Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - 239 | World Series Champion AJ Pollock

Episode Date: October 30, 2020

Jomboy, Jake, & Plouffe give their thoughts on the hirings of Tony LaRussa and AJ Hinch as managers of the Chicago White Sox & Detroit Tigers, respectively. The guys also interviewed Dodgers outfielder and World Series Champion AJ Pollock! Interview Begins at 19:09 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello and welcome to talking to baseball. We have some new manager hires. We have a World Series champ on the program today. A lot of fun stuff. Let's do it. Hello and welcome to talking baseball. Thank you very much for joining us. We hope everyone is having a fantastic day.

Enjoying yourselves. We're coming to you. Well, just coming to you, I think. Yeah. How about that? My name is Jimmy. This is Jake over here. Trev in California.

Bug, bug, dude. behind the dish. We just wrapped up an interview with World Series champion, AJ Pollock, also ploomps arched nemesis. And we also have some manager hires that we have to talk about, but first and most importantly, Jake, how are you doing? Yes, it's very well phrased. I'm good, man, I'm good. Very cool that we had AJ on. He's the man and, you know, just won a world series. He's got a lot going on with, you know, that family stuff he dropped at the end. So the fact that he wanted to spend some time with us was very cool. So thank him.

I'm doing good, man. I think I did have a little bit of a baseball hangover and just like, oh, yeah, I guess I'll work regular hours and I'll watch TV shows with Jess. So I was obviously miserable thinking about that. No. But now that there's actually action happening between players getting their options declined or players just not getting their contracts picked up and the managerial hires, I'm like, okay, it's back on for a little bit.

Although the flip switch is quick, huh? Trev, we were telling you, like, this goes fast. Everything's about to waterfall down and it's happening. How are you doing? I'm doing great. I have missed being here in my little studio. It was a couple days of me just leaving it barren back here. But yeah, now we got the managers.

We got every single option. It seems like besides Zach Britton is declined. I'm excited. Like, I want to do this. Like, I need this. So having AJM was awesome. And yeah, I think we're going to give our little thoughts here on some of the managers and all that. So I'm excited to give my takes because they're hot.

They're spicy. Yep. All right. Well, I mean, the first news was that the White Sox hired Larusa. Yeah. hasn't managed since 2011, which was, you know, World Series appearance, right? Yeah.

Win? Walk off, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, World Series win. I don't know what he's been doing, but this was the owner of the White Sox. How do you pronounce the last name? Ryan Stor. Ryan, Ryan, Storff.

I always can read it, but I never know, truly how to say it. Is a Larissa guy. He said his one big regret was letting him go back in the 80s. He's got his guy back. Larusa has some, some, missteps with racial tension stuff, the Kaepernick thing. He was on the wrong side of that. And then the other thing was that Adam Jones was saying,

you know, it's a white man sport and we need to try and make it better. And instead of like, he like agreed with him, but angrily and said like, what are you talking about? Like we're trying to have black athletes in the sport. And so that's like the biggest hub hub, like passing order to whole article like with racist in the title. the White Sox are very diverse and, you know, Tim Anderson's doing his best to change the face of baseball. So it's super interesting hire.

There's already reports that people within the White Sox front office are like, what the fuck is this? A huge step backwards. I don't know, Trev, as a player and kind of like you do and we respect the feel and the old school manager and also know that. They can be puppets at times. So have you been able to wrap your head around this? What do you think about it? I don't know if I've been able to wrap my head around it. I'm disappointed in the decision.

I think when you have a team like that, an up-and-coming team, young superstars, like you said, a very diverse team, to have Jerry Rinesdorf go and decide that this is the guy he wants. And let me make this very clear. This was Jerry Rinesdorf. himself making this decision. When you have that coming in,

it can't sit right with the players. They liked Renteria. I don't know if Renteria was the right guy for them or not, but I bet he's better than the Russo. The Russo has done what he's done in the game. So yeah, there's some respect there. But you brought up some of the stuff from the past, Jim. And there's just more qualified candidates out there,

or at least candidates that fit what this team has going for them. currently. LaRusa might have been one of the last people, I would have guessed, that they would have brought on. Some people were speculating it because it is a Jerry Ryansdorf decision. But if you take him out and just have a regular owner who doesn't meddle in things as much as he does, there's no way that Tony Larissa is the manager of the White Sox. We've mentioned a ton of guys who we think are going to be great managers. I always bring up Sam Fold. I think he would have been perfect for this team. But in my opinion, maybe it was the Dusty Baker thing also that kind of led them to this decision. Maybe Ryan's

over was like, look, Dusty took this team. He's an old school manager and that worked out. So I got to bring this guy back because back in the 70s, I fired him. Like I don't, I don't understand the reasoning. I don't like the hire at all. And I wouldn't be surprised that this is a very short lived hire. Reminds me of the Bobby Ball. The thing is, I don't think it's necessarily like the team's going to play. The team is good, dude. So like, is this going to affect their play? Probably not. But is he the right guy to lead them, to lead the White Sox to where they want to be, which is a World Series champion. I don't think he's the right guy. It's going to be interesting, man. And it's, it kind of sucks right now. Like if you hate it, you're, you're not wrong to

hate it. And the Kaepernick stuff and all that. I mean, I will say this. In 2016, there was a lot of people that were kind of on the wrong side of that whole situation, you know, people wouldn't even utter Black Lives Matter. So he came out in his press conference and he, you know, he walked it back and he said he's, he's changed his stances, which you had to do. Had to do it. You had to do. You know, and I, hey, Trevor, I see your reaction.

And, you know, the fact that we're even doing that. Good timing. Yeah. It's good timing for them to change his mind. The fact that we even have to do that sucks. And this all ties to Jerry Reinstorf. And like people aren't, you know, we think about these owners and these rich people and kind of different lights. They're the same person as you and me.

I mean, the dumb equation I used on Wake and Jake today was like, if you've got a buddy that goes back to the same girlfriend or they've got that one who got away and, you know, when you guys were never single at the same time or you had a big crush on them and they had a boy, whatever it was, and it never linked up. And now here's Jerry Reinsdorf with his White Sox team that looks ready to go, and there's his one that got away. So he made the move. He's the guy that owns the sports team. So he did it. And it's got to suck for the analytics crew and the general manager, because bringing this to other sports. I mean, think about it. We see it a lot in football. If you become the GM of the football team, something that you've set as your life's

course, you want to get your coaches in there because you're trying to implement your plan. So that sucks for the analytics crew. At the same time, analytics and everything we've just talked about with Kevin Cash and, you know, the computers run everything, that's where I'm really interested to see with Larissa because, you know, the two comparisons would be Dusty Baker, which ended up being cool and fun this year, or Bobby Valentine, which was a straight disaster. So if Tony Larusa comes into camp and says, hey, we're not bat flipping this year, line up, let's play some pepper, then yeah. I mean, I absolutely hate it. I hate it. If Tony Larusa comes in. There's no way that's going to happen, though. If he's just an old man

present, the dude's in the Hall of Fame. He's got the gold jacket. Like, this guy is a part of baseball history. If he comes in and he's kind of laid back old man and he can, you know, the things the manager does now is he keeps the clubhouse happy. You got to manage the bullpen a little bit. If he can do that stuff, then I can be in on Tony Larissa. So I'm not ready to kill the hiring yet, but if I hear a couple bad quotes at spring training or something like that, then I'm ready to be like, get out of here. Yeah, it just seems not worth it. If managers don't do that much anymore, which is, it just seems not worth it. I mean, Dusty Baker was only out of the league two years. Yeah. This is 11 years. And I don't think,

Baseball has moved so fast in those 11 years in the strategic thinking department. Like it's like the biggest advance since probably they changed all the fields to Astrober turf and Charlie, who taught him to hit on the ground. That was probably the biggest change. Then they got rid of the AstroTurf and there was like, maybe don't hit it on the ground anymore. So that's wild. What's even more funny was that the official email that the White Sox sent out was a picture of, Larusa with the signature of A.J. Hinch, because those are the two candidates that they decided

they were going to go with. They went with Larusa. They tweeted out the wrong picture or emailed out the wrong picture. Hinch was on their mind. He doesn't get that job. Tigers today announce that they have hired A.J. Hinch and just got leaked that the Red Sox have been in multiple conversations with Cora. And the other news is that Cohen officially got approved. That's a little different. Hinched back with the Tigers. Cor is going to be back with the Red Sox. I mean, that seems so obvious anyway. And then, you know, the shortened season, lack of punishments.

It's kind of, it's a real bad look for Manfred on his punishments, you know, especially, whatever. Hinch's, Hinch's worst core, whatever. He was part of it. But it's the Red Sox now, like the Hinch stuff is crazy to me that he's just back. Hey, that's a guy that knows about taking a team that's on the, precipice of being good and having young talent and coming up and built him. There was a lot of cheating involved.

So what did he do? You got to explain to me. They need to explain what did Hinch do? Well, Hinch. Good young players. And what did he do to put them up? Like, what did he do specifically? I can't think of anything.

Just like built an environment? I don't know. The environment he built, Jim, was one of the worst in baseball history. Yeah. Like, I don't get it. What, like, okay, Larissa, I don't get. But I sort of get, because it's a Rhinstor thing. It's an old man being like, that guy is the best baseball line. It's an old rich, my owner getting what he wants.

We finally got the talent. I got to bring Larusa back. The Tigers hiring Hinch and then the Red Sox reportedly being really interested in court makes zero sense to me. What kind of message are you sending to your players? What kind of message are you sending to the league? What kind of message are you sending to the fans? Like this is a guy who had zero, from his own words, Hinch, I'm talking about now, had zero control of his clubhouse where he broke a screen one day but said he was powerless to stop what was going on. If you can't control your clubhouse, you don't deserve to be a manager.

I don't understand why people say, oh, he's really smart. I get it. He went to Stanford. There are other candidates out there that could run these organizations. probably better who understand what it takes to run a forward-thinking, young, talented organization. There's people probably within the Tiger System that are ready to take the step up. There's other people around the league that are ready to take this out. And you're going to bring these two guys, Kinch and Kora,

who are at the forefront of the worst cheating scandal in the history of baseball since the whatever, the Black Sox scandal. You're going to put them in positions of power again a year later, year. It's insane to me. I'm, I think it's, I think it's horrible for the game. And I don't think these guys deserve to, to be managers in a league again, especially right now. Yeah, I think my, my gripe kind of comes with suspensions. Like in, in sports, if a player gets suspended and they're not on a team for a year, they still have to be on a team and then serve that suspension. Like, these guys got fired, we're suspended for the year, but now they can come back and be

clean like that. That's kind of not how suspensions are supposed to work. So I'm a little disappointed in that. But Treve, I mean, I think it should have had a game involved, not just a calendar year. Yeah. I mean, you know, if, if a player gets suspended, anyways, so that's, that's a whole different gripe. Treve, I mean, the manager thing, we've done this a lot. And it's, what do you give managers credit for? And I mean, in the interview with Pollock, you know, we give Roberts a little love for managing that team. And I mean, AJ Hinch did manage a team to the World Series. Now, they were involved in a ton of funny business and it sucks. And I'm with you. It does hurt me like more than Larusa. And it's

just why. And there are so many baseball people. And I'm stealing this from one of the cesspit as barbecue guys, Jake, who he said, by the way, if the White Sox hire LaRusa, he'll walk to Chicago. So he's figuring out the logistics on that right now. But there's guys in baseball. Omar Visckel manages Winston Salem, the minor league team. That's Omar Miskill, gold Glover, all-timer. He's in the minor leagues toiling it out, trying to work his way up to a managerial job. Give me any of those guys before you give me the guy tied to the cheating. scandal. I don't know. It's weird. And, you know, Detroit has a lot of up and coming talent. And that was the Houston team that Hinch took over, although they were kind of a step ahead of where Detroit was.

So, you know, I'm sure there's something with corraling young talent and saying, hey, I did it. And I ended up bringing a team to the World Series. But that team was cheating. And again, this goes back to nobody got punished. Who am I supposed to point the finger at? Lundlow says it's not him. Hinch says it's not him. Khor says it's not him. The player says it wasn't them. We still don't have someone from the Astro scandal that they were the reason they cheated. And it's a disaster. So, and Cora, I don't know. I get it.

He led the Red Sox. I don't get it. And he was passionate and fiery and they loved him. The guys loved him. So that's why they want him back. It's a whole new ball club there, man. Like they're not in the same position as the 2018 Red Sox were. This is a whole different thing for him.

Again, I just don't, I don't believe these guys should have that chance to manage again. Yeah. There are so many other candidates to come and lead these franchises. I am, maybe it's just because I feel like, well, they did. They cheated the game. They cheated the game. And here they are. How in the world of baseball are these two guys, like, getting these jobs right away again?

I do not understand. I don't get it at all. Trev, you know who the defensive coordinator for the New York Jets is? It's Greg Williams, the guy that did Bountygate, where he paid players to try to hurt other players. There's just this weird thing where we're scared to give new coaches a shot and we'd rather recycle the same guys. It's bizarre. It's a weird cultural thing. And I don't get it. One of us. One of us. One of us.

Yeah. All right. Steve Cohen. Hey, the other thing is, and we don't have time to do this, Steve Cohen's in there. We can do a full episode on this because we're going to do a free agent's break down and stuff. Offers getting declined left and right. Jed Giorco just got declined. He was like the Brewer's best player. Charlie Morton, Mike Zanino, they get declined. Brad Hand got declined to save $1 million. One million dollars. It's just the beginning.

We're going to see a ton of it. So, but everyone's doing the buyout. Like, Coltie. Wong, they declined his $10 million and they bought him out for a million dollars. The fucking Indians wouldn't even do the $1 million buyout so they put him on waivers. You can claim. I think the deadline, I think the deadline just passed. Did anyone claim them? I don't think so.

The deadline was at one. And so that means any team could have had Brad Hand who led the ALE and saves last season or if you're new age, he had a FIP in the Ones and nobody was willing to give him that one year $10 million. So it's a... It's going to be a tough market. It's going to be a weird offseason. But the Yankees did pick up Britain's $13 million option.

I'm a little surprise. Yeah. Is that like the only option picked up so far? No. That I've seen. I tweeted this out. This is a golden opportunity... I say golden.

I don't really mean that for everybody. But for the organizations, this is the way they're looking at. It's a golden opportunity for them to shed payroll. Devalue players. across the board and not have a huge PR backlash. They can blame it on something now. And they're going to do that.

You're going to say the C word, Trev? Yeah. Yeah. I'm pretty close to it. You can say collusion because there has been collusion before. It's been proven. Yeah. There has been Paul Molter got a check from MLB because they were colluding.

So this is something that all the organizations are going to do. We already seen it. It's two days after the World Series. No one picking up. No one even like throwing an offer in on that Brad Hand thing or them even like, you know, testing the trade market to see if anyone would trade something for them. It's a terrible sign of things to come. We'll talk about that a little more in depth later on. Let's get into the interview with Pollock.

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Deposit bonus requires 25 times play through. Restrictions applies. See, draft kings.com slash sportsbook for details. If you have a gambling problem, call 1-800 gambler. Baseball. We are joined by All-Stob. Gold Glover, now World Series champ, the LeBron from Hebron, Connecticut, A.J. Pollock. AJ, how you doing, man?

I'm great. I like that. I was wondering where you're going to go with that. I was like the LeBron. I might get that one. I'm a Connecticut guy and Jimmy lived in Connecticut too. So any CT pride in MLB, we're all about it. Hell yeah. No, I love it. Appreciate that. I'm in New Britain, but it doesn't know. Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah, no, I got all my buddies back there. And, yeah, it's a special place for me too. So. Yeah, so I mean, right away, congrats. It's pretty awesome. Congratulations. Thank you. And that's a pretty amazing feeling for sure. Yeah, you, uh, you know, you guys know, I mean, Trevor, you definitely know. I mean, it's like a get so many guys that it's hard to even make it to the postseason, you know, and, you know,

when you get to say you're a world champion, it's pretty special. And, um, um, you know, something that, you know, is going to stick with you for the rest of your life. So I'm excited. Well, we can see your smile, like you're holding back a smile. And I feel like you're probably going to have that for like, what, like a week, a month. I don't even know, man, maybe a lifetime because like you said, no one could take that away from you, dude, like a world champion, especially with the Dodgers. Right. And in a 32-year drought.

It's amazing. 32-year drought. And, you know, it's hard, you know, like, all these teams. I feel like we've had really good teams in the past. and probably, you know, I'm biased, but I feel like, you know, we had times where we were the best team. You know, I was only on a team last year, but I'm just thinking back the last couple years. And it's tough. You know, it's tough.

You don't always have the best, the absolute best team on paper when it. And there's a lot of things that can happen. So you just appreciate it when it actually happens. And it's a good group of guys, a fun group. You know, we were down three games to one against the Braves. and it just was, you know, seamless. Everyone was just concentrating on just kind of the next game. And we knew if we won that game,

that there was going to be a lot of pressure on the Braves and that, you know, if any team could do, it's going to be us. So we hung tight and then we faced a great race team too. So that was a tough series. Those guys never quit. They just hung around. You know, you got teams that we put it on them and kept putting pressure on them. They would just break and the raise never broke.

So that's a tough team. What rattled the clubhouse more? Going down 3-1 to the Braves or that crazy game four ending in the World Series? Oh my gosh. Yeah. Wow, I think both were kind of equal. I mean, we just, I don't even know what happened. I don't think anyone really, you kind of got in the locker room and just like what in the world just happened.

And then, you know, we got a good, we got a good group. So it was kind of, he left the clubhouse, then the text threads for America. everyone, hey, we got this, you know, like, stuff happens. Like, you know, it's what it is. Baseball's a crazy sport. You know, it's just literally weird stuff happens in this sport all the time. And that was crazy. You know, I've seen a lot of stuff in my day, and that was wacky.

And it's good to talk about it now. Yeah. We're World Series champions because that would have sucked, you know, having something like that. And just, but we hung tight and we just kept moving forward. So was the, was the clubhouse like completely? silent after that game and then you said you went home and there was like the group tech started going off that's how you kind of dealt with it or was there was there talk about it like after the right after the game there's the game for you know some chat or hey you know guys you know

we got to put this behind uh but it was honestly it was a couple things and then it was really quiet you just so much so much adrenaline so much on the line and then just like that was what there had to be some guys There had to be some guys like bullpen pitchers or some guys in the clubhouse that were like whispering like, seriously, what happened? I didn't see it. I mean, I don't think there's a bullpen guy. They were like, what in the world? And you know, it was kind of like what in the world.

But we knew, I mean, it wasn't like that was going to put us down. I mean, we were tied now. Yeah. Our guy going, first going the next game. We knew we had Walker going. You know, we had Walker in game seven. we need it. So it's like, we felt good about it. But it just, I mean, you guys saw it. That was pretty crazy. We were there for game four. Yeah, you don't see that too often. How about the

the crowd? A lot of Dodgers fans traveled for you guys. Game six, we were there. And it got loud. Once, once you guys took the lead, I think it felt to me like a intense hanging on every pitch environment. Obviously, there's not, it's not a packed stadium in L.A. But did you, did that factor into your guys play or feel or emotions of the game at all, having the neutral side and less fans there? I think they did just a good job. Like you said, you know, like you're going to have that tension in those games. You have, it's weird.

A baseball, you know, you play in the regular season and, you know, there might be a couple out at the end where everyone's kind of, but in the playoffs, I mean, we had some really, really high tension games. And then if you add any kind of noise, you know, any kind of noise, it's just, it just adds do it. So yeah, you know, I, but I'll tell you what, even, even the Padre series when it was just, you know, that was wacky. They had just the family section down below and they were going nuts, the Padres family and friends. You know, it was like a winterly game. But that was high tension too, you know, and when we ended up beating them three games to none, but, you know,

I don't know. I think it was just good baseball. I think it was really good baseball. And, you know, Obviously, if you can have fans, you know, it just, it heightens things for sure. Obviously, if it was a packed house, I'm sure to heighten it a little more, but they made some noise. It was a lot of fun. The other, I mean, it became too much of a storyline, but at the time it was crazy. And again, we were in the house and the L.A. fans started going nuts, but Snell gets pulled. I mean, are you guys in the dugout? Are you guys giving each other the eye emoji?

Like, it's kind of go time. Thank God he's out. Were you guys as shocked as a lot of America was? Because at the same time, this was what and is what the rays do. I mean, they give Snell two times through the order and they normally yank them. So were you guys shocked? Were you guys like, okay? Was it mixed emotions?

What was going on in the Dodgers dugout? Yeah, I mean, exactly what you guys were going through. You have the numbers. You know that this team is big in the numbers, but we're in game six. and you got your guy there, and he is definitely their guy. He threw outstanding the first game. Second game, he was just as good, if not better. And you just kind of expect the numbers to get thrown out the window, you know?

And I know, I think they threw up a stat third time through the order, you know, guys hit Snell better. But, I mean, come on, you guys were watching him. I think that guy was their best, in my opinion, their best opportunity. At least he, you know, you got to extend him a little bit. So we were, yeah, I mean, it was, I thought it was a break for us. Who knows? Me, you never know, maybe he would have cracked there. You know, Barnes did a good job of getting on base. You know, so there's some traffic out there for him. Maybe, you know, that's a possibility. We'll never know. But, you know, I think the definitely just the momentum and feeling that, okay, we've seen all their

guys, we've seen all their guys in the pen. We need to see, you know, we put one run on them. We feel good. You know, even if we get this in the extra end, we feel good about that. So, yeah, we were in the same, same emotions that you guys had. You know, we felt like it was a little bit of a gift and, you know, we wanted to take advantage of me, but we still had to face some really good pitchers. You know, their bullpen's got some arms and they got some guys that have been just performing the whole year. So it's not like, it wasn't going to be easy. It wasn't, it's not like a gift wrap that they put out these really good pitches for us, but at the same time, just the way the feel and just the rhythm of the game and the rhythm that

Snell had, I felt like it was a, it was a good thing for us to, you know, try to take advantage of. And it happened so quickly. I think that's why most people are so upset with the race. Obviously Snell was cruising, but then like the lead evaporated instantly and it changed what seemed like, you know, the momentum in the game because like you said, Snell was cruising. When you saw Anderson, did you see something different with him?

Like, I know you guys didn't face him during the regular season, but he did struggle a lot in the postseason. Was he just kind of missing his spots? Do you think he was kind of tired or something? We're trying to figure it out as well because he, you know, he's been dominant the last two years, dominant in the regular season,

and he just kind of had a rough go in the postseason. Was it more? stuff or location you think with him? I know you don't want to put anybody down. I'm just, I'm really curious because. He's a really good pitcher. And I think when you get to these, for me, I mean, I haven't been in the playoffs that much.

But, you know, you get a seven-game series. So you're seeing some guys, I mean, that guy was being thrown out there a lot. You can tell that's one of their guys, you know. And he's got the high four seam. He's got that life on that four seam. And then he's got the big, curball. He's kind of a north and south guy.

You just, I don't know if it's just you see him more, you know, and you have a better opportunity, but you kind of know, you know the equation and now you just got to solve it, you know, whereas if you face him for the first time, he's kind of got that shock factor because it's more than you think. It's got more on it. It's, you know, the high release, the extension. I can throw out all the little stuff that we talk about. But no, it's, You just see them more. You know, I'm sure it's tough for a pitcher to be thrown out there so many times against the same guys and expect to have the same results. You know, so I think that's kind of factored in.

It's interesting you say that because I thought that your manager, Dave Roberts, did such a good job of mixing up bullpen usage. Like he wasn't going to the same guy's game in, game out. Like, you know, Gonzalez came up so big for you guys. And that was kind of like to, at least to us, as fans watching the game, kind of a shock that he was put in some of the situations he was put in. But I thought Dave did a good job. And now that you're saying that, like, hey, like, you see a guy two, three times, four times in a seven game series.

You know, obviously as a hitter, it gets easier. So I think that's one thing. You know, Dave did get a lot of flack for some of the moves he did with the bullpen. But in the end, him mixing it up was, I think, the right formula and cash kind of. of got stuck with putting the same guys out there and maybe to the Ray's demise a little bit. Yeah. We got to give kudos to Roberts. Yeah, for sure.

You know, we got some horses. And then, yeah, you know, Victor's got some weird. I faced them a bunch. You know, we've got to face a lot of our own pitchers this year because we got the, you know, the summer camp and stuff. And so he's kind of a funky guy, too, because he's a guy that, I mean, I've had like eight of bats off them this year, you know, just summer camp and spring training. he's just can't really figure him out.

You know, where some guys I'm like, okay, this is really nasty, but I know what you're doing. He's just, I mean, for him, he's a little confusing to me. So I'm sure that played into it as well. It's more of a, you know, he's got that effectively wild. You're not really, ball might do this, but it could go that way. It's tough to have a plan against him. Right. Exactly.

Yeah. So, no, I thought Dave did a great job. I thought Doc did, you know, there's some tough spots and you can second get. everything in the playoffs. But, you know, when it came down to it, you know, he made some pretty tough decisions. And, you know, a lot of them, they did, you know, they worked. And, you know, it's hard to second guess the guy when he wins the World Series. That's right. That's right. You know, he threw out the right guys. I know the celebration wasn't normal and already it wasn't going to be normal. And then we have the COVID stuff that happened. But if there was a normal

celebration in the clubhouse with the champagne, can you paint a picture for Dodgers fans of who's doing what? Like who's the naked dancer guy? Are you bringing out the guitar? Who's screaming for three hours? And you're like, all right, calm down now. Well, everyone's screaming. Kike would have been naked before we got in the door. Okay. Belly would have sat in his chair and just been like, whoa, that was what happened there? Did we win? Yeah. No, honestly, we got a fun group. I mean, I think we got a lot of personality on that team. everyone would have lost their voice it would have just been great um and we'll get there you know i think you know the winning is the the big thing it is a little strange it almost feels like you know like

i hear like navy seals like explaining going off and doing a mission and you know and you come back and you're just like going about your normal day you're like i just did something really badass and i'm just kind of that's awesome i'm going along with my normal day so um so i don't know it's a it's a really strange thing, but hey, we're going to have fun eventually. You know, we're all, you know, texting each other and kind of laughing at some stuff. And, you know, it's a really close group. And it's unfortunate that we couldn't celebrate, but we knew this year was going to be wacky. We knew something like this was very possible.

And, you know, when the time's right, we'll have fun with it. Just to give you a little perspective, because I am in L.A. and I have all of my friends are Dodgers fans and all of my neighbors are Dodgers. fans. People are going nuts, man. You guys brought so much joy to the city of LA because, as you know, we're still very much locked down here. The Lakers winning the championship was amazing for us. And then the Dodgers to go ahead and do it. And people here knew you guys were the best team all along. But like you said earlier, the best team doesn't always win. So people are very happy. and like you you guys brought a little bit of joy into a really weird time.

So like you guys got to know that. I just want to make sure you have the perspective. I appreciate that. Even the people who aren't necessarily baseball fans, they're still talking about the Dodgers. So like everyone's rallied and it's it's a cool time to be an L.A. L.A. Awesome.

They've waited a long time for it too. You know, they've had some really good teams and felt like they were going to do it. And it just didn't happen. And it was meant to be this year. sure. So hopefully, hopefully, like you said, everyone just enjoys it and it's really special. And yeah, it's pretty crazy. It's crazy. It's awesome to think about and bring a championship home back here, man. Let's get a little more taste. We're a pro taster pod. We like when guys

taste themselves. And more importantly, a couple of the numbers I'm about to say are going to make Trevor Plouf like kind of make a ooh face. You, you know, you come from the debacks. You've got that Monster 2015, 20 homers, 39 swipes, Trevor Plouf. This year, 39 swipes. This year in 55 games, you hit 16 yackers. Are you, were you kind of pissed it was a short in season? And are you, I mean, are you A.J. Pollock, the power guy now? Because, I mean, that's like a 40 homer season, dude.

Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I had a couple. I thought at the other stadium in Dallas and didn't go to me. far so no i just like it's it's what it is it's a you know this is what we had to work with this year you know i was excited i was excited to perform um it's a crazy year you know we had the summer camp i didn't even get to go to summer camp because i had covid so i i only was there for him two or three days and um you know it's good just to just to rally and i feel like you know Trevor you know it's like you feel like in baseball you you have to do this you got to do this oh i'm uh

I don't know what's going on. I got a call coming in. Back. You know, you got to do this. You got to do that. And, you know, oh, I'm behind on my hitting. I got to hit more. And, like, I pretty much rolled right in the season and did fine.

So I think for me, it was cool just, just knowing us, a lot of it's mental. You just can go out there and compete. And, you know, and, you know, I've done it for a long time. I've been playing baseball for a while. And, yeah, it's a, I don't know. I'm not saying your question. Homer's are great. I love them.

There you go. Has, has, has, uh, I went for a whole off season to VanSkoiak and did hitting lessons. How, have you made any changes with him or is it just kind of been like him keeping you right? Like, has he done anything different or had any drills that, uh, for you that have changed anything? Absolutely. He's got some wacky drills, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's him and, and Brent Brown.

I had Robert when he was J.D. Martinez's guy in Arizona. That's why I met Robert. I met him there. And I actually have a cage in my house. And they were driving like 45 minutes to go hitting some cage. And I just told him, hey, why don't you just use my cage? And I was probably in like a one for 30 skid. So I just kind of floated in there.

And I was like, all right, you're using my cage and you're going to help me out. And then he went over to the L.A. And I followed him over here right after. What year was that? in in in in Arizona 2017 yeah so yeah it was kind of a unique relationship we've had so I knew him with the Diamondbacks and yeah he got the job here and I was just excited that that uh you know worked out that I can come here and play and they signed me and um for sure we work every day him and like I said him and Brant Brown you know they both come from Wallen Brock and it's just um

outside the box thinking for sure but i enjoy it and you know that's a huge reason why i've had success this year and in the past so yeah i'm very fortunate to have those guys cool did you ever nudge jd when he had that old gross swing like hey dude go see some see i don't understand that i look at his numbers i only knew him when he was hitting like a homer a game with diamondbacks and if you look at his original swing now it's like how did you even make it this far. It's crazy. But I looked at his numbers and I'm like, everyone talks about how he made all these swing changes. You hit like

360 and like the minors every year with like 20. Like it wasn't going to be that bad. I mean, maybe it was. Maybe it looked bad, but. A lot of moving parts, I feel like, in comparison. Yeah. It looked broken. It didn't look in sync. But if you're, I don't, I didn't know his minor league number. So now you're telling me he was already a good hitter, but maybe added some power. I don't know.

but I know, Robert. Definitely swings different. Oh, he's like taking credit. You know, he's like, like, I'm like, hey, Robert, this guy like, this guy hits three, 350 every year. Like, he does take credit for that a lot. Ask him about how he did with me because I didn't,

I didn't make that JD transformation, bro. Oh, man. I'll ask for sure. It's still coming, man. It's still coming. Are you? It might be still coming. What, uh, how, how does getting out of Arlington rank in comparison to winning the

World Series. You guys were in that hotel and that ballpark for like a month straight. The only team really because, you know, other teams got to play in Houston, San Diego, L.A., and then changed places. The Dodgers were there from the jump. Were you sick of it? Same food every day. I mean, they did, so look, the hotel staff and everyone, they did such a good job. Those guys were grinding. You know, they had the room service was available all the time until 2 a.m. And these guys would just be working nonstop. But yeah, pretty sick of it.

I mean, we had a view of the 18th hole, and then there's ropes. You could see the outside world, but you couldn't go there. You couldn't walk, you can walk 100 feet to the right, 100 feet to the left, can't touch anything, can't go across the rope, and there's a security guy there. It just was pretty claustrophobic. My wife was pretty excited to get out of there and not have to go to Game 7 and spend an extra day. So, but no, I mean, it was one of the more unique experiences. It felt like going to like an AAU tournament where you go play each other and then you go back to the hotel and there's the other team, you know,

hanging by the pool and the hot tub and you're kind of walking by some guys and, you know, we have a little dust up with the Padres and then we're like kind of walking back. children 20 times the next day. It's just like, it's a weird, weird kind of thing. It's kind of funny. It was, you know, it was enjoyable. A lot of it was enjoyable. But, yeah, the monotony of it, just the repetitiveness of it, definitely was excited to get out of there.

What was the Dodgers vibe when the Rays and the Astros were playing game seven? Now, you weren't with the Dodgers in 17. But there's a lot of Dodgers players that were there and probably we know hold animosity towards the Astros. Were any of your teammates sitting there saying like, yeah, like rooting for the Astros to win so they could play them in the World Series or they rooting for it to lose? Or was there any of like emotions or thoughts being shared about that game seven? Um, it's weird. The guy doesn't really talk about. I was talking about it because I'm like, hey, are these guys going to like if they win, Astros win, they're like going to stay in this hotel.

Like, this is going to be so awkward, you know. Not only we were going to play them in the World Series, but, like, you know, we're going to be, like, snuggled up next to him in the hot tub. Like, it's just, it's weird. It was a very strange thing. And, yeah, they had a little run there. I don't know what that would have been like.

That would have been very, very bizarre. Yeah, I don't know if there have been some fights breaking out at the hotel as well, but I don't know. Guys probably would have got out of there in four. Last days in the hotel if the Asher just made it. Oh, wow. Oh, wow. I'm not a comment on that. The race, I think the race were the better team.

I think they're pitching, their bullpen. Those guys are scrappy, too. I mean, they just figured out a way to just scratch run. So I think they were, in my opinion, the better team. Well, they had Randy or Rosaranya, too, best player on the planet. Yeah, that was, wow. that guy was amazing. Yeah, for sure.

I looked him up after that for sure. Who is? Jay. I'm like, wow, it's incredible. No, I haven't seen anyone get, you know, rare that someone gets that hot, you know, ever. And he did it for the postseason. And, you know, not many people knew who he was before that.

So it's just incredible that he went on that kind of a run. And you know what? It looks legit, too. I think the guy is, you know, I'm excited to see what he's going to do for next year. So, the Cardinals GM came out and said publicly, like, man, that one's on me. I really messed that one up.

We got to reevaluate, you know, our rankings of our player, so this doesn't happen again. It's kind of funny that a GM would come out and say that. But, you know, that's just, hats off to Randy. Hats off to the race for getting it done. Jim, you say he's the best player on the planet.

Yeah, but Corey Seeger, I mean, that guy, he was blow for blow with Randy, right? Like, how cool was it to watch him just be, locked in in the World Series. Corey's a machine. He's just a hitting machine. He did it all year for us. And for him, too, is different because everyone, you know, he had that type of year.

Guys were game planning for him from game one of the postseason. And he just put, you know, put up that kind of a performance. You know, and we needed him too. Every, it was incredible. We needed all every single, every single home, every single RBI had. It was just super clutch. Yeah, I mean, you really can't say enough about that guy. He just killed it for us.

You mentioned the group chats a couple times. I want to give the Dodger fan something because normally the celebrations are some of the best stuff and you guys are robbed of it. And I think we'll get you a celebration later on. But has anyone sent something ridiculous? Like has there been, has anyone sent a video shotgun and a four loco? Or is Kiki naked with the trophy? Or has anyone been sending their celebrations via the chat?

I think everyone, I mean, it's, yeah, it's more just, I mean, we're all just kind of like making fun of the whole situation. It does kind of stink. I mean, it really does because we just want to, we want to hang out and, and we're going to celebrate with our guys, you know, and can't do that. But we're still having fun with the talks. We've got the fantasy football league. We're, you know, talking some crap with that. So it's, it's nonstop. You know, it's not like the season's over and now we go our separate ways and I mean my phone probably has me that phone that took you guys off was probably you know something along the lines of the you know the Dodgers chat so fun group um always uh there's always something going on in that text thread so yeah how's the how's the fantasy league going i'm the football guy on the on the podcast so um okay i played i played in a league with Turner last two years. We didn't do it again this year, but how's that going? How's your team doing?

Is this the Walker Bueller League? Because we talked to Walker during the pandemic. So is this the same league? Commissioner Walker, right? I don't think Walker would want to talk about his team. He stinks. Yeah, I think he's like one in five. But his team just, I don't know, as good as he is on the mound and like have an idea of what he's doing on the mound, I feel like he's the opposite. Fantasy football. I think Kirsch's team, Kirsch's team, Kirsch kind of snuggles up

with some front office people that put together a team. Yeah, he's kind of one of those guys. Oh, that was what Walker said. You were trying to get the front office out of there. That's what he said. Okay, so Kirsch is snuggling up. Smart under the radar guys in our front office

that like to help out for some extra cash on the side. My team's all banged up. I got like everyone's hurt. So, but I think I'm still four and three. Okay. Take it. Every day. Yeah.

Do you take it back a bunch of years now? Do you know that your knee broke Trevor's wrist? I did. I think I texted you out there, right? You did. Oh, he shouldn't go through his arm into your knee. Yeah. That's his bad.

He wants to apologize to you. Yeah. Yeah, I think I still have a little scuff mark on my knee from that. So I'll forgive you, though. That was a tough one for me. It was, I remember it very clearly. I don't know if you do, but it was like two outs. You took off.

I was a little late getting to the bag. One of his 39 swipes? It was 2014? 14. 14? No, that was the year before. Year before. It was like last game of the year, too.

Yeah, that was a clean break. I mean, everyone heard the snap. I went in there. I knew it was broken right away. I've never experienced anything like that, but it was like, it honestly kind of like gave me the chills because, like the heat. Because I, you know, I slid in hard and I think it was just one of those perfect situations where I slid in slid in hard, you hard tag. And it wasn't like a, it was like a, like a hitting a stick on the ground and just like breaks clean, like easy. And I just was like, I remember you kind of just walked right off.

like yep I just broke my arm and then I was like what the hell was that I think was I know you were you were safe too oh save you were safe you broke it I did know right away and and honestly I didn't feel any anything I guess that's like the shock part of your body's a system but afterwards when we went to get the x-ray started to feel it they shot me up with some something crazy I think it was like I don't even know what they shot me up with. But I didn't feel anything. So don't feel too bad about it.

And I healed, I healed just fine. Did you need like surgery for it or was it just? Yeah, I sent, I sent our producer here at BBD a picture. I don't know if he can do anything right now because we're on Zoom. But yeah,

I got sick. I got a plate and sick screws still in there, man. Yeah. But it didn't, it didn't affect me. So it was all good. Especially because it was at the end. It was at the end of the year.

Thank God. Just walk around front of the knees. It's being like, look at these things. Brokeman's wrist ones. It was gross. I heard it and I felt it and it was just disgusting. Like I felt bad.

I actually, I think you're friends with Kyle Rudolph. I kind of reached out to him and get your number and I just, oh, just felt, I don't know, I felt bad. You know, like, hey, this guy is just excited to go to his off season. Both teams were terrible. So we were both just like one game away from just going home and then that happened. I was like, oh, it stinks. Like just. Yeah.

I found out you were a Notre Dame guy. And then now I'm starting to think could have been on purpose. I'm a USC guy. You're a Notre Dame guy. So. I'd like to clear that up a little bit. Trevor Plouf did not attend USC. Just fine.

I'm a high school educated person. He's a fan of USC. He just thought about it. I committed. Thank you very much. I'm a high school educated person. It's my bad. I guess that's good enough.

Yeah, that counts. It's a little bit. Sort of. I was actually, I was going to go a step further back than that. Now we're digging deep. We enjoy the World Series. I mentioned we're Connecticut guys. I'm actually, me and Jimmy are both CCSU guys, go Blue Devils.

So we have a mutual friend, Big Mike Allison. No way. Yeah, Big Mike's one of my good. One of my good buddies. So I reached out to him and I was like, Mike, talking to Pollock tomorrow. I was like, you got the goods. You got some. and ask him. So I trusted Mike. He told me to tell the story about when you made your mom order

a big bad taco at Burger King. Is that podcast clean or do I have to cut it? 10 years old. I got stories about, can I talk about Mike? Yeah, I'm good either way. So Mike played, Mike was a left tackle at CCSU, right? One of the biggest frames on a human I've seen. Yeah, well, Mike, Mike was our bat boy when I was like six to ten. He was too scared to play baseball. So he was our bat boy. He had his mom pick us up over my house because we watched a Disney movie. Every time we watched the movie that was a little bit scary,

he would call his mom at like four in the morning. I'm just deflecting stories. That's good. Mike. Oh, no. Yeah, big Mike. That's funny, man. That's my guy right there.

Yeah. That's like, you know, I got like probably six or seven of my closest buddies back in Connecticut. And, yeah, he's one of my. my guys, he's awesome. He's a good dude. I don't know if the camera shows, but we're both about 5-8, which means we're about 5-7, which means we're about 5-6. So heading out to Elmer's or the bar with Big Mike, and it'd be like, oh, well, fuck you, huh? Or actually, it's more, fuck us, but he's a good dude. He's a good dude. What's coming up next, man? I know you mentioned to us you're heading to Arizona. What's the off-season plan?

Yeah. So, I mean, let's say we had our daughter in March. We actually had her at, she was at 24 weeks. So she was one pound, six ounces. And so she's just been like this crazy miracle baby that we've been, you know, we've been going to doctors the whole year and just taking care of because she's still pretty vulnerable. She's doing great. But my parents haven't seen her yet. They actually just saw her for the first. time at the World Series. I get to hold her up and they were on the other side of the fence. I mean, just crazy stuff that you'll never see from COVID. So hopefully we can figure out a way to get them out this way to see Maddie. Got my buddies, big Mike, all my buddies back home. I haven't seen them forever. But I don't think we can really travel with her this year. So hopefully, I don't know. We'll see. We'll see what happens. I mean, I think right now, just Arizona, hang out and figure out a way to get the grandparents out. Nice. Yeah, Maddie, bringing the World Series to L.A.

All right. Yes. That's pretty cool, man. Crazy year. Crazy year for that girl. You guys, hey, you guys do a great job, too. I really enjoy your take on baseball. I think you guys are awesome for baseball, too, because you guys pick up. I don't know how you pick up on the little nuances of going on.

I remember when Archie hit me and the rest of the best, he did a thing on it. Dang, this guy is all over that. Every little thing, like you're on top of. Because, you know, baseball, you can kind of just glance over stuff. And you don't see any of that. You don't understand the little spots of the game. But I think you guys do an excellent job. And, yeah, keep it going. It's good for baseball. Thank you. Appreciate that. That was when Robbie Ray came out in shorts and a sweatshirt.

And Dave Roberts thought it was like a fan or security guy. He was like, this guy. You're like, that's Robbie Ray. Dave Robertson. Oh, okay, by bad. And then Robbie told me his angle. He's like, yeah, I was just, I pitched a good game. And I was down below kind of waiting to high five people.

And everyone just starts running out. And so I just kind of walked out there. And as soon as I walked out, like, Doc starts, like, running after me. Like, what the fuck is this guy? And he's like, dude, I don't know what's going on. So then I started getting mad and starting yelling at him. And then I'm like, I played on this team last year. Like, I didn't know what was going on.

I was like, these guys aren't this crazy. Like, this is so bizarre, like that, like, they want to fight me. and then Robbie's going to fight my manager. Like, I don't know what the hell is going on. You were just kind of sitting there laughing. Like, what the, yeah, what is this? I couldn't believe what was going on. Like, I just, I got hitting the wrist.

And then Archie's yelling at me and, you know, Robbie's yelling at Doc. It was just a mess. But you guys, it was really funny to watch that, that kind of analysis on it because you were spot on. That's awesome. That's one of those ones where it's like everyone has a correct reason for why they're yelling, but their reason is not right.

Like everyone was just on a different wavelength. It was all coming at each other. I had one in the weeds question for Dodgers fans and for myself before I let you go. The ball boy, I don't know if that's the correct term, Chico, he becomes famous during camps. The replay guy's name is Chop. Chico and Chop. Are there any other fun names in just like the crew for Dodgers like, personal

now, not players. Chico, Chop. You guys chanting Chop after getting replays, correct, is pretty funny. That's awesome. Chop is one of the funest guys out there. He had like, I mean, I think he was like won for his last like eight on replays. So when he got that right, we were like, this is it. Like we, this is the turning. And then that was the game, you know, we were down three games to one. and I think it was the first play of the game. When he got that, we were like, this is it. We're going to win the World Series. Well, that's when you put up 12 runs, right?

Or 11 runs in that inning? Is that it? Yeah, you think you're right. Yeah, you set the record. Yeah. Maybe you're right. Maybe that was a different, yeah, that was the other game. Yeah.

Chop, chop, chop, chop, chop, chop. You guys have such a stressful job. I think so, too. I think, you know, because you got to get them all right, or else everyone's going to get mad, right? So, yeah, for sure. Good nicknames on the team, man. Those are good ones, yeah.

Man, we got Paps, clubbies. No, hey, I mean, those are good ones. All right. Chopin. Yeah. Chopin Chico. They ever hang out? Of course, they do.

It sounds like a sitcom. Chopin. Dodgers social media team should do like a little so web series Chico and chop Chico Chico was dominating our summer camp he was playing left field and then I like felt bad because I was like finally got cleared and I was coming in to play and like you know you took Chico's job the whole the whole baseball world is like behind Chico and I'm like dang like I kind of I kind of I mean you're not even a player You Wally Pips Chico.

Hey, he's legit. He played in college. Like, he is legit. He's got a cannon, like, I don't know. Some team. Hey, he's available. I know that. It's awesome.

All right, man, enjoy everything coming your way these next couple of days. It's going to be fun or weird or both. And thank you for spending time with us. Appreciate it. Cool. Thanks, guys. You guys do a great job. Keep it up.

Baseball. All right. That was AJ Pollock, World Series champion friend of Mike Allison. That was cool. He was fun. He was really good. You could tell, man, like, they still have a lot of enjoyment that they need to get out of their system. Yeah.

Yeah. They haven't released. Yeah. You know, he's obviously very happy. But, like, I'm sad that they didn't get to do all that. You know, the champagne, the burning your eyeballs, all that cool stuff. So hopefully they get that parade and it can do it then. It's funny that the Padres dust up.

They just saw each other in the hotel afterwards. Bizarre. Pretty cool. All right. Thank you guys very much for listening. We will be going to somewhat of a regular schedule starting next week. It's going to be Tuesdays and Thursdays talking baseball until we start the everyday EPS, which will begin in March or late February.

There you have it. Goodbye. Altra music, playing now. Follow Trevor Ploof on Twitter. Chick-Sucks.