Rates & Barrels - A Closer Look at the Ways to Preserve Starting Pitchers

Episode Date: May 14, 2024

Eno, DVR and Britt discuss baseball's aim to preserve starting pitchers. How much of a problem is the current use of starting pitchers compared to the past? With injury rates on the rise, what rule changes and tweaks make sense? Will small changes to move the game slightly in the direction of previous era's pitcher usage cause other problems? Plus, they discuss Britt's recent story about a partnership between Perfect Game and Fanatics, and former big leaguer Travis Snider's efforts to improve youth sports.  Rundown 1:13 The Starting Pitcher 'Problem' 6:55 Big Changes in the Last 10 Years 11:15 Incentivizing Pitching Deeper Into Starts 16:39 The Difficult of Getting Everyone on Board with New Rules 20:00 DVR Blames the Reliance on Short Relievers 26:40 Reducing the Fifth Inning Exits When a Starter is Dealing 31:37 Why Don't Starters Try to 'Save' Velocity for Later Innings? 42:46 Britt's Story About the Concerning Perfect Game-Fanatics Partnership 48:52 Travis Snider's Efforts to Improve Youth Sports Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper Follow Britt on Twitter: @Britt_Ghroli e-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Join us on Fridays at 1p ET/10a PT for our livestream episodes! Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am a prisoner of this hotel. Based on the international bestseller, I can't take away who you are. Emmy Award winner Ewan McGregor stars in A Gentleman in Moscow. New limited series now streaming exclusively on Paramount+. Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It is Tuesday, May 14th.

Derek VanRyber, you know, Saris, Richard Rowley, all here with you on this episode. We'll discuss a big story on the athletic. A series of stories actually from Ken Rosenthal and Jason Stark looking at the starting pitcher and what Major League Baseball could do to try and save it. And maybe we would have a little side debate as to whether or not there's a starting pitcher problem to the extent that people make it out to be. A little hint to maybe where I stand on the issue. But some other issues we'll talk about. Brit wrote a great story looking at a partnership between Perfect Game and Fanatics, which is very troubling at the youth level,

and some efforts on the part of former big leaguer, Travis Snyder, to make youth sports better. So we'll dig into that a little bit later on in the show as well. If you're not in the Discord yet, get into the Discord. It's fun. Link is in the show description. Lots of people having a good time in there.

We got team chats, we got non-baseball stuff too. You want to chat about beer, food? We got that too. Plenty of baseball talk in there as well. So let's start. Let's start with the starting picture problem as it is kind of referred to. Right. So a lot of good stuff on the site today. If you want to read all these stories in detail, a lot of good commentary from Baxter's or in Justin Verlander. When you pull back and you look at baseball today in 2024 and you compare it to baseball of the past, which has like this perfect font

and is amazing because it's the past and the past is perfect and nothing bad ever happened in the past. What is actually the problem with starting pitcher usage? Right. Think about what has changed over time. It's the, oh, we've lost complete games, and guys get pulled out in the fourth inning all the time, in the fifth inning. These things are common.

We talk about them a lot in bigger moments, especially. Blake Snell in the World Series, not getting to go through the lineup that was a third time, right, in the 2020 World Series. Man, the last few years have been harsh, but those kinds of decisions, we live and die by those. We think about those moments and sometimes I think we stretch them and make them bigger than they actually are as far as the scope of the problem. High stakes, totally makes sense.

So I just want to start with each of you. Britt you first. Is the way starting pitchers are used aesthetically a problem? Not counting in the opener, just the typical starting pitcher and how they work, right? And this isn't a question of does this keep them healthy? Does this really change your interest in watching and covering baseball if starting pitchers don't pitch quite as deep as they used to.

I feel like we're gonna disagree a lot on this episode. To me, there is a problem. I love watching pitching duels. I love watching two starters go into the sixth, seventh, eighth inning and the game being one to nothing, zero, zero. No, I covered Max Scherzer when he was in DC and I used to love watching Davy Martinez go out to the mound and then return to the mound because Scherzer yelled at him and said, get the hell in more choice words back in that dugout.

That is a great part of the game. You know, when Ohtani was pitching certain nights, people would go to watch Shohei Ohtani pitch, not to watch them come out in the third inning. So yes. Like, do I still love baseball? Yes. Can we acknowledge that the past wasn't perfect, but that we are trending in a dangerous way? Also, yes, because maybe people think there's no problem with starters only going five innings now, but what does that look like in five, 10 years? Are they going three innings? Are we using openers everywhere?

Right? Like if you look at the trend, it's disturbing. So I do think this is a problem. I do think this needs to be fixed because I love their analogy that Ken and Jason had about the NFL and quarterbacks. Those are stars. What if the NFL had it where you had a different quarterback every quarter? You know, people just wouldn't enjoy it as much. These starting pitchers when they are really good and they are the Justin Verlanders and the Max Scherzers of the world, they are stars. People come to watch stars. They don't come to watch the bullpen take over in the fifth inning. Ah, yes. Keep that front of mind. Eno, your thoughts? Yeah, I'm glad you put in the thing about openers because I think openers would be the death of the game. That's,

that's really bad because you can, I do believe this who started tonight i do think that's a big deal. And so who started tonight and opener not the answer i wanna hear not the reason i'm going to game i'm not gonna do the openers i never like the openers and the nice thing is, they haven't seem to take over the sport we are aren't seeing a lot of openers. It's it happens once in a while, but it's not that big a deal. So then it comes down to who's starting tonight. That still happens. They still go five innings. Um, and we've actually retreated from the very maximum where, um, relievers were pitching almost exactly amount of the same amount as starters, we retreated

from that a little bit, um, so you still get five innings of the guy when I think that it comes to the, the part where I agree with Brett the most is when it comes to like a no hitter, because when you get to a no hitter, you know, we have these no hitter decisions where we're pulling them out of no hitters because they don't have the innings, they don't have the ability to go all the way through. And, um, I don't think combined no hitters are the same, have the same juice, like I, I want them to, but then I'm like, Oh yeah, remember the time the Braves used five pitchers to get a no hitter?

No, nobody remembers it. I do Kent Merker. Uh, but, uh, I, I do think that that part is a little bit sad. So I would say it's a small, a slight consequence of the evolution of the game rather than sort of a death knell for the sport. That's sort of how I put it. Right. Okay. So I like watching pitchers pitch deep into games, but I think the reason it happens less than it used to

is largely because relievers are so much more effective, right, the ability for a team to have a fourth or fifth or sixth reliever who throws 95 plus coming out of the bullpen, that makes it easier to say it's the fifth inning, there's a runner on base, you've pitched well, you're at 85 pitches, you could go more, but we've got this fresh arm in the pen

that can come in and do better than you will likely do statistically because of the third time through the order penalty. If you look at a chart of how deep pitchers were going into games, 2014 actually looked a lot like 1987 still, and that was only 10 years ago. It's the last 10 years that have changed a lot. If you start looking back for when did teams actually care

about the third time to the order penalty, it was about 10 years ago that that became a bigger part of the conversation. And that sort of overlapped this ability to develop a greater number of fire breathing relievers. So, you know, when your worst reliever had to come into the game versus your starter facing the lineup a third time, when that reliever wasn't good, that was an easier decision

to leave the starter in. It just became tactically so much better from a value perspective to trying to win games, right? To just go to the bullpen. Like that's sort of the problem. A quick statistical nugget that totally supports you just really quickly. 97 pitchers, 97 relievers have thrown 95 plus this year and thrown five innings. When we started pitch tracking, 22. Yeah, that's so many more. But no one's saying that the stats don't agree with their time through the order stuff. What we're saying is you would rather watch a reliever you don't know, Derek, than Max

Scherzer and Justin Verlander gut out a sixth inning. Incorrect. Okay. Which one would you rather watch? I would rather watch more guys like Verlander and Scherzer. The problem is those guys aren't getting hooks when they shouldn't get hooks. It's the fourth and fifth starter more often than not, right? Sometimes it's the ace, sometimes it's the

air quotes ace because everyone defines an ace differently. Some people don't think Blake Snell is an ace in the story that Jason and Ken wrote. They had Darvish versus Steele as a matchup they were talking about. Both of those guys spent time on the IL this season. Both of those guys were pitching well and left relatively early in that start. There's going to be situations like that. I have no problem with that. If you're coming back from an injury, do what's right to stay healthy because I want to see you pitch for the rest of the season. I don't want you to go back on the IL because you went from the rehab assignment

to throwing 110 pitches your first time out and that was too much, right? This whole conversation about pitching comes back to just breaking pitchers too often too. This is also part of it. And the goal I think is to not only keep guys healthy, about pitching comes back to just breaking pitchers too often, too. This is also part of it. And the goal, I think, is to not only keep guys healthy, but it's to win games along the way. And I think trying to do those things

simultaneously has been the extra nudge that has made this even more difficult. Like we're trying to preserve the old era of baseball with pitchers who pitch completely differently than they used to. And we talked about a couple of weeks ago, a lot of the problem goes all the way back to the youth level and what kids are trying to do and what organizations are searching for and trying to optimize for velocity and spin and the detrimental effects that have. So it's like you can't have your cake and eat it too. And I feel like it's also challenging because a lot of the rule change ideas, there's a whole story, 12 MLB rule change ideas from people inside the game that try to fix this

and say, let's get our starting pitchers to go deeper. And I like the spirit of it a lot, but many of those things, if they would even work as intended, would probably also have some unintended negative consequences as well when you start to break them down. So the problem is sort of multifaceted. The solutions don't really fit. I don't have a clear cut answer either. You know, kick something around that I

hadn't really thought about as a way to possibly fix this. But it does maybe give us a path to make your worst reliever less appealing to use. And Eno suggested expansion. So how much expansion would we need before we actually move talent around in the player pool so that teams don't have bullpens just packed full of very good relievers? Well, take this number, uh, 98 guys who throw 95 plus, right? So that actually works out pretty well that every team has three of them, right?

And if every team has three of them, you expand by two, by two teams that to those two teams are going to have 12 relievers. So that means that every team loses half of a reliever. Not enough. It's unsatisfying. It'd be better if every team lost one guy who threw 95. If you lost one guy who threw 95, it would be a little bit less tantalizing to make that choice in the fifth inning to go to a reliever because he's not going to be throwing 95. It's going to be somebody else.

That might work for a little while, except they've expanded before one and two. Yeah, we just turned back the clock a little bit. Yeah, we've already seen teams like draft a guy who's a high pick, who can throw really hard, X button them through the minors and oops, you're up. Like Verlander talked about in the story, it used to be, and I've had a lot of people complain about this in baseball to me, that you had to hone your arsenal. You had to learn how to pitch. And what's happening now, as you guys know, is we're just training these guys to say throw as hard as you can for an inning. Throw your best pitches. Yeah, like that's it. You don't have to

do anything else. So it's actually a lot easier to create those guys than it is to create these verlanders and Scherzers. And I actually thought that incentivizing a guy getting to six, Scherzer mentioned that, like in some way is important because it doesn't hamstring a team where they lose their DH or anything, but it does force a manager to maybe say, hey, can this guy get three more outs?

Because I think most people are okay with starters 10 years ago. Like you said, in 2014, you know, I was covering baseball on a beat. There wasn't so much of this complaining. We all know we're not getting back to the days of complete games and 300 inning pitchers. That I think is fine with most people. I think where the problem lies is we keep talking about a guy going five innings. I can't tell you how many games I've watched this year where they don't make five. I can't tell you how many games I've watched this year where they don't make five.

They come out in the fifth inning. That is like, that's not fun at all. Like if a guy's not ready to go, I watched Verlander come off the IL in DC and pitch a quality start. He pitched over six innings or maybe it was just at six innings. If he's not ready, if he can only go 80 pitches, guess what?

He needs another rehab start. Why are we bringing guys up so they can throw 70 pitches and we can like slap them on the butt and say, great job in the dugout, you made it four innings. Well, because it's four innings that's better than the other guy they had, you know? I mean, I get what you're saying.

Why are you coming up if you can only throw, then get one more rehab star. I think there definitely is like a decision by some teams to really limit the amount of bullets that their pitchers throw in the minors. So then they come up with just like 50 or 60 pitches in their bag. And you're like, you know, you should, I agree with you there. Like I think as a player development team, a player, a young player coming up should at least have 80 pitches should at least be able to throw a hundred.

How are like, so then even if they go 80, they've got a lot left in the tank. Like if we are conditioning guys to throw as hard as they can and for as long as they can until they get taken out, why are we not conditioning them to at least go a hundred pitches? So that 80 is max effort and they're not gassed and they're not hurt. I think a big part of the problem is the conditioning. And these guys are looking in the dugout in the fifth inning.

I don't think there's a single person in AAA who's averaging 100 pitches per start. Right. And I think that sort of points back to the bigger injury stuff we've talked about before, where in an effort to get guys through the minor leagues, develop their pitches enough, not get hurt, but then be ready to eventually push their workload up more, we're trying to walk this tightrope that seems impossible. Like the path from here to there, it may not have been right 30 years ago, but it's still not right today. It's wrong for a different reason. That's how I see

the problem right now where it's like, okay, this is an attempt to keep pitchers healthy, but it doesn't quite work. That's the root problem of all of this. Like, okay, we have to come up with some new solutions. The rule changes that you mentioned, Brit, with Scherzer trying to incentivize, instead of double hook, which is like a penalty for taking a guy out early, you lose your DH, you bring the starter out too early,

adding incentives is a good idea. Like adding bonuses instead of penalizing, because guys get hurt, there's extenuating circumstances, some guys get just blasted. Is it fun to watch a game when someone doesn't have it like Bailey over against the Royals that first started the season? There's no way I'm, I'm, I'm way, I'm way, I'm way against the have to go six. There was one line in the piece that would, I was like, this is why I would hate it.

There was the idea that you made me stay in the game till six and that's why I'm hurt now. Right. Cause you kept, you didn't have it. You just keep pushing through, pushing through. You had a couple of really heavy, heavy, like inefficient innings. Oh, you threw 44 pitches in the first inning, stay out there and throw 56 more. If we're advocating for counting innings better and counting pitches or counting stressful pitches instead of counting innings,

the idea that you're just forcing someone to go out there for six, like somebody who might have 120, like we watched in little league, I was watching this guy had 85 pitches through three. Good Lord. And I was like, you let this kid throw 85 pitches and then on top of that, it's three innings. No, but I think there are ways to do it where teams that like maybe are on the fritz of like, should we take this guy out? Should we not take them out?

It gives the game back strategy, which I think the game has lost now that we have the universal DH, right? Um, I think it gives back a little more power to managers, maybe even front offices. So I'm sure would have input in these decisions as well, especially in the modern game. But I think maybe as a fan, it makes things more exciting. Like, Ooh, is he going to go back out there for the six or,

you know, is he not going to? Right? No, I like this idea that we are having a battle for the six. I think that's what we're talking about. And I like this idea of like doing something that incentivizes them to go on six. I would just like to push back a little bit, you know, Max and Justin, when they talk often wear the hats of like MLBPA leaders. And so I mean, they

are. Yeah, so they so sometimes when it comes up, you know, the double hook comes up, there's there was a specific little thing in there, like, oh, it might devalue the value of the DHS, right, because they'd have fewer play appearances, they'd be they'd be pulled out of games. And I just, I just had to push back a little bit, because, you know fewer play appearances, they'd be, they'd be pulled out of games and I just, I just had to push back a little bit because, you know, if we're talking about the future of the game, that's like, there are no full time DHS and the only guys that are, there's like 10 of them.

So I, like, if I was leadership, I, on some level at the union, I'd say, Hey, let's listen, it's 10 guys. We care about those 10 guys, but it's 10 guys, you know, versus the future of the sport, let's, let's at least consider the double hook because the other stuff that they're talking about sounds a lot more gimmicky, honestly, like stuff about, uh, like a free substitution, defensive substitute. That's the stuff that like really gets old school. There's worked up like, Oh, we're just going to pinch run for everybody.

We're just going to pinch defense. Oh, I hate the DHL. We're going to have a defensive replacement for everybody. Just have a guy out there that just your shortstop and doesn't hit. You know, it's like, uh, I don't know. I think it would raise a lot of hackles, the stuff that he was bringing up, but the double hook is actually kind of a return to like national league baseball in a way where you're like, oh, I'm going to lose this guy. I have to pinch hit. I have to use my bench. I have to think about things.

So it's just a little bit of a pushback that I think that we shouldn't overvalue 10 jobs when we're talking about this battle for the six inning that maybe the double hook is a little bit superior to some of those ideas that they had. some of those ideas that they had. And maybe in the world where the double hook exists, you're gonna start to have some more versatile players on rosters, like versatility gets valued in a different way. That could be good as well. Could you lose your DH? Could he move to the field? You know what I mean?

Right, yeah. Yeah, there are little ways that you can kind of massage the rule. I think the bigger idea I had that doesn't seem to gain any traction ever is to think about relievers differently. One of the rule ideas, raise the three batter minimum for relievers. I don't even know if you need to make it a rule necessarily.

Maybe the other option is to say you can only use three or four pitchers for the first nine innings. Set that number where you think it should be and work from there because the starter could go three or four on a given day. Maybe they get hit, but have a few bullpen guys that give you length or train bullpen guys in a way where they have to provide length because then they can't throw 99. They have to dial it back. Yes. You're asking for something different, but also the hidden benefit of this, aside from reducing the number of pitching changes, which I think is one of the worst aesthetic things in

baseball and changing the three batter minimum rule a few years ago helped a little, we still see way too many games with five or more relievers coming out of the bullpen. That's the thing that needs to go away. So if you can find a way to get relievers to go longer, four, five, six outs at a time, maybe even a little more than that, I think you also leave the door open for them to develop more to get relievers to go longer, four, five, six outs at a time, maybe even a little more than that. I think you also leave the door open for them to develop more pitches, possibly develop more command,

and you possibly develop more starting pitchers by having relievers working in more bulk roles. I just think the fire breathing short reliever is actually part of the bigger problem here too, if you can reduce the usage of that by any of these means that might actually help make things a little bit better. Totally agree. I think when you look at like how to fix the problem,

you have to think of like what these things will do, ripple effect. And I think we can all agree, if you just get to the sixth inning, if we're just asking guys who average five innings now to go to the sixth inning, this isn't going to cause massive injury. This isn't going to cause massive injury. This isn't going to be a massive workload shift, right?

This is maybe guys saying, instead of throwing 100%, I'm going to hover in the 97% range so that I can make it those extra three outs. And maybe teams in AAA, in the development system, like you said, will incentivize, will say, hey, you go six innings, you're going to be on the short list to get promoted to the big leagues, right?

We wanna see that. And so what we're doing is we're changing the mindset of guys just a little bit. Like gone are the days we're not gonna have guys throw 88 and try to fool guys and go nine innings. But I think just tweaking the mindset a little bit, like Derek said, can relievers, can you get us five outs? You can get us five outs and we only need like three lights out guys in our bullpen. How

much does that change the complexion of our roster? What kind of advantage does that give us? Right? So I think if you just, if we just slowly tweak that mindset just a little bit, you could still throw 95. We just don't want you to throw 97 until the sixth inning. Then we want you to empty the tank. Right? If we can get back to that just a little bit, I think everybody would be happy. And it's not this huge, drastic change that a lot of people are worried about. And listen, could injuries possibly get worse because they're already at an all time high. So I don't think they could.

I think if we did it this way, and guys are throwing less hard, if we're working at our suboptimal VLO versus constantly going for the hardest we possibly can, that has to have a ripple effect. That has to help guys, especially young guys. I just think there's so much wear and tear on their arms. If we can get to a point where we are living in that hard, but not all out range again, to me can get to a point where we are living in that hard, but not all out range

again, to me, it's a good thing. I thought that was one of the more doable things, it's like outlawing pitches and some of these other rules. Oh my God. No. You know, the sweeper is thrown 3% of the time in the major leagues, like, come on. Also, how are you going to determine what's what? Guys have like combo pitches all the time. Oh, yeah. It's not a sweeper, sir. Yeah, it's not a sweeper. It. Yeah, it's not a sweeper. It's a slur, like boo.

So you know what I mean? I don't call it that. In any sport, rules that are so absurd that you couldn't, with just your own eyes, come up with the was that a violation or not. I don't want some board, some like video board to have some numbers on it where it had this much horizontal break, this much vertical break, therefore it's a sweeper.

And now your picture's ejected for throwing a sweeper. That'd be stupid. There's some like rule book portions where, um, anything that comes from the empire has to happen on the field. So like that happened during sticky stuff. You were like, Oh, couldn't you just get a guy in trouble for a jump and spin rate? No, you can't. Cause enforcement has to happen on the field. So like that happened during sticky stuff. We were like, Oh, couldn't you just get a guy in trouble for a jump and spin rate? No, you can't cause enforcement has to happen on the field and you can't, and he can't be looking up at the board and be like, Oh, that was plus 10 X.

So you're out. So I, I, I hated that one. Um, I, I still like the, uh, maybe a active roster idea. You have to pick six pitchers for tonight. And I think that kind of dovetails with you guys are talking about. If you have to pick six pitchers tonight, don't you want one of them to go five, uh, five outs? Generally. Yeah.

You kind of want your starter to go six. You kind of want to have a guy who goes five outs. You want to have your closer or your backup closer, you know, you want to have your, your, your mop up guy, you know, so you have like, you'd have, you'd, you'd want more out of each of your pictures. If you, and I think if we looked, we, I don't know if you put, made the board of it, but the, you know, how often we've used five plus reliever pitchers for a start. Oh, it's, it's bad. So yeah, I've got a few, there's a number of nine inning team games.

I ran this on stat head number of nine inning team games in the expansion era. So since 1961, where five or more pitchers are used, the year in which we did this the most was actually 2021. There were 1800 team games, 1806, where we had five or more pitchers. And compare that to 2000. In 2000, that number was 827. So more than double the number of team games. And even just comparing it to 2011 was 1064 team games like that.

We had 800, almost 800 more games like that. So if you say, if I say six, it still captures most of the games. There's a lot more games than that. But it cuts off some of those games as a possibility. Even five. Five's fine. I think if you look at last night. Five is good too.

You need a long man in case the guy gets hit with a line drive in the first inning. And he can be your mop up guy. Yes. Those guys have kind of gone away and I think you need to bring that back a little bit. Well, nobody wants to be the mop up guy is one of the problems. But if it's your way into the major leagues, it's your way into the major leagues. I swear it's still an opportunity to try and develop into a starting pitcher a little bit later. You're a young guy. You have to sell people on this. Yeah. Yes, they used to call guys up,

put them in the bullpen and then develop. That's how they developed as starters. I think if you look at Monday night, there were 13 games and so there were 26 starting pitchers, 22 of them went five or more. I'm okay with that. I don't think six has to be the magic number for innings. I think five is fine. Five and dive is okay. You can live with that. But exactly zero of them could have gone nine, right?

Number of them that could have gone nine. How many went six? I mean, you got to look at the pitch counts. So there were eight starters last night, Monday night that went six or more. Of the guys that went six, five of them were at or above 100 pitches. Corbin Burns only at 85. Barrios 94, Lorenz in 96.

So Corbin Burns, if he was in a no-hitter, could have maybe gotten the no-hitter. Yeah. I don't think we have to get everyone every night to six, but I think if we're looking at fixing this, that is like the carrot that we want. Like we don't need to push guys to go seven or eight, right? I think we can kind of all agree that if we can get guys to go six,

maybe a lot of this like yelling and screaming over the starter goes away. More often than not, we can just like tip the scales. Like one less reliever change, one less reliever. Yes, yes. Like if we can just tip the scales that like most 70% of the time they're in the sixth inning, they pitch into the sixth inning. I think we can all agree that's probably fine, right? One of the things that Max Scherzer was quoted as saying is that the start that drives everybody

crazy is five innings, one earned run, 70, 75 pitches, where you do have more in the tank, but the bullpen comes in, right? So I ran a search, another stat head search. How often do we have starts like that? And I changed the thresholds just slightly. I went starts that lasted five to six innings, no less, no more, 75 or fewer pitches,

one run or less allowed, same window of time, looked all the way back to the expansion era. And the last three full seasons, 21, 22, and 23 are the seasons in which we had the most starts that met that criteria by a pretty healthy margin. In 2023, there were 97 starts like that. In 22, there were 101. In 2021, there were 103. If you look at what's happening in the late 80s and the 90s, it was more like 65, 72 starts. Okay. So there's a difference of 25 to 30. That's one per team, per season, one start like that. If you could get rid of that one start, would that make everybody happy or would it not actually matter that much? Because that's the difference right now as far as those players getting taken out in those situations

Those are annoying. Those are tough games to watch and justify and those are those I think in the in the era of social media like they get the like with our reaction is swift and loud and You know and it sort of reverberates quickly even more than it might have in the past. I think that's a, that's a fine goal is to reduce those by one per team per year. I know that doesn't seem like a lot, but I think that helps us focus on when people say, Oh, I don't think the double hook would do that much. Would it change one decision per team per year? Maybe. Yeah. That's all we're looking for. Like tiny turns of the dial, right? Just tiny turns. And that's why I like, I would start with six if you have active pitchers because make it

so it doesn't seem draconian and the teams like, Oh yeah, most games only use six, you know, at most that sounds fine. You know, you're right. Then you go down to five after a year or two, you warn teams it's coming. If it works a little bit, maybe that's enough. Or if you go down to five after a year or two you warn teams it's coming if it works a little bit maybe that's enough for if you want to work harder than you change it but you also have to sell it to the MLB PA you have to sell it to you have to sell it to the crank suit don't want to change the game you have to sell it to you know like you have to think of that all these rules have to pass like certain groups muster and so if it if it seems like. And so if it seems like these are not big deal changes that wouldn't change that much, maybe that means they're more likely to get approved and then maybe they can make a small change. And that small change would bring us back to more like the nineties and the two thousands

where I don't think everybody was yelling about the death of the starting pitcher. Maybe I should have Googled that first. Maybe there are some articles from the nineties. We didn't have social media. People were gathering in the town square and yelling about it. Yeah, I don't know. I don't remember hearing about this.

I started covering baseball in 08. I don't remember hearing about this until like the last five years. I mean, even all the numbers that Derek is citing, like these, like the last three years are always like, you know, the standouts. You always had guys complaining, like older pitchers from the seventies, like, well back in my day, but it wasn't like this league wide problem because guys were still going six innings, you know, sometimes seven, you know, so it wasn't this huge issue, I think where you saw guys were not getting removed for

75 pitches if they were cruising along in the fifth and sixth inning, like that is for sure. So I think this is a recent problem. I think also, you know, you mentioned that PA has to approve, don't they not? Didn't the players associate fight for that in the last CBA, which is why MLB was able to tweak the times again this offseason, much to the chagrin of the players, the on-field rule changes that they consult with the PA,

that the PA does not have to sign off on them. That's on-field. So there is some gray area in these rules that we're discussing. Like for example, an active roster for tonight might be a roster rule. And so when people talk about, we should have 11 pitchers as a maximum on the roster,

I like that idea, but I think that's the zero chance of everybody happening, because that's a roster rule that will cost pitchers jobs. And so I like it as an idea, but there's no way the MLBP will get on it. I mean, I'm asking the MLBP to maybe say like, oh yeah, 10 of your players may have their, be a little bit devalued, you know?

And they're saying, nope, we can't do that. You know? So, so I think the, the, the, the stringent, like mostly like, I like the idea. If we had 11, if you could only have 11 starting pitchers on your roster, yes, we would go back in time. We would go back in time because you would have to get more innings out of each of those players. That breaks the rule.

You can't take jobs away. You just have to tweak how players are utilized without taking the jobs away outright, if you want to get the buy-in on something like that. The big question here too is why don't more pitchers just try to work like Justin Verlander, right? There's your template. There's your guy that's had an amazing career. He's going to go to the hall of fame.

He's pitched forever. He throws hard. He's had no hitters. He's won world series. He's had every. He's pitched forever. He throws hard. He's had no hitters. He's won world series. He's had every, every accolade a pitcher could want. Justin Verlander has done it. And one thing that he's always done well, especially early in his career, he'd go

get the extra tick or two late in game. He would leave, leave bullets in the tank. He'd leave gas in the tank. Right. And in theory, I'm like, yeah, why don't you just do that? And I always thought you could do that. And our Friday shows with Trevor May have kind of highlighted to me, some guys can't.

Like, it's not as simple as just taking a little off because you take a little off, maybe you don't have the command or something doesn't move the same way. So it can kind of make your whole arsenal fall apart. You've engineered a delivery that does this. So it's not always like, I can just take the same delivery. Like he was, Trevor says that like Jake DeGrom can't really throw 92

the same way that he throws now. Right. The counter argument to that is probably something Britt wants to say. It's like learn how to do it in the minor leagues then. Then don't, then you're not a major leaguer because you couldn't figure that out. And then I think how bad is pitching going to be if in the minor leagues then. Then don't, then you're not a major leaguer because you couldn't figure that out. And then I think, how bad is pitching gonna be if we change all these things and pitchers come back and they throw more like they did in 1992

against modern hitters, are we gonna create a game where every game is nine to eight because hitters just smash the crap out of pitching that isn't as good as the stuff they've had to learn how to hit? Well, no, because look at Scherzer and Verlain. They don't throw 92. I know. I think what you're going to probably create is a more complete pitcher. I mean, that is part of the problem, right? Guys throw hard out of college. They still throw hard.

Big leaguer teams call them up very quickly because they throw hard, not because they've learned how to pitch. So the problem is everywhere. It's kind of weird to me. Like some guys can't some guys can't pace themselves. Well, how come for a hundred years in baseball, that's what pitchers had been doing. Yeah.

Now, all of a sudden, we can't do it. Jacob DeGromp maybe should learn how to throw a little less. He's been hurt nonstop. There's something about like the way we're just optimizing, you know, biomechanics and stuff. And we're like really dialing in on things. It sounds plausible to me that, that, you know, it's not easy for Jake DeGrom to take, take his foot off the guy. It's not easy,

but I don't think it's impossible for these guys to take a little off either. You hear guys grunting when they're throwing as hard as they can. There is a difference between throwing as hard as you can and throwing it 90%. Yeah, well, I have an interesting table for you. One of the things here, we just saw on YouTube, we had a thing up about, it's from Bill Petty from 2012 in and fan graphs about how Verlander had extra gas in the tank and he was among the leaders always in having a higher VLO at the end of the game, the beginning of the game. And so that's this idea, leaving in the tank, not throwing 100% all the way through.

Well, I just did this for last year and I just looked at the people who had the biggest differential between their fifth Ending velocity and the first thing velocity. So number one is Tyler Malley Number two is Johnny Quedo Who left a tick in the tank Mike Soroka Tony Gonsolin Vince Velasquez Ryan Yarbrough? Kenta Maeda Pedro Avila, Johan Oviedo Luis Severino Justin Verlander Luis Castillo Who does seem kind of like one of the workhorses of our time, leaves about a half tick in in the tank. Luis César, Michael Koepke, Tyler Anderson. It's not a list of standout pitchers.

It's not a list that you necessarily want to be on other than the fact that Verlander and Castillo are on it. So I don't know. It's. Sometimes I call this the Nolan Ryan problem where people are like, oh, Nolan Ryan did it and why can't everybody? And it's like, well, Nolan Ryan is one of the unicorns of our sport. And I also think of why wasn't Michael Jordan a good coach? And to some extent, Barry Bonds,

it's like for them, it's like I did it. Do it, you know, and and like everybody else is like, but I'm not Justin Berland or I'm not Michael Jordan. I can't just do it, you know. Oh, I inadvertently used his slogan. I do wonder, though, you know, if you went back five, 10 years, if those numbers on the pictures were better. Yeah. Like we know the pictures nowadays aren't doing that.

Yeah. So yeah, it's weird though. Doing it. Yeah. Kind of veterans and it almost doesn't surprise me. That group's not like a super healthy group of pictures though, either. I mean, there's some bad injuries in there. Malley had Tommy John surgery.

Soroka has been hurt a ton. Gonsolin's had shoulder problems. You know, Maeda has dealt with all sorts of stuff. Severino's had a hard time staying healthy. Some of those guys have turned into relievers. Like, that doesn't seem to be the magic cure either, even if it's a small part of the solution, that in and of itself isn't necessarily

how we're gonna get there either. Yeah, I don't, I don't know. I'd like to see more years data than just last year. Yeah. Kind of look at, like I said, it's last year. We know guys aren't doing this. So of course it's not the top pitchers. We know guys are throwing as hard as they can.

What did it look like five years ago? What did it look like 10 years ago? I'd be curious who's on that list. Here, here are the pitchers that last year had the most pitches after the sixth inning. Seth Lugo, Logan Gilbert, Ranger Suarez, Logan Webb, Tyler Glass now, Tanner Hauck. I can't read that. Zach Wheeler.

That's Barrios is the next one. Oh, Barrios. Zach Wheeler, Kyle Gibson, Aaron Nola, Jack Flaherty, Tarek Schubel, Max Fried, Luis Castillo again. Hey, wait, that's a list of completely healthy pitchers right now. I don't think any of those guys are currently on the IL. Yeah, that's a good list.

Yeah, what is, yeah. But it's not the same list of people who were like left gassed in the tank. It's more a list of, what is it? It's a list of, you know what it is, what it strikes me as, it lists, it's like kind of, not all of them fit this, but complete pitchers that have more than just that aren't just like fastball

slider and have like a wide arsenal and like, it's efficiency. It's being able to get deeper into the game because you're not walking a lot of guys. I'm not getting on this list, but you know, everybody else. That's true. Like we didn't consider that too. Like guys who are just out there pumping fastballs at max Vila are going to be gassed by the fifth inning guys who are using three, four pitch mixes. Well, maybe they don't show up in this big, maybe they don't have another

five miles an hour in the sixth inning, but they've got a whole different look for the third time to get them through that third time through the order. Yeah. So I think it's, I think one of the things that's more dangerous that they're not really talked about that much is this idea that we have to use our at their time for the order. Yeah, so I think it's, I think one of the things that's more dangerous that they're not really talked about that much is this idea that we have to use our best pitches and we have our stock, I've heard this,

we have a stock portfolio and we have to use, just use your best performing stocks in your portfolio. I think this list is a little bit of an argument that like, hey, you can throw a pitch that's not so great to get to the sixth inning. Like, Graham Ashcraft this year is throwing a sinker. It's not that great, Hey, you can throw a pitch that's not so great to get to the sixth inning. Like, you know, Graham Ashcraft this year is throwing a sinker. It's not, it's not a good, it's not that great a pitch, but it's better than the other two. It's he's better having three pitches than two.

And I think that we have to kind of, maybe we have to do this in the analytics community is like, prove the value of having extra pitches and like, and talk about it more and, and show it to pitchers. So they're like, okay, I'm not just gonna be a fastball slider 100 miles an hour all the way through. Like I have to have four pitches. I have to have five pitches. Part of the problem I thought the article made a good point

is that like analysts can't, we all think getting in the sixth inning is good, right? We all think that that's better for the game. There's no way for analysts to measure the impact that has. I think, I think it's more that like the analysts will say if my fourth reliever is really good, then he's better than this guy in the six. Statistically he has a better chance. Right. Right. Right.

I mean that's, that's the hook problem. That's, that's the, and sometimes we, this is what came up with the Blake Snell decision. It might be a Cohen flip. It might be a 50 50. What do you do when you have to just choose because there's not an obvious right answer. That's where you start using incentives. So like that's, I do agree. Maybe if I thought some of the ones that Max came up with are silly, like I do an incentive structure. If it's 50 50 in the sixth inning,

then have an incentive that puts some weight on the other side. Yeah. Oh, okay. It's a 50-50 shot right now. But if I just keep them in there, I keep my DH. Yes. It does seem like too, in this day and age, managers are more apt to say, let's go to

the bullpen because that's easier to defend the fresh arm. Oh, then I left them in too long. Yeah. There, I think is that like, no one will mention that, but you know, having been in baseball club houses for 15 years, you kind of see the change over now. Managers used to be like, I thought he was going good. We left him in. Now it seems like managers are more apt to, to go with the numbers or to go with the bullpen and the fresh arm because it's a lot easier to defend.

And also maybe they won't get yelled at and more like the analytics will get yelled at. Yeah, I think that's. Right, so they don't have the analysts in their office after the game. Right. I think that's a reflection of the changing mindset of a manager too.

I think the present day managers are more on board with that. I think people who are more on board with that are being selected and hired as managers as in the first place, as opposed to the guys that would have gone kicking and screaming into that. That group of managers has largely just been kind of moved out of the game. Maybe a little bit, but I think there's a lot more fear of like how that gets perceived than there used to be, for sure. People just don't want the blowback.

Huh? OK. Hey, it's the reason. I mean, go watch press conferences from 10, 20 years ago. Managers usually like throw guys onto the bus. They used to stay, whatever they want. Like you're right there, different guys now, but like, I think a lot of it is, you know, you decide that you're not going to go with the analytics or it's a, you know, 50, 50 and the team says, if it's 50, 50, we're going with the bullpen and you, and you don't, you've got the GM and analysts in your office

after the game. Like you get, you know, there's much more of a, we're involved in the on-field than there ever has been. And so, you know, I think, you know, you want to keep your job, right? These are hard jobs to get. Yeah, you don't want to have a meeting with the GM explaining why you made that decision.

Yes. But again, like we said, if we have that incentivized structure, maybe they do say, hey, if it's 50-50, or it's like our numbers say it's 48-52, let's go with the one that gives us this little carrot. Right, and then you see maybe, you know, if it goes wrong, fans are like, well, they were trying to get the incentive, so I get it.

And you know, I'm not saying that we manage based off public perception, but I do think sometimes that the way the game has changed that definitely matters. Yeah. Well, surely with all the problems we're having with pitching in the major leagues, what we're working on it in a healthy and logical way at the youth level, right? Like we are creating a structure for the future that is better than what we have at the present, right? Is that what's happening? Is that what perfect game is all about? Is that what they're trying to do? They're trying to make baseball better. Is that their goal as a company? Throwing up spin rates and VELOs on the

board for 12 year olds so that everybody can ogle over their fastball VELO at 12 and 13 and 14. Yeah. You know, it's like on the cusp of that world, right? Like your boys are a little, just a little bit younger than that. Yeah, we'll have to see. They get good enough to do that sort of thing. But yeah, I mean, it's like I think, you know, even in Little League, you know, you have these rules where it's like, oh, 85 pitches and you're like 85 pitches, man. Like this, I just watched a kid throw 85 pitches and for the last 20 of them,

after each one, he shook his arm a little bit and looked over at the manager. And I'm like, what? And why did they leave him in to win the game? Because that game is a playoff game. Yeah, it's a playoff game and literally means everything. I'm not trying to just completely disparage perfect game. It's a tournament showcase circuit.

It's there are people that scout and work for the service that are good. And it gets exposure to some kids that might not see the scout might not be able to get to otherwise. They see him at perfect game. They're from some upstate Washington, you know, place that the scouts never go, you know. Sure. Right. There are some positives to it. But Britt wrote a story about a partnership between perfect game and fanatics. and it drew the ire of the agents. And when the agents think something is bad, must be really bad. That's how you know. Yeah.

I mean, for those who didn't see the story, it's just like a quick recap. Basically to participate in the Perfect Game since at least 2019. I think it goes back farther than that, according to emails I obtained. But at least 2019, you have to sign away your name, your image, your likeness, your signature, which is very, which is really, I think, what really has bothered agents. You are giving your signature rights to perfect game. That's like, that's your moneymaker, retired players.

Like that's, that's their, they, they make money off of their signature. Right. And it's just like a very weird thing. Like perfect game and the sponsors. So like Dick's sporting goods or whoever else is sponsoring these perfect game. Things also has those rights. You know, it's kind of a scary proposition. You know, you're 14, you're good.

And they're like, Hey, sign these 300 baseballs and you're not getting any money off of it. Perfect Game is now, well, Fanatics now has entered into this memorabilia deal that's starting at the end of 2024 is gonna roll out memorabilia. So you can buy signed baseballs and cards and whatever else of these Perfect Game guys.

And these kids are not profiting at all. And I think it's a disgusting thing, really. I mean, we are now trickling down into the amateur level where parents are signing away these rights. And when I wrote the story, I heard from a lot of people who were like, oh my God, it's just a case of not reading a contract. And I think over the years, the language got even more airtight. It's like they own it in perpetuity. Like what? Perpetuity, which is like crazy. And like, I want to make one thing clear.

Like you get to the big leagues and you're like Bryce Harper, like you can, you know, your name, image and likeness belongs to you, but Perfect Game could still sell Bryce Harper, Perfect Game stuff and make money off of it. Still, that's insane. And you wouldn't be able to say anything because you signed that contract when you were 14 or to play in showcase tournaments. Yeah. And maybe for a Bryce Harper doesn't matter, but we know the average big league

career is what, three years, something like that. You've got a really small window of making money. And part of agent's job is getting memorabilia and card deals and all these things. And if you've got thousands of autographs are floating out there on the Internet already, like that's not good for getting a deal at all. Especially because Fanatics owns tops and agents are concerned about like what that means for.

That means that basically baseball's wing, like isn't, you know, like, you know, what Fanatics has and tops, they are the only ones that have the likeness deal with baseball. Yeah, you'd have, so it's almost baseball approved It's almost like MLB has approved this because it's MLB's sort of you know

Collectibles wing, you know in a way they don't own them But it's like they've owned they're the only ones I've given a license to so yeah So slippery slope if your parent people have asked me, if my kid was playing, I would go through that section and I would just be red lining stuff before I signed it. I got to sign this waiver to play. I would be crossing stuff out, initialing it. Like I'd be making, if enough parents do that sort of stuff, if there's, if there's enough pushback, then, then perfect.

Graham says, oh crap, we can't get the top talents anymore because all of the the top all the people who might be top 10 picks are rejecting our contract and then maybe and I think you do have some leverage as like a top 10 prospect as a top 10 prospect is a kid and oh he's not going to perfect game. then that would start to send some ripples to the sport. I mean, I just think it's so nasty. It's so nasty to to think that these kids, these kids, parents, and these kids are like, I get a card. I get to go to a perfect game. Yeah. Sign that thing. You know, but then and then they're like, you know, they get sequestered and put in a little room here for an hour.

Next hour, just sign balls and be like that. I signed up for this. It's almost like like child labor. It's bad. And it's a great job that Britt did on that story. And Britt, you had another story about Travis Snyder, former big leaguer, was a top prospect who is retired and I've got to gone on to try and make youth sports better. And it's interesting that some of the stuff you wrote about

in the story feels very similar because it's the same world that Eno's describing where you have these kids that are out there, you know, practicing until nine thirty on a Friday night in the middle of winter, which is that's not being a kid. It's like training for a job as a child. That's not how you get from that level to the big leagues. People think it is.

There's a misconception that if you just grind hard enough when you're a teenager, you will be a pro in whatever sport you love. And I think that has a ton of long-term negative consequences. And that was something that Travis talked a lot about with you for the story. Yeah, it really does. And like I said, you're living this world right now. And DVR, we both have kids, sons, and it's like terrifying to think of what the little league world is gonna look like when they get to that age, because Travis talked about from nine years old on,

he was the best player in Washington State, and that was his identity. He's nine years old and he's told, you know, you are good at baseball, that's who you are. And I think kids are still figuring out who they are at nine, 10, 11 years old. And it's a really slippery slope. We have them specialize right away.

We, you know, you're told, oh, your kid's good. Now he has to go to fall ball and he has to, you know, he has to play year round. He has to do these showcases. And you know, what we're seeing now a lot is, you know, kids burning out, kids hating their parents because they feel like the kids hating their parents because they feel like the parents only love them because they're good at baseball or the parents coach

baseball and they become more of a coach than a parent. And what Travis is trying to do, he's released a series of workbooks. I have one, he sent it to me and it's great. It's kind of really thinking about stepping back and realizing if you're putting your kid in Little League at three, that's for you. You know, that kid doesn't wanna be out there. He's three years old. That's for you.

So you know, you can do that if you really wanna do that, but you really need to be careful. Kids should be playing, kids should be having fun. You know, take your kid out for ice cream when they win. Take them out for ice cream when they lose. Like, you know, what you do and how you parent in youth sports has ripple effects on what these kids are gonna be and almost every kid is not gonna be a pro player and even pro players

Travis has spoke to a lot of MLB PA alumni and you know, I've seen this unfortunately too just being around They have no identity when they're done with baseball. They're told that that is all they are They lose money. They don't handle their money. They have no more friends like all their friends like them because they were baseball players. Right. So I think we have to we have to really look at how we are parenting our kids because it feels like the youth sports level has gotten so,

so much more serious than it was when all of us were growing up. And that isn't going the other direction, right? It's just getting more and more serious than it was when all of us were growing up. And that isn't going the other direction, right? It's just getting more and more serious. And Travis wants to do something to stop it because he kind of saw the effects. He saw what that did to him. The first time he got demoted in the big leagues, he talked about how he felt like the rug was getting pulled from under him. He had never been bad. He had never dealt with adversity. And he was told like, this is what you are. This is why you're good to us. And he really struggled to put that together. And you know he's not alone.

So you wonder how many top picks that were busts, essentially like Travis was supposed to save the Blue Jays. You wonder how many of those guys fell through the cracks because we just like didn't know how to handle them. We didn't know what to do with them as an organization, as people. Yeah, it's fascinating to me because parenting and coaching are not the same thing. And having a child in Little League really puts you in a really weird crosshairs in parenting. It's really

difficult actually. And the thing that's so hard you there are different things you want for your child over their lives and they come into conflict when it comes to sports so one is you don't want your child to have to have pain. You know you kind of want there is a there is kind of a parental feeling of like shielding your child from pain but you can't do that. But you can't do that. You have to get over that. And sports makes you sort of realize that they're going to they're going to have pain and you can't shield them from it. And it's not it's better maybe to not shield them from it. Right. And so there you shouldn't be helping that child lash out and be like, oh, is the umpire's

fault or is this fault or this part? And yet you never want to be like, it was your fault. Right. So you know, that that is a really difficult moment they, when they fail, it's really difficult. On top of that, you want to tell them something like you want to be rational. You want them to be, think about their lives rationally. You want them to give a little bit of space between them and sports. And so you want to say something like, yeah, you like,

none of these guys are going pro, dude. It's okay. Like it's all good. Just have fun. Right. And so, but at the same time you want to tell your child they can do anything they can put this at their mind too. Right. So right there, you have two things that are just in total opposition. It's like the trying to shield them from pain and try to keep them rational and keep them thinking and keep them separate a little bit from the sport. But while also telling them you can do anything you set your mind to which are two things that you really want to do as parents and they will come into conflict in sports and I am just trying to navigate around baseball if you love it other than playing.

So just think this through. There's lots of different things you can do in baseball. And then B, I'm here for you if you want to train. You know this summer, we'll train all summer, we'll get you ready for the new distance, get you ready for juniors, like we'll do what you want to do, but you have to set your mind to it. And we have these goals. We're going to long toss to 150 feet. We're going to put, set your mind to it. And we have these goals. We were gonna, we're gonna long toss to 150 feet, you know,

we're gonna get you ready for 50, 50 feet mound. Like, so, you know what I mean? So it's like, I try to walk the line, but it's really difficult. And other people have a little bit more invested in their success as a player. Yes, there's a little bit more, that's you, where I see that with other people where they like,

you know, they invest so much in their child's success that their child is acting out on the field. And we see that a lot in little league where people are kicking helmets around and throwing gloves down and you're like dude like this is supposed to be fun so the one phrase that i've come up with that my child sort of. one phrase that I've come up with that my child sort of, um, rate like rolls his eyes at, but I don't know. I'm going to test this out with you guys and the listeners here. Um, so I tell him you love our dogs, right? You love our, we have two little Chewienies. There's, there's seven pound dogs. Yeah. I tell him the dogs don't even know baseball exists. They have no idea that thing exists.

And next time you're having a hard time on the mound or something's going on out there, remember your dogs have no idea what you're doing. I think it's gonna make your kids appreciate dogs a lot. Well, he loves his dogs a lot. I like it. The best part of having a dog is that you can have a crappy day.

You come home and they're happy to see you anyway. That's why many people love having dogs. But yeah, I mean, I know we've got to wrap this up, but I was a high school soccer coach for 11 years right out of college. So I was a coach at a high school level, competitive, not like high level club, but like varsity soccer. So like the highest level that a lot of kids get to play. Some kids went on to play college that I coached,

but a lot of small school players, nobody went pro. I knew that about you. So yeah, so I did that for a long time. And I think, I hope, I hope that will shape my perspective as a parent because I did see kids that I cared about a lot. They weren't my own, so I know it's different. I saw them experience failure and pain and disappointment.

And you learn, you're like, Hey, this is, this is hard teaching kids how to cope with. We worked hard coach. Why didn't we win? We did everything you said to do. We lost, but like, you know, then you feel like, Hey, I let them down. I didn't do enough and I got to, I got to regulate my own emotions and how I talked to them about those things. So I think you underestimate, no matter what your role is in youth sports, whether you're a parent, whether you got nieces, nephews, people close to you care about that play it, you do have a role in the kid just depending on how you interact with

them around their activities. It's not just sports too, being supportive, being thoughtful, just being there for them in whatever way it is. So I agree with you. I think that's going to be a really hard thing to do when the time comes. My little guy's won. So I've got some, a little bit of time before we get to little league, but I'm sure there's going to be a million things between now and then that present a whole bunch of challenges. We should do a parenting podcast. I don't know.

Maybe not. Maybe that's a bad idea. I know people don't want a lot of that here, but that's sort of where we went because that's where the story was. So I do think a healthy perspective about youth sports would go a long, long way for a lot of folks out there. I hope people can find it. We're going to go, if you want to read those stories plus the other stuff on the athletic, theathletic.com, slash rates and barrels is the best way to get a subscription. So be sure to do that. If you don't have one already, you can find Britt on Twitter at Britt underscore Jiroli.

Find me at Derek Van Riper. Find Eno at EnoSares. Find the pod at rates and barrels. That's gonna do it for this episode of rates and barrels. We're back with you on Thursday. Thanks for watching!