Rates & Barrels - Cal Raleigh's MVP Case & The Importance of Good Communication

Episode Date: June 18, 2025

Eno, Trevor, and DVR discuss Cal Raleigh's place atop the home-run leaderboard and what it might take for him to main a pace necessary to take AL MVP Honors away from Aaron Judge before taking a deep dive into the importance of good communication in the wake of the Rafael Devers trade Sunday and recent comments from Nationals manager Davey Martinez.Rundown1:45 Cal Raleigh Atop MLB's Home-Run Leaderboard6:36 The Always Difficult Case of a Catcher for MVP10:29 Tylor Megill to the IL w/UCL Sprain13:56 Typical Communication to Teams Following a Trade19:18 Creating a Balanced Relationship Between Front Office and Players24:59 Why Is There So Much Turnover with Decision-Makers in Boston?28:26 There Were Baseball Reasons for the Deal42:28 The Overuse of "Clubhouse Cancer" Labels56:48 Returning From Tommy John Surgery1:06:33 Name! That! Dude! (2025 Season Series: Trevor 4, Eno 0)Follow Eno on Bluesky: @enosarris.bsky.socialFollow DVR on Bluesky: @dvr.bsky.socialFollow Trevor on Bluesky: @iamtrevormay.bsky.sociale-mail: [e-mail] our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFeSubscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrelsHosts: Derek VanRiper & Eno SarrisWith: Trevor MayProducer: Brian SmithExecutive Producer: Derek VanRiper Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to Rates and Barrels, it's Wednesday June 18th, Derek Van Ryn, Barino Seris, Trevor May here with you on this episode. We dig into communication in baseball because it's been fun from the outside looking in trying to understand who is saying what and why and tone and we've got all sorts of stuff from the Rafael Devers trade we've got different ways the people involved in that trade have discussed it Davey Martinez going off over the weekend so we'll dig into a couple recent examples of what goes right what goes wrong and why things

might be that way we're also to talk about returning from Tommy John surgery. Had Shohei Otani come back, pitch one inning in his first outing back and a lot of observations about how he looked mechanically. Trevor's got some really good explanation for why that might be the way things are. And we've got some baseball news you should know, along with time permitting, perhaps another name that dude, it has been too long. I just wanted to make Eno nervous for the next 55 minutes.

Having to think about the possible. I'm going to screw this up. It's the first thought I had. Like I have like minus minus makeup when it comes to this sort of thing. Maybe the only thing I've found that you're truly not thriving at. So it's an opportunity. Just raise up.

You just bringing it up, I'm already stumbling over my words. Probably a bad idea for the host to do that. I will learn from my own mistakes. Makes me surprised me. I don't want to think about it. A little bit of baseball news you should know off the top. I just think this is kind of wild. We've talked in a couple of recent episodes about under discussed players.

It was under discussed pitchers on Tuesday and last week. Thursday it was under discussed hitters. Cal Raleigh is now atop the home run leaderboard, head of Aaron Judge, a head of Shohei Otani as we enter play on June 18th. Trevor, is this real? I mean mean when I watch Cal Raleigh people like when I call him Big Dumper. I don't know why they just like the way it sounds when I say Big Dumper so try to make the internet happy. He just looks like he's having a good time out there and he's putting together a season that might be a record breaker for catchers. It's

already a franchise record for stolen bases in a season. He's up to eight steals on top of all the power. But are we getting a 50 home run season from Cal Raleigh? Is he gonna be at or near the top of this leaderboard when the dust settles at the end of September? I could see 50 happening easy. The interesting thing is his pace is home run record for the AL breaking. I believe it's like 63 or 64 or really close.

I don't think that's probably going to end up happening. But 27 at this point for catchers, absolutely insane. You know, I went back and the only guy really that's ever done anything this impressive this early in the season for catchers, Piazza. And if getting compared to Piazza, I think you're in a good place. The interesting thing is, you know, a lot of the conversation, especially with him versus Judge, because Judge's batting average is so high, and they both kind of have very similar set of strikeout rates.

I think Cal maybe has a little bit better one, but they both strike out, is Cal's like has more stolen bases and is more valuable defensively. And that's a massive boost in his direction, even if he's 100 points lower in batting average. Like, we could see a possible MVP run just because of the nature of how good his pitchers are.

His frame's good, even though the high strike has pretty much gone away for him, and that's what got him in the top of the league. He's still good, and then you hit 27 home runs, and you're pretty much your team's entire offense most of the time. 27 home runs is crazy, and that 27th one was a grand slam. Not only that, he's hitting like three run homers every time.

Like it's all, it's never just a solo shot. You know, I'm not gonna throw a little shade here, but like Julio hits a lot of solo shots. Cal's hit the three run homers, they're giving them the crooked innings. And I think his value is so, even with all of this said, it's still understated for the Mariners. It's incredible, and he's a switch hitter.

Like, I don't know. I don't know how you could be a catcher with this type of power and this type of offensive prowess catch pretty much like full time, you know, with the exception of getaway days for a lot of times, because they do have Mitch Garver, who is a good defensive catcher as well, or a solid defensive catcher.

To do stuff like this is truly amazing. Catching is so hard, it is so exhausting. Go crouch for two and a half hours, and also try to hit, see how you come out. I can't imagine. Prepare all your pitchers and- And know all the other team's hitters too. You gotta know that too.

Yeah, right. So, you know, I think the key number here is 17 actually. That's how many games Cal Ralli has started at DH. And, you know, there's a good, there's a good news and bad news. If you look at projections the rest of the way, they only quote unquote have Calralli down for 20 home runs, which would leave him short of 50.

But he's also projected for 70 plate appearances fewer than all the guys in front of him on that list. In fact, if you adjust him for playing time and give him 380 plate appearances the rest of the way, the only people projected to hit more homers by the bad X are Shohei Otani and Aaron Judge. And he would hit 23 homers and get to that magic number you're talking about. I think there's a blessing and a curse to

it though. They're playing him so much and you're talking about how exhausting it is. I just have a feeling that there's going to be a swoon for Calralli because it's so much playing and I don't know if it'll come in the form of a break from injury or maybe they call up Harry Ford and give him more of a break at catcher. We haven't seen that many catchers. I guess Sal Perez is one of the few people that I can think of that actually gets, you know, William Contreras in Milwaukee, that actually get anywhere close to the number of played appearances that the leaders do, that, you know, a judge or an Otani will get to. And I think that's actually a weird thing.

Like, are we seeing the end of catchers winning MVPs? Like, it's really hard in the age of war where all of the writers are gonna look at war, you know, to win MVP if you're sitting twice a week. Extremely difficult because, yeah, war drives it all. And even the thing that's working against Cal Raleigh right now, Aaron Judge has a 470 OVP or something, just an absurd, 469 entering play on Wednesday. So that gives him a boost even though Raleigh brings more defensive value, has the extra

homers, also stealing bases, right? There's that gap that he's to close too. I'd love to make the argument in public that like, hey, we should maybe give him a little extra credit for A, the job being so hard, and B, the fact that, you know, sometimes he has to rest just because the team wants to load, like, you know, manage that load of being a catcher. It's not really, it's not necessarily fair

to just dock him for those days, because then we'll never have a catcher win MVP again. We'll probably never have a reliever win Cy Young again. You know? That seems pretty much impossible. I probably never have a reliever win Cy Young again, you know? That seems pretty much impossible. I feel like as a reliever, the bar to win a Cy Young now is to go through a season with an ERA below one and to strike out like 100 guys.

If you do that, then we'll probably have a conversation about someone. You'll probably be like third in the voting. Still, no, yeah, you just don't throw enough in. Brad Ledge didn't win it when he threw 92 and two thirds innings to strike out 126 six guys and didn't he was like third like it's just not Yeah, everyone else has to kind of suck. You gotta again I'm gonna say no shade to and then I'm gonna probably immediately throw shade but like the poor solo

Si Young he was definitely a product of a lot of they're not being a ton of options that year So it's gonna have to be kind of one of those. One other little side comment too, everything with Cal and his workload, Cal, do not do the Homer Derby, for the love of God. Just skip it. Just take some time. Take the break. Go play your two or three innings if you want in the game.

Or, I mean, DH, if they'll let you do that, because now Rafi's not in the league anymore, so maybe you can do it. Oh, that'd be nice. Don't do the Homer Derby, please. Please don it. Oh, that'd be nice. Don't do the home run derby, please. Please don't. Yeah, I mean, that's just, it's so far away from being a day off.

I think when we've talked about it in the past, it's not a curse. This looks exhausting. It's just, yeah, it's, tack some extra workload onto a heavy workload, and then also try and fight against typical regression that comes from being selected into the home run derby because you had an above average or above expectations first half in the first place.

There's all these things working against you anyway, so you're making your job harder by participating. Good advice. We'll see if he actually takes it. Man, will we ever see a catcher win MVP again? Yeah, I think it's possible. I think E know is right you probably have to adjust even more than war already does to close that gap and Maybe just maybe the situation the way people feel about that Mariners offense and the way that's actually built right now

Can helps make that case like if they make the playoffs like judge will have to I'm not asking for this But the judge might have to miss some time or like go into a big slump, you know Like it's it's not that close right now And then I think even then somebody will have to make the argument that cal deserves a little extra boost for the days He missed of no fault of his own. Yeah, and maybe maybe the solution is something like harry ford You see his name in pretty much any sort of trade speculation, trade rumors piece, but bring up Harry Ford, catch him some, play Raleigh at DH more. I mean, they've got ways to keep his bat in the lineup and they have some other options behind the plate if they want to keep leaning on him that heavily, but it is reminiscent of recent usage patterns on

Salvador Perez. I think that's kind of what Cal Raleigh has become in Seattle. Some news from the other side. Tyler McGill placed on the 15 day IL with a UCL sprain. The MRI only revealed inflammation, which to me merited a quick follow up with Tim Britton at the Athletic. I was like, wait, it's sprain. A sprain's a tear, but the MRI didn't show a tear,

only showed inflammation. Does that mean that you's a tear, but the MRI didn't show a tear, only showed inflammation. Does that mean you couldn't see it on the MRI? It's not good. When they looked at Blanco's elbow. Yeah. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. When they looked at Blanco's elbow, they only saw inflammation.

Yeah, only another one of them calms down. Right, so he's out at least a month. And maybe it'll be grade one, not the worst case scenario. Maybe, maybe, maybe, but this seems like the precursor to a lengthy absence. Even grade one, doesn't a month seem short, Trevor? Yeah, it's just one of those places too that there's not a lot of blood flow, so getting inflammation out of there

takes longer than other places. It's just tendons, tendons, hands have that issue as well. Also, in terms of blood circulation. That sometimes breaking a bone is better than tearing a liver in it because breaking a bone, the blood flow is better? Yes, blood flow is better. You basically have the way that blood interacts with bones is like they're kind of surrounded.

So you get tons, you can draw from a lot of different places and bone inflammation is kind of, you get that from a break, you get a little inflammation around the spot, but bones are also, can heal in isolation a little bit more and they're not attached to your circule. I read about this one time, because I had a bone,

I had bone stress reactions on why it took so long, like you need bone stimulation and stuff. But yeah, bones generally heal more consistently, they're more predictable, how they're gonna heal as well. And there's not a lot of other factors associated with them that there are. With tendons are just they're just like in the middle of chains, basically, usually of kinetic chains.

And there's something else that could be aggravating it that you just don't know about. Hard to make them stop moving completely to. Yeah, like you can make a bone stop moving. Yeah. Yeah. You're going to have to find a temporary solution until Montas and Sean Manaya are ready. But they do have enough depth to probably just shuffle someone back in from the I.L. at this point to cover the bulk of Tyler McGill's absence. I think the Mets, one of those teams.

We want Nolan McClain, right? That's what we want. I think that's the that's what we're hoping for from a like. Let's add a new pitcher to the equation that has a little more feeling. Yeah. Nolan McClain would be the exciting maneuver. If he gets the call for this first spot, the next turn McGill has, it gets against Philly, it could be a temporary assignment and then coming back later when someone else goes down.

That's the only thing. That's not great. Hey, welcome to Big Leagues, Philly. On the road. On the road. Yes, woo. Good job. I guess maybe. On the road. Yes, woo. Good job. I guess maybe some of the pressure's off.

You're like, hey, if I just give up three and go four or five, nobody will think I did really terribly. Expectations might be a little lower in that situation. All right, so let's talk about communication in baseball. It's been a busy, busy week on that front. A lot of analysis of what is being said, some of it happening behind closed doors. So you kind of piece it together from multiple reports,

try to understand what's really going on in these meetings. And this is all initially connected to the trade that sent Rafael Devers to the Giants, right? Trevor, I just wanted to ask a broader question. When teams typically traded players that you were on, what kind of communication did you get in the clubhouse after a deal? Was it something the manager would usually cover

with the group, the GM ever come down, give you a speech kind of explaining the moves? Because I think if you're a member of the 2025 Red Sox, it wasn't completely shocking given what was unfolding at the time they signed Bregman and the request to move to first base when Casas got hurt. But you still got immediately worse. And I kind of feel like a lot of guys would want an explanation for what the organization is trying

to accomplish by trading a player like this away. But do you ever get that explanation? The standard is kind of just, you see them come out and start to pack their stuff up and say goodbye to people. That's usually like, it's not like a baseline to address the group when someone gets traded, because most of the time trades are around

the trade deadline. Or it's a trade where someone was like put on waivers and then there was a trade worked out or something. So it's a guy who's not like the center of your team. But that said, there are certain situations where the manager has to look around and be like this one's gonna be, this one's gonna affect our team

and our psyche of our team in a big way and we need to address it and get past it. An example of this that comes to mind is Josh Hader for Taylor Rogers. Oh yeah. And I am Taylor's friend, but Taylor didn't give me this story directly, I heard this through another person, so I'm gonna throw that caveat in there, allegedly,

but there's nothing crazy here either. It's just allegedly, when Taylor showed up, he walked into the meeting they were having about Josh Hader. Or he popped his head and was like, that's not a good sign. Fully go in, but like, and everyone didn't see him, but he definitely went and like went to his locker

right after that meeting ended. And it was like, they were like, hey man, we know this was random and he's one of the heartbeats of our team and blah, blah, blah. And everyone was really good, great to Taylor, right? But we saw. I think it's not Taylor great to Taylor right but yeah yeah and especially you saw Derek like how he struggled at the very beginning and

then he figured it out but like there was a lot of like there's big shoes to fill he knew that and he was like basically walked he's like I'll do my best guys hey what's up I'm Taylor and he's like the nicest he's awesome he's great guy I know that loved him but but that was one of the situations where that was necessary. I've heard that there was a similar thing in Seattle when Seawald went, when they were just like, what is this helping, this isn't helping our team. So that's usually what happens, it's addressed,

it's usually closed door and it's just players and the coaches because the front office makes the decision. And so the point is to try to keep from like, pushing blame off or something or being mad at the front office for making decisions. So you kind of let them handle it and then the coach and then the manager kind of like patches it up generally. Generally like the front offices stay out of the clubhouse is what I've seen. You know, I think it's actually maybe a smart idea. At first I thought, no, no, let's try to, we're all pulling on the same chain here.

Like let's make front office people accessible to players so that they feel like these are human beings and we know who we're dealing with and stuff like that. On the other hand, you know, I think from the player perspective, these are people who are making decisions about your future. And I think that everybody's butt tightens up a little bit when the GM

is in the clubhouse. You know, because that like, why is he here? You know, like, you know, like nobody's really that comfortable around a guy who could trade you away, you know, or cut you or whatever demote you. So I don't know, I know there's some, you know, Dick Williams with the Reds used to be pretty in the clubhouse and he would talk to players and try to try to create an atmosphere where he felt they could talk to him. I thought that's that's interesting. And I think that to some extent, people don't know about David Stearns as he might, he might talk to players a little bit more than other GMs. But then there's like famously Billy Bean who like, you know, never wants to be where the players are. Like, it doesn't want to be in the clubhouse when they're there. It doesn't want to, he wants to think of them as assets because he's running a team that's trying to be efficient and has to, you know, cut corners and.

Yeah, he had to do a lot of that though. A lot of things that are inexplicable too. He just, the things he's like, I can't give you a good reason for this, man, I'm sorry. Like, I understand it a little bit, yeah. I don't know though, because I know, okay, so we know like the Tampa Bay Rays actually have a pretty positive reputation in that they do treat players like human beings,

even though they're pretty clear about how they run their organization. You generally know when you become a Tampa Bay Ray that that is not where you're going to finish your career. It is a stop. Well we had a Odurrizi on this podcast you know saying like you know he didn't really harbor ill will against them but their whole model is just use you up. To your point though if everybody gets tight because the boss shows up I don't think you've created a great culture. I understand you have to have some limits. I understand that in any organization you can't communicate everything across all levels top to bottom. I get that there's some restrictions there, but it does seem kind of weird to me that you'd want things to be

that siloed in something that requires the effort of so many people to work. Chemistry seems like it's a huge part of getting through long 162 game grinds, like feeling like everyone's all in the same boat, doing the same things, working toward the same goals. Like that seems ultimately really important. So even if it's only a light amount of interaction with the GM or the chief baseball officer or the president of baseball operations, whatever the title ends up being, you would think the

healthiest organizations have some level of consistent interaction. Maybe not in the clubhouse specifically, but there should be a relationship there. It would be pretty weird if there's not. Yeah, I mean, we could see in the Devers situation. So they said in spring before they even announced that they had signed Bregman, that they asked Devers to try taking some ground balls at first first base and he declined. Now we fast forward, you know, then there's again, they asked again, you know, when Tristan Kassas went down and he declined again. And that, there is some responsibility that belongs to Devers for not doing that. We can see that

there's a pattern here of them basically saying, you're not good enough here and we need you to do this thing for us. And then you fast forward to the Giants and he's at the Giants press conference saying, oh yeah, I'm going to try first base. And everybody in Boston would be like, what? What's the difference? I'm trying to read between the lines and what I've seen reported is whenever there's something reported, there's more to it even than that. What they did was they described to Devers

that the Giants were the fourth worst team in baseball of OPS from first baseman. And so they basically laid out like, this is where you could help us the most. Like instead of you're not good enough to play third base, this is like, this is where we need help the most. Like this is how you can be the most valuable to everybody, your new team.

What I'm saying that's not reported, that isn't said, that might have been said is, and also Bryce Eldridge is not good with the glove. I don't know if you go to that level, but you never know. Honesty, that's honesty. Also, there's no one coming for first. Right, like, if you think Bryce Eldridge is coming. There's nobody looking over your shoulder right now.

He's not great with the gloves, so if you are great with the glove at first base, he might be the DH, so what do you prefer? Like what do you wanna be long term? Does the first base sound good to you? Like you'd like being on the field? Then like, let's do this. That's giving some honesty,

and it's trying to describe the thinking from the front office, and it's trying to include you in the thinking process as opposed to being like, hey, can you like just take some balls at first base? Right. And I know there's always going to be gaps in we don't know the full extent to all the attempts at communication and what that communication actually was like. But it's very telling that at the intro press conference, Devers said, they are the men in charge, referring to Buster Posey and I think Bob Melvin, maybe the front office too, and I'm here to play wherever they want. Like saying that gives you the sense that he didn't

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Maybe it's like kind of a meddling owner situation where he's like, I don't know how much Breslin's in charge, I think maybe the owner's in charge here and... They have a plan, we didn't have a plan. I didn't feel like that these changes were part of a plan and I thought they would change the next day and I was tired that's what he said with Cassis a little bit right he's like oh so I play first base now and then a right fielder gets hurt and I play right

field like what am I the utility guy the 300 million dollar utility guy I thought that this is what everyone told me that this is what when I get here I don't have to worry about that stuff anymore and now now suddenly, I'm the number one guy you're asking to move around on the field on the worst defensive team in the league for the last three years. Like, we have bigger problems, basically, than me learning different positions over and over again.

Maybe pick somebody else. I get that frame of, I get that direction he's coming from, but also, it sounds like there's other things where he's just like annoyed, and he's been annoyed for not a short amount of time, and him and Brez just don't seem like they are the each other's type of people, and maybe that was the straw that broke the camel's back,

but you know, it's Boston, man. Good luck going in there and changing things and meaningful way quickly. Once that lid is open, you're never gonna really close it again in a place like Boston. I feel like I can get, the more I read into the story, the more I get on board with the idea that the relationship between the front office and Rafael Devers was irreparably

broken. It was going to be almost impossible to get that trust back so that I can understand why they would trade him. And we talked about what they got back and maybe it's not enough. But this has been a strange organization in the last 10 years basically. I mean they hired Dave Dombrowski late in 2015. Mike Hazen was the GM that worked alongside Dombrowski then. They won the AL East. They built the team that Dombrowski took to the finish line. Right. They won the AL East three times, won the World Series in 2018, and fired Dombrowski before the end of the next season. Then they hired Chaim Blum., won the World Series in 2018 and fired Dombrowski before the end

of the next season. Then they hired Chaim Bloom after winning the World Series. It was like less than a year after winning the World Series. Bloom comes in in October of 2019, trades Mookie Metz and David Price before the start of the season. And then it's the COVID shortened season. So that's brutal. But they go 24 and 36 in year one under Bloom, last place in the AL East. take second in year two seems like a pretty big step good finish last in the shortened season make the playoffs get bounced by a really good Astros team in six but then you fall back to fifth place in 2022 Xander leaves as a free agent okay but months later you extend

endeavors you get the 11 year extension 331 million this is gonna be the one who stays you saved it. I was watching the old clip and then heim bloom gets Doesn't even make it He gets fired that same September Which again kind of put us back into the okay? So so who wanted the Devers extension? Was that ownership? Was that Bloom? Was that? You have all these questions about it, but it was in Breslau because he wasn't there.

So then new front office comes in. You've got remnants of old front offices. I mean, Alex Cora came on board back when Dave Dombrowski was calling the shots. So you've got all these people from different eras trying to get on the same page. And you can start to understand why it's a mess but then that traces back to ownership probably firing a president of baseball operations that they didn't need to fire in the first place when they fired Dumbrovsky. Like isn't this a symptom of just top end leadership being the way it is?

The metaphor in my head right now is like you're on a long stretch of road and you're just basically you're staggering all the lights. You just keep hitting red lights over and over again. You're like, if we could just time this correctly, we hit all the greens. Be going. But we're constantly creating roadblocks by having different groups of people that were not hired by the other people or did not work with. You love your manager.

You keep extending them over and over again, but we don't really know who's making all the decisions. I had a theory, I would say John Henry and the ownership group was like, we're tired of hearing about how we're not signing anyone long-term, we are a big, we have this firepower and if not, Devers, then who? Like we didn't do the other ones. So he was kind of the only one left

from those three guys, Mookie, Bogarts and him, the guys who were probably lined up to make these huge deals. And so they're like, well, Devers has left and he's the youngest. So let's just go with him. So it could have been like a PR type. They kind of, it's the same as like firing the manager. A lot of times it's just like, we got to do something. Everyone's yelling at us about it and we're tired of it and I'm annoyed. And that would explain why then if that's why he was signed, that's why they were okay with trading him so quickly. You know what I mean?

They're not like fighting it super. It doesn't seem like there was a lot of pushback from ownership. They're like, oh, they're going to take on the whole contract? Then sure. There are some baseball reasons for this trade that we have to give some, we have to acknowledge, which is yes, with Masataka Yoshida and Rafael Divers, there is a little bit of a roster crunch. That can be solved by trading other players. However, you have to then think what other players

have the right combination of salary and attractiveness to other teams. If you think about Jaren Duran, he's actually very difficult to figure out in terms of what his true talent value is. He had a big year last year. I think a lot of teams don't believe in that power surge from last year without the power surge and if you don't think he's a center fielder he suddenly becomes kind of like a slightly above average corner outfielder which is and he's twenty eight so that's not a thing that the the market values very much you know like a one ten to one one ten-ish WRC plus corner outfielder is not something that gets you a lot back, right? And you know, if Williard is like an asset that you don't want to trade at all,

you know, and Masataka Yoshida is going to be a complete seller dump where you might have to attach prospects to get him out, you know, if you want to do that. Then all of a sudden Devers becomes the guy who gets traded. And then I was looking at these Tibbs, James Tibbs III, to get them out, you know, if you, if you want to do that, then all of a sudden Devers becomes the guy who gets traded. And then I was looking at these, these Tibbs, James Tibbs, the third, you know, if you're looking at the screen now, you might be seeing his batted ball stats and swing decisions, you know, 20% chase rate, 46% hard hit rate, 113.8 max EV. He doesn't swing much.

So, you know, this could be worst case scenarios, some Trent Grisham aspects to this, or he just doesn't swing and hits the ball hard when he does swing and misses a lot, you know, so there are downsides to this, but this is a really nice package of like guy has a great eye at the plate and hits the ball hard. So I get, you know, the excitement about that. And maybe there's excitement, more excitement than Cal Harrison than I get. But one thing that really comes out to me, you know, I was thinking about your project, Trevor, about, you know, the different

ownership styles and what that means, right? And so I'm looking at John Henry's, you know, background, and he's a commodities trader. He's like, he's a trader, he's an asset trader. And then you start to think about there are similarities between Breslau and Posey, like former players, you know, put into into management positions really quickly without doing anything else, you know, just sort of player into GM almost, you know, almost directly. But they talk differently about players. So this is the this is the famous comment that Breslau said that people have heard about how we'll have one more games than we otherwise would have. But listen to the beginning of that

comment because the beginning, that's the part that got aggregated. That's the Boston. You know, when you guys are talking about the Boston aspect of this, everyone took that bottom part and was like, what? You're gonna win more games with the Hau-Devers? Idiot! You know, but the beginning of it actually, I think, tells you a lot more about the thinking and the way that these John Henry led team is thinking. Breslau says, I think when you consider the flexibility, the ability to give some of the young players some run, the opportunity to maybe repackage some of the resources

and fill some voids in the roster as early as approaching this year's deadline and being really intentional about the environment we would create for these young players to thrive and blah blah blah. He called players resources right there. Pretty sure that's what he said there repackage some of the resources. That's what you say when you're a commodities trader. That's what you say when you're thinking about the roster as some math pieces that you need to fit together in the right place? You know, I just want to put this up against

Buster Posey who, by the way, was an early investor in Under Armour and made almost as much money off of Under Armour as you made playing. Didn't know that. God, Buster, come on bro, give me a text. Yeah. I could have gave you some of that reliever money man. Give me that 00001% ownership. So he has bona fides in the business world, but he speaks differently. He was talking about Rafael Devers is a dude.

He is a dude and you can't quantify all the things. That is literally a thing he said about Rafael Devers. And so I just think there's a gulf there that there's a difference there now who won the trade I don't know if you if you're thinking I had an exec tell me he thought it was 80 million dollars Surplus to the to the Red Sox they win the trade bingo-bango. I said Hey, the Giants got the best player in the deal echoed some of the stuff that Ken Rosenthal said I don't think actually the Devers deal is that far underwater.

You can compare him to Vladi in terms of body, in terms of position that they'll play most likely. He's a slightly worse hitter, but it's a lot less money than Vladi. He's one year older. So I don't know. I think I understand both sides of this, but I think that in terms of the way it was communicated, Boston has shown itself to have some problems since communication.

I thought the report from June Lee talking about someone interviewing for a job in baseball operations, but having five rounds of interviews where there wasn't a person on the other side of the interview, it was like a video interview where you record an answer. That's pretty bizarre. That is a lack of human touch.

And I don't know if that is someone's idea of what the future's supposed to look like and being efficient or how exactly you come to a point where you let that become your process, but that is a bad process in a business where human interactions matter. Why would you choose that as the way to bring someone into an operations position?

There's a fair amount of a we're headed towards that. Oh, yeah, it's bad. There are people doing this sort of interviews right now, you know, and it's there was an emphasis on AI, but it's more just like, you know, there's a prompt, a visual prompt. Maybe it's an AI bot or whatever, but there's a visual prompt and you're supposed to give a visual answer, basically record a visual answer. The benefits of that from the acquiring team is, like it could be awkward, especially on the highest level,

to have a Craig Bleszlo, like interviewing an AGM for another team, you know, personally, and then not hire them, you know? And then maybe the next time try to be like, hey, let's talk trade. Oh, you didn't hire me. You know, and then maybe the next time try to be like, hey, let's talk trade. Oh, you didn't hire me. You know what I mean? So like, maybe there's some like intentional loyalty to like, that's, that's keep you away from being the in the inner circle until you're

in. You know, like, you don't want to, you don't want to like make these, you know, connections to you. I don't know if it's five rounds or five questions. If it's five rounds, then that's a lot that you're putting, You're putting an AGM or a high level person for another team through a lot of hoops to hire them. That seems aggressive. But the benefit of recording these conversations is that more teams are using large language models to run these responses and companies are doing this, run the responses through the large language models to learn more about the types of people they want to hire in the future and what they're looking for.

And I know that sounds terrible, but it's definitely something that corporations are doing, you know, recording, like recording more of what happens on Slack, recording more of what happens in interviews so that they can run it through AI and learn from it. So there's a lot of directions we can go. But there's obviously a lack of feel if you're doing that for five rounds with somebody else who held it against you and then went to a reporter

and started talking crap about you. I'm not like a staunch, like tech has no place in the world. I'm just a reasonable, hey, maybe that's too much. Like that's balanced. It's no longer a tool. Now it's a crutch. Yes. Or you're asking for it to do a person's entire job.

And you're also making people feel bad. Like you don't wanna be in the business of making people feel bad. Yeah, well also, yeah, if the whole thing is to create this, you got a bunch of humans working in a company, everyone kind of pulling in the same direction and believing in the mission is really important.

And if you really. Requires face to face interaction. If it's very, very disconnected from the moment you start and you feel like you don't know, it's very confusing after the first couple of times, now at this point you're shooting yourself in the foot, doesn't matter anymore. It's so interesting that everything just said, right?

Calling players resources or I heard recently someone called them assets. It might have been Peter Bendix, I hope not. But another GM just kind of used the word and it bothers me as a player because we're human beings. I understand that we are technically the fuel that drives this business.

We are. Like 100% of the things being made on the field are by the players, so that makes sense. We are resources, we are assets, but the difference between assets and resources traditionally in corporatism and in sports is assets are kind of not unliving, more rigid things. You're like, this is what it is.

They're fungible. Exactly, so it's. Yeah, like a stadium, like the way this thing is gonna fluctuate They're fungible. Exactly. So it's, yeah, like a stadium. Like the way this thing is gonna fluctuate is market-based, not on anything that it's doing. Human beings can be changing all the time. So if you're, by calling someone resources, that is giving the impression that you are looking at.

You can grow a resource more than, like you can change the resource. Some of these guys are gonna be, could be something you don't even recognize in three years, if done correctly. There's things that predictive you wouldn't have known about, that they have an ability to do,

that you just didn't know about. That is always present with players. So for Buster to say, yes, I can predict all day, but there is a chance that we can get even more out of them, or it could be even better than we're, or worse. And so it's not predictions only take you so far to make educated guesses. You can't think of them that way. Cause I think that despite the executive's best efforts, you do kind of tend to create this rigidity, like they are who they are. And that's just not what sports are. That's just not what sports are.

Even if you think probabilistically and use projections to be like, oh, this is a 75th percentile outcome and this is this and that. That's still three out of four. That's still not that great. You know, then you start to, then you trade that guy because you're like, eh, you know, that's a 75th percentile outcome

and it's not that great and it's not that likely. There's a 25% chance you're wrong. And then you gotta just be like, okay. And you can't just be like, well, cause you're not gonna get 90% certainty ever in sports, ever, because of injuries. It just doesn't- That's the Friedman comment.

Like you're never going to get a free agent if you don't overpay. It's the truth, and it's even easier to say when you are able to spend at the levels that that organization can spend at. Being in a situation like that, I think, allows you to be about as truthful as you can be in the front office.

You can just say anything and play, well, it doesn't matter. We don't have to play it close to the vest quite the same way other teams do. The funny thing about this is I was just talking to our friend Blake Murphy up in Toronto, and I mentioned it last week on Blue Sky. My favorite way to be wrong is to be wrong about ceiling,

to be wrong about an elite player. Cal Raleigh would fit into this right now. Tarek Scoobal was my example though. Tarek Scoobal winning the Cy Young last year, to me I was like, oh, that's the ceiling. That's as good as he could possibly be. He's better this year than he was last year so far. Mind blown, I love to be wrong that way.

And to the point about how quickly players can change, let's just go back to 2021. Was Tarek Scoobal the best pitcher in baseball in 2021? No. Would you have made the argument he was going to be the best pitcher in baseball in 2021? No, probably not, right? You could have said, he's interesting, he's exciting.

People are arguing that the Tigers should trade him. Cause he was still projectable when we weren't getting what he, you know, what he could do. I think that was last summer. We checked it out last time we talked about it. Like this time last year, Detroit radio wanted to trade Tarek Scoobel.

You know, there's something that's really relevant to Devers too. It's like people can change sort of emotionally and can fit better in an environment if you make the environment fit them better in terms of like, you know, Manny Machado. Sorry. Whoa. That's our, that's a new one.

Sorry. How? That's the kid's nickname. That's the kid's nickname. Machado. Sorry. That's our. That's a new one. Sorry. How? That's the kid's nickname. That's the kid's nickname. Machado. I like that. That's like his wrestler name. That's not me screwing it up.

I know how you say it. That's his WWE name, Machado. That's the house nickname for him. Manning Machado like was thought of as like a dirty player. He was no leadership. And I think he's grown into himself as a player. We're now that he has shown leadership. He's much calmer.

He's like I haven't seen a dirty play out of him in a long time. In our household, they're like, why are they booing him? You know, sometimes they've asked, you know, and I've been like, well, there were some plays early on, but it seems he threw his bat at somebody once. Yeah, that's right, he did do that. He stepped on a guy's ankle in the World Series. I don't know, I perceive him as slightly different now as he's gotten older.

People get older too. People just change a little bit as they get older. And so clubhouse cancer was something that's on the cryon that we're talking about. And I think that at some point in his career, probably somebody thought we need to get Manny Machado out of this clubhouse. He is a cancer to this clubhouse.

It might've been the thinking in Baltimore. It's like, we need to trade him rather than extend him. You know? And so I wanna put to you like, how much like clubhouse cancer, when people use that, it obviously there's some accountability on the player himself. They must have done something to get that label But there's also the way they fit into a clubhouse. So the way that I thought of it was certain players get certain special treatment

and You know, some of them have earned it some of them demanded it And, you know, some of them have earned it, some of them demanded it. That's where I sort of see cancerism. It's like, oh, OK, if that guy doesn't have to run polls like I do. And it's only because he's the closer and he demanded as the closer and made a bunch of money that he doesn't want to run polls. That's where I sort of see cancer from maybe a player's perspective. How far off are we? Like we're like

we're how does that lead to things like like a little bit like Devers being like, I me I'm a million dollar guy. I don't play first. I don't want to play first. I don't want to play third, you know, whatever it is, you know, like, how does that play out? I think there's a there's some some pretty actually pretty bold lines around those, those types of things. I love that you bring up running because, for example,

with Oakland my last year, I was like, I just don't run. I don't run on the field. I just don't run on the field. Trevor May, clubhouse cancer. Right. I will say, I was the highest paid guy on the team. Oh, that's right. There could be, they could be like, well, is it because he's the highest paid guy on the team. So there could be, they could be like,

well is it because he's the highest paid guy on the team? And I'll be honest, I received a lot of pushback and it felt like it was like, what, who are you? I'm like, who am I? I'm telling you a very specific, personal reason why I don't run. I do condition, I just don't run. So I have a reason that I can give you a PowerPoint

if you need it. Let's get on the same page, but I've learned this and I'm not gonna do your thing because you need me to do it. I'm gonna do it because I need to do it. So then players are like, yeah, who cares? But sometimes they're like, ah, I can't be bothered. And they don't have a reason.

And they're like, I don't need to give you a reason. Now you think you are different than us. Now we start talking behind your back. Yes, now you are doing things that are actively hurting the team just because you want to. Oh, is it like travel with the team? Like if they don't travel with the team?

Travel with the team. Here's a great example. I've had guys that I've played with who are well paid or supposed to be our stud players, and then they get hurt and they're just very flippant about it and there's no sense of urgency when we as a team are trying to Like we get back when I get back. Yeah, yeah

Yeah, that rubs people the wrong way a lot There was some you know, I'm not gonna name names because I've they they also some of these guys tend to have rabbit ears about This stuff too. So they know who they are But like to where you they say something like I can't do it things. It's that again I'm hurt and they just say stuff like that and you're like, are you gonna go checked out first? Are you gonna do anything to try to not be hurt? Are you gonna wait and see? Are you gonna stretch that area now,

or are we just gonna see you do nothing and then continue getting hurt? Because I've played with several guys who were like that. Everyone's like, I'm tired of hearing you complain about it. Just shut up. Just go sit in your locker, and you're just not gonna be on the, we don't wanna hear you complain about things

when we see you do other things. That also rubs people around the way, especially people who work really hard and especially the guys who are like, I'm getting sent up and down every two weeks. Like, you never had that. Most of the time, stars never had that. So it's like, I just don't, we don't wanna hear it.

And then if the team's not playing as well as they should, you're having a disappointing season, you guys are not gonna make the playoffs, then it gets worse, because those guys tend to be like, well, I'll just get mine. And then they tend to be the same people. It can, I think, erode the cohesion

to where people are leaving the room when that person walks in the room. I've had teammates where they walked in, I immediately found somewhere else to be, just because I was like, you're gonna drive me crazy, to the point where I don't wanna say something snap at you you or snappy to you and then have it be this whole thing But some of that's just personality, right? Yeah, some of that's personality as well and they're all connected but it they I will say far and few between

very rare that I've ever seen any issue because I like my the leaders of my team like it was always we always had like Joe Mauer around like at the end of the day Yeah, we're just, Joe's the guy. Joe says something, everyone's doing it. Tory Hunter was on our team and he was like. In your estimation, there are probably more times that a person's called a clubhouse cancer than they actually are one.

Yes, I think it's overblown or maybe it's a specific group, two or three guys, one guy's problem with them. That is where that comes from. Or maybe they've had altercations with three or four separate people to where then that narrative could get built up. But in reality, most guys are like indifferent, which it sounds like Devers is a little bit whatever. Most people are like, he was great. Like, you know, we were always cool and whatever. But they're also like probably reliefers or something who are just not around him all

the time. So isolated incidents sometimes can build up too. So it's a combination of all these things, but a lot of times the vibe of how the season goes tends to line up with how frustrating you can project your frustration on the guys and how little patience you have for it. If your team's not playing well, it gets worse and worse and worse. I'm glad you're clarifying that it's not as prevalent

as the label is thrown out there and I think there's a lot of questions about who receives that label more often and who's giving them that label from the outside looking in. I think it's a term that kind of makes me uncomfortable to be honest because it seems like it's a step way beyond what's actually happening based on your description of some interactions with people that you're just like, I just don't really like this guy. That's normal. You can work with a large group of people

and just not like everybody. That, I think that's pretty common. I'll be honest, the rate of, the rate of that you actually do like your teammates in baseball, I think is much higher than most things. Like it's rare that there's like one or two guys you're like, I could not be bothered to, you know, hang out, talk to you or whatever.

And we just kind of like nod to each other in the slap hands line. But for the most part, 24 of the guys are all good with each other and friends with each other, and if invited to go to have dinner, would say yes. It comes down to it, this is what we always say, be like, you know what, he's not my favorite guy, and I just probably wouldn't invite him to dinner.

But being at work with him is fine. There's enough ability to separate yourself if you need to, put a little space that it's just not that big of an issue that often unless someone is inserting themselves in front of you. I've had those guys, the loud guys, the guys who think they need to haze every rookie because it's their God given right. Sometimes that gets abrasive and you're like, dude, we don't care anymore and you're doing it for us so you need to stop. That's when things get a little bit crazy, but that's gone away almost completely.

There's nobody out there that even, they try a little bit, and they're like, aggibup, and then their average is kinda cool. So that's not even, I'd say that went away in 2018. That's not even around anymore. This whole conversation is interesting in this particular regard because of accountability for what happened, I think, to some degree.

And when Breslov says things like, being really intentional about the environment we create for these young players to thrive in, I think he's saying to some extent, hey, we have Devers here saying he won't do this, X, Y, or Z for the team, and we're asking Christian Campbell to play first base and you know Roman Anthony to maybe take ground as a first base and you know if we have this really stark example of someone saying I know I won't do that for you the highest played player on the team you know the quote-unquote leader of the team saying that this way then you know Christian Campbell is gonna say no I don't want to do it and and Roman Anthony

is gonna say I don't want to do it and you know all of a to say, I don't want to do it. And all of a sudden, we're going to have a hard time getting anybody to do anything for the team. I guess I get their point. I don't know where the line is where that becomes such a problem that you can't keep a bat that's that special on your team. So that also, to some extent, seems like accountability shifting, where you have Craig Breslow saying, and this

is in the Ken Rosenthal piece, he says, I absolutely need to have the humility to think back on the interactions and figure out what I could have done better, which sounds close to accountability, except that in the same breath he says, as we think about identity, culture, environment that is created by great teams, there was something amiss here, something we needed to act decisively to course correct. What act did you do to decisively course correct? You got rid of this other guy. So you think you should think back

and maybe you did something wrong, except really what was wrong here was the guy I got rid of. I mean, that's, I really need to get to the point. We got two starting pitchers and we needed those and we got some guys for the future and like none of that has even been said yet. They did get two pitchers that they need. Of course, correct, there was a problem in the clubhouse

and maybe I said some things wrong. Accountability is just a really difficult thing because you take too much accountability and you're gone. Yeah, that could happen. And I think what I always try to remember is that being asked questions day in and day out or in times like this when there's a pretty massive situation unfolding and they read the columns, they hear the people on the radio, they're not immune to this stuff. These are humans making decisions. It's the same at the managerial level.

People were upset about Davey Martinez's quick comments over the weekend. It goes after Saturday's loss saying, it's never on the coaches, right? He had a long, long rant about that. And his GM comes out and kind of defends him this week. How much of that is just a symptom of frustration and just being asked questions when you're pissed off,

you're in the middle of a losing streak. There has to be some room for that in these interactions too, where everything that comes out of the mouths of a player, a coach, a manager, a GM is not going to be perfectly scripted PR speak. It would drive us crazy if it was. So I feel like sometimes we go over the top, hammering people when they're honest. In some ways, like Anthony Rendon, he's his own worst enemy with how he chooses to interact with the media.

But part of it is being honest, like, OK, man, this is this is you. This is the guy that you want us to all see with Davey. Do we really think he believes it's never on the coaches or was he just tired of hearing everyone blame the coaching staff for the Nats recent struggles. I think that it just got too much to him. Possibly like maybe there's a coach specifically getting a lot of flak that he feels there need to protect and maybe he's very intimate with the things that guy's doing. The tone too. I've been in situations a lot where I was fired up about something that the people I was telling about

don't have enough context to figure out why I'm so fired up about it. And then I realized that later, but the way I am, I'm very candid in that way too, and I'll just start venting my frustration. It's hard to rein myself in. And I saw that. And he's like, oh my God, this again.

But the person asked the question, what do you mean this again? What happened? It felt like there was a disconnect there a little bit to where he's like, it's the first time I asked that question I'm sorry I didn't mean I'm not like hammering home a point here and he got a little bit combative when maybe that's not what he wanted but it tells me that there might be a Coach or specific coaches that are getting flack and there might be something behind the scenes

Maybe those coaches are trying to help some guys do certain things and those guys might be, because this happens, you get resistance sometimes. Sometimes a guy says okay and then an agent calls, right? Calls the front office and then the front office then tells that coach, and then he's like, just tell me. That is how things need to work sometimes, that bureaucracy needs to work. He gets more information than we do

that he could be reacting to, yeah. Yeah, which is most likely what's happened. There's something that has been probably in the back of his mind just kind of bothering him a little bit, and he got an opportunity to kind of just be like, you know what, another thing. And people are like, I don't necessarily, we don't know all the context for answering this,

so we're just gonna go off what we know, and that's that you said that it's never the coach's fault, and what we're seeing is that there is some culpability here. That's just humans being human. So I tend to, and also Davies, I don't feel like he's had a ton of issues with this. It's not like he does this all the time, right? It's not like this is something he does.

He's an honest guy, but for the most part, he's pretty measured and he's pretty buttoned up about when he wants to say something. So some of this is also just frustration. He thought this season would be going better than it is, right? Yeah, and he's like buttoned up about like when he wants to say something. So some of this is also just frustration. He thought this season would be going better than it is right now. Yeah, and he's like, I get it. It's happening again and I'm frustrated about that

but to call it our fault is disingenuous and makes me frustrated because it could possibly, if I agree with you, it could possibly get some, myself or my coaches fired and I don't think that they should be. And he's got a point there. He's got a point there. I think both sides have a point,

but that's where my read is, just from seeing this happen in the past. It's been a tumble for the Nats since that World Series win. I mean, they haven't had a 450 winning percentage in any of the years since then. So I thought around this time last year, that rebuild might be a little ahead of schedule.

They've actually taken a step back in winning percentage with this recent slide. So yeah. They should be better than they are, for sure. They're more talented. And it goes beyond Davey, it goes beyond his staff. That goes up to the front office level and not getting as much as they should out of players.

And I don't know. I'm also surprised they're not better. And the thing that made them really good for a little while was an appetite to spend at top levels in free agency. They were able to take, well, a couple of one-one generational type players and supplement them with some really good talent in free agency

and had a lot of things come together all at once and trying to replicate that is tough when you're not getting the big budget to spend the same way that you used to. That's also a missing piece, think right now in Washington. All right we ran real long on the communication talk but I think it's just it's a fascinating topic because we get the information we have there's always going to be some stuff we don't have and the full explanation can be a little bit

elusive sometimes. Let's talk about the returns from Tommy John surgery, just for a couple minutes. I think people thought that Shohei Otani looked a little bit more stiff, more robotic in his delivery in that first outing back. The challenging thing that we talked about earlier in the week is he is rehabbing in major league games. He's not on a rehab assignment airing it out. He's just out there starting a game, trying to feel good again after having Tommy John

back in September of 23. So Trevor, you were talking to us during our meeting a little bit about this. Like what often kind of comes later as guys are working their way back through the final stages of rehab and even just getting back into game Situations for the first time post tj I think guys look rusty

But they the rust manifests in a few different ways The two examples that i've been thinking a lot before even before shohei who has a very unique situation as well Was strider and sandy alcantara like they both came back from tommy john this year Strider and Sandy Alcantara. Like they both came back from Tommy John this year. They both came back from getting hurt right after really good stretches of years. And so you have very stark contrast between old them and new them,

which then scares everybody, right? We all wanna be like, ah, like what's wrong with them? But in reality, they're rusty because they just haven't been in big league competition. Let me put this in context for, because I really struggled with it. Getting my velocity back was one big issue for me. Striders looks like stuff, I'll just say velocity and stuff

are kinda close to synonymous in this situation because they're indicative of one another. He's like looking up and seeing 93, 94 and he's like, I don't know how to operate at 93, 94 with throwing high fastballs or just throwing tons of sliders. I have to kinda change my way of pitching and I need to be, but how do I do that while I'm being patient with my velocity coming

back? Like it's not that he's soft, but it's not what it used to be. I saw a 92 the other day. He hasn't seen a 92 since high school. So he's like, this is terrifying. I remember thinking that being like 91, uh oh, can I get anybody out at 91? And I got to figure out how to do this. Or you got to trust your V.L.O.V.E. is coming back. Or it can be Sandy, who is a, he is a command guy who throws 99. That's how you win Cy Youngs. And his command went to, oh, I can just throw right down the middle.

He was feeling a little robotic and just getting on time is very hard to do. You gotta do your, you gotta get your mechanics over and over and over again. And there's certain mechanical things, your body forgot because you were gone for over a year. You go one off season with a, you throw for the first time in the offseason or for four months off You're like have I ever done this before I feel like I'm on another planet

And that's just kind of because it's something you're so used to doing then you just stop and that is what it is for them And also both sides Everyone says you have this time off Let's clean up all the stuff we get we wanted we wouldn't be able to clean up if we weren't hurt That turns into sometimes thinking about mechanics and thinking about movement patterns way more than you ever would have because you never get a chance to operate without thinking about them because there's no stakes, you're not competing. So you go out there and you compete, it's just a different ballgame.

No matter how much you simulate it, it does not matter. Once you're out there and there's no guardrails, you kind of revert into whatever defaults are and some of those defaults got forgotten and you gotta work on them. That's what we saw with Shohei. He hit 100, so he's like feeling fine. It's been 21 months too.

This isn't a 12 month, 21 months is a, that's five months past I was when I was in a big league game. He's had a lot of time since he pitched, but he has been around the game, so it was like, yeah, he's got the stuff, but it's just rust in terms of like, he's gonna get fluid again, you just learn that. And then whatever type of guy they are,

their ability to sim things, it changes. I could not throw a pitch over 91 in warmups. Could not do it. Couldn't do it in a bullpen. I throw 90 tops in a bullpen. First pitch, I go out, come out of the bullpen, I'll be warming up 88, 89, 89, 89, 89, first guy comes in, 97. And it's like, I needed the, come out of the bullpen, I'll be warming up 88, 89, 88, 89, 89, first guy comes in, 97.

And it's like, I needed the guy. I needed the competition, I needed that extra, oh, if I give up a homer here, I'll look bad. That was something that literally drove me, and you don't get that when you're rehabbing. There's something really interesting about what you're just describing there, is that competition, that high level of competition,

and then trying to get reacquainted with yourself and trying to be relaxed on some level too. And, you know, I reached out to actually Jack, Jack Lambert over at, at driveline reached out to me because we'd been talking about glove side command before, and what you saw with, with Otani was he, he was lacking glove side command. He was yanking things, uh, to the glove side. And so he talked to some of his trainers, the drive line, and they said, going back to the drive line phase, we were reliant.

And that's that's a that's a term of art, not drive line. The place that's drive line is a sort of talking about the driving to the plate. And it's the line of driving. Yeah, exactly. Not what's it named after? Yeah. Yeah. And we're relying on scap retraction, which is the shoulder you're reaching back for VELO basically. Scap retraction, shoulder external ratio is what you're doing with the shoulder as you're going back to get more VELO. We're relying on that to create that hand arc and the VELO that aligns with the plate. Generally a pitcher who isn't confident in his body doesn't want

to create that separation across pieces in the chain. So he's often less comfortable going into layback, that's when your elbow is sort of back and your hands behind your elbow. Less comfortable separating the elbow from the torso, scapular traction. For example, when you see someone throwing after TJ, they often look quite compact and trying to keep everything bundled together to protect themselves. And I think back to, I was just talking to Dylan Cease and he said we were trying to do something mechanically and then I said I just need to be you know athletic down the mound and that's when things started to click for me. Things are going better for him since he said that. But also I think of Cole Regans after two Tommy Johns he'd been three years I think off the off the mound where

he'd just been flat grounding and they said at Tread they said that he'd been three years, I think, off the mound where he'd just been flat grounding. And they said at Tread, they said that he'd started to do things that you only do on flat ground. Like you just, like there was mechanically weird things you do on flat ground that you don't do off the mound. And then he said, lastly, one of the things we told him was now you're ready, you're trusted, be competitive, throw it. But then with Otani being on the mound, trying to be relaxed and rehabbing, but

on the mound in a professional game, in a major league game, he says, you know, we overcome these issues. This is Jack Lambert game. We overcome these issues by being confident in your elbow and being relaxed to access those ranges of motion. Effectively rehabbing in a major league baseball game is not a very relaxing task. So there's a tension between relaxation so that you can feel athletic

and just sort of move down the mound versus wanting to be competitive. So there's that tension, like you can be free and easy at 88 or whatever in rehab, and that's like you sort of rehab you. And then that free and easiness allows you to get on the mound and get 97 when you're competitive. And he's trying to kind of combine both of those things at the same time.

I had that exact conversation just when I came off the IL, I was in AAA, I got optioned, which was the last option, which that is like, am I, is it over? Am I done? Am I done? And I remember I called Dad LaVena and said, hey, I'm a reliever. We're not, they're trying to start me again. I was honestly throwing as hard as I did as a starter, maybe a little over like 90 to 93. And I was like, this just isn't me anymore. I don't still think this is me anymore. Feels like I'm not getting back or I can't compete like this.

And I remember saying, I just want to go out and throw, like, let it eat for, and see what comes back. I'm tired. I feel as a starter like very like I'm throwing sinkers and stuff Like I'm just trying to trying to work through and that's just I there's more in there and I need to get in that mindset I said I want to be a reliever and my pitching coach said oh, you just want to go kick up dust That's what he said Just go go do it like you're at the point now where you just want to go do it and become a reliever you think well And after you do that and also I looked around and the other four starters of my rotation were all in the 40 man.

I was like, and they're all 23 and I'm 29. So I'm like, hey, maybe I'll see what's left in there. And then what happened, the end of that year, I closed the last game for the big leagues, Joe Mowers last game of his career. And so like, that was the best decision I think I ever made in my career saying that. But in that spirit, I was just like, I just want to go and like feel my body just compete again

because my barm hasn't hurt at all. I'm not worried about it at all. It hasn't, I haven't had a setback at all and it worked out. But that is kind of effectively what's being said and what guys need to find a way to do that in order to get back to where they are. But fortunately, we just saw Strider and Sandy Alccontra both kind of take that step, in my opinion. I saw that again from them. And I think Shohei was like, also you go out there like, I hope this goes well,

it's the first one back. Like, let's start on a good foot here. There's a lot of that. So next time he goes, he's gonna look much more smooth, trust me. It'll be maybe not all fixed, but like much better than the first. It was crazy that he was throwing 100

and Tatis just deposited that in the outfield. That probably annoyed Otani. A little bit. Maybe it simultaneously annoyed him, but it was also like, all right, I'm back. I'm back in a big league game. This is the thing that happens in the big leagues. So let's go.

All right, now that Eno's nerves have to calm down, it's time for our first Who Am I Since May, I think. It's been several, several weeks. I give a series of clues, Eno and Trevor. Try to guess who this mystery player is after each round of clues. First person to be right gets the point. I believe the season series is 4-0 Trevor, is that right?

I guess, dude, he won the other game that we did. Yeah, you won an ambush. An ambush, yeah. Yeah, you never know when the ambush is gonna happen. Gonna go for, gonna go for name that dude. My first clue for this week's name that dude. I was born February 15th, 1986 in San Pedro de Macri's Dominican Republic.

That does not narrow down. Oh, come on. All right, no guesses. 1986. No no random guesses. In my major league debut I gave up one run on one hit over seven innings with ten strikeouts and no walks against the Arizona Diamondbacks. Really nice debut. Where's Pedro Martinez from? He is way older than that. He was not born in 1986, so he's not Pedro. Next clue. I finished sixth or higher in Cy Young award voting on three occasions, but I never won the award. Edison Volquez.. Edison Volquez.

Not Edison Volquez, fun name. Gio Gonzalez? Also a fun name, not Gio Gonzalez. In 2014, I led the National League with 243 and two-thirds innings pitched and 242 strikeouts. Producer Brian says Nolan Ryan isn't the answer. I only have, I'm thinking Dominican, urban Santana? Not urban Santana. I was gonna guess him.

I think we're living in the right era with a lot of these guesses now. Ubaldo Jimenez. Not Ubaldo Jimenez. He's not Ubaldo Jimenez. He's a little older than that I think. This next clue might be the one that unlocks it. I was a member of a World Series winning team in 2015 and I threw a complete game in my only start

during the World Series. Javier Vazquez? Not Javier Vazquez. No, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no. Who's the other one? There's another one. Who's on the team? It's not him.

Nolan Ryan isn't answering. You got a guess, Trevor? Introducing Brian to Nolan Ryan. All right, he doesn't have it. Next clue. While I have not announced my retirement, I pitched just 11 and a third innings in the majors in 2020. Johnny Quedo!

Yes! I'm not sure I'm going to be able to do that. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to do that. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to do that. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to do that. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to do that. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to do that. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to do that. I clue, while I have not announced my retirement, I pitched just 11 and a third innings in the majors in 20- Johnny Quedo! Yes, Johnny Quedo!

Aww, damn it. They had Guthrie, Chris Young, Volquez, Jordan, and him. Yeah, that Royals team in 2015. And I couldn't think of Johnny Johnny Quito There he is on a horse from his Instagram account. That's it's an all-timer great photo of Johnny What was your last hint was that he provided Trevor with his last major league strikeout because that's also true Front door cutter times pictured on horses really loves he loves miniature horses, too Yeah, I was gonna start naming the teams he played for.

I figured the World Series clue was the one that was gonna break it through and then, you know. Royals, man, I was like, he's on the Royals team, which one, who am I? I was gonna have Volquez, but yeah, of course it's Cueto. Yeah, well played. My next guest was gonna be Annabelle Sanchez. I mean, yeah, but you're living in the right era,

so I feel like this is improvement overall. And look, maybe we'll bring it back again next week. I think this increased confidence for Eno can only be a good thing, but we need to go. If you want to join our Discord, you can do that with the link in the show description. Find us on Blue Sky. Eno's just EnoSaris. I am Trevor May. I am DVR. Thanks to our producer, Brian Smith, for putting this episode together. That's gonna do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We're back with you on Friday. Thanks for listening.

People like it when I call them Big Dumper. I don't know why, they just like the way it sounds when I say Big Dumper. Yeah, baby.