this year. I guess there

was also Schwame Schwain. I was wondering if you were going to, if you were going to throw them under the bus, this real name now. Yeah. So it's kind of you too. And it's almost like, I was thinking of like band of brothers where, you know, you, you go through a campaign with a bunch of guys and you're, you know, you've been under fire and then they call up the new recruits and it's like, who are

these guys and you're not a new recruit to be clear, you, you have more experience than most members of the bullpen, I guess. But those guys went through something significant last year where the bullpen and the pitching chaos just powered the Tigers to an improbable playoff spot. And so I wonder whether walking into that situation where they just found some kind of magic and chemistry and just really were rolling for a few months there. Whether that was difficult at all or whether they were like, yes we need reinforcements we pitched so much

please someone with a fresher arm. Yeah more arms. I think that there can be situations where it's maybe more difficult but I hear it was very easy. Everyone here has been great. It's a very, very, I think because a lot of guys came up together and because of what they experienced last year as a group, nothing bonds you more than being involved in something extreme. For them it was an extreme good thing.

It was this crazy run at the end of the year that pushed them into the playoffs and winning. So I think that the team, the guys that were here last year and experienced that together, do have something that you can't just walk into a clubhouse and be a part of. But at the same time, everyone knows kind of how baseball works and there's turnover and these things happen and no one's sitting there like, oh, new guy, who's this meatball rolling in here thinking he's this or that? Because ultimately, we all want the same thing. And it's been

cool. I've been able to connect with some guys on that pitching chaos experience. Because when I was with the Giants, we did a lot of similar things where it was, I don't want to say it was a coin flip. That's super unfair. Everything was extremely thought out and extremely well organized. But unless you had your finger on the pulse, it was, it could have been hard to tell between the bullpen games and stuff like that.

And I loved it. You know, I love pitching. I think it's so much fun to do. So I was like grateful for that experience. And I love trying something that was seemed a little new in baseball. So guys talking about doing that last year, especially towards the end of the year last year, it was, it was something where it's like, Oh yeah, no, yeah, that's I've, I've been there. How crazy is that? Isn't that

it gets? Yeah, that's where you, that's where you feel like a real baseball player when you're asked to do something that's new or that's difficult or challenging or something like that. That's where I think you can get sort of the most excitement from doing something like that. So this team and organization on a personality standpoint has been fantastic for something like that, because it's all just a bunch of good guys that want to go out and want to play in one win and want to work super hard. And then on top of that, you know, if need be, there are previous experiences where we can sort of all relate. Baseball feels a lot, especially with how much turnover there is, baseball feels a lot like one big MLB family versus 30 smaller team only families. The more you kind of bounce around and see.

So I think that's really cool. But I also think it's really cool that this team has a lot of guys that came up to you. Like there's nothing that bonds you like playing in the minor leagues together and then coming to big leagues and winning on that stage after popping eight dudes in a two bedroom apartment for six months because it's the minor leagues and that's the only option you have.

And then all of a sudden you're in the big leagues and you're staring down the barrel of the best hitters and the best pitchers in baseball and you're, and you're beating them and you're winning. Yeah. You're like, man, 18 months ago we were eating chicken breasts and white rice because that's all we could do. I guess the minor leagues is a little different now, but that's a fairly recent change to the system. Yeah, well, I guess speaking of that,

less than 18 months ago, you were on the White Sox. So things have changed a little bit, competitively speaking for you too. You've gone worst to first in the AL Central by changing teams. So what does that affect about your own performance? Just your moods going into the game, what the clubhouse is like when you're in the midst of just a historic struggle as the White Sox were last year, as opposed

to great vibes, I assume, with the Tigers coming off the way last season ended and the way this season has started. Just how does that affect the day-to-day of an individual player? Yeah, if you are someone that hangs their hat on, who's like, you know, whose mood is, if we win, I'm happy, if we lose, I'm not happy, then being on a team that loses more than wins probably isn't going to be great.

If your expectation is to win 120 baseball games in a season or else you're going to be miserable, well then there's not a lot of teams that look like they're going to win 120 games. You know, you're going to be miserable. If your expectation had been to lose 120 though, that would have been the perfect team to be done. Yeah. Then you nailed it. Then we need to know how your brain works so that you can put together. Vegas is crumbling right now because of this. If you're miserable when you lose and you're happy when you win,

yes, there's going to be more misery. Nobody wants to lose, but you show up regardless of the circumstance, regardless of what your record is, regardless of if you've won a game or you've lost a game or whatever it may be, regardless of who's on the mound, you show up and you do as best as you possibly can. So while the results were not very good at the end of the season last year, it was a lot of losses. The mentality of showing up and trying to be your best to give your team the best chance to win is the same. There's no whether you're on the best team in baseball, the worst team in baseball, you do that. So I think that it depends on the best team in baseball, the worst team in baseball, you do that. So I think that it depends on the person,

maybe how long they could possibly get used to that. But it's, look, do I wanna lose 100 plus games again? Of course not, nobody does, that's silly. I'd write 162 and O is the only goal. And then every time you lose a game, you adjust that number to 161 and one and 160 and two right right so it's there's there's no you know, there's no satisfying someone unless there unless it's perfection but you regardless of what your

expectations are regardless of What you want to happen. You have to do the same thing every day. So there's no, there's only so much that you can change or be upset or happy about. At this stage of your career, when you change teams, are teams trying to change you in certain ways or make different recommendations when you go from giants to white socks, braves to tigers in quick succession, are you hearing different messages about, Hey, we think

you could pick up this pitch, we think you could stand to throw this one more or in that location, or are they just picking you up because they want you to keep being the Brebbia that you have been before? I think there's both that can be involved. I think that every year you play, you create and then maintain a baseline of who you are as a pitcher. Your first year or two, you are a certain way. If you make changes or someone helps you make a change,

he added a third pitch or a fourth pitch when he was in his three through five years, right? And then you get into free agency and you're like, all right, well, this is our new pitcher. He's been this type of player for the past few years. Maybe we can't, we like that. That's great. If we sign him, that's what we get.

Oh, look, we found a couple of avenues to tinker or to tweak or to use this process or change this pitch. So I think you get a lot of both. For me, it's a, hey, this is what you have because you've had it your entire career. And then this is what we think there might be capacity to do to help you get better.

And you try things out. And if it works, great, you stick with it. And if it doesn't work, hopefully you find out quick and you stop wasting your time on that. I think we're good organizations are different, depending on where you go, they're not all run by the same person. So I think there are some different approaches. But for the most part, especially for for me, like I'm a reliever, it's not like I'm providing 200 innings a year that you have

this massive base to go off of. It's it's like, all right, this is, this is who John is. This is where we're going to get. Let's see, let's see what happens with X, Y, or Z. I guess it's sort of a thankless role relief, unless you're that fire breathing guy at the back of the bullpen. Like, you know, if you do well, then that's what people expect you to do. And if you don't do well, then they're probably sending you death threats in your DMS or something, except not you.

Cause you're not on social media life hack. When you don't have a direct message, you can't be yelled at online. Yeah. Made it harder for me to slide into your DMS when you didn't have DMS. So I have to slide into your agent's inbox instead, but nonetheless, probably better for your mental health, I'd imagine. But does it bother you and your fellow relievers

that you constantly hear the refrain that relievers are what's wrong with baseball, that there are just too many of these relievers. We want the starters to go deeper into games again. Who are all these relievers? I can't keep track of them. Does this feel like a personal attack? Oh man.

Not to me. No, I don't. I personally don't care. Um, if someone hates it when I open a game, that's fine. If someone loves it when I open a game, that's fine too. If someone loves it when I open a game, that's fine too. I understand the sentiment of wanting to see five starting pitchers go out there and pitch. When I watch other sports, which I playing that day, I don't know. No offense to the Lakers.

I'm sure they're all wonderful people. I don't actually know anybody else on the team. I don't watch basketball. So I put that game on and LeBron's not there. It's like, ah, okay. I don't know anything about this sport. I can't tell who's good or not good. What else is on?

So that's an unfair example. I don't watch basketball, so that's never actually happened, but it's that kind of concept where if, if someone's loves, you know, someone wants to watch a tiger's game and they flip it on and instead of Tarek Scoobel pitching, it's John Brebbia. They're probably going to be pretty mad. Like, who is this guy? We wanted to see a hundred miles an hour of big old lefty that just want to sigh young in no way do I think that I'm going to open for Tarek Scoobel anytime.

But, but it's that it's that kind of concept that, that makes sense to me. I just, I wish I could care. I wish I had a really strong opinion one way or the other. It's that kind of concept that makes sense to me. I wish I could care. I wish I had a really strong opinion one way or the other. I think in general human nature, everyone wants to be respected and appreciated for what they do, but sometimes that's not the case. And in a sport like baseball, and really any sport

where you can stand on the field and get yelled at by a fan, you get used to not being respected or appreciated pretty quick. So you can, you can kind of let it roll off the shoulders. I can't believe we've been talking this long and I haven't brought up spreadies because this was another thing that deepened my appreciation for you. And in this case, sometimes I get obsessed with a baseball player and I'm telling my wife about it and she's kind of just humoring me like, yeah, that's nice. You know, kind of like your wife with your beard. And in this case though, I showed my wife one of

the videos where you were talking about your love of spreadsheets and your nickname for them. And you're basically neck and neck with Shohei now as her favorite player, because she does a lot of spreadsheet work in her job. She does a lot of data analysis and she has now adopted this term. So spreadies is spreading. And I don't know how you got into this because you don't often hear players profess their fondness for spreadsheets or really anyone for that matter. But you use them in your rehab process. I don't know whether you've had to use them while coming back from a tricep strain, but tell the people,

because I'm sure we have a lot of spreadsheet loving listeners on a Femgrafts podcast, tell us about your affinity for spreadies. Yeah, if I can find an excuse to make one, I will. It started with like budgeting and just, you know, oh, boy, I've got two rents throughout the year, internet, you know, in my permanent home and wherever I'm playing and bouncing around. So it started as a way to just like track what the heck is going on. And when I then it kind of seeped its way into like, well, I can, I can make a daily workout schedule, um,

and just put in like almost like a to-do list, some reminders, and then some workouts and to warm up like, Oh, okay. I can have everything just sort of organized in this, in this spreadsheet. And then as things happen, I just kept adding and adding and adding. And when I got hurt for the, when I had Tommy John in 2020, it was the first time I had an injury. And it was, it was COVID during COVID. So I was only allowed to be around a PT, our team PT for so long. I want to say it was like 60 minutes a day,

and then we were supposed to separate because of all the COVID regulations. So I had an ample amount of time, which as we found out was not good for my Google Sheets account. I started tracking everything. What I was eating, macronutrients, how often I was eating it, the timing that I was eating it, my rehab process where it's you know, sets, reps, what time of day I did it, how did I feel afterwards, what was my heart rate then,

what was my HRV when I woke up, what recovery modules affected what. So it was, I mean, just pages and pages and pages of what I would say is 95% useless information, like things that were just like, oh, I had a smoothie today. I'm gonna write that down File that one away. You never know when that could come in So now it's just like I look at some of this and I still do it I have parsed it down a good bit

I don't have I don't have the number of Vitamins and all that stuff that I take every day. I have what I take, but I don't have how many is a serving. And I don't total the amount of number of pills at the end of each week to make sure it matches up with having the correct number of servings, because that's a colossal waste of time. But I do. So I'm actually, I'm looking at one right now for, for this week. And I do so, I'm actually, I'm looking at one right now for this week. And I, yeah, I have, you know, my conditioning, my energy system development, as we call it. I have workouts, arm care, any warmup protocols that I do.

I track how long I'm in a hot tub, cold tub. Did you put this podcast appearance in a spreadsheet? I made a note of it in the spreadsheet. Okay. All right, we're in there. I didn't have, yeah, you've got, there's a splash, but then I didn't know what else to add after that, so. So it's just a one hour. It's gonna take an hour. Yeah, yeah.

So. Yeah, 60 minutes minus 60 minutes equals zero minutes left. So yeah, it's in there in a to-do file. But I just love when you punch numbers into it and it just kind of changes them on another side of this. And that's really like, that's my limit of what I can do. I can add and subtract and a couple of multiplication things. And that's it. I've run into people who are, I don't even know how to describe how adept these people are using Google Sheets and Excel and stuff like that.

I mean, it's- That's my wife basically. Yeah, okay. She knows all the formulas. I do a lot of data stuff for baseball writing and analysis and often I outsource some of that to her because that's more in her wheelhouse. So you ever need any tips?

I'm sure she could help. Although she is sort of an Excel snob and so it will probably be a bit of a letdown that you're a Google Sheets guy. It's kind of like our Android versus Apple. I mean, I have converted her to the Android army. So she is in the Google sphere, but not when it comes to spreadsheets.

She's just a big believer in the offline experience. I understand. Do I agree? Absolutely not. But I understand now that that's, I, yeah, I've seen, the more I've kind of looked into it, I've definitely seen there's, there's team Excel and there's team sheets.

And it's an interesting, it's an interesting balance of power when you get them all in one room. So my former cohost and coauthor Sam Miller, he used to have, maybe he still does have a philosophy that baseball players aren't funny. This has been one of his beliefs and not a blanket statement, obviously. And maybe you could say this about most people, perhaps most people aren't funny. This has been one of his beliefs and not a blanket statement, obviously. And maybe you could say this about most people. Perhaps most people aren't funny. I don't know whether baseball players are less funny

than the general population, but he has been convinced that, you know, there's something that's maybe funny once and then they'll just run it into the ground to the point that it's not funny anymore. And we all love a prank, but there's often not a lot of originality in the prank space.

And so, maybe you're the exception that proves the rule if it is a rule. And I think when people discover you, they get excited, because it's like, wow, this guy's a big leaguer. He's also legitimately hilarious. And so, I wonder whether this matches your observation about your fellow baseball players

or whether you think that maybe it doesn't come out publicly when there's a pressure to speak in cliches, maybe in private, in the clubhouse, that comes out more naturally, more organically, but baseball players, they're immensely skilled at what they do. Maybe they don't have to be funny

to get by in life sometimes, or maybe they're just so consumed by being professional athletes that that doesn't leave a lot of time to cultivate your sense of humor, or maybe this is just way off base entirely. What do you feel about the funniness of baseball players? Yeah, I think that when most of what is seen is surrounding baseball, whether it's an interview or something like that, you know, you do the on-field interview with the player of the game,

or you're asking someone questions in the clubhouse after the game or something like that, it's 99.9% of it is baseball related information. And we take baseball very seriously. Whether someone looks really laid back, even if someone looks like they're having a ton of fun on the field, it's not a joke. We're still taking it seriously. So when all of the conversations are about people's livelihood some livelihood playing baseball Then they take it very seriously. You're gonna get relatively serious answers So I think that there's just not a lot of

space for to explore someone's personality further which which I think can be like, there's plenty of hilarious people. But how often you get the opportunity to do that with someone, it can be kind of limited, unfortunately. So I think it exists, but it's so hard to find the time to really crack into someone. And then, of course, and especially with social media, I believe that if someone opens their

self up to a type of personality, it's just another thing that you can be worn out about. If someone's going to trash talk me a whole bunch, the less they know about me, the better. Because then it's just the one, okay, all you can do is make fun of how much I stink as a pitcher. That's great. If I give you any more information, you can just start drawing on that and trash me for that. And it just becomes more than what you need to deal with.

I don't know if anyone else feels like that, but I do think that could be a limiting factor. It's like, oh yeah, let's explore my personality. Actually, there's gonna be a small percentage of the population that's just gonna grind away on my Instagram or whatever it may be, because they enjoy doing that, So I'm just not. Yeah.

If you notice an uptick in spreadsheet related heckles when you return to the mound, you can blame this podcast potentially. I saw your Wikipedia page includes the sentence. Now, I don't know whether this was here before we talked about it on the podcast during spring training or whether this was subsequently added. I haven't looked at the edits,

but the personal life section of your Wikipedia page, which is fairly concise, but the first three facts on it are that you are married and you had a son and when your son was born and what your wife's name is and where you live. Those are all pretty important biographical details. And then the next sentence is, Brebbia enjoys using spreadsheets.

I love that that made it on there. Yep. Um, I'm glad that the family stuff was given a little more important. It's, it's a bit incomplete, um, but I am glad that they valued family more than my love spreadsheets, but I, I'm, I'm glad that I'm glad that's on there. I will keep my ears peeled now for, for more like, ah, wax sells better. Like I'll listen, I'll listen for that and see where, see where we land on that. Exactly.

Is there anything else that we could get added to your Wikipedia page here? Some other interest of yours that you haven't talked about or that people may not know about something else sort of eclectic, idiosyncratic, what other hobbies do you have? I can't imagine anything else about my life right now being something that someone wanted to to learn more about. Baseball takes up just an insane amount of time. I mean, it's everything, right? It's when you're sleeping, that has to do with baseball.

Every meal you eat has to do with baseball. You go to the baseball field to work on baseball. When you get back, you're like, okay, what's gonna make baseball good for me tomorrow? So like baseball takes up so much time that there's really doesn't leave you a lot of space for anything else. When baseball is no longer an option for me to play, we'll get in touch. And I'll tell you what weird stuff I am using to to eat up my time at that point, because

I can only imagine how just disturbing it might be. Yeah, I have a couple more questions for you. One is that you attended Elon University. And for those who don't know, that's not some sort of Trump University situation. But for Elon Musk, I'm sure that the people of Elon, North Carolina and Elon University are just thrilled about all the positive publicity they're getting these days. But Elon University has just become a pitching factory lately, relatively speaking,

because I was looking at just the history of Elon University alumni in the majors, and there was quite a long drought there for a while. And I think in the three decades or so, before you showed up, it was pretty thin when it came to Elon University grads. There was Joe WinkleSass,, WinkleSauce, yeah. Yeah.

Pride of Elon University, who he threw eight games in the big leagues, one of them in 1999, and then he made a comeback seven years later in 2006 and threw seven more games and that was that. But since you arrived in 2017, George Kirby has come along. Ty Adcock has come along. So last year there were three. Yvonne university grads active in the major leagues. So what happened here?

Was it that you attended and then suddenly the scouts were like, we got to, we got to pay closer attention to Yvonne university. Now that Brebia came out of this school, or have there been other improvements to the pitching program? What's happening here? If anything, I have worked against the program for sure. Like, my goodness, John came from there, stay away.

I do think it's a combination of factors. I think that as the school has grown a little bit just in its school population, that has helped. But it's in the middle of North Carolina. And you play a lot of really what drew me to this was that you play a lot of really good teams. You play Wake Forest, North Carolina, Duke, and South Carolina. These are all major college baseball schools and you have the experience to play against them. That is a big time draw prior to having, you know, pitch tracking technologies and all this other stuff.

You know, that was one of the things that I think helped a lot with the coaching staff that they have there. As you introduce, I think technology has been so critical to baseball over the past handful of years. And now it's becoming so widespread that you now have the coaching staff that can handle that information and they know how to use it and they know how to coach with it. And you can make leaps and bounds in talent production using that type of stuff.

And I think they've done a really good job of that. George Kirby is that big name, that ace starter that Elon can kind of look at and point at. And he's going to be fantastic for whatever school he came out of. He'd be an excellent example of someone to kind of look to as a leader or role model. So I think he's, I'm excited to see going forward now that he's out there and doing his thing, how the rest of it, that train just kind of keeps picking up. I have a very random question for you, which was sent from a listener the other day, and I thought to myself the next time we have a pitcher or a catcher on

the podcast, I'm going to ask about this. Do you call your own pitches through pitchcom or, or do you leave it to your catchers? Uh, the catchers, I let the catchers do it. I've tinkered with it before. I have no rhyme or reason for how I call pitches, my scouting reports. I find a way to make every piece of a scouting report useless. It's just like I dig and then I dig too much and then I don't

dig that much and I end up being wrong. there's so much information that I let people that are considerably better at assessing it, look at it. And I often call myself the luckiest pitcher in baseball just because of the catchers I've had throughout my career between, you know, Yadier Molina and Matt Wieters, all-star catcher Matt Wieters was Yadier's backup at one point. And then I go to San Francisco and Buster Posey is there and it's just like these, these hall of fame caliber names that I get to throw to.

And it's just catchers that I've thrown to now are younger and they're going to have those careers. They haven't played for 15 years yet. So they don't have that name recognition just yet, but they're the same type of guy. So I consider myself the luckiest pitcher in baseball with that. So I don't have to do,

they're so much better at scouting reports than I am. And the coaching staffs, of course, are massively involved. And that group of minds is considerably better at assessing how to call pitches than I am. So I stay as far away from this as possible. Well, I don't know if you'll be able to answer this because I couldn't. And listener Kenny wrote in and said, this might be an obvious question.

And at first I thought it was and that it would be super easy to answer. But how do catchers and pitchers communicate inside or outside via PitchCom? Kenny said, it can't just be inside or outside because that would depend on whether the batter is a righty or a lefty, right? And so I started thinking myself in circles here because I've seen what the PitchCom device looks like and I've heard it and it says inside or outside, right?

The little voice in your ear says that, but I'm kind of confused about how that is input because there's this array of buttons where the catcher can choose the location of the pitch, but I'm confused about how the system translates that into inside or outside. Cause if they're just, how does the system know whether it's inside or outside, which would depend

on the handedness of the batter. So do you have to, does it know whether it's a righty or a lefty? Is it like, how does the voice know that the button that you pressed to correspond to that location is inside against this batter or outside against that batter? This is extremely in the weeds and it might be too far in the weeds for you to answer, but I don't know how that works. Yeah, well, so now I'm rethinking how the pitch comm even works. I always assumed that there was one button

where you click it and the voice says inside, and there was another button where you click it and the voice says outside. You'd think. Because all I hear in the pitch comm is, you know, fastball inside. But it'll say high or low too, right? Yeah, yeah, you can do high. Again,

I don't even know. I've never messed around with the pitch com buttons. So I don't know what does what. I have no idea how it works. I just assumed that, yeah, if let's say you wanted to, I'm trying to think of the most complicated pitch would be probably three buttons. It's the pitch and it's the two directions of a location called a fastball up and in. You would have fastball high inside. I just figured the catcher's touches three buttons, one fastball, one high, one inside. And then if it's a righty,

you throw it up and into the righty. If it's a lefty, you throw it up and into the lefty. But I don't know, yeah. Okay, it remains a mystery. Someone who's listening to this will answer. Yeah. Okay. It remains a mystery. Someone who's listening to this will answer. Yeah. I'll have to get a pitchcom and start pushing around and see what happens.

Yeah. Nothing could possibly go wrong. So last question for you. So you talked about how players don't often have the opportunity to showcase their personality, or maybe they've learned to be wary of that. And so I wonder, A, whether there's a correlation between just how good you are or how secure you are in your role and then how much personality you show, because I could see it working either way. Like if you're the ace of the staff or something, you could say anything.

You could be kind of wacky and whatever. Like they're going to still throw you out there. On the other hand, it seems like, you know, if you're more of a on the bubble guy, maybe it's more beneficial to be a good clubhouse guy and to be the glue guy and to be the guy who kind of, you know, brings everyone's mood up. And so I wonder how that works, because in trying to think about which players are funny,

it does seem to be that it's like not always the best players. And so maybe is that, and I'm not denigrating your career because you've had eight years in the big leagues as an above average pitcher, that is amazing. But I, I do wonder, and maybe it's just the, like the very best players, they get interviewed more and they learn to clam up more quickly or something. But like, it does seem like often it's like the 26 men on the roster or something who's like cracking everyone up.

I don't know. I wonder if that is an exposure thing. Your ace pitcher is just always having to do something. You're, you know, you're the star starting shortstop hitting 40 home or whatever it may be. They're just always getting talked to. So it becomes, it just becomes kind of the same thing all the time. Um, whereas you get relievers who it's like, I relievers are crazy.

Um, it's easily, it's, it's easily the most wild group on a team, most effectively wild group on a team, most effectively wild group on a team. Thank you. Yeah, plug. Yeah, we're running that clip forever. We got Brevia to say it effectively. We tricked it. We got it. Yeah, relievers, it's like you get interviewed when you blow it and then that's kind of it. So we've got all day to just, I mean, we're just stuck with each other. So you get all the cool stuff.

Hey, where are you from? Are you married? You got kids? Where do you live now? What teams you, you know, that takes two days and you feel like you know someone real well. So then the rest of it is you're just like, all right, we got to fill time. Let's ask some weird questions and see what this person's like.

So you just get used to that and you get these nutty relievers and then we don't get interviewed. So, and then we do, it's like, you gave up 11 runs. What happened? It's like, all right, well, it didn't go so. I missed my spots. What do you expect? So yeah, I'm not sure if? It's like, all right, well, yeah, it didn't go. So I miss my spots. What do you expect?

Yeah. So yeah, I'm not sure if it's just like, if it is that exposure thing where you get asked so much that it becomes rinse and repeat answers. And then if you're someone that doesn't get asked at the time, it's, you know, maybe you get a little more of a, a little more of a side show. Yeah. Yeah.

I liked the Pete Fairbanks approach to the post-game interview. I don't know if you recall this from a couple of years ago, where he had a bad outing, and he just kind of was just like, yeah, I sucked. Like, he just was very frank about how bad he had been. I appreciate that approach, too. Yeah.

It's just, I mean, you're big on the self-deprecation and the deadpan delivery, I think, to comedy things that I appreciate very much. Like if you were on SNL, you know, if you were hosting SNL one of these days, I feel like you, you wouldn't break in the middle of the skit. It seems like you can really keep a straight face. Maybe it helps that we can't see your face much of the time under the beard.

I've had my head buried in my hands this whole time laughing actually. So yeah, no video, just audio. It'll be fine. Yes, exactly. Well, you said relievers don't get interviewed that much. We're making up for lost time here. This is great. This is great.

I'll get you seven more on here tomorrow. Yeah. You tell all the other guys like, you got to go on effectively. Wow, they'll let you keep talking as long as you want Our listeners love that but I when I reached out to your agent He was a responsible agent and you know wanted to have a quick call to vet me I guess to make sure this wasn't some sort of gotcha interview or something and You know to make sure this wasn't some sort of gotcha interview or something. And I guess he failed to pick up on the degree

of the parasocial attachment that I had formed with you or else that could have scared him off. But he said something along the lines of like, I think this would be good for him, like to get to show the personality and who knows down the road, maybe this is something that he would wanna do more. You wanna pitch as long as possible, I'm sure.

But is this something that you envision some sort of media presence? Because I feel like, you know, you were a 30th rounder as a pitcher, but I feel like as a broadcaster slash podcaster slash commentator on baseball, you'd be like a first rounder. You'd be like right off the board because you have the experience. You're saying that because it doesn't exist. A draft doesn't exist. So you can just say that and it's fine.

I can't be proven wrong, but no, like when, you know, MLB network or whatever is like surveying this year's free agent class of recent retirees or whatever, you know, when you get to that point in your career, if that's something that you would want to pursue, I could see, I could see podcasting in your future. A lot of players getting into the podcasting game these days. Is this something that you would entertain down the road? There's, oh man, my answer is kind of a cop out, um, because it's yes, my answer is yes, but there, I enjoy trying new things.

So there's a lot that you could say, hey, would you try this? And I would, there's a good chance that I'd be like, yeah, I'll try it. I might not like it, but I'll certainly try it. If I had to guess, I would say that, that this would be something I would be more interested in. John, you want to log roll down a Rocky Mountain wrapped in a sleeping

bag, right? And it's like, well, I'll do it, but I don't think I'm going to enjoy it. I think this is probably trending in the more enjoyable direction. So I'm going to say yes with a small asterisk next to it. Glad you still think it's enjoyable after this marathon interview. That's a good sign. Now I love it actually. Well my parting thought, because at Player's Weekend a few years ago, one of my favorite Brebia interviews

was when you were interviewed about your Player's Weekend nickname, which was Brebia. And you were also wearing custom Nike cleats where you had a swoosh special ordered onto them and they did that for you. And you were showing off the gear as well. If you're in the market for another nickname at any point that is not the same as your surname, I was thinking that the first big leaguer to have attended Elon University. the first big leaguer to have attended Elon University. Now there are some great names among the Elon grads in the big leagues such as, well, such as Dick Such

was in the big leagues in 1970, went to Elon. There was Tal Abernathy, there was Cap Clark. We're going way back here, but if we go all the way back, the first one, the trailblazer was Bunny Hearn, Bunny Hearn, who he was in the big leagues from 1910 to 1920, given name Charles, but he became Bunny. And that might work if you wanted the alliteration as a tribute to the pioneer, Bunny Brebia. Yeah. I like the length of the career too.

There's a lot of things working there that we can go with. I'm not opposed to that at all. They just have to bring back, I don't think there's, there hasn't been a players weekend in the, what a year or two has there? Have I just missed it? There was one I remember within the past year or two, cause I remember all the custom bats,

but I don't know if they did the nicknames on the back that they had done in previous players weekends. But yeah, I don't know. Bunny, Bunny, he came up with the Cardinals too. know if they did the nicknames on the back that they had done in previous players weekends, but yeah, I don't know. Bunny, he came up with the Cardinals too, so you know, you're kind of following in the footsteps of Bunny Hearn. Well, hey, obviously I'll try it. Yeah. Well, this was a great joy, at least for me, and I'm glad that I could make my one way, did we just become best friends conversation, two way, at least temporarily. We locked it in.

Yeah. Absolutely. We locked it in. Okay. Good to know. At some point, maybe we'll meet via video, perhaps even in person. I'll crash the clubhouse and I'll introduce myself as the guy who kept you on the podcast for a really long time.

But wish you well with the remainder of your rehab and your return to the Tigers. Clearly they need you, because things just haven't gone great since you've been on the IL, so you gotta really rush back. Baseball players are superstitious. I mean, when things are going well,

you don't wanna change anything, so you might just voluntarily remain on the injured list for a while. Not to mess with success. Yeah, I'll just sit here and be like, look, if you guys want to win 150 games, I'm fine with that. Look forward to seeing both you and the Beards

back in a big league game. John Brebbia, thank you very much for being so generous with your time. Well, of course. I had a blast. Thank you so much for having me. Well, after we wrapped up, I told John that he could cross off Effectively Wild on his spreadsheet and he said.

Yeah, check done. One out of one podcast done this week. Honestly, being on John Brebbia's spreadies, I'm starstruck, I'm smitten. Sorry, not sorry for fanboying so hard. Few other followups, Jake Berger, who was brought in to reinforce that Rangers offense was actually demoted.

He had recorded a 56 WRC plus. In happier news, straight out of Groundhog Day, Jesse Chavez resigned with the Atlanta Braves. Yet again, I've lost count. This is, I believe, the fourth time since the start of last season that he has signed with Atlanta on a minor league deal. At this point, they're just designating him for assignment and resigning him to set some sort of

record. Rich Hill though, still out there. Call him Orioles. Gotta erase the memory of Rich Hill's 7.8 ERA for the Orioles in 2009. Talked last time about the seemingly meaningless out that Andres Jimenez recorded by throwing to first for the force, even though he had bobbled the ball and thus the winning run had scored, it was a walk-off situation. I suggested that maybe the pitcher would appreciate getting that extra out, but listener, Patreon supporter, effectively wild wiki keeper Raymond

notes that it could be just the opposite. He writes, by rule, no error is charged if the fielder recovers in time to make a force out. Therefore, the run was earned, whereas with an error, it would have been unearned. So this hurts the pitcher rather than helps him. So maybe Jimenez did it for selfish reasons. Getting the out at first erases the defensive error.

Good point. After we talked about Lin-Manuel Miranda's possible Molina Brothers movie, my pal Zach Cram asked me something that I was already thinking about, which was which Lin-Manuel project would I want to see more, a Jose Molina biopic or a Patrick Rothfuss adaptation? Because Lin-Manuel was previously supposed to help adapt

Patrick Rothfuss's Kingkiller Chronicle, a great but notoriously unfinished fantasy series. I told Zach I'd rank Jose Molina biopic at the top, then Kingkiller adaptation, then Molina Brothers movie, not specifically featuring Jose. However, I might reconsider if the King Killer adaptation came with a completed book three, The Doors of Stone, which is in a Winds of Winter-esque delay.

But if Lin-Manuel could make that happen, he probably would have already. Couple suggestions for what to call a towering bat flip. We suggested that Flip didn't quite convey the height of those bat flips by Wilson Contreras and Junior Caminero and Andy Lugo. Listeners Mark and Ben independently suggested bat launch, which I think is pretty fitting.

And speaking of the bat launches, listener Patreon supporter Eric wrote in to say, "'You can't tell the height of the flips with the camera angles given, but the good news is that in order to know which was highest, you only need to calculate the hang time. Using basic physics, you need only two of three timestamps, the time of launch, time of maximum height,

and time of landing to find the hang time because gravity will act on each bat in the same way and air resistance differences should be negligible. It's tough to determine even two of those three data points from the video that we have, as Eric discovered when he went ahead and did that research himself, but he did some frame counting analysis. For the caminero flip, I counted the frames from release to when the center of mass of the bat passed the height of the lights in the background

36 frames, and then counted how many more frames it took to reach the height of the lights again, 24 frames. Adding the first number to half the second, you get 48 frames. The video is at 30 frames per second, so the answer is 1.6 seconds. I did a similar count with Lugo's and found 52 frames from release to when the bat passed the wire in the background and then 69 more frames for it to reach the same height on the way down. That video is 60 frames per second, so that gives a total of 1.44 seconds. Then he analyzed the Lugo flip a second time, using a sign as the point in the background because it seems to maintain the vertical center of the frame, and got 1.49 seconds, still shorter than Caminero's. He couldn't do anything with the

Contreras bat launch video. So perhaps we'll never know, but it seems like Caminero's launch is the leader. Listener Greg wrote in about the Last of Us baseball scene from season 2 episode 3. He said, I think you missed the big issue with that scene. Those kids are way too old to be playing tee ball. Also, Gail is sitting in a very shallow center field, alone, might I add. And I say this as an uncle to twin seven-year-old nieces who just graduated to hit off the pitching machine.

The kids in the episode look at least older than them, if not the same age. The question then becomes, is this just a baseball and media error slash convenience of filming, or is the baseball developmental process years into a fungal apocalypse so significantly altered that this is actually accurate to their world?

And I responded that I'll give them a post-apocalypse pass on this one. There just might not be enough adults to spare for coach pitch. And if Gail is right about the team being terrible, maybe the kids aren't good enough to pitch to each other, or for that matter, hit a ball into the outfield where she's parked herself, or maybe she's in play.

Tough to know the Gail ground rules in this situation. And finally, many emails about bidets. I know, I know. Many people concerned about my hand washing practices. I assure you, nothing to be worried about. Perfectly sanitary and hygienic over here. Some people wrote in to tell me about bidet features on fancy models.

I assure you, I have one. Totally tricked out all the bells and whistles. And Craig wrote in to say, it seems like you may have missed a facet of the story on the Sasaki inspired bidets. Bidets might be great for the Dodgers players when they play at home, but what about the bidet hangover of playing on the road

while feeling not so fresh? Could Sasaki be setting himself up for a Coors Field-like home road split? How long until we can expect to get the fan crafts toilet splits? Probably pretty long, but it's a good point because when I travel and I'm in a bidet-less environment, I have a hard time adjusting.

I mean, I do what needs to be done, but I feel like I've regressed, become less civilized. There's also potential for chafing if you're, you know, not used to it. I did mean to mention the Rockies' coarse field hangover because you can't even blame that for how bad they've been. It used to be that they would at least score runs at home and then you'd park adjust and the superficial stats would look a lot less impressive, but at least they'd score a lot of runs, even post-humidor. Now they don't even do that. They don't even really hit at home. It's dire. Anyway, more than enough about bidets, I'm sure. Imagining new listeners who joined us a couple weeks ago after hearing

the Ella Black podcasts, thinking that they were going to get non-stop quality reporting and journalism and empathy and production values, and then they got 15 minutes of bidet discussion. Speaking of Ella Black, one more reminder. This Sunday, May 4th, if you're in the New York area, you can accompany me and fellow listeners and other people who worked on the Ella Black, one more reminder, this Sunday, May 4th, if you're in the New York area, you can accompany me and fellow listeners and other people who worked on the Ella Black podcasts to visit the cemetery where she was laid to rest. The details are on the show page in the episode description.

Come tag along and say hi if you're in the vicinity. And please consider supporting the podcast financially by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild, as have the following five listeners who have already signed up and pledged some monthly or Yearly amount to help keep the podcast going help us stay mostly ad free and get themselves access to some perks Davis cornflower Keith Phipps willow brassic Alex L And Joe Crawford thanks to all of you patreon perks include access to the effectively wild discord group monthly bonus episodes the Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group, monthly bonus episodes,

the 42nd of which we just posted, we talked to producer Shane McKeon about his work on this podcast and elsewhere. You can also get access to playoff livestreams, discounts on merch and ad-free FanGraphs memberships, personalized messages, autographed books, prioritized email answers, and so much more. Check out all the offerings at patreon.com slash Effectively Wild. If you are a Patreon supporter, you can message us through the Patreon site. If not, you can contact us via email, send your questions, comments, intro and outro themes to podcast at fan graphs.com. You can rate, review and subscribe to effectively wild on

iTunes and Spotify and other podcast platforms. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash effectively wild. You can find the effectively wild subreddit at r slash effectively wild, and you can check the aforementioned show subreddit at r slash effectively wild. And you can check the aforementioned show page at fan graphs or the episode description in your podcast app for links to the stories and stats we cited today. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. We'll be back with one more episode before the end of the week, which means we will talk to you soon. effectively wild it's the zombie runner bobby shans bobby shans bobby shans

effectively wild it's the zombie runner bobby shans bobby shans bobby shans effectively wild i think everyone who has ever written on the internet has had the experience of trying to go back. Sorry, Siri, what the f***? Sorry Shane. I'm not talking to you. Like, every now and again.

I don't like it. It's gonna kill me in my sleep. It's a load-bearing Siri. I didn't even say that. Why did it start? That was so weird. I don't like it.