Rates & Barrels - The Astros Tie Up the Series at 1-1, Expectations for Games 3-5

Episode Date: October 28, 2021

Eno and DVR discuss Houston's Game 2 World Series win over Atlanta on the strength of a nice outing from José Urquidy and a seven-run outburst from the Astros' lineup before setting expectations for the three-game weekend stretch as the series heads to Georgia.  Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow Britt on Twitter: @Britt_Ghiroli Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Watch the show *Live* on weekdays at 11:30a ET/8:30a PT on YouTube and subscribe to the Rates & Barrels YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/RatesBarrels Subscribe to The Athletic at 33% off for the first year: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels presented by Topps. Check out Topps Project 70 celebrating 70 years of Topps baseball cards, it is Thursday, October 28th. Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris on the heels of the Astros, tying up the World Series at one game apiece. No Brit again today, but I think we should begin today's show with a congratulations to Brit and Kavitha Davidson. They won an Edward R. Murrow Award for their podcast about the story of Mo Gabba. We've talked about that story before, but just phenomenal work by those two on that episode. That's one of the highest honors in journalism, so hearty congrats to Brit. That is a much better place to be than on our pod on any given Thursday. Yeah, they look fabulous in their attire.

I got to do the red carpet thing and take pictures in front of the background and sport their hardware. So that's a dream of mine. I would love to do something like that someday. That's a legit sort of thing, right? When you hit the red carpet and the backdrop, you've absolutely crushed it. So congrats to both of them.

That was phenomenal work reminds me i did pitch talks uh here at the independent which is where i saw um i saw black black star i saw most def and and talib qually back in the day um and i remember standing on the on the on the um uh on the stage. I remember standing on stage and looking down and being like, most deaf was here, you know? And that was a thrill for me. So someday I'd like to be able to kind of hold up

some hardware and be like, Brit was here. Yeah, that's pretty much how it goes at this point. But I thought you were going to say, when you said The Independent, you saw Trent Krim there, the reporter from Ted Lasso. I thought you were referring to being at the office of The Independent in the UK. No, no.

The Independent is a venue here. I saw some really great shows there. Well, one day. One day I will venture out and leave this little corner of the peninsula that I hang out in. My world is so small. It's the same when I travel to New York. In my mind, midtown Manhattan

is like six square blocks or so. That's where I've been every time I've gone for towel wars. Clearly, it is much bigger than that. There are whole other boroughs that I should go see sometime that have whole kind of character. Well, see, when you visit, I think it makes sense.

Now that you live here, though, you just moved here. It's fine. But living somewhere, then you start reaching out and going to different places. I got up into the mountains for some wine. I feel like that's a small achievement. There you go. Just doing that.

Carmel, or where'd you go? No, just up the Santa Cruz Mountain. Let's get to the baseball. Jose Urquidy goes 5. 7 Ks. Really nice performance from him. Astros, of course, win that game 7-2. Early lead for the Astros, of course. Sack fly from

Bregman. Travis Darnot tied it up with a homer in the top of the second, but then it was just the kind of weird, soft contact show in the bottom of the second inning. A-Rod loved it because he thought it was 80s baseball, even though the most, or one of the most analytically inclined

teams of this era has continued to lead the league in team strikeout rate in a good way, having a low K rate. So, you know, A-Rod's kind of on his own plan. Yeah, analytics does not love the strikeout. No, no, no, no.

It does not. So that was a kind of hilarious thing. I saw people dunking on him on Twitter, rightfully so, in that case. You know how it actually was? Because I am so over A-Rod. And I don't know if it is just another example of being the king of waffles, but I've kind of had different opinions on A-Rod at different points in his career. Like, I thought, you know, it was kind of, you know,

people point to his first contract with Texas as being, like, a super bloated bad contract. I thought that was one of the best contracts of all time um you know to get a a young shortstop MVP type shortstop in his prime for the for those dollars I think they did really well so I was like you know people hate him too much um and then he became a broadcaster at first I was like oh he's kind of interesting and now I'm so over it like just the the straw man and the the reductiveness and all that stuff but what i did think was interesting was i looked at the exit velocities yesterday and you were right the soft contact show four out of five of the best

exit velocities yesterday were uh from um the braves And I wouldn't say that it's like completely, um, soft contact because the Astros dominated the next 10 or so, you know what I mean? Like they're like eight out of the next 10, they hit a lot of balls, like 99 miles an hour. That's not like super soft, you know, but like they put the ball in play and they hit it reasonably hard and uh they kind of just the one of the things they do is they just pepper like there's so many like there's none of them are bad you know only martin maldonado and he can still run into one so uh you know it was just i would say the word is relentless yeah relentless is a good way to go.

I think there's a funny question in the live stream. James, thank you for joining us. I haven't seen you on the stream before. He asked, is this a fantasy baseball show or a general baseball show? Mitch replied with a yes along with Sam and James. Then everyone kind of proceeded to explain what we do here. It kind of feels like the way I feel when I talk to my grandpa about my job.

It's sort of like a little TV show that people get to watch on the internet sometimes. And otherwise, it's like a radio show that you can listen to on your phone. Do you get paid for this? Amazingly, yes, I do. And I have a lot of fun with it but um i will say to james that like you know uh during the season and especially leading up to the season

we lean a little bit more fantasy uh mondays and wednesdays generally lean more fantasy and then fridays are are more regular baseball and uh so the friday show with brit that's been more regular baseball. And so the Friday show with Britt that's been more regular baseball is what we expanded into the playoffs. Because I think, frankly, most people who play fantasy want to take a little break right now. Yeah, I mean, I'm goofy.

And if you were excited about it on October 2nd and you said, let's start putting the rankings out, I would do it. But I think pumping the brakes a little bit was a good idea. See, there's a lot of truth here. Sam, one episode was let DVR vent

about the Brewers episode. Eno missed that day. That was a travel day for Eno going to Arizona. James, sometimes DVR gets the ass. Probably more often than I should, given the circumstances. Yeah. And then every time, Eno tries to take all sides of an issue.

Yes. Right. That's, that's pretty much how it works. If you had to summarize what we are as a podcast, I think that's probably the best way to do it. So hopefully you stick around, hit the like button, subscribe,

you know, pick us up wherever you listen to podcasts. If you don't like looking at our faces, that's, that could heat all of us. If you don't like our faces, just do the podcast version. Yeah.

Right. Just listen to us. Hopefully you don't like our faces, just do the podcast version. Yeah, right. Just listen to us. Hopefully you don't find our voices annoying. Here's a crossover. Right now, a person crossover. Jose Urquidy. He is the crossover between our fantasy show and our regular show because we were big in on him early in the season

despite terrible projections. And I think last night he really showed why. He has a bunch of different pitches that he commands pretty well. And did you notice something? In the Boston appearance that went so badly, his velocity was up on all three of his pitches, or all four of his pitches. It was up like two miles an hour, right? And he couldn't command the ball.

He couldn't command the ball. And he just walked everybody and just blew up. Last night, the velocity was up on the secondary pitches, but it was only up a half tick on the fastball. He really seemed like he was trying to be free and easy on the fastball. And in fact, I felt I saw it in the first inning. I was like, 93s? I was like, he was trying to be free and easy on the fastball. And in fact, I saw it like I felt I saw it in the first inning. I was like 93s. I was like,

this is going to be good. Usually, you know, the hot hand in, in pitching is how hard your fastball is. That's, you know, Rob Arthur has that research that says how hard your fastball is,

is actually predictive of your next, next appearance. But I think for our kitty, he's a, he's a command guy. And I think when I saw the 93s in the first inning i said i think this is gonna be good because he was putting it in the zone he's putting it where he wanted to he eased up off of it and let his command show then he started breaking out

some cool stuff like did you see the high change-ups he was throwing some high change-ups for whiffs i thought that was great i thought he did a really good job of mixing his mixing all his pitches and i think uh you know as bad as some of the announcing has been uh smoltz uh was okay on i think smoltz is pretty good on the pitching side because he was he he pointed out the same stuff we pointed out about max freed um you know liking to pitch inside with the fastball and that the uh the righties on the astros and that ended up being relevant in the first appearance with Altuve. You know, Fried kept trying to go inside, and Altuve finally hit a double off him. And then I think he was pretty good about describing Urquidy,

why Urquidy was good, because I think Urquidy was mixing really well. I thought that he was keeping them off balance by throwing just weird pitches like the high changeups. Yeah, I mean, I think we've wondered before, how many wrinkles can you have in your approach and your game plan? And Drew Smiley not really throwing fastballs and that relief outing against the Dodgers, that was a pretty big surprise. And then equally surprising, the home run that Smiley gave up to Jose Altuve was an

up-and-in fastball. His worst pitch thrown in the worst possible spot to a guy that crushes that ball. that Smiley gave up to Jose Altuve was an up-and-in fastball. His worst pitch thrown in the worst possible spot to a guy that crushes that ball. Like that's, you know, kind of strange too. But sometimes you miss your spot too. I don't know if he was necessarily trying to go where he went with that pitch. This is what I thought would happen a little bit more with Freed. I don't know that I remember exactly one pitch that worked out this way.

But I thought what would happen with Freed is of going in up and in on those righties where they actually have a strength i thought he would try to go up and away and i thought that one of those pitches would kind of drift middle a middle and up and then they would kind of uh launch it for homer i don't know if that described anything i think that may have described what's what Smiley. Yeah, I think it definitely described Smiley. I think he was trying to go up a way, and it kind of just drifted in. Yeah. I think I was looking at the heat map for Freed, and I was on my phone, so I didn't screenshot it and put it on my computer to share it with everybody, so I'm sorry about that.

But the quadrant we were worried about, that up and in pitch, Max Freed actually avoided that part of the zone, up and into righties, that is to clarify what we're specifically looking at. He didn't really go there at all. They knew. They saw that. They had that in mind. They knew where the Astros crushed the

ball and tried to avoid that. I think sometimes you can have the right game plan and just not execute it perfectly. I think a lot of this was getting badmipped. It was defense making a few mistakes that also compounded things a little bit. Also though, we were talking about. I think a lot of this was getting badmipped. It was defense making a few mistakes that also compounded things a little bit. Also, though, we were talking about how they make a lot of contact, which is good,

and not necessarily the 120-mile-an-hour version this time. And I think that actually goes into what Freed's approach was. So I think Freed, you know, he's like, okay, I'm not going to go hard in, but he did go soft in. Like, he did throw breaking balls in, right? remember i think in the first inning you know bregman fouling off you know a couple of those i think altuve fouled off a couple sliders in you know and i think they decided okay we're getting breaking balls in we're not going to get the fastball in. And I think to some extent the hitters were like, if I'm not going to get the fastball in,

then I need to slow it down a little bit, maybe try to go the other way, maybe just try to put this ball in play and not necessarily go for the homer. So we might call it Babbitt. We might say it's a bit unfortunate or whatever, but it might have also been an actual adjustment by the hitters to saying okay we're not going to get this hard fastball in they're too aware of this

let's start looking for breaking balls in and and slow slow our speed our swing a little bit right because if you if you have a fastball swing on a breaking ball in it's a foul ball as a writing right i think the the exact play that i'm thinking about, though, is the Jose Siri grounder, roller, chopper through the right side. That, to me, was the epitome of, okay, this wasn't planned, went the other way, took the pitch, hit it with a little, you know, it was no. Yeah, but Albies had that little swinging bunt. that oh yeah i mean yeah this happens throughout a game but i mean that that to me was kind of a key thing and there was a defensive mistake no one's covering third base when he rosario threw that ball in later so siri came around to score i mean a couple little things like that kind of stacked on top of other things to make this look a little worse for max freed than it really was was that a little bit of what we're talking about with the outfield defense in atlanta coming to

bite them a little bit i mean rosario is not known for hitting the cutoff man or you know what i mean like you could maybe blame it on someone not covering third but also rosario kind of air mailing it right throwing a ball where there isn't a person you know right yeah that's definitely part of it too uh what else stood out to you i mean rikini's high changeups, that's definitely a nice wrinkle. Was there anything else you saw that you're like, oh, hey, I didn't really expect that to be part of the game plan? Well, I mean, in a good way for the Braves, I think Kyle Wright coming in and showing decent command, even at 94 miles an hour, and showing basically kind of a revamped curveball um you know his curveball had less horizontal break it was a little bit more vertical um and a little bit harder uh two almost two miles

an hour harder than usual so i think that that shows off some of the work he's been doing in the minor leagues um you know i think he was a little bit more, you know, he was a different kind of pitcher before. So this sort of fastball curveball where it's a little bit more vertical curveball, it's not like something that, it's maybe not a big deal, but it could become a big deal, right? Like they kind of need someone, right? And someone's got to step forward. And if it's not, because Charlie Morton's missing.

So maybe he's the guy, maybe it's only two or three innings, but maybe he's the guy that they, they call it a bullpen game and it's him and mentor. And maybe they actually get through five, giving a one or something that could put them back in the series, you know? Yeah. So,

I mean, I think the, the big focus of today's show is we've got three games coming up starting Friday. We don't have a show tomorrow. So we're sort of previewing the entire weekend and there's so much unknown because of the Charlie Morton injury for what it's worth. It was Tucker Davidson that Atlanta decided to put on the roster in Morton's place. I think I named the other three options. Davidson was the obvious fourth. So it's always going to be the extra player that you don't name. I'm a little surprised it wasn't Strider. Do you think they just wanted to have a lefty? I mean, they have a ton of lefties.

There's like six or seven lefties on this playoff roster. I thought it was going to be Tukey because of the experience. I thought they were going to go with the more proven guy and say, we're going to walk two or three innings at a time. Yeah, and he showed some flashes in the second half. So rather than put Strider out there in a situation where you just don't know exactly what you're getting. Yeah, you get the benefit of a guy that the Astros might not have as good

of a scouting report on. I thought Tukey was going to be that choice. So yeah, another lefty, definitely not something I expected. But the only pitching matchup that's clear at this point for the weekend is the Friday pitching matchup that's clear at this point for the weekend is the Friday matchup it's going to be Ian Anderson going up against Luis Garcia so we can start there that to me kind of an even matchup we've had that pretty much for each of the

first three games where I think this series could go completely sideways for Atlanta is in in the event that Ian Anderson goes short in game three. That's the nightmare scenario because the bullpen fatigue will start to compound over the course of the weekend. Right? I mean, that's the nightmare scenario. The same is probably true for Houston, given the current state of their rotation. But I still think when we look at Grinke and Javier, who get to pitch in game two and should be pretty rested even by the time we get to three. I would imagine they're probably trying to save them for four or five if they can.

But those two guys still give me quite a bit more confidence than the worst of the worst Atlanta relievers by comparison. It's only a slight difference, but it's a difference nonetheless. There was some research just put out by russell carlton at baseball perspectives uh otherwise known as pizza cutter um that um pointed out that uh fatigue you know like that pitches thrown uh just raw pitches thrown that over time pitchers get worse within a season it's kind of one of those like no duh but But it also is kind of meaningful for even a short series like this where if they get used, it's not – even if you give them rest, they're getting worse.

And I think that there's two things going on there. It's fatigue and exposure, people seeing them more and then also just being fatigued. So, you know, I think that the that the you know i think you're right if if ian anderson goes short that's that's that's a problem uh you know as much as tuki's command is is shaky like tucker davidson has a was a really bad fastball and doesn't really command it um so i think all of the choices were flawed uh that's why i just thought spencer strata would be someone that no one had ever seen but you know i don't think the astros have seen tucker davidson either so maybe tucker davidson comes out and throws 80 breaking balls and uh and

surprises everyone um that's definitely something that like smiley did once you know twist yeah so there's uh there's still more coming i actually picked the braves tonight uh luis garcia has those home away stuff uh uh splits that we can't explain and uh so i just think that he might not be as good as he was uh before and um ian anderson's gonna be pitching on his home crowd. I don't know. I think that I'm going to take the Braves tonight. I'm fairly confident I don't have them winning three in a row tomorrow. Tomorrow night, yeah.

Friday. You don't have Atlanta winning all three home games. I know they're 5-0 in the postseason at home so far this year. Once you swim move past Ian Anderson, even if you're down 2-1 as the Astros, you're like, okay, now who you got? Right.

You either got... I don't even think Max Fried on short rest is a Saturday option. Maybe a Sunday option. Max Fried pitched Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. He would be three days rest on Sunday. I mean, would you do it only in an elimination scenario?

If you're down 3-1, do you throw him there just to get him out there again? Yeah. I mean, if you're down 3-1, you've got to win. But if they win tonight, then they're up 2-1. Then it's 2-2 maybe. Then I think the Braves will go 1-2 at home. Yeah, so that would send it back to Houston when we're speaking early next week. 3-2 Astros trying to close out at home.

Two chances to win it, yeah. But then Freed might start Game 6. And if he makes an adjustment, it could easily come down to 7 with our man Orchidi back on the mound. I would imagine Houston doesn't want to our man or kitty back on the mound. I would imagine Houston doesn't want to bring or kitty back early the same way Atlanta doesn't want to bring freed back and maybe they have their scenario in which they would do it, but I'm not expecting who are the problems, who are,

who are the problems with either? I'm pretending like the Astros have all these pictures and, and the Braves have none. But if it's Anderson versus Garcia, then the next one would be Frambois. Frambois versus bullpen game? How comfortable are you throwing him on short rest right now? Oh, my God.

So the next game would be bullpen versus bullpen? Yeah. Yeah, that's what game four is shaping up to be. And then in that scenario in five, you'd have a fully rested front. I love my man, Granky, James. I am all over that. I think Granky comes in and shoves.

You think that? Okay. Why do you think that? Because I, listen, I'm a numbers guy. I have no reason to believe this. I'm just in the tank for Zach granke man i think he's a hall of famer okay i mean that's fine i say give him the start let him get let him prepare himself and then he's going to come out there and do some weird ass game plan he's going to throw efi

you know he would you know he would do you not not want to see an Ephus in the world series. Do you not want to see a pitcher get a hit in the world series? Then you are also rooting for Zach Greinke. So long as pitchers have to wield a bat, I would love to see Zach Greinke get a hit. I'm saying Greinke, Javier, Greinke, Javier, they win that game. So you think they go Greinke, Javier in four, burn those guys then, and they'd have Odorizzi as the support option

behind Fromber in game five. If Fromber were to go short again, they could do the same thing and just try and use Odorizzi to kind of chew through it. And I think they win Fromber. Yeah, okay. So we're pretty clear on this now. If either of these teams has issues

with their starter in game three, the whole weekend takes a nasty turn just because of the way they're off work and because of the way those pants are constructed. You know, Charlie Morton's leg thing is brutal, but Lance McCullers, it's not as brutal because you don't see it happen in real time, but Lance McCullers, it's not as brutal because it doesn't, you don't see it happen in real time, but Lance McCullers grabbing a forearm, you know, right when they needed him.

I mean, how different would it be if they had Lance McCullers in game four? You're just like, oh, okay. Definitely giving that one to the Astros. Yeah. Oh, that, I mean, for sure would change things a lot. Yeah, I like that. Yeah, Michael on, for sure. It would change things a lot. Yeah, I like that. Yeah, Michael on the live stream, Grink, you'll be looking at the radar display

to see how slow he can get. I mean, he probably would want to have the record for slowest pitch thrown in the World Series on record, at least slowest on StatCast there. He loves records like that. I think he would totally do it. He'd be like, Jamie Moyer, whatever. Slow, slow, or slow Slow, slower, slowest.

How about slowest of all time? We've got to turn on the Jason Stark bat signal again because I don't know who has the record for the slowest pitch thrown in a World Series game at this time. I feel like Jason would either know or would have the resources to quickly find out, even more quickly than we could figure that out. Anything else about the weekend matchups that is compelling to you?

I mean, thinking about Jordan Alvarez playing defense and Tucker in center, Brantley in right, that definitely, to me, that levels the playing field with the outfield defense quite a bit, whereas with the DH, Houston's defense in the outfield is a lot better. Without it, not so much. Yeah, we'll get a little bit more i mean listen the one thing that i will admit is that uh the first two games weren't that great and we asked when this started will this be more like the alcs and or more like the nlcs and we're

getting the alcs we're getting i mean i don't know if it's routes with a capital r but we're getting you know we're getting non-competitive games really where they're mostly decided by the fourth inning and we don't have that intrigue of do we take jordan alvarez out now for you know we're gonna get i hope we get more of that and i wonder if some of it has to do with the AL versus the NL, which is a loaded thing to say before we might lose the last real distinction between the AL and the NL going forward. But, you know, I do wonder if we'll get tighter games and we'll get more interesting decisions where they're like, oh, man, we really were like, we're up by two.

Do we take Jordan out for defense? You know, what if they tie it back up again and we wish we had Alvarez still in there? Hopefully, we get some more NLCS in the National League parks and we get some tighter games where we get some interesting decisions. So far, it's been mostly

if your starting pitcher was the better one that night, you won. That's a little bit old school, you yeah that's okay too i mean we know they're not getting deep into the fourth inning yeah right yeah the benchmarks are a lot different than they used to be but uh that's the that's the way the game used to be played a few other questions popping up on the stream one was about about the Manning cast. Monday Night Football has been doing a thing with Eli and Peyton Manning. I think it's on ESPN2 or ESPN Plus or something.

I forget where they put it, but it's not the main broadcast. But it's Eli and Peyton, and they bring on guests and dunk on each other and do what they do because people are, I guess, probably sick of the same. Who's the running back they had on? I haven't watched the Manning cast. I haven't tuned into it. Who's the Skittles running back? Oh, Marshawn Lynch? They had Marshawn Lynch on.

And I wasn't watching it. But the clips were showing up on Twitter. And they were hilarious. He's just cussing left and right on TV. I mean, that's a better way to present the game or a more engaging way to present the game. So is the question is the question who like what would the Manny cast look like for baseball? Yeah, that was the question that was bouncing around. Brett Phillips is the on field reporter.

Phillips is Phillips is golden doodle has some some hazel energy about him or her. Energy is the key word. I mean, that's why you want Brett Phillips as the sideline reporter. So Brett Phillips is our sideline reporter. Who are the two veterans? Votto? Well, see, if Granke wasn't in it, I mean, I dream someday of a book where it's me, Votto, and Granke. I mean, I just think that'd be amazing.

I think once they were out of the game, you know, they would like, they would just have so many funny stories and like, and thoughts about baseball. But, uh, well, if you think about all the things that you like about various broadcasters, right. I mean, I think a lot of people like the way Vin Scully could tell stories.

The amazing thing was that he could do it by himself for several hours day after day after day and keep it interesting. Or a buchor. The anecdotes that he provides on a broadcast on a given day. You like personality like that. I think most people do. We need more of that. Joseph

Cobb, Bryce Harper and Hunter Strickland. No more Strickland in my life please please no but seriously Mitch Mitch is saying that um that they don't really call the game like you're saying like they don't I think that it would be a mistake to try and rely on them to call the game but if it was a video like I think that's why TV is so different from radio. I think, yeah, with radio, you need someone to tell you what's happening.

Yeah. But with TV, you could just have two guys that are just not at all telling you what's happening. So, okay. So this is why if we did, if we did second screen stuff

during games, obviously the game would not be on in the background behind us. 99% sure that's still very illegal to rebroadcast and then provide commentary. But if you go live, if you do a live stream or any sort of broadcast that's separate of a game during a game, that's basically what you're doing. You're making your own Manning cast as a podcaster or whoever wants to do these things. We're seeing people do it more often. It's a, for now, really alternative way to consume a game.

But I just think we're clearly at this point where people have more choices than ever of what they want to watch and what they want to listen to. There's demand for it. How much demand there is? Probably a multi-million dollar question. For baseball, do the two people you put in the booth together have to be related?

I mean, with the Mannings, yeah, they're brothers. But even if they were just guys that were rivals forever and they weren't related, maybe the concept would still be really good. So that's why I think the Votto-Grinky combo could work really well. If they've got to be brothers, then maybe the Seegers. Corey and Kyle Seeger could be an interesting one. Or the Molinas. Actually get more Molinas that way. We do have Andrew Perpetua saying we need a catcher.

Might be interesting to get the Molinas in there. Yeah. There's a suggestion of Jason and Jeremy Giambi. I mean, I don't know if that would work. I don't know if they would think so. It would be funny for a little bit, but I think, yeah, I don't know about the analyst part of their brains.

Yeah, the Molina cast. I mean, I think that actually could be one of the best combos if the requirement is that the people in the booth need to be related. If it could be father-son, would a Griffey cast be any good? Oh. Oh, I like it. I can't remember the last time I saw a senior around or heard him anywhere. You see Junior from time to time on stuff.

That's true. Bakers. The Bakers. That could work. Actually, that could be really good, too. Mitch has a Sandy Alderson and his son zing

how much do you like dead air like how much do you just like the sound of the ambient noise of the game I feel like you get a lot of that I know you're making a joke but I do think that that's the weirdest toggle on this, right? Because if you're calling the game,

a lot of times you're quiet because you're letting the fan noise come in, right? But if we were to do something like this where we are talking about the game, I don't think there's so much analysis. I think there would be times where you'd want to be quiet. Well, I don't know. On TV, that play is so

weird, though. It's different on the radio. It's even weirder if it's not the actual TV and someone's listening to a stream next to the... You know what I mean? That's outside of the TV. Yeah, have you ever, you know, made a deal while the TV was on?

Oh, my Roku froze. I can't. Yeah. So some people need the noise. Some people need a little more kind of pushed in there. You know, you could get the Bonzes in there. You could do all sorts. The Boons, a Boon cast.

You could get a Kenseco cast, as Sam suggests. I mean, the possibilities are endless. I think they kind of accidentally... I forgot about Ozzy Canseco. I forgot about him. Canseco has a brother. I was like, oh, yeah, Canseco has a brother. You can do the Ripken cast.

Oh, the Ripken cast would be good, I think. I mean, they are used to TV. They do a good analysis. They'd be pretty good. Yeah, the Ripken cast would be good, I think. I mean, they are used to TV. They do a good analysis. Like, you know, they'd be pretty good. Yeah, the Ripken cast. That would be like a normal thing. That would almost be most like the Manning thing, I think. Ripken cast or Boone cast, since Boone did TV before becoming the Yankees manager.

I think they'd have a little bit of a head start relative to some of the other people you put in there who haven't done TV before, who might not be as natural at it. It's funny to me because you can, I don't know if you watch NFL games, people watching on the stream, many of you probably do, some of you don't. But Tony Romo, for his lack of experience as a broadcaster, I feel like brings something. And maybe you're tired of him already. I understand if you are. That's why I thought like body of vado granke i think vado like he doesn't have experience as a broadcaster but he'd be hilarious i'd but i'd be willing in in seeing what he's done in interviews and hearing those interviews i'd be pretty confident that he would show up and do a

good job like yeah you can get a little bit of a feel for it it's still something of a guessing game but i'd be pretty confident that vado would do really well just on live tv yeah and i just think that vato and granky would be in particular funny because their sense of humors are very different and uh strange-ish like vato does have a bit of a troll sense of humor and then granky is like Mr. Dry. Like he's so dry that you, he's like one of those ones where you just like, did he mean that? Like he called himself a genius the other day and I was like, I think he's serious and also not.

You know, that's the kind of humor he has. Simultaneously both, yeah. Yeah. Well, lots of good ideas flowing in there. I think they kind of stumbled into the Manning cast structure, it seemed like, during the KBO games, right? Because Boog Shambi, I think, was usually the lead, and it was just bringing on different guests from...

You were on some of the games as a guest, and it kind of felt like a podcast with a game in the background. The weirdest part yeah the weirdest part though was that like there was very little um very little focus on the game well but i think that comes back to a general lack of knowledge about the kbo the players involved and i guess you can do the work and and dig into that but i think they probably realized the there wasn't going to be a long-term investment in from the audience in learning about those players and like wanting to stick with them beyond the part of the season or the season that we were going to watch.

Like, I think that was probably an accurate read on the part of whoever did that. Yeah. They just wanted to have something on to, you know, that looked like baseball. We could talk about baseball and wish baseball was back. Yeah, they just wanted to have something on that looked like baseball, where we could talk about baseball and wish baseball was back. Yeah, exactly.

One other topic I wanted to get to today, since the series is going back to Atlanta, this came up a little bit earlier in the week. Rob Manfred asked earlier in the week about the Braves' name, the chop, the imagery in Atlanta. It was prior to Game 1 of the series. And his answer was just absurd. Here's his answer, the full quote version. The Native American community in that region is wholly supportive of the Braves program, including the chop. For me, that's kind of the end of the story. In that market, we're taking into account the Native American community in Atlanta. They've done a great job with the Native Americans. The Native American community is the most important group to decide whether it's appropriate or not. Now, I think it was easy for most people to go,

that can't be right. That's not right. And there were immediately press releases that said, we are not supportive of it. Right. And Evan Drellick's been reporting on this. There was a statement released by the National Congress of American Indians, which immediately refuted that. I mean, it was just, I think the hardest part about this is it's so stupid to do this chop in the first place. There's no reason to have a team name this way. We've seen the change happen in Cleveland. And I feel like the pattern and how these things actually change is years and years and years of protest and protest and protest and complaint. It just takes an exhausting amount

of energy before teams finally change. We saw it. The Washington football team going through the change right now. Cleveland. They're the Guardians now. It can happen even when it seems like team ownership and even the league in this case have their heels dug

so far into being resistant to it but i just i don't know how you expedite that process that's what i've been kind of wrapping my brain like yeah i think that's the only talks and i think i think this is actually i think this is what changes this the difference between cleveland and atlanta is actually not necessarily i don't't want to blame, you know, you know, Atlantans. I do think there's a little bit of inertia. I grew up in Atlanta, uh, for the large part and you know, it's, uh, it's a tradition that's handed down. The chop is just handed down. Right. But I think that actually, uh, the, the person, the, um, the, the, the tribe that they try that, uh, I'm going to say trot out the tribe that

they point to is saying they're supportive. This is really complicated. They're a financial partner of the Braves and of major league baseball. They're, they're the kind of tribe that's behind heroes. And like, so there's gambling money involved. So, right. So now there's a bunch of money involved. You have like an actual, and, and, you know, everyone's saying, Oh, there's no conflict of interest here. Are you kidding me? Are you know everyone's saying oh there's no conflict of interest here are you kidding me are you kidding me of course it's a conflict of interest you know you know of course you want the braves to be happy if you're getting money from them if they're you know if they're if they're funneling money towards your your your uh your casino or

whatever you know it's like what are you talking about so uh i i think that um i think sam chess is also right merchandise um you know just uh i think it is money but you know if if if the atlantans are going to keep buying it and and don't really see a problem with it then they will keep supplying that money and so then you have to make it uncomfortable for them on a national level, which is why those comments from Manfred, I think are so upsetting because he's like, no, it's just a local issue. No, it's not. This is now like, what are you talking about? It's a local issue. Now this, this is going to be broadcast on national TV. It's going to be broadcast internationally. This is the biggest, this is the biggest stage for your sport. And, And you're going to have people like my children asking, what is this?

What is this chop? What is going on here? They are literally asking me, who should we root for? And I have to explain to them the issues on both teams. And they'll be like, well, okay, well, the Astros did this thing with sign stealing. And they're like, what are signs? And I'm like, okay. This is going to be a long one.

It's going to be like a two-hour explanation. Like the game is the fifth inning by the time you explain. Basically, all of game one was spent describing what signs are and what sign stealing is and what the chop is and how that fits into. But to their credit, they've been taught enough about Native American culture in their schools and how that fits into but you know to their credit they've been taught enough about native american culture in their schools uh that they were like oh yeah that's a little weird i think

it'd be weird if we just uh appropriated something that like you know one one group did and just like made a joke out of it and just made a thing out of it you know yeah money is the one thing that the league ownership truly cares about so until it costs them money to not do something about this it's going to continue that's that's about how long into the future this goes and uh obviously i mentioned the live stream always strange to me that kansas city chiefs are always excluded from these conversations yeah i mean well i mean eventually you get there it's it's strange that the braves have been you know i think there's why are they why are there these two teams that like you know washington had to change his name cleveland had to change his name and and calls for these changes go back almost two decades at least

where this isn't this isn't some new push This isn't some thing that has sprung up in the last three years that has led to all this. This has been going on for decades. So it just gives you an idea of how long it takes for these changes to take place. The NCAA was calling on Atlanta to follow the example set by the Cleveland Guardians, and they're calling on Major League Baseball and Fox

to not show the chop when it's performed during games. I don't think that's going to happen. I hope they change it. That would be an elegant fix. That would be kind of because it would broadcast the shame.

It would say, we're not going to show this. For example, when someone runs out onto the field, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah right they don't show it yeah 30 years ago they did but now we don't want we don't want to we don't want more of this right so we're not going to show it yeah uh question from james as a segue can we touch on cleveland not securing the guardians trademark yet and that whole debacle that is a whole little thing going on too in Cleveland. I imagine they will get that resolved. Is it a roller derby team that they're actually in some trouble with?

If someone didn't do the Google search, or maybe someone did the Google search and said, who cares about a roller derby team? But if they have the trademark, you better care. Yeah, that'll be a big mistake. Chandler, do you think they're excluded because they're winning franchises right now? Maybe. But I don't know. Cleveland was having a lot of success and kind of a repeat playoff team for a few years.

So I almost wonder if flying under the radar and not being on the national stage shelters teams like this from the enhanced criticism, right? When it's only primarily viewers watching in the local market, not at all to speak any truth into what Manfred's statement was about. But I think you amplify these problems when teams are in the postseason because it goes from mostly people in one area watching to everyone watching i also think that the one piece of truth uh might be and it's very interesting uh in in atlanta i think that what does i think georgia is a little bit closer to ohio politically as a as a locale. And I think that there's some aspect of this that has become largely political,

which is you can't tell us what to do. You know, you can't, you know, we do what we want, right? It's like a response to like, you're trying to cancel us. You're trying to cancel the Braves. You're trying to cancel us. to like you're trying to cancel us you're trying to cancel the Braves you're trying to cancel us um and uh I I think Mitch's question is good too um uh is there a way to honor him properly I don't think so because we're talking about the name of a team so you're basically uh equating them with Tigers and Cardinals and whatever nonsense is out there. I mean,

Trash Pandas. You've got a team called the Trash Pandas. Do you want the Trash Pandas to play the Blackhawks? You know what I mean? Even if the Blackhawks doesn't seem as bad, they're playing

the Trash Pandas. I think it really comes close when you know about the screaming indian and chief nakahoma because the screaming indian was this just awful character caricature of a of a of a seminal indian just this dark indian with this just awful character just just super super characterized like just super i'd like to just the word is racist i'm trying not to just throw that on everyone but it was just like this awful awful looking thing and even as a child i was like what is that uh and then chief nakahoma was like he was actually in a native american i don't know if that makes it better but he's like out there in a teepee making smoke signals and stuff and like i mean come on

yeah there there is no you're equating that with who's the phillies mascot well technically he's a bird according to jason stark which i thought was strange the phillies guyatic, yeah. The fanatic is a bird? Somehow classified as a bird. Well, this is my point, dude. We don't even know what they are. You know what I'm saying? You're like going to put up an Indian against like a mystical, mythical creature.

Yeah. Just another one of those places where I feel like we're going to be having conversations like this for a long time because change takes forever, even though it should have happened a long time ago. That's just the way it goes. It's easy as this, man. What if we had the Atlanta Crackers back? What if there was a team called the like you know the the atlanta black people it'd be it just you can't there's like a black dude running around as a mascot like what yeah it just it does not does not compute it through like through the lens of how we think about no i really disagree with this comment by Aces

that we should get rid of owl mascots so everyone can be... No, no, the fanatic is not offensive to anyone because the fanatic is not even a thing. Yeah. It's a made-up creature. No one's offended by Blooper. Nobody even knows what Blooper is.

There have been so many modern mascots where you look at it and you're like, is that a dinosaur or what is that supposed to be? What kind of hybrid animal did they just make up? That's probably the right way to go. No, we're just going to have a caricature of a race

running around. On that note, more coverage on that story, I'm sure, to follow here at The Athletic. Evan Drellick has been all over it. If you want to On that note, more coverage on that story, I'm sure, to follow here at The Athletic. Evan Drellick has been all over it. If you want to check that out, you can do that. 33% off subscription at theathletic.com slash rates and barrels. Three games this weekend. It feels like

a lifetime of baseball is going to pass before we speak again. We may have a World Series winner when we come back on Monday, which is hard to believe that the season could be over here in just a few days. We're back Monday at 11.30 a.m. Eastern on Twitter. You can find Eno at Eno Saris. You can find

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