Rates & Barrels - Moving the mound, April awards, and walk-up music selections

Episode Date: April 30, 2021

Eno, Britt & DVR discuss the potential drawbacks of moving pitching mounds further away from the plate, why 'Pace of Play' is no longer a concern for MLB, several April awards, and walk-up music selections. Rundown 1:30 Potential Drawbacks From Moving the Mound Back 8:39 The Pace of Play Concerns Are Going to Vanish 13:42 Early Parity = More Fun! 29:00 April Hardware 53:28 Mike Trout is Still Better Than Everybody Else 62:45 Walk-Up Music 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 30th. Derek Van Ryper, Ido Saris, Britt Giroli here with you on this Friday. And my wife. Yeah. Does she want to join our acapella group? Yeah. What was the winner of the name of our acapella group? Alex had the best name of all on Twitter, and it was just a bit off key, I think is what he came up with, which is perfect for a baseball acapella group name.

So that is the winner of our unofficial contest. If there's ever a prize available, Alex wins it for this particular contest. But on this episode, we'll see if Eno's wife brings a few more bars for us. We will talk about Moving the Mound, the story that Eno published earlier this week for The Athletic. April Awards, we'll talk about our first month selections for Rookie of the Month, Pitcher of the Month, and Hitter of the Month in both leagues. We'll discuss some of the surprising teams as we flip the calendar to May of the surprising teams

who is most likely to be in the conversation as a playoff team later on this season. A few questions came in about the ball, so we'll tackle those. And we'll talk about some walk-up music as well, since we're thinking so much about music on this show lately. Let's get into moving the mound. Eno, I was reading the story, and I was actually surprised that you had hitters that you spoke to who weren't just all for this. I would have thought hitters blindly assumed that moving the mound back

was something that would absolutely help them. And that wasn't the case. Yeah, I think, you know, and I hadn't even given my spiel because we were talking about something else. I've got a really cool story coming for next week.

but, uh, Ooh, did I just out my source? Anyway, um, uh, we were just talking about, uh, about talking about something totally different, and he offered that one up.

And then I explained where I was coming from with the worst-case scenario, which is just it has to do with the steepness of the ball. When you think about how the ball crosses the plate right now, you'll say people say try to get out in front of the break on a breaking ball. Try to get the breaking ball before. You don't want to swing late on a curveball. Then the angle of the pitch, you'll just be hitting it at a more steeper angle. If you move the plate and the mound back, breaking balls will be coming in at a steeper angle.

move the plate and the mound back, breaking balls will be coming in at a steeper angle. So I don't know that we have a ton of evidence that breaking balls will be worse on hitters, but I think they will become relatively steeper than fastballs will. And there is this idea that there'll be secondary effects. And that's the one thing that I'm always fascinated with is when you make a change, right? There's like, what happens at first? It's like, okay, what happens at first will probably be more contact. But what happens after that? Like, how do pitchers adjust? Do they just try to throw harder? You know, now that 95 acts like 93? Are they all going to try and throw 97? That could be the possibility. But there's also this possibility, and I had one pitching coordinator say, I'm going to try and throw a nice seven that could be the possibility but there's also this possibility and i had one um pitching coordinator say i'm gonna have all my pitchers throw 80

breaking balls and there's already a team out there that has already upped their breaking ball usage uh significantly so maybe people are like you know seeing this coming and making the adjustment ahead of time you know do you think this is a good idea after some of the research you've done? Like if someone was like, yeah, commissioner, you know, Sarah's here,

we're going to decide one way or the other. What would you say? I just, I think that I would start with smaller changes because, because this, that's what I'm saying with this is like, it's such a big change that the secondary effects, like we could,

it could change baseball. You know what I mean? Like it seems like a, like such a big change that the secondary effects like we could, it could change baseball. You know what I mean? Like, it seems like a, like a not that big a deal, one foot or something, but it could change baseball. Like, what if we were watching 80% breaking balls right now? You know? Yeah. That would be kind of different baseball, you know?

And so I like, if it was me, I would do a pitch clock, get the batter in the box. The pitch clock actually could reduce velocity because they're waiting more between pitches. We've talked about this a fair amount. I am team pitch clock. I am definitely team pitch clock. I would actually reverse one of the changes I made to the ball and make it heavier. actually reverse one of the changes I made to the ball and make it heavier. Because actually this, and if you made this ball heavier, I think that you would actually reduce the seams a little bit.

You reduce the pitch movement. You reduce the pitch velocity by making the ball heavier. And I think I would do robo-umps because robo-umps would allow me to tinker with the game some more, you know, would allow me to tinker with the game some more you know and allow me precision when you tell the umps oh call a wider zone call it this zone call it that zone it takes like three years before it's actually happening you know um and and they have to kind of train themselves but if you have an if you're a robotic umpire you umpire you can say okay let's try it let's try this year in the minor leagues like no high

strikes and let's see if that does something so um and i'm talking about like inches or whatever but you can you can kind of play with the game a little bit more so um i would i would kind of try to the fringe stuff first uh because i don't know that we've we've really tried those in the major league level we've done the pitch clocks in the minor league level. We've mucked with the ball, but we haven't done a good job with it. I don't know. I think there's some stuff we could do there. The rule changes

is interesting because I don't think people realize something as simple as the three batter minimum rule came into huge play in the Philadelphia game the other night when Bryce Harper was hit in the face. I mean, is that rule? That's a great example. Is it making the game better that you have to face three batters? Is it making it faster? And that to me was just like exhibit 1A of how this rule really isn't accomplishing anything. What do you guys think?

I'm curious what you guys think about that rule the other night and those who didn't watch that game. The first two Phillies were hit, right? Including Bryce Harper in the face. Yeah. Yeah, it was. Genesis Cabrera was pitching and I don't like the three batter minimum rule at all. I understand that one thing people don't like about the game is when Alex Claudio comes

out of the bullpen, faces one hitter, and then the next reliever comes in, and we're back at commercial, and that takes a while. But the three batter minimum, it doesn't scratch the itch for me. I know you want to have a game where you can reduce some of the specialists and cut out that extra time. How much extra time are they really saving with this? And if time is the goal, if you have matchups that allow more runners to get on base in the late innings, that's extending the game anyway. So I don't know. I know we're trying to fight back against the current of things being optimized, but this isn't doing what they wanted to do. It's a secondary outcome that probably wasn't really considered.

It was, well, we're saving this time here. Yeah, but you're getting this time added back on later. If you have the worst reliever in longer, he gives more hits up. There's more people on base. But see, that's why I think time of game is not that interesting to people. And I think that chasing that was really a messed up way of thinking about things. I do think that we can do stuff about pace of play,

of how much action there is. And that's talking about how many balls there are in play and sort of dead time. That's why when I do the pitch clock, I would also tell the batters, get in the box. But also, to your point about it not working, 2020 and

2021 are the longest times per nine innings. You can look at baseball reference, three hours and seven minutes. We have not cut any time off of a nine-inning game since the rule was implemented. So even if time of game was something we cared about, we're not doing a good job. It's at a record high. But this is another thing. Don't you guys just think three hours almost with any

sporting event? I realize the basketball is like more like two and a half and football can be shorter but in my head i'm just like three hours if i'm gonna watch a sporting thing it's three hours the only exception for me is soccer because it's two 45 minute halves and you know halftime is about 15 minutes and your stoppage time gives you the extra maybe five minutes in each half so you're in and out under two hours there is a slightly different feeling with soccer though is like you kind of have to watch the soccer game you know what i mean like it's always playing you can't there's no break you know with football even basketball but definitely baseball you can check your phone there's like a lot of breaks you can go to the bathroom, get some food.

Soccer is shorter, but it's like, what's happening? Well, so there's something that's also brewing here. And this came up, I think Sportico had the story. Adam Silver, the commissioner that we all love, the commissioner of the NBA, spoke to the commissioner that we all really don't love, Rob Manfred, according to listeners of this podcast anyway. And Adam Silver told Rob Manfred, stop worrying about pace of play. And the reason is a slow pace of play maximizes in-game wagering. And if in-game wagering is the way to maximize fan engagement, if you're watching on YouTube, you may have seen that my eyebrows moved when I said fan engagement. It's not just fan engagement that we're thinking about here right it's generating

revenue from sports betting so I would not be surprised at all if all of a sudden pace of play is something that we're no longer talking about as a problem plaguing Major League Baseball, even as games get slightly longer, as Eno pointed out. I never thought I'd see MGM as a partner of baseball. It's everywhere now. It's also not just like a, it's in your face that the betting has become so ingrained so quickly. It's actually a little frightening, I think, to think about. I agree with Eno. It's not, listen, if it's three hours and it's like good, exciting Dodgers, Padres, riveting stuff, I'm not like, God, is this game going to end?

It's more like, oh, it's the third inning and this team's already into their bullpen. It's eight to nothing and this game sucks. And you know what happens in those games is I think the betting thing becomes, because, you know, who's watching those games? Fantasy players. DFS players.

They're like, ooh, it's an 8-0 game. My stack is working. If this guy hits a homer, I might win $20,000 tonight. Yes, I want to see Alex Bregman taking plate appearances against the Angels' seventh-best reliever or, hopefully, a non-Jared Walsh position player. There's no other person watching that, really, seventh best reliever or hopefully a non-Jared Walsh position player. You know, that's what I'm rooting for at that point. There's no other person watching that really because the two fan bases involved are like,

damn, 8-0. I don't care. You know, like either I don't care we won, woo, or I don't care we lost. You know, how many people are sticking around at 8-0? Very few people. The people that are have money on it. Or they're related to the guy playing, but yes.

No disrespect to the Angels' seventh best reliever and his family. I'm sure that's true. Yeah, we're not here for that. You're right. I do think that a lot of the game could be changed by not time of game, just pace of play.

Just more exciting. Just make it better. Limit the number of pitchers that can be used in a game or that you can designate as active. Get rid of the dead time, like the pitch clock. There are a lot of things that you can do to make it more exciting. And to be fair, I was going to write a column about this, but I'm kind of like lazy because it's Friday. So I'll just say it on this podcast free for all of you instead. I feel like this month has been so fun. We complained about making the game better, blah, blah, blah.

And it's like, then we have like, in my opinion, the most fun month that we've had in baseball in a really long time. You've got like Frederick Freeman getting struck out by Anthony Rizzo. You've got all the Dodgers Padres nonsense. God, Dodgers Padres are so good. You've got no hitters already uh you've got did you guys see this morning the video of the arizona diamondbacks doing a tiktok dance after they won a game um hilarious make sure if you're just find it what tiktok dance the one like

the one with this one they're like just basically like in a line and they're like kind of moving their legs uh oh the one where you do one person does a thing and then they move out of the way and the next person doesn't know they're all like lined up like a line dance and then they're just dancing to this and they're like oh like hey and it's like this looks like a little league team um not a team that celebrates an april win so there's i don't know about you guys there's been a lot of fun it's like well maybe don't change with the game because i've really enjoyed watching it well somebody was clowning on this there was a there was a comment that like if you add these 14 teams together uh you get 500 and there were people like oh it's amazing if you add all 30 baseball

teams records together you get 500 how did baseball do this so mediocre mediocre. But I do think that there is a surprising amount of parity going on right now. I mean, you have the Red Sox, you know, atop that division, but you'd expect the Yankees to get it going. So that looks like a competitive four team race there. The NL East, everybody is below 500, but they're all close to it. The Royals are atop the Central. The Mariners are fighting with the Athletics, who started out terribly. The Giants are atop the West, so there's enough surprise early.

So I wonder, do you think that some of this is just it's randomly more exciting because there's been some random team occurrences? It could be a little bit of that. I don't know. Maybe we just missed normal baseball last year.

Because what happened last season, we were grateful to have the 60 games that we got, but it was preceded by some very contentious back and forth between ownership and the players and the cloud of uncertainty hanging over everybody's lives last summer. So maybe just having some relief that there's light at the end of the tunnel from a general life perspective has also kind of helped put us in this place where we can enjoy something more than we could a year ago when the season began. But the surprising first place teams, I don't think the Red Sox are this good. I don't think any of these teams are necessarily as good as their records would indicate right now. The

Royals, the A's, the Giants all being in first place right now. I don't think they're all complete flukes either. I think all four of those teams might be a tick better than projections suggested. I think that's at least possible in a couple cases. I think of this group, the A's, we're so used to them hanging around, they look like they're the most likely team to be a playoff team just because of the A's, and they're always in the mix,

and they always find that way to have that high variance roster to get into the mid to high 80s win total, and suddenly we get to the final weeks of September, and they're one series away from clinching a spot. So by default, like my mind says it's the A's. But when I look at the Red Sox, the Royals and the Giants, I think the Red Sox actually are the most convincing.

And maybe it's because I'm putting a lot of stock in Chris Sale eventually coming back. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Weren't you the one burying the Red Sox? No. Okay. It was Britt. Oh, sorry, Britt. I thought it was him.

Derek did a really nice job there of not calling me out. I was waiting for it. And then I just stumbled right into it. You guys set me up. You guys signed on before me today. So was this like a pre? No, no, no. That was just me being an idiot.

Sorry. Okay. I thought the Red Sox were terrible. I'm still not convinced their pitching staff's going to hold up. But hey. Yeah, Pavetta, man. Pavetta out-dueled DeGrom. I don't think that's happening.

No, that's not. The Mavs can't hit. I mean, but yes. I do think, I mean, what if the Red Sox get a reliever or two at the deadline? Are they a dangerous team? Yeah, maybe. They're a dangerous team because the Yankees are stinking up the joint, though. That's what people didn't anticipate.

Well, I think the Yankees are going to be fine. I've said this a bunch of times. I think I said they were going to win 10 out of 11 on Twitter, and they can only win 9 out of 11 now because they lost in extras to the Orioles on Thursday. So now I'm this non-Yankee fan salty about Yankees' April losses to the Orioles because of stupid declarations I made on Twitter. No, you did well. You did great.

Come on, that's a win. That's a win. How are we supposed to know Cedric Mullins was going to do Cedric Mullins things? We love Cedric Mullins on this show. We do. But I mean, okay, so the Red Sox. I actually think, no, one thing that you made a point about the A's I think is really great. And I just want to bring it around to the Giants because Farhan is born of A's.

Farhan Zaidi, the GM there. I think that he's doing the A's thing. He's finding guys that they, who cares what age they are? You know, they're like, he's like, okay, you're 29, whatever. I know you're post-peak, but like nobody else wants you

because you're post-peak. So I'll sign you to like Tommy La Stella. I'll sign you to, I'm going to be the A's with a little bit more money. I'll sign you to two years and 6 million or 12 million or whatever it was. And the other thing that Billy Bean has talked about is if you just hang around, you can pick up wins in the end of the year because other teams start selling.

Yeah. And just by not selling, you can have more wins. So there is something to that where, like, I think the Giants and A's might be there at the end fighting for a wild card. I don't see them as division winners, obviously. I mean, obviously for the Giants, but I think even for the A's,

I don't know that I see them as division winners. But I do see them as wild cards because they're not going to sell. And they might even pick up something if it's cheap enough and they're just gonna just hum along and be like kind of like an 84 to 86 win team that hopefully lucks into 89 or 90 if if there's one team out of these four four first place teams that in a month from now is still in first place who do you guys think it is because i think it's the royals by nature, I think I could see the rest of that division maybe not doing what we thought they were going to do. I could see the Royals still being in first place in a month.

Maybe not in September, but I think the Royals aren't quite, I don't know, they're not quite as fluky. Their success is what I thought. Well, I think the Royals are definitely better offensively. They made some changes in the offseason. Adding Carlos Santana gave them a middle-of-the-order guy that gets on base a lot. That was kind of a weakness of recent Royals teams, low OBPs. You add him, you make the trade for Benintendi. I don't know where things are going to end for Benintendi. It's still been more bad than good so far, but I'm not ready to give up on him.

Eventually, you get Mondesi back. Maybe later in the season, you call it Bobby Witt Jr. And Witt's going to start the year at AA, which is a starting point where you can see him finishing in the big leagues if he goes to AA, mashes, gets the bump at AAA, holds his own or mashes there. So they could have two impact players internally coming up on the position player side. And then it comes down to how aggressive they want to be with their pitching and how much you like their pitching. Do you think Daniel Lynch and Jackson Coar are going to come up and be quality big league starters right away? And they had a lot of success last year with Brady Singer. They've got more mileage out of Brad Keller than anybody would have predicted as a Rule 5 pick. Danny Duffy's having a bounce back year that we've talked about on this show. There are a lot of positives with the Royals, and they do have some young players and injured players coming up and coming back that are going to keep giving them little upgrades and possibly keep them afloat.

And I think the other thing for me, I think the Twins and White Sox are going to be right there. I'm definitely worried about Cleveland as a team that's just not as good as we're used to. It's not just the Lindor loss. It's the failure to fix flaws repeatedly year over year. I think I agree with you, Britt. I think just because I see the Dodgers and Padres being such juggernauts in the NL West, it's not the Giants. The AL East is so strong. I think the Yankees are bouncing back. That probably works against the Red Sox. And then the A's with the Astros and the Angels.

I think the Astros and Angels are a little bit better, just a little bit better combined than the Twins and White Sox are today. So I think that the Royals do have the easiest path to hold that spot. The numbers say that the Indians are underperforming offensively by a run per game. That's what the projections say. They're going to score five runs per game. They're scoring under four runs per game. The numbers say that the Royals are overperforming on the pitching side, that they're going to give up another 6.6,.7 runs.

So basically there's like some symmetry there. Which aspect do you think will be fixed first? You know, there's like, do you think the Indians will start to score more runs? Or do you, as you pointed out, Kowar, Lynch, do you think that the Royals can fix their pitching? I think the Royals can fix their pitching, though I think if you're going to sit here and say, what's more likely is as it gets hotter and more humid,

offenses pick up. Isn't that just like a natural symmetry of the season? Pitchers come out and have these terrific Aprils because it's cold and guys don't want to swing the bats and they're a little behind from spring training. Right? And then as you get into the summer, already this year you've seen, I see all the time, a ball that you're like, oh, that's out in July. That's out in August. Oh, that ball came back in, right? Because it's cold and there's no movement at all. You've covered some games in Baltimore. Yeah. I've seen like pop-ups, you know?

You're like, oh, there goes another home run. Baltimore is like the hottest park in the league in August, and that's where all the home runs come from in Baltimore. That's true. That's where Chris Davis's entire 2013 campaign came from. Tons of money. Speaking of which, I went to the Orioles-Yankees game the other day day and no one's talking about this so i'm again too lazy to write it i'm gonna ask you guys where is chris davis he's on the il but not really hurt and no one knows where he is like he just kind of went away

oh phantom d uh oh phantom isle yeah like where is it i love it where is he and what nobody cares like where is no one's even said anything. Halfway through the game, I'm like, he's not starting. He's not on the roster. And the beat guys are like, shrug. I don't know. It is a weird thing that people do abuse the IO. And like, I was talking to a now retired pitcher once.

And I was like kind of going through his injury history because he was having like a good year or something. I was like, what happened there? And he's like, oh, they just told me that I had to go on the IL or they would release me. I mean, you still get paid if you're on the IL, but you get paid if you get released. The only way you lose that money is if you retire. So as long as Chris Davis doesn't retire, he gets every dollar of that contract. if you retire. So as long as Chris Davis doesn't retire, he gets every dollar of that contract.

Just a weird trajectory, right? To go from such a high in 13 and then had a bad year and then had a pretty good year in 15 again. And then they can't put it together. They've stopped playing him. He gets benched. And now even more so than being bad, I think if you're bad,

you're at least relevant. You're getting booed. Now he's just in the abyss. Yeah. Oh my God. You're getting booed. Now he's just in the abyss. Yeah. Oh, my God. They're showing the weirdest graphic on MLB Network right now. It's Tony La Russa in uniform in front of all of his guys. And it's just like, I don't know, man.

I don't think Tony La Russa. I mean, yeah, the White Sox won 8 of 10. But I don't think Tony La Russa's at the front of that pack. I think he's probably cost them the two that they didn't win. Damn, but yeah, agreed. He's not putting on a meister class of how to manage. And what's ironic is he's leaving his pitchers in too long, and he was supposedly the guy who created the whole like master bullpen you

know take your pitchers out earlier strategy but uh i guess he's forgotten what made him good do you guys think it'd be fun to go back through somewhat recent baseball history and find out who actually came up with these revolutionary ideas and and remove improper credit where it was given. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting because, you know, there's like, did the Yankees come up with the Super Bowl pen or was it the Royals?

I thought it was the Royals first. And then as soon as it worked, it was pretty obvious to Brian Cashman. Oh, wait. Yes. We want to have five or six guys that are just lockdown relievers at the ready. Yeah, I think it was the Royals. I think it was definitely the Royals.

The Yankees have had really good bullpens for a really long time. Yeah. I mean, who came up with the bat flip? The first bat flip, I would love to read the story about that. I bet people were just blown away. That seems so old that it's impossible to figure out. It's probably not that old, but you're right.

It was a caveman. Didn't Mickey Mantle fit with his bats? What? No, no. It was a literal caveman. I swear to God. It may be an accident. Yeah, it was a caveman.

Oops, flipped out of his hands. There's no way Mickey Mantle was like, flip, see ya, trotting around the bases. I mean, I wish. Maybe it was like an emphatic drop. Honestly, now that bat flips are cool, imagine if you could go back in the day and see like Mickey Mantle bat flip or like Babe Ruth showboating around the bases.

Like I would freaking love it. That's what I'm saying, dude. Unbelievable. I bet you it happened. All these people were like, oh, respect the game. Like go back in time. I bet you there was some people

showboating back in the day oh man baybro was the only guy hitting homers dude you don't think he was like ah you suckers what game are you playing show to maggio pimping stuff blinking at opponents like i bet this stuff's been done we just didn't have any video of it and nobody had twitter so was it supposedly dusty baker and the and his teammate like created the high five right yeah that that piece is out there and that's like a legendary thing yeah that seems impossible to me that somebody no one high five before that that's alive now that's what i'm saying it seems impossible that somebody alive now created the high five like it's just so ubiquitous now exactly well who, like we were talking

about a few shows ago, the thing where they do like this or all the stuff on the bases. Wasn't it a basketball player? Oh, yeah. Who's the first person to celebrate on the base path? Yeah. Who was like, you know what? I didn't hit a home run, but I still got to second. I gotta celebrate.

I gotta say something to my homeboys in the dugout. Hello. Was it the first one really tame? Like, hi, guys. I got to celebrate. I got to say something to my homeboys in the dugout. Hello. Was it the first one really tame? Like, hi, guys. I hit a double. I don't know. Golf clap for self.

Just, yeah, I hit a double. Who decided the first walk-off? This was like, hey, we won one game. It's one of 162, but we got to throw everything everywhere because we walked it off. Who decided that? Were they doing that back in the day? Was Lou Gehrig throwing sunflower seeds?

Some of these managers I don't think would take kindly to Gatorade baths. I don't know. Yeah. Was Gatorade a thing? Yeah. Did they ever Gatorade bath Bobby Cox? I don't know why I always pick up Bobby Cox. Earl Weaver?

I grew up in Atlanta. Do you think they ever threw Gatorade on Earl Weaver? That's what I mean. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Probably not. What? How many of these guys were smoking heaters in the dugout? Did you ever douse them with Gatorade?

It's got like a soggy cigarette. Someone ask Jim Leland because that guy feels like he's 150 years old. Who created the Gatorade bag? Ask the oldest managers that will talk about it. When's the first time you saw this? You'll probably get some pretty fun answers from a few of those guys. It was a little writing brainstorm session. Yeah, happy to share our process with everyone.

Let's give out some April hardware, because that's the most fun thing you can do at the end of the first month of the season. I wish I had a 3D printer. More accurately, I wish I had access to one. I don't want my own. They're expensive and not useful. But what I would do, if I had a 3D printer,

this is why I don't, I would make actual awards for our show and we would send them to players. And maybe, once in a while, it would actually reach them and we'd see them holding the April And maybe once in a while, it would actually reach them and we'd see them like holding the April AL Rookie of the Month Award. And post on Instagram.

Yeah, that's where we need to be, right? We have to go where the action is. So maybe we could be featured in an Arizona Diamondbacks TikTok, you know, if we sent the right award to the right person. So if you know someone- We'd have to come up. No, this is a deviation from the show notes here,

but we'd have to come up with our own spin on things. So we couldn't just be like player in line. What could we do that was different, like a different kind of award? Well, we want best celebration. We want fun stuff. There you go. There we go.

That's better. It's got to be new. It's got to be want best celebration. We want fun stuff. There you go. There we go. That's better. It's got to be new. It's got to be a new celebration. You did the selfie last October, Marcelo Zuna. You're not getting an award for that in April. Yeah, I was surprised when you talked about that. I was like, he's still doing the selfie? Yeah, he's really stopping and taking it in too.

But sometimes if you find a really good celebration and that qualifies as one it's like edwin with the parrot right you don't get rid of that like once you love that one once you have your masterpiece celebration that is your signature celebration you don't deviate from that that one was great too because i think it was by accident i think he was just sort of running around with his arm up shoulder was a little sore he's like yeah it's probably my shoulder and then someone photoshopped a bird on it and like well walk the parrot. Because that's what you do. You walk a parrot if you have them, apparently.

And then maybe, you know what the, oh, I just had a great vision of what the award would look like. It would be Prince Fielder like this. Oh, yeah. With people like, with people, the people like exploded around him. That would be like a really cool looking award, wouldn't it? Either that or Ruffin and Odor punching Jose Bautista in bronze. No, that's the consequences of the celebration. I don't think people want to think about that.

Best on-field rivalry gets that trophy. It could be the bat's bat flip. The problem with doing a bat flip is you can't do that in a... You can't make that because the bat has... How do you attach the bat to the person? You can't just have a bat floating.

You think that I can't figure out a way to make a floating bat with a 3D printer? I have a Jonathan LeCroy bobblehead, sir, where he is both the hitter and the catcher behind the plate. You wildly, wildly underestimate the amount of time that Derek has on his hands. Yeah, sure.

I will go to no end to make this amazing. No end, no end. There's no amount of time or money. I will not do any of this work. I have no time for this. No, this is going to happen. This is definitely going to happen. No, but I still think the Prince Fielder one is very iconic and looks like an award.

It does look like an award. It's a top five, top ten celebration all time, which is very, very high praise. Let's make it happen. All right. Well, if you or someone you know has access to a 3D printer, I'm going to need you to tweet at me, at Derek Van Ryper. Preferably they live somewhere in the Madison area. Anywhere within Dane County or an adjacent county will be close enough. Oh, my God.

I'll send you a box of beer. See? There's beer in it for you if we can use your friend's 3D printer. What more could you possibly ask for? The one at your office after hours. Can Derek come to your work?

Yeah. No one wants me hanging around their office. We're not that creepy. Or are we? For now, we'll start with our standard awards. The April AL Rookie of the Month. I think this is Jermaine Mercedes in a runaway, guys. He's been fantastic so far. 423, 464, 679 line through 21 games.

Yes, he's been worth a full win above replacement as a DH in a month. That is extremely difficult to do. Maybe a shout out to Adolis Garcia. Yep. But between the two, I would also say that even though Jermaine Mercedes has a 452 Babib,

I would say that his production might be a little bit more sustainable because he's got like pretty awesome power and contact ability, you know, in spades. So I think that he might end up being the rookie of the year. Yeah.

Mercedes and Mullins, aren't they tied for the big league lead in hits? If not, they're right up there. They were as of like a day ago. Yeah. Why isn't Mullins showing up here? Is he not a qualified batter yet? Not eligible for rookie awards. Yeah, he's not a rookie.

Oh, he's been around longer. Yeah. So, I mean, this is a guy who wasn't even on our radar at all. I think we all thought Randy Orozarena was going to run away with it, if I recall correctly. He's not too far off. He could have a hot month and get back in it. Sure.

I mean, the difference is about a half a win. He still could. But it's interesting. And again, we could be laughing about this. Hey, remember Mercedes in September? And that's just baseball. I did have an evaluator text me that he thought this was the new Chris Shelton. I don't think so.

I think there's a much better hit tool here with Mercedes than there was with Chris Shelton. I mean, this is a guy who strikes out 14, 15% of the time, and the league is striking out 26% of the time. Yeah. It's crazy. I think this is actually more real than this profile would lead you to believe. So I realize that's a really vague way to describe what's happening here are you talking about his like physical profile i'm talking about the positionless old yeah guy that gets stuck in the minors forever like usually those guys are up and down and gone

and forgotten about because and that's probably why they were saying sheldonish right but i i don't i don't think yermin mercedes is getting regular big league plate appearances in three years. But this time next year, could he still be relevant? Yeah, I'm warming up to that. And the player comp I had just from an amazing start, bad finish was Brian LaHare. Remember the time Brian LaHare was an all-star for the Cubs? You guys are like, no, who the hell is Brian LaHare? Yeah, time Brian LaHare was an all-star for the Cubs? You guys are like, no, who the hell's Brian LaHare? Yeah. What? It wasn't that long ago. Brian LaHare was an all-

I remember LaHare, yeah. It was a bad Cubs team, right? It was the classic, well, someone's got to be our all-star, but he was just gone. It was an amazing start, tailed off in the second half, and we never heard from him again. That's more likely for Mercedes than falls apart in May and disappears by June. Okay. I do suppose there is a weakness in his game. I just looked. His reach rate is pretty high. So, you know, he's putting a lot of pressure on his hit tool if he doesn't have good play discipline. So the strikeout rate could rise, I guess.

But the barrel rate is great. The max EV is great. He looks like a powerful hitter. He's hit some dongs that were tremendous. Dude. Yeah, some very long home runs. That was some top-shelf analysis there at the end. It's Friday, all right.

The pitching candidates are pretty good. Michael Kopach has looked really strong. If he gets into the rotation for May, I could see him being a candidate for next month's award. James Karinczak has pitched well in Cleveland. Emmanuel Klasse has pitched well in Cleveland out of the bullpen. And the Red Sox have a rule five pick, Garrett Whitlock, who's been really good so far too. And then a former White Sox, Dane Dunning, the best of the starting pitchers on the rookie side thus far. I was surprised he still had a rookie eligibility left earlier this season. I don't know what the bottom line is about to say, but there's a seamless transition here to NL Rookie of the Month. Let's hear it. I mean, I think I could pull that off.

All right. Here's a cool thing. The best pitcher and the best hitter are on one team best rookie pitcher and best rookie hitter in the NL yeah of course that's kind of cool

yeah they're both Marlins and yet I still don't think the Marlins are very good but they're a fun team they're like a fun bad team they're an entertaining bad team Art don't you agree

certainly with Jazz Jazz Chisholm is the batter I was talking about, of course, and Trevor Rodgers is the pitcher. Yeah. I mean, the pitching is good. The starting pitching is good, and they throw hard, and they are exciting. They haven't even gotten six-toe, so I guess maybe they are okay.

But the lineup is just – It's a problem, to put it mildly. Here's the thing, though, guys. They're the only team, or they were, let me double check, but they were the only team in the NL East with a positive run differential. Oh, wow. I didn't even check the run differentials because...

How do you like them apples? Because they're all under 500. You know what? Miami, okay, here, Atlanta, negative 2. Philly, negative 16. Mets 16 mets negative 13 miami plus 12 washington negative 22 so i don't break up the marlins yeah so i don't know maybe they do have a little maybe not okay i'm not saying they're going to win that at least but maybe they're not the last place team we all envision here's another interesting thing. Their, their regression is supposed to all come in pitching because they're only

giving up 3.8 runs a game and they're supposed to get up 4.7. And yet pitching is the one part of what they do that. I'm kind of like, yeah, yeah. They put together a representative bullpen and they have a, they've always had a good rotation and they have more on the way. So Marlon's going to win. bullpen and they've always had a good rotation and they have more on the way. So, Marlins

going to win? Marlins going to win 80 games? 81? I'm just saying they could be a third place team in the NL East and it wouldn't surprise me. Would it surprise you? No. No, third place wouldn't.

I will react kindly in this situation because I have been treated unkindly in this situation in the past. Yes, anything is possible. I even tried to treat you unkindly when you were the one that was right about the Red Sox. So much disrespect with that Red Sox call. You know what? He's not super wearing it right now, though, because it's April. that Red Sox call.

You know, he's not super like wearing it right now though because it's April. If it gets a Memorial Day, then you'll see him, you'll see Derek if you're watching on YouTube show up with like

Red Sox gear head to toe in the podcast. The St. Patrick's Day, the green stuff too, like the really like deep Red Sox fan, fake Irish person fan.

There will be nothing subtle about Derek's flex if they continue. He'll sing, he'll sing, what's that stupid song? Dropkick Murphys or Sweet Caroline? Tessie? No, it's Sweet Caroline.

They're all stupid songs. Sweet Caroline, Tessie, Shipping Up to Boston. I mean, I used to think, oh, God. They're all terrible. They're not that bad, but I don't want all of Boston sports fans attacking me. Open your grill. Yeah, I don't want all of Boston sports fans attacking me. Open your grill. Yeah, I don't need that. Jazz over Trevor Rodgers for the first month, though.

Four homers, seven steals, 293, 75, 551. You could go either way here. They're both really good. I think the only other candidate for the award would be Dylan Carlson. But side by side, Jazz has been better offensively than Carlson to this point. One of those things where Carlson might win the whole thing because Jazz is currently hurt. Jazz might have more regression.

Carlson's line looks kind of sustainable. So there is. Yeah, but it's kind of funny when you do these things. You're not really supposed to think about sustainability, are you? No. But then people will, like if you do give the award, like it could be a tiebreaker how sustainable you think it is, right? Because if you give the award

to the Brian LaHare of the season, then it just looks kind of silly, right? It's like, oh, we just gave an award to someone who had an unsustainable hot month, right? So you kind of on some level want to be like, let's give the award to the one that's a little bit slightly more sustainable. Yeah. To look right in the long run, like to be like, let's give the award to the one that's a little bit slightly more sustainable.

Yeah, to look right in the long run. Like, look at us. We're so smart. We gave Dylan Carlson all the Rookie of the Month awards. You know it's going to come back to you. But the award is supposed to be just looking backwards. It is. And I think war leaderboards make this really easy to sift through the candidates.

And I think Jazz versus Rogers is actually a really fun debate. Kudos to Marlins fans for having both on the NL side right now. But if I were making this award today, if I were running the 3D printer right now, I'd be mailing the award to Jazz Chisholm. And the award itself would be a Brian LaHare. I was going to say, Brian LaHare. A Brian LaHare signed baseball card. There was a Brewer, too, wasn't there? Tyrone Taylor is creeping up the board.

No, no, no. A Brewer, really fast, was a rookie that was never good again. Pat Listash? Yeah. Going way back. Going back to the early 90s for that one. Guys, the only place our award's going to end up is in the trash if we end up Brian LaHair No, not if we make a couple

surreptitious copies for ourselves because I really want now a Prince Fielder of Rates and Barrels Best Celebration Award for my shelf up here. All we need is one person that thinks Derek is not creepy and he's okay to go to work with them. Just one

person. Do people think I'm creepy? That's awful. Bring your kid to work day. This is my large adult son, Derek. I'm not the hurly-hee boy. This is ridiculous. Come on.

I think I give off pretty normal vibes most of the time. I guess. I mean, sticking of the time. I guess. I mean, sticking with the awards, though, and speaking of absolutely ridiculous, the NL Cy Young right now would be Jacob DeGrom. The guy could take a month off, and it would be Jacob DeGrom. Okay, maybe Burns. We could give him the year one right now.

Yeah, it's DeGrom. I mean, in any other month, Corbin Burns would win in a runaway, but DeGrom has been one notch better than Burns thus far. A.51 ERA through his first five starts. And yet the Mets find ways to lose when he pitches still, which is baffling. I also mentioned I think the Yankees are going to hit and going to be fine.

We're seeing it in Atlanta right now that Braves offense is starting to wake up I also mentioned I think the Yankees are going to hit and going to be fine. We're seeing it in Atlanta right now that Braves offense is starting to wake up in the series against the Cubs that they had this week. The Mets offense isn't this bad. I realize that Mets fans don't want to hear it. I realize Mets fans want to boo Francisco Lindor for some reason because that will help. That will definitely help solve the problem because he doesn't realize that he's not hitting right now he needs those boos to get that into his head i guess it's scientifically proven derrick the more they boo the more that francis goldendorff will be like okay i'll try now fine you know what because you booed i will try to hit now they are projected to score two more runs a game than they are scoring right now.

That's amazing. That's the largest gap in baseball. The only guy hitting really is Nimmo right now consistently or getting on base consistently. Seems like Alonzo a little bit, but they've got some real serious holes. They need guys to get going. I looked at Lindor's line, and he's got like a 1% barrel rate, which is kind of surprising. But the Mets have also played fewer games,

so it's a smaller sample for everybody. And his plate discipline is like elite. So I kind of just think we might need to reset our power expectations from Lindor. And he might just be a guy who hits 275, gets on base a lot, and hits like 25 homers. Still a really good offensive player, especially when you factor in what he does on the other side. But the April NL Pitcher of the Month,

obviously Jacob deGrom, as we were saying before, is it as obvious on the AL side to give out that hardware? No, but you know what? Real quick, while we're on the AL topic, does Franmil Reyes lead baseball? He's got two triples i would love if he was the triples leader in the al for at least a hot second no no um maybe the al peralta has four in the no yeah i yeah i knew peralta had a bunch what about a he's got a lead maybe in the

al which is hilarious this huge lumbering guy uh watching him lug out the the triples has been joyous just had to get that in there while while we're speaking about the american league let's get the triples leaderboard triples are underappreciated i will do the triples leaderboard we could make this a regular thing because i love it one of my favorite things of all time and i know this is he's become a problematic player and i'm sorry about that but jose reyes with the when he had the dreads yeah and he would hit triples all the time and the the bat would fly off like right i mean the helmet would fly off like right around second and you just have this big mass of hair and he'd be like flying and he was so fast uh

and i was a uncomplicated mets fan david peralta with four and tied tied for second and first in the AL is Rafael Reyes. Tied with Nick Madrigal. You couldn't have two more different players tied for the lead in triples. I want that to continue so that at the end of the season, Nick Madrigal is tied with Rafael Reyes for triples. I want to give him a rates and barrels trophy of Prince Fielder. Maybe instead of best celebration, our award would be like some weird statistical foible. Like triples.

Nobody loves triples. Weirdest statistical leader of the month. A weird stat of the month leader would be perfect. Weird stat of the month. There you go. Although it's not as clear to me what the thing looks like. Oh, it's a laptop. It's sliding into third.

It's a laptop. It's a laptop. It's a laptop with a baseball shattering the screen. That's not bad. That's not bad. I like it. I like it. It's ready to go. I've got the specs.

I just need the device to actually make it. Is it Cole or is it Glasnow? Because I think Ivaldi, sure, he's been good so far, but Cole and Glasnow have been a cut above the field in the AL so far. I think from a sentimental perspective, maybe Carlos Rodon because he threw a no-hitter and he's a good comeback story. You could maybe get sappy and want to give him the award. But just in terms of most valuable AL pitcher, your choices are basically Cole and Glasnow. I think it's been Glasnow, but I think if you're looking at it as who's been the most important to their team, it's been Garrett Cole. Because without him, the Yankees would be even more up a creek. He's been literally the only guy you could consistently count on.

He accounted for some ridiculous percentage of their innings pitched out of that rotation. So it's a toss-up here for me. You can make the case for either guy. I enjoy Glass now because I also enjoy the swearing that goes on every time somebody like Kiermaier makes this crazy catch. The flow. The flow. The flow.

Also, yeah, I have serious hair envy. Like, what is that guy using? And how is it so nice when he's sweating? They're debating on MLB Central right now. Who has the best hair in baseball? And they've got Jazz on there, which she should be on there. But they didn't put Glassnow on the list. What?

That's not even up for debate. The guy is starting. He's sweating. And his hair still looks like that? It looks great. It's amazing. He must have good product. He needs a hair deal stat.

There is this weird thing that happens. You know when you have a full season, you get up. There is rate versus like uh bulk right so it's like oh remember you know jake went on the dl for two weeks so he has fewer strikeouts but this other guy you know has a higher era but what would have jake have done if he pitched those two other games or whatever he missed would he have had a higher era so? So there's always a debate about it. But I think that in a month, that debate gets even crazier because both Cole and Glassnow were healthy, but one just had one more start.

Maybe Cole's about to start tonight. I don't have the problems right now. Yes, he is actually. Oh, no, didn't he start last night? Or did they not? No, yesterday was the Orioles. He didn't pitch at all in the Orioles series, so he's starting tonight. He's correct.

So there you go. And so he's going to pitch tonight, and so he could have one more win. He has more strikeouts per inning. So if he gets those extra five, six innings, he'll have more strikeouts than Glass now. And if he keeps the ERA down, then he would be a clear winner. So I think that I generally actually, and this might be a problem. I'm a voter too. And maybe you guys disagree with this, but I generally actually favor rate.

Like I generally favor who's been amazing when they've been in. Because I also feel like injury is not always their fault. So like I'd rather just know who was amazing when they pitched rather than try, oh, but this guy bulk. I don't know. Who is it? You've been beating around the bush and I'm on the edge of my seat. Cole. He has the rates. Better

strikeout rate, better walk rate, better homer rate. I love the transformation we're seeing from Glasnell this season, though. It's awesome. When he's got everything working, he's must-see TV at this point. So excited for him. And Shane McClanahan, we were messaging about this yesterday. Pure filth yesterday.

Touching 101, 92-93 with the slider, split change, throwing a curveball in there, too. Got knocked around a little bit the second time through the lineup, which is kind of amazing. It's amazing, but the stuff is pretty otherworldly. Yeah. I find it hard to believe we're not going to see a lot of Shane McClanahan in the Rays pitching decks this season. Did you see that Patino backed him up for two innings? And this has actually, I think, been the whole plan for the Rays

is hang around until we can use the innings from our young guys. So now you're starting to see how exciting the Rays could be. Because basically what they need is Wander, Shane McClanahan, and Luis Patino. And I think Adamas might lose his job. I don't think that Adamas will lose his job, but I think Adamas will turn into a utility player, their right-handed guy who plays against lefties. And I actually now think that Wander is going to be up this year. Yeah, he's going to start at AAA.

I mean, anything's possible. He could fall on his face and not get the call. That's not out of the question, but I'd be stunned if that happened. I think he's going to hit, and we're talking three or four weeks from now, he's up taking over a spot in that Tampa Bay lineup. We've mentioned before, not striking out is a huge part of what he brings and fixes one of their biggest offensive flaws. You take a team that's been 500 in a tough division,

even with the Yankees, This is still a tough division. It's a very good division. You take a team that's been above 500, and then you give them McClanahan, Patino as starters. You take out the worst starters that are there. You take your worst infielder, and you replace them with the best prospect in baseball. I think that the Rays might win that division.

Yeah. That would not surprise me at all. Especially because it seems like there's something going on with Judge again or soreness. Does any team in baseball, I don't want to use the word coddle, but does any team in baseball enact the NBA style more than the Yankees when it comes to Judge and Sam? Yes, it's load management. I don't think he's actually hurt as much as they're trying to keep him from being hurt. He's either hurt or trying to not get hurt or like there's never a safe time, right?

I don't know. That's what it seems like. He's sore. He's undiagnosed sore. He's getting a day off. Like, I don't know. So, yes, to answer your question, I could see Tampa Bay winning the AL East again. Yeah. I love the young talent that they're bringing up into the mix.

Let's get to our last two April awards. Let's get to the April AL hitter of the month. If you look at the war leaderboards for position players, everything is kind of trending into its right place. You see Mike Trout, of course, at the top, because why wouldn't he be, especially on the AL side? But Vlad Jr., and I talked about this a bit with Keith Law on the Athletic Baseball Show for Friday, Vlad Jr.'s doing the things that Vlad Jr. was supposed to do all along. So he's right there, number two in the AL in position player war, has one more homer than Trout on the season, has played three more games so far, so that has to be factored in.

I just have a hard time looking at Trout with a 420, 524, 783 line and talking myself into anyone else deserving this award. He's 164% better than league average. I mean, I know it's only like a 20-game stretch, but what on earth? That's 44% better than Vlad Jr., who's 120% better than the average right now.

He's almost three times better than the average. I think if we're trying to truly take this award show global, which it's clear we are, we need to make an award that's like best player that's not Mike Trout, so that somebody else can get the freaking award. And the trophy should be Mike Trout just to troll them. We'll send Vlad Jr. a little Mike Trout trophy. A little Mike Trout. I don't think that would – that one would not show up on Instagram.

It will be in a bonfire on TikTok. Yeah. Immediately smashed by the unfortunate PR staffer who opens the mail for the players it happens in the mvp votes though you'll see like it happened to willie mays yeah which is just when you're amazing they find excuses to give it to other people because they're like well we you know we already gave it to you know mays already won like we're tired of you already won but imagine if somebody had a sense of humor, a little tiny gold Mike Trout on their shoulder,

like on an Instagram post. Never going to be as good as this guy, but damn it, I still am number two. Still on the podium. Somebody might find it funny. It depends on who we give it to. I don't know if Vlad would find it funny, but yeah, it's Trout.

I think it's a sweep for us. Vlad Jr. has been outstanding. Nick Solak on that leaderboard, too. So we talked about him on Wednesday's show. Pretty surprising to see him tracking towards being a 5-plus win player. That's funny. Yeah, we'll see how they hold up going forward. Some reason for optimism, but that pace seems a little bit unsustainable for both of those guys.

But let's go to the NL side. I think a lot of the groundwork for this was laid probably in the first two both of those guys. But let's go to the NL side. I think a lot of the groundwork for this was laid probably in the first two weeks of the season. Ronald Acuna has just been otherworldly so far. And if you look at the qualified hitters in the NL, you don't have multiple guys who've been more than 100% better than league average. Only Acuna has that distinction with a 204 WRC+. He's walking as much as he strikes out. Eight homers, three steals. He's driving in runs. He's scoring runs.

He's doing literally everything possible to try and keep the Atlanta offense afloat while the rest of that lineup has been in basically a month-long slump. Excuse me. Frederick Freeman had four hits the other night. And then he struck out against Anthony Rizzo in what was like the funniest moment of the month.

But I agree. Give him the award. He would wear a golden Mike Trout, I think. He probably would. He seems like he's got a pretty good sense of humor. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, that was a top shelf moment. Just seeing pure joy on two people's faces and having fun like kind of like Sandlot style.

That's how I would describe that. But I've got a piece out today. Let us not have a show where I don't pimp two of my pieces. In fact, I think I pimped three because I pimped next week's piece. Oh, God. I'm such a shill. Next week's piece. Oh, God.

I'm such a shill. Acuna is improving in two ways that actually are really important. His reach rate and his barrel rate. I put those two together and looked at people who improved those two things. They all had career years. And not all. Two-thirds of them had career years. But as you said, two-thirds of the time it works every time. Uh,

those are, I just think those are really fundamental skills. Don't reach, don't, don't, don't, don't swing at pitchers pitches. Uh,

and when you hit the ball, hit it hard. So when's that story come out next week? Uh, no, the barrel reach one is today. Oh, okay.

I was going to give our listeners a little heads up if they wanted to hurry up and blog something, but Oh, okay. I was going to give our listeners a little heads up if they wanted to hurry up and blog something. It's just cruel. I'm DMing my editor. I have an idea. We have to hurry, though. Oh, gosh. Oh, yeah. My chat's coming up.

We'll get you there. We'll get you there. We'll get you there. We'll get you to do a chat on time. My birthday's in November while we're at it. My birthday's in June, actually, if you want to get me something. Yeah, gosh, I see it. We had two more questions come in about the ball, and the email came from Andrew, and Andrew writes,

I'm wondering if this new ball is going to come out to be a bigger culprit than initial reports suggest. Here are the things we know. The ball was changed. Exit velocities are up. Babbiff is down. Batting average is lower than it's been ever. It's at least lower than it's been in a long time.

If you look at the year over year trends and scroll all the way back to the 19th century. Pitchers are throwing harder and striking out more batters than ever. The questions are, one, is it possible that we have a situation where players who were below average at catching up to the heat have seen their problems exaggerated with the ball change? The second question is, I'm hearing a lot about drag, but wouldn't the drag be negligible

on a pitch to the plate, whereas it could be pronounced on fly balls in the air, thereby driving down batting average and BABIP? Or is it just April and I'm panicking? Holy shit. That's an Eno question. Well, there are no doubles, man. The doubles have

gone away. It's a total mystery and we've got a writer on it. Hopefully he'll publish that piece today. But I don't know. Yes, I think the question is right. I think that the ball is a big culprit this year. I think that the added drag does have some impact on the pitch to the plate, which is pitch movement is up. So pitch movement is up at an all-time high.

Breaking balls are breaking more than ever. Fastballs are riding more than ever. Also, we just saw an increase in velocity bigger than we've seen in 10 years, in one year.

So we just went from 93.5 to 93.9. And it's April, which means that the average starting velocity, the average velocity for a pitch this year, a fastball will be 94.1 or something, which will be amazing because August is when velocity peaks. So to go a half tick up around 94, that means, and we already knew that 94 was kind of a benchmark where like above 94 fastballs start performing better so that means that a bunch of people that were sitting 93 93 and a half are now over 94 uh yes i think the strikeout rate between the movement and the velocity going up that's a huge component of strikeout rate so i think they really screwed up

uh the ball because by making it two and a half grams lighter, which is the most they could make it lighter, they brought velocity up, they brought movement up. And then by deadening the inside, yes, the ball doesn't go the same distance, but at the same EV, but at higher, there are more higher EVs now. So the barrel rate is up. So it's weird. It's just become more all or nothing. They did the only thing to the ball that they could to increase 3-2 outcomes. Whoops. Who's in charge? If you put me in charge, the number one thing I would do is reverse that change with the ball and make it heavier.

Because if you make it heavier, velocity goes down. heavier because if you make it heavier velocity goes down you might reduce some homers and turn those into doubles and maybe create some incentive to to hit line drives i hope you don't just create more fly outs by making the ball heavier because that would be disappointing that's another thing with the mound change the mound change might just create more weak contact and and people are like well yeah we contact that's great is it noak contact is not what you're trying to increase. You want some ground outs? You want quality contact. The only thing that's great is no longer seeing guys fiddle for 10 minutes with their batting gloves between pitches.

That's, to me, just a total win-win. No one's going to be like, oh, we didn't consider this when we eliminated that. Like, no. Yeah, that was pretty straightforward. Yeah, our choices are like pretty fair, like the unintended consequences are very minor. The only thing that can happen

with the pitch clock is the guy steps off the mound because he's worried about the guy stealing because the clock is going down. But the guy can do that anyway. Right. Yeah, that's not going to go up that much. At least I wouldn't expect it to.

So not much to worry about there. We talked about some closer entrance music. We were talking about relievers and the difference between relievers and starters on last Friday's show and how there's actually a clear difference in the music you'd want as a closer versus what you might want to play if you were stepping into the box as a hitter. So, Eno, it looks like you have a selection ready for the group. What would you walk up to? I didn't actually think about that long because as soon as I thought of this one, it's the one I wanted. And I don't know. It just gets me pumped up. I think that's what I'd want. I don't know.

I'd love the part two where he screams. I'd have to have that part in. That would hit as you're, as you're just digging your first foot into the box. That's about when that would hit too. Because based on the time. There is a curse word kind of early in that. So I don't know what they do about that,

but yeah, you know, we've got editing techniques that people that mess around with things can use to make that more family-friendly. So I think that's a good choice. All right, so you're going Sabotage by the Beastie Boys. It's kind of boring. I feel like it's kind of boring.

It's like, oh, Beastie, like, whatever. You couldn't do better. But, like, I just heard that, and I'm humped up. Like, I kind of want to maybe play that before we do podcasts now. Do you want a montage? Do you want like a montage of our dumb faces set to Beastie Boys music? You know it's always yelling at the beginning of the podcast now.

Sounds like something we could do. I like it. It's good. It's quality. Do you have music for like power lifting? Yeah. I always think like what's the one song I put on where I'm like, I'm going to lift something really heavy. I really like the, I think it's Drowning Pool, the Let the Bodies Hit the Floor, that song.

That's like a great song. And again, it's also got yelling where it's like. Nice. That is not what I expected. Really? What do you think I listened to? I don't know what I expected, but it what I expected. Really? What do you think I listened to? I don't know what I expected, but it wasn't that. Really?

Derek thinks I listen to Miley Cyrus's I'm Getting My Lift On. Yeah, I figured you were listening to Taylor when you were doing your powerlifting. No. Come on. I don't think that. Drowning Pool is from the – I was in high school. It was early 2000s. It was probably when that song was new, right?

Right around 2000. And that always makes me think of like the new metal movement and the very angry rock. There's like Traps, Headstrong. That song was everywhere for a while.

And then there's that song that Evan Longoria still walks up to. Oh, that's a great song. But he's kind of ruined it. Yeah, the beginning is great. And then it's not that great of a song.

So you better have like one. It's great for an f-at but if you're running out of the bullpen it's actually not that great kind of tailors off um it's tantric i've listened to it before lifting i've been like oh evan longoria this is when you know you spent too much time like around baseball like that bugatti song i'm'm like, oh, Adam Jones, skip. It's just like, hey, you spend time with these guys. And like I was on the beat forever and they don't change their bad songs. They just ruin these great songs for you. Like I'll skip that.

In my weightlifting room in high school, it was Danzig, which Mother was like a huge song that we would listen to while weightlifting. But I don't think that – does it start amazingly? Well, yeah. Every weight room is like that. Yeah, Limp Bizkit is another Don't Sleep On Me. This is not like what I want to walk up to, I don't think. It's too mellow. That's not bad for walk-up music.

That's not bad for walk-up music. You don't want to get so jacked. Mother. You don't want to swing out of your shoes. I wouldn't pick it. Yeah. I will say that Limp Bizkit is really good for that quick hit. You know, the beginning.

In defense of Limp Bizkit. What? Wait, did you have one, DVR? What's yours? Yeah, he's bigger foot of mine. I think I would change mine a lot. I would be the kind of person that does not keep the same walk-up music all season long. I think there's a song from a DJ.

It's called Swing Thing by Boogie Belgique. And it's more like swing hop. So it's a little chill, but it would work for that. Swing hop? Yeah, never listened to swing hop? Okay, you guys guys what's the worst at bat song you've ever heard because one time derrick jeter came up to r kelly i'm a flirt and i was like this is terrible oh that's pretty bad uh it still stuck with me yeah that's a pretty bad one i Like really? I'm trying to think of the worst. I mean, Gabe Gross, former brewer in Blue Jay, was walking up to some Christian rock. Yeah, he's a big Christian guy.

I just don't know how that gets you in the mood to hit a baseball. I'm not making any sort of commentary about the music itself, but it's just like that wouldn't get me psyched up. But if it works for him, then that's what you should do. That's? This? It's just like that wouldn't get me psyched up. But if it works for him, then that's what you should do. That? This? I wouldn't start at the beginning, though. Okay. This is the intro.

Not what I expected. Yeah, it's good stuff. But let us know. Let us know what your walk-up music would be on Twitter. She's at Britt underscore Giroli. He's at Eno Saris. I am at Derek Van Ryper. You can find us

an email. Ratesandbarrelsattheathletic.com is a perfectly fine way to send us an email. Of course, you can subscribe to The Athletic for just $3.99 a month at theathletic.com slash ratesandbarrels. That is going to wrap things up for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We are back with you on Monday.

Thanks for listening and watching.