Rates & Barrels - Early panic in D.C. and the Bronx, fast starts from Ramón Laureano and Jazz Chisholm, and celebrations of choice

Episode Date: April 16, 2021

Eno, Britt & DVR discuss the early struggles of key rotation members for the Nationals and Yankees, Chris Paddack, Ramón Laureano's fast start on the basepaths, the Atlantic League rules labs, bringing new ideas to the broadcast booth, Jazz Chisholm's start to 2021, an injury-free career redo, and how they might celebrate doubles.  Rundown 2:19 Concerns about the Nats’ Rotation Beyond Strasburg? 12:00 April Trade Rumors; the Yankees' Slow Start 21:44 Chris Paddack’s Early Struggles 24:29 Ramón Laureano's Fast Start on the Basepaths 27:05 An Opportunity to Run More Often League-Wide? 31:33 Atlantic League Experiments & The Quest for More Balls in Play 39:02 Bringing Something New to TV 47:31 Jazz Chisholm's Strong Start to 2021 52:25 An Injury-Free Career Redo? 59:12 Celebrations at Second Base Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow Britt on Twitter: @Britt_Ghiroli Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to the Rates & Barrels YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/RatesBarrels Subscribe to The Athletic for just $3.99/mo to start: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It is Friday, April 16th. Derek Van Ryper, Eno Saris, Britt Giroli, the whole band back together. It's actually been two full weeks since the three of us were all on the same show together. So it's good to be back with both of you because the three-person show is the most fun show of the week. It is. I missed you guys. Eno, you look rejuvenated, relaxed, rested. I'm sure you're none of those things. Eno is back. I wasn't. I wasn't.

Waxed? Rested? I'm sure you're none of those things. Eno is back. I wasn't. I wasn't. I ate terrible food for a week and fell out of touch and didn't sleep well because we're all in one hotel room and in one little car for 2,500 miles. But now I've run 25 miles in the last six days. I've got my body back. I feel a little better.

I'm going to drink some beers tonight. Everything is good. Splushed it all. Vacation from your vacation. I always feel like that too. I get myself like that buffer day. Because you always need a vacation from your vacation. It sounds weird.

But I know everyone here and everyone listening can relate. It's a totally different world. You've got to get back. Especially with kids. Yeah. Got to transition back into the normal day-to-day life. A lot to talk about in this episode. We're going to talk about pushing the panic button.

There are a few teams that are off to poor starts or at least have shown some considerable warning signs with some areas of their roster that are particularly important to their success this season. We'll talk about a few fast starters and whether or not their fast starts are real in any sense of the word. We'll talk about a few fast starters and whether or not their fast starts are real in any sense of the word.

We're going to get to a Twitter question that was bouncing around. We'll talk about one player for each of us that we wished would have had an injury-free career because I saw Grady Sizemore trending on Twitter, clicked through, and that was the prompt. So we'll talk about that, talk about some things that have us in awe this season, and we will share on base celebrations because we're seeing some new ones with the start of the new season. We'll share what we would do if we were ever good enough to put a ball in play and find our way out to second base in a major league game. So lots to get to. Let's start with the panic button. Let's start with the Nats. I feel like we always start with the Nats with Britt, and that's not fair. But look, you covered the team for several years,

and they are interesting because they've got star power. The problem they have right now, I think, is twofold. Steven Strasburg has reduced velocity. Eno and I talked about that a bit on the rained out, comcasted out Wednesday installment of Rates and Barrels that we did on Thursday. But then Patrick Corbin, as soon as that episode went up, proceeded to get blasted by Arizona. And he was bad in his first start against the Dodgers as well. So you got two starters with the Nats really struggling right now. Their strength, when they're good, is having a strong rotation. If you take two guys in that group and make them below average starters,

even just average starters, that's a pretty big blow to their hopes of hanging around and surprising people to win the NLEs. So Britt, what have you seen from Strasburg and Corbin so far? Because of the two, my gut reaction is to be a lot more worried about Corbin because he's got less stuff to work with. Yeah, although honestly, watching Strasburg rub his shoulder in the dugout, which they got mad about and covered the next game, watching him kind of rub the area between his neck and his shoulder for a guy who's had so many injuries is alarming too. So I think I'm equally worried about both of them.

Because Strasburg, this team goes nowhere without Steven Strasburg. You can argue they go nowhere without Patrick Corbin either. Certainly the two of them together is alarming. And I put that game on yesterday from the start, guys. And early on, it was like, okay, maybe Corbin's getting ambushed. That's happened to him before. It's actually happened to Max Scherzer a lot. The first inning historically with a lot of really good pitchers is the inning to get to them, right? While they're settling in, trying to figure out the strike zone, trying to get a feel for all their pitches. But Corbin never settled in. And this isn't isolated. Corbin has had a rough start to the season, also had a late start to the season. And Jon Lester is still not part of their rotation. I mean, we are now, what, more than two weeks into the season. And Jon Lester is still not part of their rotation. I mean, we are now, what,

more than two weeks into the season, and you're still missing part of your rotation. The rest of the guys aren't going. As you mentioned, Derek, the Nationals are built on this philosophy of starting pitching. This is how they won in 2019. They put their starting pitchers in the bullpen to throw in the World Series. That is how much they believe in this. This is what Mike Rizzo does. And you can't just go out and buy another Patrick Corbin, buy another Steven Strasburg. I mean, these are frontline guys. And I'm curious to see what Eno thinks because Eno, I kind of had them, I was much higher on them going into the season than you were. You did kind of that rotation ranking. And I think a lot of people were surprised that the Nationals, you had below

several teams in the NL East. And I'm wondering, did you kind of see this coming? Were there things that kind of troubled you about this rotation other than mileage and relative age on a lot of their arms? I mean, I think it was also tied into that piece that we did about developing velocity, but really that was a piece about developing pitching. And I think when I saw that, it opened up my eyes to how bad I think the Nationals are at developing pitching, developing, you could say developing relief pitching, developing any kind of pitching, but particularly developing starting pitching. And I think Joe Ross has had an okay start, but I just don't, I don't really believe in him

long-term because he's a two pitch pitcher without the kind of command that Corbin has. And really hasn't really developed a great amount of velocity. Voth has taken a step back. I think, you know, Fetty is not a great pitcher either. So, you know, between those, if that's your depth, did I say it wrong? No, no, no. It's just like, nope, this guy's not good. This guy's not great. No panic in D.C. Sorry, I've liked Voss before.

And, you know, when the Velo, if he can get the Velo back up and maybe, you know, there's still some potential there. But I don't know if they're going to be the the team that that gets it out of him yeah um in any case i i looked at the depth and was like this is a pretty old rotation they're gonna need the depth i don't see them having the depth um and so i i would have put them top 10 but we were kind of talking about top five and i just i didn't think that they were top five i'm glad you brought up austin both because i got text messages from two other organizations this winter asking about him because I think a lot of organizations are wondering. He goes in with this velo and then he loses it. And I think you can't blame the Nationals for all of these guys. But Austin Voth to me is a great example of development because he works out,

I believe at Eric Cressy's in the winter, that velocity goes up, he arrives at spring ready to go, and then it slowly declines. Now, who's to blame for that? It has to be the development structure and the way the program is structured around velocity, right? I mean, to me, that's what it would seem to be. And you're kind of hinting at if you were to go to Tampa Bay or go to, you know, Milwaukee, like what would they do with an Austin Voth? I think we all kind of like their chances better, right? Could he do better under a better system? I just think it's interesting because there was a bunch of interest in him as a buy low trade candidate this winter. I think one of the key problems here with this Nats team too is that they don't have the prospects

stockpiled that they can trade away to fix their flaws on the fly, right? They have to find corrective action with both Strasburg and Corbin. They have to get those guys right because they can't add big ticket players to this team over the course of the season. They just don't have enough young talent to give up to make it happen. That speaks to scouting. It speaks to draft position, which hasn't been great for them because they've been a winning team. But Why do they have pop-up guys? Why did Tony Gonsolin go from 39th round pick or whatever to being a viable starting pitcher in the major leagues? Because they said, hey, why don't you do this, do this?

Why don't you throw this? Why don't you do this? So they're pretty good at coaching their players, and I just don't see that from the Nationals. good at coaching their players and i just don't see that from the from the nationals i think i'm not saying that like the cart like carter key boom if he fails is like all on the nationals you know there is some you know the player himself has some part of it maybe they just he wasn't as good as we thought he was whatever uh but there should have been somebody else that popped up next to key boom right there should have been like oh we thought it was going to be key boom but instead it's this other guy that just like popped

up out of nowhere and because we're good at player development you know instead it's zach mckinstry the dodgers just have like zach mckinstry's they just like wake up and they're like oh what's this oh a zach mckinstry yeah no you're right it's it would be a curious story to write is like how many teams have had success past the seventh or eighth round, right? Because that's where the real, to me, like the three of us on this podcast could probably pick through the first round. Maybe even the first couple if you're like Keith Law and you've done your research. A lot of consensus, right? time is that scouting directors and all the people you know in that realm earn their money in the later rounds there's a big leaguer in every in every round so who's gonna get him who's gonna find him uh and you're right the dodgers have a lot of depth and they're a good team the yankees are another organization that consistent never tanks and consistently finds those guys right these guys pop up um you know even the smaller market teams you have to give credit to cleveland

seems to always have these guys as well and And they're not, they're not consistently picking in the top five or anything. So you're right. Where are the, where the nationals pops? Where's the random 12th rounder who comes up and, you know, all of a sudden is their stud eighth inning guy. They just don't have that.

Where is their Trevor May? You know, where are these guys? Dustin May. Yeah. You know what I mean? Max, Max is, max is looking good um strasburg i think it's just a health issue so we did talk about how he's throwing the sinker now

that can't be good good for strasburg because it's like you know he used to have a four seamers great ride now that's kind of gone and that's a that's a multi-year story so that is age and health decline uh so i'd almost rather he was hurt and went on the shelf and came back with a better better stuff you know yeah uh then i would be more uh less concerned about him the corbin situation is really interesting because he still shows up as having above average command by command plus he never had good stuff by by stuff numbers um and so i just he's trying to is he trying to throw a cutter it's trying to it's showing a little bit has he talked about it yeah and but he says he's a guy who lives and dies off the slider he's a guy who you know what he's going to do to you and he still does it and that's what makes him so good

is when he's picking up strikeouts on the slider. That seems impossible for like 15 years. You know what I mean? Yeah. To keep that. Well, Mariano Rivera would beg to differ there, you know? Yeah,

but he was doing one inning, you know, he's doing one inning. I think getting, getting through five or six innings with two pitches just seems like a, a, a huge lift. I would never have given him that contract.

Yeah. It's going to be, uh, in DC through 2024 as it lines up right now. So figuring something out important much longer than just this season. Nats 3-7 entering the weekend. Bottom of the NL East for now. Could change your fortune pretty quickly this early, of course.

But getting those guys on track, key for them. We got to do an April trade situation. Oh, yeah. Eno has a trade for everyone to get mad about is uh max is in his uh final year right yes yeah full no trade though so you got to go somewhere where you think max will accept it max scherzer to the get on your segway zoom zoom zoom zoom yankees i think he would accept that actually i think he would accept that yes i think it would be huge for the yankees it would we're you know we're gonna talk about the

yankees in a second i think would be a big big deal for the yankees rotation it would change a lot of that's a lot of their the complexity of that rotation um and the nationals might get something fun out of it there There are enough young Yankee starters that they could do a quick rebuild, right? Because the Nationals want to be good again while Soto's there. So what they need to do is find some starting pitching quickly and getting something like,

I don't know, this might be too much. This is where people get really mad. But like, I don't know, this might be too much. This is where people get really mad. But like, Davey Garcia plus like, is that too much? You're making that face. For two months of Scherzer? Yeah. I don't think the Yankees are doing that. Okay, let's aim lower then. King?

King and Luis Gil, maybe? King and Schmidt? Maybe. And with Schmidt, maybe you can pull that off because we've seen injured prospects get kind of packaged into deals as throw-ins because there's a lot more risk associated with them. That might be the way the Nats can get that extra arm back that they wouldn't get

if they were insisting on another healthy option. Then you still need a better pitching development program because they're young guys and you need to make them good. So maybe they shouldn't. Maybe they should target something else in that system. They should go with position players. Or just try the one for one. It'd be like, hey, we're just going to put it.

Just give us Davey because he's the most developed. And we're not going to ask for anything else. Of course, the Yankees want to be like, well, we'll give you these three guys in A-ball that are 19 years old. Yeah. Right. Who the Nats are like, well, we don't really know if we'll develop them. Well, they're not going to say that.

I feel like Eno and I are the only ones sounding this alarm. And we need guys now because of Soto. Yeah. We need guys now because of Soto. Yeah. But you're not going to get anything for Corbin. I don't think you can get anything for Strasburg because at this point,

what the executives are saying is that the hardest thing to do is to trade money away. Oh, yeah. That's why Corbin's not going anywhere. I mean, we're talking, what, $23 million a year? Yeah. Yeah, Strasburg probably stuck there, too, for at least a while. But, okay, so here's my question for you guys with the Yankees. Cole, Kluber, Tyone, Montgomery. Right now, it's Michael King. Severino's still working his way back from Tommy John. We've talked about Garcia as a possible guy that could be traded away for Scherzer or for other pitching help, depending on what else ends up being available. Jonathan Loaizaga working out of the bullpen right now. Always kind of gets in that conversation for a back-end spot. What are you most concerned about in that rotation right now?

Who are you most concerned about? Tyon's been knocked around a bit, but he's got a 10-1 K-BB in his first two starts. Kluber doesn't look like he's coming back to Klubot levels anytime soon, but can he right the ship? We were talking before, we were recording about Jordan Montgomery a little bit. I mean, who are you most worried about, especially of those middle three starters? Uh,

I'll tell you the one I'm worried about least that's Tyone. I actually, I think I've seen the VLO is pretty good. He's a three pitch mix guy, the stuff numbers and the command numbers above average. Um, I've seen a little bit of what he's doing. I think he's good. He was always going to struggle a little bit going from a Pittsburgh

park to New York park, NL lineups to AL lineups. There was always going to be some sort of numbers adjustment there. But eventually, with the strikeout minus walks looking good, with the stuff looking good, I'll bet on Tyon to actually be pretty good. I don't know how many innings he's got just because the two Tommy Johns, I'd probably be careful with him, probably do some extended rest. I don't know if he has an option left, but something, maybe a Phantom DL stint, that sort of deal. But I like him. Kluber, the stuff number is terrible right now. It's at 86. The command is actually above average, but it's not to where he used to be.

And he never was like a huge stuff guy, but he was more of a command guy. So the walks actually bother me. And if you look at his strikeout minus walk rate, it's not good. The walks are there. But I think he might be able to get to manageable and have some great starts, which will light up my mentions because I talked about his command being bad.

But I think he'll be okay. But there's a question of innings. Montgomery, I'm actually kind of worried about because the stuff is really low. The command is okay, but I don't think that he's ready to step in. So basically what I'm saying is they've got a one, a two, who didn't tie on, maybe a two-three, and then a bunch of fives. That becomes more of a problem in the postseason when you shorten up the rotation, right?

I mean, it might be good enough to get you there. It might be good enough to win the division if everybody stays healthy, but are you going to stack up against the best offenses in the American League with the rotation as it's currently built? I think that's where it probably breaks down. That's why you want Severino or Max Scherzer. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. Because right now, you're relying on Cole to go really deep into games.

Otherwise, you're just screwed the rest of the week almost, it seems like, because no one else is giving you that length. I agree with you. I think Kluber and Montgomery to me are a little more like warning bells, I think, because Kluber was supposed to essentially be their healthy number two guy almost, wasn't he? Supposed to kind of be that slot in or that's how they painted it. I'm also a little concerned with the lineup. I know they're not going to all slip at the same time, which is what's happening now, but they're not hitting home runs. And they've gotten crushed for being over-reliant on home runs. Right now, they're middle

of the pack. Given where they play, given who's on this team, they should not be anywhere outside of the top 10 in home runs at any point in the season. That doesn't mean they have to only score their, you know, they don't have to be over-reliant on the home run.

But you've got those boppers in the lineup. And I think we talked about this on the show, like how scary their lineup is when healthy. And to see them 16th in home runs and to see their ground ball rate where it is, I think you look at this lineup and it's concerning. You're concerned for the bullpen because they're getting overused on every start that's not Garrett Cole. And you could see how this early panic in Yankee land has set in because there's really nothing besides Garrett Cole that makes you feel really great about this team right now. Well, I'm hoping that the injury returnees in Luis Severino and Luke Voigt will be big. But as much as I say that, with the Yankees team the way it is, you kind of always expect to have at least two guys of that stature on the DL. Yeah.

It's like, okay, Voight and Severino come back and Tyon and Judge go on the DL. That's just how this team is going to be. They're always going to have two big stars on the DL, it seems like. So they should be able to get past this. But I think maybe some of their depth isn't quite where it was before. I mean, going to Bruce at first, you know, I think I saw Jeff Zimmerman say that the comp for Bruce these days is a bad second catcher offensively.

Cold. So there's that. Yeah, that's not great. It's kind. So there's that. Yeah, that's not great. It's kind of like the White Sox running Zach Collins out there at DH. At least that's not really happening anymore. So my question for you guys with the bats, Urshela, Torres, and Hicks especially, and Stanton, have really been the big disappointments in that lineup so far.

Judges hit. LeMay Hughes hit. Gary's hitting, which people are excited about, even though if Gary hits two homers and then has a passed ball in the same game, everyone remembers the passed ball for some reason. Yeah.

No, you know what? I'm glad you said that. Give Gary his due along with Garrett Cole. Gary Sanchez has been a bright spot for the Yankees. Damn it. Someone say something nice. Kyle Higashioka has been really good too. So the catching battery has been great so far.

All that thunder in that bat. Are you worried about any one of Torres or Hicks or Stanton or Urshela? I'm not. I default to their respective track records. I mean, Urshela has a pretty short track record as a guy that they've sort of developed in his late 20s. But I think he's fine. He's a great defender.

Doesn't strike out that much. Torres, to me, 2019 was real. We saw from him. He's going to get back to that level. I know Hicks is striking out a little bit more than usual right now. But I don't look at that group and have a panic feeling. No, you're right. They're going to be fine.

My concern with Stanton is like what Eno said. My concern is those two guys come back, somebody else hits the IL. So I do think the pitching is more of a concern than the lineup long term. I think if you're Brian Cashman. I mean, hitters we always talk about this like it's April 16th.

It's cold still. There's the wind factor. It's like, you know, it's snowing in Denver. I know they're not playing in Denver, but as an example, the conditions in April are totally different than they are for most of the season. I don't think you panic about the offense, but to me, the pitching is the bigger issue. While there's probably panic in the air on the Bronx, it doesn't seem warranted at this point. We have a player question come in from John. John's in a 10-team head-to-head mixed league, four bench spots. And he writes, it's making it difficult to carry Paddock right now. It seems his fastball isn't right and hasn't been for a while. I stare at him wanting to drop him, but he can't bring himself to do it yet.

What's the level of concern with Chris Paddock, who definitely showed us some flaws during the shortened season? I mean, I think about a guy like that, and in a 10-team league, maybe you could justify cutting him. I think in like a 12- or a 15-team league, I still want to try to stream him at home because it's still a great place for him to pitch, even with those flaws. We've thrown pitchers much less talented than chris paddock out there at petco for a long time yeah i actually see some

improvement on his fastball too he's got some of the ride back he just doesn't have it back to where it was in 2019 so he just still has some work to do but the good news is he knows about that problem he's trying to fix it he's made some progress um and um the bad news is he's gone back to being basically a two-pitch pitcher so i think with his command the command still looks good still above average by command plus i know it didn't look amazing in the last start uh but with his command he can kind of make that change up be more than one pitch because he can pitch to both sides of the part to both sides of the plate um i i am a cautious hold on him i might not start him in la but i'd start him maybe 70 of the time time, 75% of the time. Yeah, definitely not the matchup-proof pitcher that he appeared to be back in 2019 when he had that breakout. I think some of the warts we've seen are real, but there's still enough there where you want to probably hold him.

And in Dynasty, I think this might be a great time, especially if you're rebuilding and you're trying to get assets for the future, I think it might be a great time to feel out and see if you can get him for, I don't normally say you should trade for pitching in Dynasty but you need pitching eventually and you might be able to get him for fairly cheap and this might be a good time because he does you know, he has worked on that curveball

and there was a cutter there, so there is still a chance that a year this year a year in the future um he comes back with like a cutter that works uh the fastball has its ride back and everything clicks and everything you know will turn out a little bit better than you might expect because he starts with such great command so i think he's a buy in dynasties there you go hope that John. Hopefully that eases some of your concerns about what you've seen from Paddock so far here in 2021. All right, let's get to our next segment here.

Is this real? We're looking for some early season surprises and trying to decide what to make of what we've seen here in these first couple of weeks. First one that caught my eye, guys. It was a good effort. It was a really good effort. The first one that caught my eye on the Stolten Base leaderboard, Ramon Laureano. Eight steals

already. Of course, that pace would put him over 100 for the season. The question is not, will Ramon Laureano steal 100 bases this year? Is it time to look into this situation, you know, and say, maybe Ramon Laureano is going to steal more than 20 bags or more than 25 bags with this fast start? Is there any reason to believe the A's might have to be just more aggressive as a team on the base pass,

given the way their offense is constructed this year? Well, two good signs for him and for his stolen base total, I guess, is that a number of attempts actually stabilizes kind of fast. For example, spring training team attempts, stolen base attempts, is actually sticky. So how often a team tries to steal in the spring carries over to how often they do it in the regular season. And if you are taking off a lot, you tend to keep taking off a lot. The other thing is he's only been caught once.

So I think it behooves the team to say, yeah, let her rip. And then I think you're right also about that third aspect, which is that the A's are not an amazing offense at least not right now with Olsen and Chapman not necessarily hitting on all cylinders and so I think that they may need to to push the the game a little bit and and try to get runners in scoring position quicker and that's going to be all part of it. Yeah, I think the over-under for Laureano at this point might be over 30. It's wild because he's run on different teams too. Early last season, Tommy Pham had a series

where I think he stole four bases at the beginning of the season against Arizona. And the same kind of questions popped up. Everyone was like, oh, Tommy Pham might steal 30 bases this year. And when you looked at it, it was like, oh, actually this was a matchup bases this year. And when you looked at it, it was like, oh, actually, this was a matchup situation that he was really taking advantage of.

But we saw Laureano get two against Houston. I think it was, yeah, two against Houston, and those were two separate series, three against Arizona, and three against the Dodgers. So he's running on different teams, different catchers. That, to me, is really encouraging in addition to the success rate being high. It could be a little sign of like what's going on in baseball, which is that we've gone away from emphasizing arms on catcher defense

because we want framers first of all, and then blockers second probably, and then run preventers third because there's just fewer and fewer stolen bases. So that part of the game just doesn't matter as much to talent evaluation. But Robo-Umps are now approaching and they are in high A this year. They've gone from the AFL to short A to high A.

That means double A next year. I mean, if you continue the timeline, we're talking about Robo-Umps in the major leagues by like 2023 or something. Yep. Which means all of a sudden that huge part of the catching game will just be taken out. And all of a sudden somebody like Real Muto will be a better option for teams. And then they'll start looking for offensive catchers that can block, basically. You could have the catcher sit further behind the plate now

because he doesn't have to frame anymore. Yep. Well, I think baseball wants stolen bases to come back, too. I think they want that exciting part of the game to come back. Like, they're going to move the mound back, right, in the Atlantic League. That gives guys, theoretically, more time, more precious tenths of a second to steal a base. They're making the bases bigger.

That's what I was going to say. They made the bases bigger. I think they want that to come back. So I think you have to be careful in balancing what's good now for your team and then what new rules are coming. I think a lot of people are kind of anxiously waiting on that new CBA to see, okay, are stolen bases a thing? Are they not a thing? Can we build our team around this? Do we care about framers? You're right. With the robo-imps coming, the way you evaluate catchers is going to fundamentally change a lot. And I don't think

people realize just what kind of impact that could have moving forward. Yeah. I'm really curious to see how some of the experiments in the Atlantic League go. Jason Stark wrote those up earlier this week. If you want to check those out in detail, I mean, that's just where Major League Baseball is going to tinker away. And the double hook, I think we talked about it when it was first put out there by Jason, where the DH goes away when the starting pitcher leaves the game. That to me, if you're not going to have universal DH, that to me is a good compromise. It creates some interesting decisions that have to be made, and it puts a value on depth,

especially for teams. But doesn't it also just make Cap Nelson Cruz plate appearances at 450 for the year? Yeah, that's the downside. Yeah, late career David Ortiz, Nelson Cruz, guys like that especially would end up getting punished by it. It really depends on what the goals of the game are. If the goals are to increase the value of depth, then that sort of thing makes a little bit of sense. But if the goal is to just max out offense, then universal DH is easily the better way to go.

Yeah, well, the Mount thing I think is super interesting, and I'll probably have a follow-up next week, because I'm talking to different people about the way the pitch coming across the plate will change, because it'll be a foot further, so the angle, if you just think about

the flight of a ball, the angle will be different, and that angle being different, I think, will do some things that may surprise people. And so, I'm thinking about looking into sort of a best case, worst case. There is a worst case here with moving the mound back that is

pretty terrible. So, I hope that the Indy League players don't have to deal with that worst-case scenario. It seems a little bit like experimenting on live human beings that aren't being paid and aren't in the system.

That's not super lovely. But Indie Leagues have a little bit more cachet right now because there's fewer minor league teams. And so there's probably better talent in Indie Le have a little bit more cachet right now because there's fewer minor league teams. There's probably better talent in indie leagues right now. People are willing to do this to try and get back into baseball, into Major League Baseball. It's really interesting. There's also people like CJ Wilson. We were having a debate yesterday on Twitter about whether or not there is a problem at all in baseball that needs to be solved.

And I understand that perspective, but I still think that people pay attention more to balls in play and that stolen bases and triples are the most exciting plays in the game, or at least among the most exciting plays in the game. So I wouldn't mind having a few more of those. Yeah. It's interesting because we got a question, didn't we, Derek, about pace of play and baseballs and kind of what we do there, like what actually happens there, didn't we? Yeah, there's a question. It kind of stemmed from Eno's article about the new ball and it did a good job this email came from ryan he wrote if mlb wants to change the ball to decrease home runs presumably

to create more action with more balls in play increased drag cannot be the answer part of the reason hitters soften swing for the fences because pitching is so good that on many nights it's hard to string together multiple hits and score a run let alone put up a crooked number if ball changes increased drag it enhances pitch movements and incentivizes playing for the quick strike even more. So what do they do? Do they make the ball dead and smooth? Do they abandon ball changes and make fences taller and further away?

Do they adopt slow pitch softball rules and make home runs outs if your team has already hit three in the game and your opponent hasn't? outs if your team has already hit three in the game and your opponent hasn't. You can go down this rabbit hole of trying to fix the game and create other problems. And you have another variable that keeps changing in the ball that also could be causing some of the problems that you're trying to fix. And if you don't fix the ball, you might not be able to change the game in the ways you want to by making what looks like pretty different pretty massive alterations to the game yeah there is some news on this front um was talking with alan nathan and rob arthur yesterday and i think rob arthur might have a piece up today

about it which is that um apparently drag is not up I linked to Rob's work on that and Rob does excellent work, but he has revisited it. And apparently, uh, relate it's related to the change in weight and the change in temperature in April. Um, so drag is not up, which means that, uh, basically they, they just, uh, changed the ball so that, uh, it's deadened on the inside, but it's also lighter. And so the light, the fact that it's lighter means that there's higher exit velocities and ball so that it's deadened on the inside, but it's also lighter. And so the light, the fact that it's lighter means that there's higher exit velocities. And the fact that it's deadened on the, in the inside means that given a certain exit velocity, it's not going as far,

which I think is, is nonsensical. They should have kept the weight the way it was and deadened it a little bit, you know? Right. Yeah. Giving them more EV just means that,

basically, we're going to see no change in home run rate, is my guess, because they did two things, and they canceled each other out. Now, what was the point? Like, what was the, I thought the end goal was to keep more balls in the ballpark. Well, they said that the point was to, like,

you know, better manufacturing, all in the name of better efficiency, but the ball is a thing that we can change to change the game like you know better manufacturing all that all in the name of better efficiency but the ball is a thing that we can change to change the game you know and if we had kept the weight the same and deadened it a little bit i think that yes that would like part of the launch angle revolution is balls in the air are performing better so let's put the balls in the air if balls in the air don't perform as well, then you help baseball incentivize for more line drives. Right, right. He mentioned moving fences back. That's never happening.

Not in these stadiums. I mean, in a lot of stadiums, they move them in. Very rarely. I can't think of any off the top of my head. Can you guys where they move them back out? I can think of scenarios where they move fences in. I don't really love the mound thing either. But I generally want to keep my mind open to changes in the game, right? Like, it's been a long time. The last time we did a real major structural change in baseball was the mound going down in like 60-something. Like 68 or something. It was a while ago.

And now everyone's throwing super hard. And CJ Wilson, i don't know it was not that much fun debating him because uh you know he's like i said something about like you know athletes today are different than they were before uh we've gone from 89 to 94 and he's like ban all hard throwers i'm like oh jesus i'm not saying that i'm saying small things you know let's do small things i'm a fan of let's put the pitch clock everywhere and see if we get a little smaller velocity. Also, lightening the ball. We have velocities just went up to 93.9 from 93.5, the biggest increase year over year. And that was comparing to August velocities.

So we were comparing this April velocity to last year's August velocity, and we got 0.4 miles an hour increase. That's, I think, related to the ball being lighter. Why did we do that? Let's make the ball a little bit heavier. Let's make the ball a little bit heavier. Velo goes down. Ball a little bit heavier.

Velo goes down. Pitch clock. Velo goes down. Let's get the average Velo down to like 92.5. Yeah. Pitch clock is such a huge one to me. Like, Velo goes down. Pitch clock, Velo goes down. Let's get the average Velo down to like 92.5. Pitch clock is such a huge one to me. Velo goes down, more balls put in play. You get out that 18 to 20 minutes of just straight

dead time in baseball. Get the batter in the box. I was watching Lance McCullers the other day on Houston. I like Lance McCullers. It was a fine game, but I just couldn't help but notice how long he was taking between every pitch. And he went like four innings. He didn't even go that deep into the game.

But you're like, God, is this baseball? Four excruciating innings. They're already into their bullpen after that. I think Jeff Passan had this, and it's true. You also need to be limiting how many pitchers can be used in a game, barring injury. Maybe. Limit the amount of pitchers on a roster, some kind of... It's not crazy.

Some kind of revert back. You can have an active roster for the game. You can have an active roster for the game. It's like people have that in basketball, right? Who are the players that are active for today's game? But what if you only make a 22, so they cut out some pitchers? That's right. Yeah, yeah.

You can have a 26-man roster, 28-man roster for the season, but any given game, you have to declare you're 22. Right. Yeah, maybe if it goes extras or something, you can unlock an extra player or something just so there's enough guys to pitch if it goes that far. I love that. Like a video game, you unlocked an extra player.

Or like the extra man of doubleheaders, right? Who's your extra man? Who's your 22 plus one, you know? Yep. Who are you going to use if this game goes more than nine? You can have that player, and that player will know to be ready for that situation. So close, late. One arm, one bat, you know?

Mm-hmm. You know, two extra guys. Yeah. I mean, don't they do it in football? I don't know enough about football. I know they do it in basketball. I know they do it in basketball. I know they do it in basketball. Who's dressing?

Oh, yeah. They have inactives for football. Yeah. Yeah, there's seven players. It used to be eight. I think it's seven now that are inactive from the 53-man roster. And what do they do in hockey? Don't they have an emergency goalie?

They're like a guy who came in from the stands and was like, I'm the emergency goalie today. It was one of the best stories I've read on The Athletic. It was... Oh my God, I want that baseball, dude. Yeah, it's a great story. You know, Sarah says the emergency arm today. Those guys usually...

It's the 18th. Yeah, I just love the image of like, I don't know, like I don't play video games and we're allowed to have them, but like, I don't know, like unlocking the bullpen and like the gold coins go and your like score goes up. And you're like, yeah, we unlocked the pitcher. Unleash the fury. There should be like a stadium sound for it. It's extra innings. Brought to you by Master Lock.

If we want to appeal to younger audiences, we should make baseball more like a video game in general. Yeah, right. I mean... That was one thing that CJ Wilson said that was interesting was that in-game studio production, like in-game sound production and stuff like that could be used to augment the experience a little bit more than it has.

You think that's true? I mean... I like that. Well, you have to spend time around that young generation. Like you have to. I think broadcasts can do this too. Like the boots are very old. They're very white.

They're very male. You got to have a little more fun, right? In the age of like TikTok and all these little tiny Instagram reels and all this. Like you have to be able to, I don't know if it's an alternate broadcast, but have these fun little things. They have them when you go to games, right? They have the stupid little between innings entertainment for families. What about all the viewers at home? Think about the home run calls.

They're kind of stead. Yeah. It's always like, and it's out of here. I mean, I like, I'm not saying I'm not talking crap on Gary Cohen. I'm just saying like, you know, no, no, no,

it's not just, it's not like, we haven't had like a, we haven't had like an innovation, like the goal guy in, in, although that's gotten old in, in soccer,

but, um, you know, like the whole, like five slam a jam on, like, you know, like think,

I think, you know, like, you know, like cool slam dunk calls, you know? Yeah. But you know, I think that, like, you know, like, I think, you know, like, you know, like cool slam dunk calls, you know? Yeah. But, you know, I think that there is something to be said for.

And people talk about like, oh, baseball's not great at marketing itself. It's baseball is this weird collection of local and national, right? Whereas you could you could blame MLB proper for some of the marketing choices, choices. But I think they're actually trying. You've seen some of these cool videos they put together, right? Some of those are actually kind of cool. I like some of those videos that MLB proper is putting together. But then it has to float down to the local scene

because that's where your in-stadium experience is governed by the local team. Even your watching experience, if you watch most of the games, is probably governed by the local broadcasting team so they could do more like stat explainers they could do more with in terms of sounds

I'm not a producer no no no but here's the thing this is an observation I have had in the first couple weeks I'm a producer of a different medium, so I feel like I can speak on this. I am not a doctor, but... But close to it. But I am a veterinarian. about any local feed, it looks just like the other game you were watching. If you turn into a Royals game or an Angels game

or a Brewers game, right? You're watching same scorebugs, same type of conversations, same types of interviews with... Same tone. The Swedish chef calls games for which team? Which team brought him on board? I'm just trying to do the sound level.

It's true, though. It is. And I mean, but yeah, again, I'm sure it's a lot harder than we're making it out to be to fill the dead air on an 8-0 game in the third inning. But you're right. The fancy graphics, the stories, the laughs. than we're making it out to be to fill the dead air on an 8-0 game in the third inning. But you're right. Oh, yes. The fancy graphics, the stories, the laughs. I just think there needs – I think people are afraid to critique. I think more and more you're seeing broadcasts get towards the,

we only love our team. Yes, they're down 12-0 and they stink in the third inning, but we can't laugh at them. We can't say anything bad. We can't say anything mean. So you're really kind of in that one scope of okay this is what we could talk about yeah that's definitely one thing and then another thing i think in you know from our own personal experiences there's something here like budget matters right like you you know like you need you need people like that have money. What if MLB proper and we'll be, uh, writ large, unlocked some budget for local,

uh, broadcasting. Adding to the production teams for, for all those. I don't know if that works with like the way money flows and stuff. Like, because would be MLB be like technically giving money to like other organizations,

but if they could sort of unlock, or if MLB just like provided a consultant and they're sort of unlock or if mlb just like provided a consultant and they're like here's our they did like for example mlb employed all the social media people and they let half of them go right yeah do you remember that right yeah you're right and you know what like okay say i'm watching a braves game and it's super boring give me a few seconds of a cuna interview give me the freddie friedmanman ESPN special where he's crying about his mom. Yeah, go right into that. Here's Freddie Friedman.

Here's a 30-second clip of this while we're waiting for some guy to throw a pitch. What if you hired two? What if you hired a social media person and then just a broadcast consultant for every team, right? And that broadcast consultant would have some would have production experience and he would be somebody or she would be somebody would that would go out and maybe do these interviews with the digicam right and and uh have just a bunch of content right yeah and then then it's eight nothing all of a sudden you're like it's a kunya with his dog or something i don't know right right or you might come up you might come up during bp right like you can't do

it during the game you might come up during pp right? Like you can't do it during the game. You might come up during PP and it's eight to nothing. And you're like, Oh, here's some jokes that they were making earlier. Like you have time to filter out. So the inappropriate ones don't make it on. It's not a live thing.

So we don't have to be like slagging on all the local broadcasting crews, because I'm sure that at this point, I'm sure they're kind of skeleton. You know, here's the other thing. They're not traveling this year. I think that they need to be there. That's the other thing. They're not traveling this year. I think that they need to be there. That's the other thing.

They're doing it from screens. Getting used to that last year, you can... I think they do a really good job with it. Like most of the booths, you really can't tell they're not there.

They just do it well. But normally, they get to go into the clubhouse and talk to people ahead of time. Hello. Welcome to the Rates and Barrels broadcast show. What the heck happened?

I asked the question about Ramon Lariano, and we're trying to change the way 30 teams broadcast games. Like, it's out of control. I mean, this is probably a bad idea because the game will be four hours and super boring. But even a few innings, we should have live Rates and Barrels. We talked about it for the playoffs. Maybe we'll do it this year for a wild card game.

A game that's actually going to have to be exciting. It'd just be nice if it was the only game on the schedule, but then it's so hectic in the World Series. What if there's a play-in game? That might be fun. What if we just did Sunday Night Baseball better than Matt Vesgers and

A-Rod? Write us and tell us if you'd enjoy us trying to talk over a game. I'm not saying this is going to be easy. I think it's going to be much, much harder than we anticipate. I did call a game with Vince Cattroneo last year and it's definitely not easy.

We'd have to try and set up some roles for each of us. Well, I think the other thing to think about too, I go back to those KBO broadcasts ESPN started up last spring. They did a really good job rotating people on as guests. You were on for innings and

Alex Fast was on for innings. There were all sorts of different people coming in just to talk about the game. And that concept, to me, would actually work. I think one of the cool things that I know the Brewers do this. I assume most teams do this, too. Once in a while, they get David Stearns. Once in a while, they get Marc Gattanasio, right? They actually put people that you don't really hear that much from as a fan.

They actually put them on camera and they talk to them for an inning. You can do more stuff like that, and you could do it with people outside of the organization in some cases too. And I realize you run the risk anytime you're doing a live broadcast of bringing someone from the outside in. You don't know what you're going to get exactly, but you can vet people. You can figure out who would be a reasonably good guest.

You could treat every game as a podcast almost. Yeah. Put the nerds in the booth. Put the nerds in the booth put the nerds in the booth but it does take some budget because when you go on on tv they do they do pay you it's a little different actually on podcasts and radio you don't have necessarily the expectation of being paid as as a guest but there is that expectation in tv so you so once again a budget question and uh and some some of this has to do with covid but it'll be interesting to see if there are any teams

that kind of come out of this with some innovation. It definitely will be. There's a couple more is this real questions that I want to throw at you guys real quick. Jazz Chisholm off to a really nice start, hitting.258,.385 OBP, showing some power, striking out a little less than 30% of the time. He's drawing some walks, 17.9% walk rate early.

A couple homers, three steals, Britt. We're talking about a guy that is tooled up and holding his own right now and a possible position player star. He has that sort of quality. When he's playing, you want to watch him. And I think that's a really good thing for the Marlins who need new players like that to emerge after they traded away a boatload of talent over the course of this decade. Yeah, he's really fun.

And you guys have basically turned me into a nerd here, but I'm going to tell you some of this stuff anyways. Exit velocity is up. His barrel percentage is in the top 1%. He's hitting a lot more balls in the air. So I think he's a guy based on, you know, these very early reads that looks poised to continue this success because of these numbers. And, you know, it's definitely the Eno influence, I'm going to call it because when I see someone do well, I'm like, well, let me check the advanced stats here. Let me see. Is it just a good week for him? Or is this real? Is this real or not?

That's a good old-time newsy. You got the old-time newsy voice there. Because you weren't thinking about it. You just did it. That's true. It just happened. That's true. But I think he's fun.

I think he's athletic. I think he's talented. I think, as you mentioned, Derek, he's great for Miami. He's great for baseball in general. He's a guy who, like we said, put a camera on camera on that guy like I would watch that guy do mundane things there's a few guys to tease Acuna um I would watch do literally like rake the field I mean they're just fun to watch um and I think Jess Chisholm his hot start I think is more than a hot start I don't think he's going to continue at this clip, right? You don't expect Ronald Acuna to continue to keep the Braves literally

on his back and win these games. But I think he's going to not have this stark drop off. I think he is set up to have a breakout season. And I'm really glad that Miami decided it is Jazz Chisholm time and they didn't put him in the minors. They committed to, this is him. Could have gone with Birdie. Right. This is him. He's going to be our guy out of spring training. And they're being rewarded for it.

He's a lot of fun to watch. Yeah. One thing that also sticks out for me is plate discipline stats. I wish I had this for the minor leagues. Because you're coming up. You don't know why a guy strikes out. And this might actually go, there's been this long conversation between Derek and I about why some

players in the minor leagues, you know, strike out a lot and then come to the major leagues and strike out less or strike out the same amount. And then some players in the minor leagues don't strike out that much and then come to major leagues and strike out a ton. And there's, there's, there's like a kind of a tenuous link between minor league strikeout rates and major league strikeout rates um we've had some different

theories on us and and i'm looking at jazz and one thing that's really interesting is he doesn't reach at pitches like he doesn't reach at pitches like like devers does you know he doesn't reach at pitches like like um i don't know gary does there. There's other guys that reach the pitches way more. He reaches the pitches below league average. So he's actually very patient. And I could see him being able to toggle that patience and aggressiveness to keeping the strikeout rate where it is. Right now, he swings at one of the lowest rates in baseball.

But what if he sort of toggles that and says, okay, they're filling up the zone on me. Okay, now I got them filling up the zone on me. Bam. Now I'm going to be aggressive in the zone. So I think if there's some variability in there and there's some adjustability for him, that's the key that we're looking for in hitters that we don't have a great stat for. And I've been looking for ways to quantify this adjustability. Like when you look at Juan Soto,

right. That's like something I think that sticks out adjustability. He, he watched in one plate appearances, he learned something in the second plate appearance, he acts on it. Yeah. You know,

there are other players who you, they need two weeks before they act on something. You're right. You're right you're right asoto does it between pitches sometimes you'll see him step out and you'll see like they and i think that's what makes the special guys yeah yeah no you're right it's um that would be another great like ding ding ding here pops in eno on the bottom of my screen with a graphic about like juan soto's adjustability there yeah right yeah or even on jazz be like you know he doesn't reach outside the plate yeah i mean i'm trying to trying to sell some some broadcast teams on this idea

it's gonna take some extra production work on our part but hey maybe there's a path where there's a will there that could be a race and barrels pop up yes it'd be pretty fun be a lot of fun actually all right let's get to a few more topics um this one was teased up top one player that you've thought about over the last 10 20 years who you could give an injury-free career to and i mentioned earlier griffey was a common answer i saw to this question grady sizemore was the one that I saw this morning that pulled me in. Who would it be for you? One player who you watched closely and you thought, if that guy had only been healthy, he could have been even better than he was.

Or he could have exceeded everybody's expectations with that opportunity. Well, what about Mark Pryor? Isn't he kind of the poster child for what could have happened, what should have happened, what people think, you know, he was ruined by, you know, overuse and things like that. Isn't he kind of credited for part of the reason why we now baby pitchers? He was like a big part of that shift, right? So I look at him and I wonder what if, and, you know, I actually got, he's a private guy, but I actually did get to speak to him a couple years ago for a story.

And it was weird. He, it wasn't, I guess, weird, but he predicated it on the story could not be about him. It was about guys retiring and how he was kind of forced into retirement. But he spoke about that last time in AAA when he wasn't Mark Pryor anymore as the most fun he had ever had. Just kind of, you know, he's supposed to be this and you're supposed to be that. And I often wonder, I don't know if you guys think about this or if I'm just weird, would you rather be this like

highly touted person who never quite lived up but was still a good big leaguer or like an Akil Badu? Not right now Akil Badu, but like a guy who nobody thought was really going to be anything and turned in a nice little career. Maybe like an Adam Eaton type guy, right? Like a late round pick. Would you rather be the one exceeding your low expectations or kind of still being solid? They're both right in the middle ground, right? They both end up around in the middle, but you were supposed to be better. I think I'd rather have the low expectations and exceed them than always kind of wonder,

did I hit my, everyone said I was going to be a future Hall of Famer, and I was just a solid big leaguer. Yeah, I mean, that kind of pressure, Bryce Harper's kind of in his own stratosphere in that regard, but people never seem to be fully satisfied with what he does, even though he's great.

Like, he's on a Hall of Fame trajectory, and he has overlapped Mike Trout and that's just too bad for him. Just never enough. I'd rather exceed the expectations because I think those expectations hang around you forever.

It's part of every conversation with Harper. The contract, the draft position and all this. He's been very good. Remember Matt Wieters? He was supposed to be. with Harper, the contract, the draft position, and all this, and he's been very good. Yeah. Like, remember Matt Wieters? He was supposed to be. Oh, man.

So that's a great example, right? He had a solid, fine career. He was an all-star. He was a fine, a couple-time all-star, I believe, a fine career, but he was supposed to be the guy who kind of saved the Orioles, right? He was on the cover of Sports Illustrated. That, to me, is a great example of he was, you know, the Orioles have had a lot of those guys.

Kevin Gossman, Dylan Bundy were supposed to be, like, these huge stars for them. But it's just interesting, right? I wonder, and no one has written this. Maybe I will eventually. If you're listening and you write, don't steal my ideas because it's illegal. It's not at all.

But like, seriously, I mean, I wonder mentally how tough that is to not, to always wonder if you didn't get as much out of your talent and ability as you could have. Not even injury related. You just somehow couldn't translate it. Yeah. But the interesting thing, it's interesting to bring up Mark Pryor because, you know, I think that on pitching that on the pitching side, there's a lot of names that come to mind. J.R. Richard, who for the Astros struck out 303 and 313 batters in consecutive seasons, pitched 275 innings and 292 innings, and then only pitched 113 for the rest of his career. And he was kind of almost a harbinger of modern baseball where he had these huge strikeout rates. That's 1978,

1979. He's striking out 10 per nine. And that just wasn't done back then. But I wonder if we would be talking about him in that sort of Clements type stratosphere if he had managed to put together a full career. Yeah, I think for me, any player that had a five-war season at some point and because of injuries never had a second one, that sort of player is the player that immediately comes to mind. So I think Grady Sizemore qualifies on that. Troy Tulewiczki is a guy that every kind of injury

just seemed like his body was betraying him throughout his career. What could he have been with a fully healthy career? For me as a Brewers fan, Ricky Weeks was one of those guys that maybe was a little bit overshadowed because he was there with Prince and Corey Hart and JJ Hardy. He came up with that group. Really interesting tools, really good second baseman, had power, had speed, but had a lot of injuries that cost him significant time over the years too. I think there was one more level that he could have reached with some health as well. So definitely no shortage of names on

that list. We have two right now in baseball that are going well that maybe deserve some mention. Jed Lowry and Mitch Hanegar. I've been having some real hard times with the health recently. And, you know, give them those years back. I don't know if they'd be Hall of Famers. It's not quite Griffey level. But give them those years back, and I think we'd think very differently about them as players. Maybe David Wright, too, is a guy that started to miss a lot of time with injuries. He was a special player. Ryan Zimmerman is another one.

People thought he was going to be this huge star. I mean, he's still playing, but they're kind of everywhere. Evan Longoria, wasn't he supposed to be this huge star to some extent? That's a little bit more, I think, expectations. He's been mostly healthy. Yes, he's been healthy. Sorry, I was talking about guys who didn't actually live up to that. I'm still stuck on my idea, you know.

Man, the start of Longoria's career is probably better than people remember. I think this is almost the penalty of having a long career is that your later years are generally not going to be Ortiz, Nelson Cruz levels of production. So when you are 5, 6, 7 war annually to start your career and you're kind of a 1-2 win player for the back half of your career, people forget how amazing you were when you first showed up.

Yeah, that's true. Let's get to one more question. This one's been on our minds going back to yesterday. If you were good enough to play in a big league game and you found your way to second base. We're not

talking about a home run celebration. We're talking about you just hit a double to the wall. You glide into second base and you're going to look back at your dugout. What is your celebration? What is your go-to move? We've got the Braves mixing it up.

If you're on YouTube, you've got the hand and that's the one that got us thinking about this yesterday. Mix it up. If you're on YouTube, you get the hand. That's the one that got us thinking about this yesterday. Mix it up. Remember the moose year with the Rangers? I like the moose one. The moose one's good. If you're not watching on YouTube, you should right now just for this.

I think motorcycle. We're going. I think that's one. I don't think I would do motorcycle. No? You just don't like motorcycles? It's not a motor. Yeah, they're fine. They're just not for me. Enough teams have.

No one's really used the cha-cha, which is an easy one, right? Oh, I like that one. Yeah. A little bit of a Victor Cruz end zone celebration brought to baseball. You would just do the salsa after touchdowns back in the day. Derek didn't remember this, but maybe you remember this, Britt. Weren't the Red Sox doing something with their belt buckle? Yes.

I think you're right. The year that they won? It was kind of like a hitting motion. I think they were kind of referencing the hips moving. Yes. There was some little. Yeah. I don't know if it was a belt buckle thing, but it was like a little hip salsa action.

Slightly obscene. That's what got me thinking that some of these could be thought of as differently. I don't know, you guys like gyrating. Wait, the baby shark? That was the Nats was the baby shark, which I've heard that song enough. But yeah, the shark clap. That gets you into the realm of what is too much, right? Yeah. We're doing a whole like, woo! a whole like like come on dude you just hit a double you're down five nothing and you just double no but you

want you want that personality in the game but i think finding different ways to just have some fun is good right i mean a lot of guys cross themselves point to the sky right that's pretty common i think fernando rodney's old shoot the arrow celebration after finishing a game. I feel bad because I was always so angry about Rodney not being a good pitcher. I know he had the one amazing year in Tampa Bay, but I spent so much time just being irritated

that he was pitching in high leverage spots that I didn't fully enjoy how much fun he was having on the field. So that's something I'm trying to fix going forward. His entrance video in Minnesota was awesome. I want to go in there and try to throw 95 after I saw that. But I think I'd shoot the arrow at second base as a tribute to Rodney as one of the most fun players on the field of the last 15 years. Here's the problem though. The problem with those is once you don't, like Rodney, they used to mock him, like other hitters when he didn't, like when he didn't do well, they'd shoot the arrow back at him. So like I'm here for that level of petty, but like Juan Soto all the time, like gets,

like takes a lot of heat because he does the shuffle, right? The Soto shuffle in between pitches, not when he hits or not when he, after he gets the hit. But so you have to be prepared, Derek, for that arrow to get turned on you. So if you're like out there hula hooping after every triple, you better be prepared for like Trevor Bauer to walk off the mound and hula hoop back at you. You know, which again, I'm here for that. I got my popcorn. I'm ready for that.

What about the Trevor Bauer strut? Oh, that's the billionaire strut. Yeah. Yeah. It'd be interesting to think about, like, can it be turned back on you? I love, like, on all of these, I would, if I did something, it would definitely be ambiguous. So that, like, there could be two or three different levels of meaning. Because it'd be fun to do something like that.

And then, you know, your dugout is cracking up. And the fans are going, what is going on here? I'd love to see someone do like the escalator, you know, like moving down, moving up. You got to be careful because you can't get off the base. But like some of these guys have way better dance moves than anybody on this podcast. Let's be real. Wasn't one of the best ones the Adam Eaton and Howie Kendrick celebration in the dugout with the car? Yes.

Yeah, that was good. Yeah, I wasn't sure if that counted, but yeah, they used to do that, like get in the dugout and do the little racetrack. You could do that on the base, just be kind of like, but you'd just be one person,

but you could. Yeah, you could get off. You could be like, yeah, cruising, cruising in the second. Oh, yeah, they go cruising. Yeah, right? Like cruising.

You could sit down and put your left foot on second base so you don't get off the base. Use your right foot to hit the gas and really get into it. That goes into the like, come on, dude. Let us know

on Twitter what you would do because this has been a hilariously way off script. We actually do plan to talk about baseball for a majority of the show. I'd kind of like cruising, dude. That's kind of good. Especially if you're Nelson Cruz. I think, honestly, Nelson should get into that.

I think I would pull the... One of my nicknames is Eazy-E, right? So maybe... I like that. I like that. Anything you do with your hands could very quickly be misconstrued or misunderstood. So choose very wisely.

That's my advice because I was working on them this morning. I told you guys I was making a bagel and I was like, what am I going to do for this? And I'm like, anything I do with my hands is going to look really weird on Zoom and it's going to get screen grabbed and then it's going to just bounce around forever. Oh, no. Oh, no. I hadn't even thought of that. Nice. Oh God. Yeah. So choose

wisely, friends. That's an air for a posterity. On that note, we'll let you know before we go. We have a special going on $3.99 a month at theathletic.com slash rates and barrels to get a subscription for The Athletic that includes everything we do, including great reporting, like

the latest piece from Britt and Katie Strang about the toxic culture in the Mets organization that goes beyond Mickey Calloway and Jared Porter. You can check out Eno's latest pitcher report, right? Not the stuff in Command Report anymore. It's just a pitcher report. I wanted more flexibility.

And you have it. So you got that going. On Twitter, she's at underscore Geroli. He is at Inoceros. I am at Derek Van Ryper. We are back with you on Monday. Ah! Thanks for

listening. for listening