Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - 453 | Technology in Baseball, New Playoff Formats, and A Big Week for Negotiations

Episode Date: February 21, 2022

Learn more about the Topps 1952 Mickey Mantle Card NFT at https://bit.ly/TT-MMNFT-JM1 Use code 'TALKIN' for $20 off your first SeatGeek order https://seatgeek.onelink.me/RrnK/TALKIN Timestamps: 6:15 - Spring Training pushed back 14:30 - Expanded Playoffs 20:45 - Choosing Your Opponent 25:30 - Extra Innings 34:00 - Technology Used in Baseball] 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 baseball. It's meetings week. We've got new technology and maybe some new playoff formats. Let's do it. Hello and welcome to talking baseball. My name is Jimmy. Sit next to me is Jake. We got Trevor in California, BBD behind the dish.

And it's another week of negotiations. I'm going to pause and count because this is where we always run to tech issues and sound issues with the new janky system we're using, are we good? Did we get past it? We threw the storm. 20 more seconds. I'm checking again to update you.

We're running off a system that was worse than our system in the Bronx because we got duped into a bad setup. We're talking with professional people that we're going to not rush to make sure it's good forever. And something happens when we have treasurer. have joined us where the audio, as soon as we get through the theme song, either spikes or dips on BBD. Have we made it through?

I think we're there. It just fixes itself about, call it 30 seconds later. All right. It was low and now it's back. Today was a quiet day. All right. Cool. We made it through.

We're here. It's better than ever. Trevor. It's because Trevor's too sexy. I do like Trevor's outfit today. I like, it's like a hobo chic. Darra leak my balls. Zoolander, head of its time.

How you doing, Trev? I'm doing great. You know, my first introduction into Hobo Sheik was Jake Arieta. So maybe I'm channeling some of his vibes there. I was just mentioning to my good friend, Jacob Stori Ali, how good I played yesterday on the links. So this is kind of a golf pod now. Two over on the back nine. All you dudes out there, I think you're good at golf?

on let's go. I'm getting there. And it's very exciting for me because I don't have a lot of competition left in my life. So this is really sparking that. My other competition in life is with my friend Jacob's story alley. So I want to see how you're doing. Jake. How are you? Trev James, BBD, everyone live in the chat, your families, everyone in Brooklyn was there this weekend, looks at some apartments. We were kind of in a part of Brooklyn that I don't think we'd live in. So we kind of screwed a pooch on that one. Had dinner in Brooklyn, enjoyed my time there, Brooklyn guy, but I'm just so Manhattan. So it's tough.

We're going to see. Probably going to have to move apartments because they jacked up my rent 60%. 60? 60. Yeah. So, yeah. So that's what's been going on on my end. Jealous of your golf, Trev.

You know, there's a couple weekends I was hitting the simulator, stimulator, if you will, talking baseball people know. But we'd love to get on the links soon. Maybe we should meet up in Arizona sometime or something like that. But I'm good. I'm good. We got some labor, got some playoffs. We got some technology, one of my strengths.

So I'm generally well. James. I can't believe they jacked your rent up that much. I mean, we got a little bit of a COVID deal, so we knew we were going to get bumped. but we didn't think 60%. So I sent a couple of firm emails yesterday, got in the mix.

Tell them the shit in their hat and wear it. Told Henry to give me their best offer. And by the way, do you like baseball? He doesn't. But so, yeah, I'll give you guys more updates on that as we go. It's great. I had dinner with William A. Chamacy. Really?

That was a good time. delicious meal. I had swordfish and sweet potatoes. I'm not sure what he was eating because he was sitting behind me for some reason with three different people. Really? Yeah. Heard his voice behind my head. And then Katie was like, yeah, it's William H. Macy. And I was like, that's pretty cool. I like him. I mixed him up with William Defoe for a while, but. Rude. But they've had long hair at similar times. Yeah, I'm a big William Macy from a lot of things. Like people would say Fargo. shameless, a lot of things for me. TikTok, McLaughlin, C-Basket, what a roll.

Anyway, so I'm doing well. Trev, Teddy scored a touchdown. Do you want to talk about that? He did. I mean, I'm proud of him because I don't know if I talked about this on the show or not, but he came up to me and he was disappointed

that he wasn't getting the ball really during these games. It's kind of like on the smaller side, younger side, and you know, there's some more maybe physically gifted six-year-olds on the team. But he hadn't been touched the ball. So I said, look, don't tell me this. Like, if you want the ball, you got to go tell your coach. Like, you know, you got to go show him that you wanted.

So he did that a couple of times. Like straight up went to the coach. It was like, coach. And coach was like, yes. He said, I want the ball. So I thought that was great for him. Still only got it once yesterday. But in that one time, he did score Ted.

He was really excited about it. So we're happy for Ted. He's figuring some things out, you know. He's a stud. I was excited about the touchdown. Put three kids on the ground. That was beautiful. Anyway, we're not going to go deep dive into the labor stuff today

because they're meeting this week. It was supposed to be New York and then they pivoted to Florida because they remembered golf existed. And I'm sure Thursday show is going to be the heavy labor update situation. They did push spring training back to March 5th. That's official. So the first sign of things not happening. If that's all that happens, obviously that's not a big deal at all.

But that's, you know, step one. And then step two is pushing back further and further and further. So we'll see how it goes. We had a sheet of notes that were sent to us and I cannot find it in the Slack. If either of you have it, can you share it with me? I just have no idea what message it was sent in and I've been clicking. I think it's, it is like our, the last sheet we had, if that is helpful information to you, but I can. That's no.

No. All right. Anyway, anything on the labor stuff, Trev. I mean, we're going to talk about some other stuff going forward. That's more fun. Some of the college baseball technology stuff that swept the internet. Any of your little birdies telling you anything, though, Trev? Just a lot of frustrated voices out there.

That's pretty much the main emotion that I'm getting when I'm talking. talking to guys. Like, this is a time. Like, look, we're trained forever to be ready to go at this time, to go to spring training. So usually your workouts are more baseball specific now. You're doing more game stuff. You're putting your cleats on.

You're making sure that, you know, your legs are ready to run the bases and all that stuff because it means something. But guys are in limbo now. You know, like hitters can kind of continue to do what they want to do. But pitchers, like, they need to be ramping up to a certain point. And I don't think they know exactly what that. point is. I think a lot of guys are just frustrated in that aspect where their training is now getting, they've had a normal offseason besides being able to talk to their team, most of these guys.

You know, they've gone through their progressions, but now I think they're seeing like, well, I'm supposed to be on a plane, like going and doing baseball now. And I know some guys are already doing this because I'm seeing it on the gram and stuff. I believe we're going to see a lot more of these camps where we're having a bunch of ballplayers get together and try to do something. some live A-Bs and stuff like that because it's it's go time for everybody that's kind of you know I ask around you know what's this is this new proposal going to move the needle at all and all the responses are I sure as hell hope it does because I'm I'm ready to go yeah my uh I think I think I think that's kind of where everyone's feeling at this point my guy Cole Tucker

working out with my guy Tyler Wade they're working out with my guy JP Sport and CCSU raise up. So, yeah, and there's a lot of ballplayers that are either in Florida or Arizona because they kind of train there anyways or, you know, and want to be ready for if they do come to a deal, they want to be there. So that's going on. It is going to suck for the pitchers. Like even if we figure this out quickly, which still seems up against it.

They're going to be in a tough spot. As a sports fan in general, I do think today was the first, you know, Super Bowl last week. and off that high. Me and Treves Matt Stafford, we were at the game. And then this week's a weird one in the sports world, because pitchers and catchers should have reported, which is exciting for a little bit, but then they're just basically running and playing catch, so you kind of come away from them. Then everyone reports, and, you know, it's your first time seeing Bryce Harper in a new uniform. It's your first time seeing all that stuff, and that's when you really get the juice.

So today I was really missing that juice, which sucks. And I don't know if I can bring it up, but I texted you guys. I was having an optimistic Thursday. Yeah. Because, I mean, Trev, this is just, this is classic the league. You know, whenever we were going through our arbitration hearings, they would just wait us out to the very end, and then they give us their actual best and final offer. And now the fact that we're meeting every week, you know, I think we're going to start

getting some best and final offers, and we'll see if we get any movement for. from that and they're meeting every day so they're just going to figure it out every day they'll get a little closer every day thank god they're reading every day that's really good um did you see what mb PA said they said that they're not giving expanded playoffs if this season doesn't start on time MLB said that MLB said that MO the PA said that that's a hell of a leverage tool right there that is it's a good move because MLB if MLB misses the month of April but get expanded playoffs in this deal, they've won. They don't care at all.

They can miss April and May. And if they get expanded playoffs, they win, they have more money. So they don't care at all. So that's a great move by the PA to say, we're not doing expanded playoffs if this, this doesn't start on time.

I think, I think what they would say is, we'll pay you your full contracts, which then kind of puts them in the bucket because they're not making money on their TV deals if they're not playing games. But yeah, the players, I think, I don't know, I thought I saw they wrote that as well, like full pay or start the season on time. I mean, it's essentially the same thing, even though like they obviously prefer to be on the field playing baseball for a lot of reasons, mostly because they love the game and it's what they do for a living.

But yeah, I think that's, that's, we talk about all the time on here. There's not a ton of leverage on the player's side, that being probably the big. I guess they got to offer right now. I hadn't seen Tony Clark's look these days. You change? He's got to still be wearing a nice big baggy stuff. But the beard is full now. And it's kind of neck beardy.

And it's getting Amish looking. It's getting lower and lower. He had the nice goatee for a while. The goatee was scary. It was like a power play. This is a little more like... If you ever enter a contract negotiation, you expect someone at the table to have a goatee.

And that's kind of where. Tony Clark was. I think you're right on this, Jimmy. That beard is, that's a lot. He's a presence, dude. Have you guys, have you met Tony?

No. Have not. Feels like he's a good hugger. Like, he would just swallow me up with a hug. He's big. Yeah, he's like 6.6. Is there,

we got a height on him, BBD? Can we get it? Big dude, and he kind of wears big baggy clothes. Big deep booming voice. Eight. Six, eight. Yeah, he's big.

That's big. That's big. Tony Clark, man. You know, like, yeah. I'll say this about Tony. I like Tony because he, he does put his heart into this.

He does. And right now, I mean, it's tough to be on either side. Like, you know, both sides here are getting backlash from the fans at this point.

But, but Tony is, I do think, I think Tony's a good leader for the P. Okay. good stuff i think i think we're in a tough situation right now but uh like i said he's he's giving it everything he's got hopefully we get some updates we did have like a we had college baseball started which brought in a conversation that trev started on twitter

do you want to do that first or do you want to do stay with baseball since we're kind of talking about expanded playoffs and there were some i don't know fake there was it fake uh was it just completely fake or was it just a guess of uh new formats but i think it's an interesting conversation to have again anyway on the concepts of these new formats because we know that we're getting a new format. I think that's kind of agreed upon, right? That we're getting a new format. Unless. Unless. And the other big news is that Topps recently announced they will be auctioning off a one of one 1952 Mickey Mantle card NFT on OpenC. March 1st. 1 p.m. Eastern time OpenCes an NFT auction platform where people can make

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Yeah, dot tops. They're the tops. I mean, these NFT things are right up your alley, Jake. your crypto billionaire. I'm an investment guy. I have my one NFT. It's bringing me places. So,

yeah, I mean, yes. I also have an NFT. Just one. That's all I got to say. I'll get one soon. The new playoff bracket,

I mean, the one that was leaked or put out there was... Not leaked. I don't think leaks's the right word. No, not leaked. Yeah,

just put out there. Seven teams from each side, from each league making it, which is 14 teams, which is closer to the 50% that we have heard they want to get to. And it was, so one, how do you feel about that, Trev? Because Jake and I have come to grips with it.

Maybe you have, because we've just heard from people that it's happening, that that's what the owners really want. There's 14 teams or more. Playoff percentages. I think I've come to grips that, like, it's maybe not 14. I guess I don't know what else you could do.

12 teams, obviously, I guess. That makes sense. I don't know. I think expanded playoffs are coming. If it's 12, if it's 14, I'm not sure. I don't love it. I was just telling you guys before the show. I'm looking at the bracket and how everything's set up right now.

Like it kind of, it kind of works. Like the wild card was, you know, the wild card game, when it was a one game thing, I thought was great. And that was a change. that, you know, some people didn't like. At first, I was kind of against it because it's one game for your season, but I realized as a fan how much that meant. And like, that's kind of like what other sports do.

I mean, it's single elimination in most sports in the playoffs, or not in most sports, but in football, our most popular sport. And then when they changed the three games with the wild card, I thought that was even better idea. I love that. So I'm like, okay with expanding the playoffs in some fashion. But I, when we're talking about half the league making it, and you're looking back at some of these seasons,

you'd have sub-500 teams in the playoffs. I mean, it's negating baseball's most important part, the long season. I mean, that's what, let me talk about this all the time. I feel like,

you know, I don't want to keep talking the same point over and over, but I love the long season. I think that's why baseball is great. And if we're going to expand it to 14 teams, we're going to get some teams that aren't so worthy of the playoffs. I don't like that aspect of it. And I think that's what's kind of,

kind of funny is that from last year's standings, we have the perfect example on both sides of the aisle, the good and the bad of seven teams. Last year, if the AL expanded to seven teams, we would have had the Toronto Blue Jays and the Seattle Mariners in the playoffs, which, man, how fun was Seattle? How fun are the Blue Jays? What were their records?

They were 91 and 71 and 92. So that would have been, that is the perfect example of, Two more teams get in. They're fun. It would be great to get both of those teams on a more national playoff stage. Like win, win, win.

In the National League last year, if we expanded to two more teams, do you fellas know who would have got in? Padres. Your Philadelphia Phillies and your Cincinnati Reds, 82 and 80, 83, and 79. Padres, what the hell?

So, Padres fell off so hard. You know, those teams, hey, Phillies, how often did we say those boys can hit and they've got a couple starting pitchers that could take over? That would be their record doesn't say playoff team. They could have been a little scary in the playoffs. Who knows? Cincinnati Reds, you know, they faded off towards the end as well. But traditionally, an 83 and 79 team is not what screams,

playoff baseball. Because like you're saying, Trev, we do want to reward these teams for the grind. For the 162, it is what makes baseball special. And that is where, you know, Trev, like you said, you do end up repeating some of the same points. Whenever you hear me and Jimmy talking about this, it's because we mentally came to grips with this because we heard about it years ago that they view it as percentages, the percentage of NFL teams that make the playoffs, the percentage of NBA teams that make the playoffs. MLB views it through that scope. And when you hear that, it's kind of like a, oh.

So that's how they compare themselves to the other leagues. And you start getting in the mind of how, you know, those people and ownership groups think. And how could that league let in more playoff teams, blah, blah, blah, that's where the money is. It does start to make sense. And that's where my go-to line is always the, just reward the best teams properly.

If we're going to start letting in an 83-win team, make it so they have. have to play three games on the road against a good team or whatever the stipulations are. Like, do not give them an easy playoff entry because then... Or the same as the best team. Yeah. I mean, it's, you know, that's where things get dangerous for me. Because at baseball playoffs...

And Trev, how do you feel about the team choosing their opponent? Now, I don't know if that's going to happen, but that was this one that got posted. so we were thinking about it. And that had been rumored last year as well during negotiations. Well, like at the end of the year, when they had that four-way tie scenario with teams picking, like they submitted their picks. Like we know the Yankees would have picked to play Boston in that situation.

Like Cashman said it. How do you feel about that, Trevor? You think it's fun drama or what? I, my stance on that is I think I'd be okay. with it only because if we do go to 14 teams, then we do need to think about completely overhauling divisions. We got to think about, you know, the schedule that we play, and we can do all this. That's the beauty of it, you know, Jason Stark wrote an article comparing, like, what can we learn from the NFL in their playoffs? And he said, basically, like, the NFL is not afraid to reinvent itself

a little bit. You know, they've up the scoring, they've up the passing and all sorts of things, you know, added teams to the playoffs, whatnot. I think if we go to 14 teams, we have to come up with some sort of cool new system. Jake, you mentioned if an 80, if a 500, a sub 500 team gets in, they probably got to go through the gauntlet to get through the first round. Something of that nature. They got to win two when the other team only has to win one, something like that. I think we have the opportunity to do that. And I think if we put some smart people in a room and we maybe had some fan engagement with it as well, like we could bring a bunch of people who love the game from separate backgrounds into a room and say, hey, let's figure out a cool way to do the playoffs.

I think we could do it and it would work. And that's the only way I'd want 14 teams is if they really, I don't want just a buy for the best team. Like I don't think that's, I don't think that works. That's not good for that team. In fact, I think it probably is, is bad for me. most teams at that point of the season. So I don't have the answer to the 14 team scenario. I don't mind the choosing of the of the opponent because that is kind of a little zany. And I believe that's the way we have to go if we do go to 14 teams. It's got to be a little crazy.

It's a lot of teams. We were doing the buy calculation. It's the same. It could be like four days. Right now it's three. Like the raise played 162 and then there was two wildcard games in an off day before they played and it was three days. And I think if they did all the same city, it would be four days.

So really the days off wouldn't be that much bigger than otherwise. I wanted to kind of say this because Jake and I had not a revelation or we just had a thought because we went to the New York Rangers versus the Boston Bruins game. And we went to the hockey game. Igor. Igor. Igor almost where to go yesterday. And they obviously do a shootout now.

They tie. You both get a point for tying in regulation. Or they do a three on three overtime. You both get a point. Then it goes to a shootout where the winner of the shootout wins an additional point. But you still get a point for tying, making it to the shootout. The shootout that we saw went nine rounds. And hockey purists don't like it or didn't like it when it first started.

might have embraced it now or they may still not dislike it. I'm not sure. But Jake and I, as casual fans, were thoroughly entertained. It was awesome. And I kind of like, that's, have to think that way for baseball. Like if they tied after 11 innings and both teams got a point and then it went to a swing off, baseball purists absolutely hate that. Are we gaining new young fans? 100%. I don't think swing off is the right way to do it because like home run derby,

that doesn't make any sense because we're talking about a baseball team. What I would suggest, and this has been talked about, I think we talked about it before here too. Say we were in the playoffs or shoot even in regular season games, we could do this. Okay. If we play nine innings, scores tied. Maybe we give it two extra innings of regular ball. I'd prefer it just to go straight to this, where you could pick where you're, you're going to hit. You can put your middle of your lineup up, where we're going to start

in the lineup because that is something that other sports have that baseball doesn't have. They have their best players with the ball in crunch time, and you tune in to see that. We saw Matt Stafford, excuse me, Matthew Stafford, march down the field, throw to Cooper Cup. Then we saw Aaron Donald come around and make the play against Joe Burrow. This is what football does so well. And basketball, the same thing. LeBron takes the ball last night in the All-Star game, shoots it up, wins it for his team, and for you, Jake, right? You bet LeBron. Yeah, I had a good night. I was a Braun sexual for one night. It was awesome. Wow. So why can't we have a situation where it's like, all right, hey, I'm leading off my two-hole hitter,

and I got three, four coming up behind them, and you get to choose where you're in the lineup, all that good stuff. I think that would, these are the things we should be talking about to progress the game. I don't think anybody would hate that. Yeah. It's interesting, right? Because Treve, I love everything you just said. And it's the interesting balance is, it's the regular season. You have to put that into perspective a little bit. Like, you know, you get nine innings to do what you need to do.

You know, 10th inning, can you do, do you just let it ride and you pick up in the batting order? Or 10th inning, do you do what you said and like let it go and play natural baseball? I think the bigger thing for me and my A-Rod just hand came in, just came in out of screen. So I want to bring that. That's when you know I'm really driving home a point, Poppy. Does he do that? When he starts really getting into something, he brings out the power hand. Baseball.

Well done, BBT. I guess for me, the problem is right now the current solution isn't the solution. Like playing the knockoff form of baseball with a ghost-runner. on second, nobody really likes that. And I think for a while we wondered if that was just because it was change and do we just not like change? I think there are just better solutions out there. Like if you told me in the 10th inning set your lineup and then the game becomes,

who's hot right now? Do you have to set it at the start of the inning? Or can you just go by the seat of your pants? So if, say, a base runner leadoff hitter hits a double, can you then go to your contact hitter or someone that slaps the ball the other way? Like is that part of the strategy? That would be fantastic. Or, and this is where Jim started out and we kind of did raise our eyebrows at each other,

if they did a swing off and say the 11th inning. Trev, I see your head shaking and I respect it and I get it. I get it. But if you told me that, hey, the Yankees and the Mets are playing, they're going to the 11th. It's swing off time. The Yankees are going to hit. judge Stanton, Gary Sanchez, Yankee fans scream,

and the Mets are going to hit Alonzo, Lindor, and Jeff McNeil. He's hot. I don't know why they did it, but they just did it that way. Like, you're telling me you want to tune into that? Like, that's kind of must watch, and the stadium would be going nuts. It could work. I very much understand deciding a baseball game that way. Well, you'd have to go to a point system.

Okay. like hockey. You'd have to go to a point system. And it's the same thing in hockey, Trave. Like, hockey's a team sport. There's, you know, there's 12 forwards and eight defensemen. And then you go to a shootout and it's just your top three guys that can do this one specific skill. It's the very same thing as just choosing your sluggers to go up.

I'm just saying. There's no offense. There's no defense in that. There's the offense and defense in the other things. There's not in a home run derby. So it's, I think that is. Yeah, it's a good counter. I can't even begin to think of a game ending that way.

Yeah, that's a good counter. You need defense. So you put up your top three for three at bats. I don't know. And we're just talking about extra innings or, you know, like after the game is a tie where both teams get a point. But my point is I've been old school in baseball and not wanting to change it forever. The fact is the game has already changed so much where there's no action at all.

So we can get back there. but if you can just win young fans in, we're saying it's tied after 11 and then that point you go to just something crazy in the regular season only. I think we got to unscrew our lids just a little bit. They're too tight. And like people that listen to this podcast

in the middle of a lockout is not, is the audience I'm kind of talking to? Because I would, if you polled people listening to me right now that are tuning in, they hate what I'm saying. because I was like that as well. But if you go to other sports and figure out like,

okay, they got me. I'm hooked. How do we get more people interested? Not talking about the first 11 innings. Just saying like, do something like that. It doesn't really matter. It doesn't really matter. And the runner on second may speed up the game,

but it's not enticing any new fans. Like if I send a text to my buddy and I go, yo, Yankees and Red Sox are an extras right now, there's a runner on second to start the inning. One, I'd never use that tone because it's not exciting. But if I text my buddy say, dude, they just tied after 11. They're going to, you know, the top three hitters only.

You'd be like, oh, I got to, I'll check that out. So all we're doing is speeding up the conclusion of the game, but we're not exciting anyone to tune in. Even baseball fans, like even if someone texted me and was like, hey, you know, two, like royals and twins or in extras, or they got the runner on second. It's not like go must watch. But if someone, if someone texts me and say,

Rangers or Bruins are in a shootout, I'm going to, I'll flip that on. I'll see what happens right now. Think about the walkoff celebrations that, that come with the extra ending rule that we have. They're nothing. Like,

you don't really celebrate those. Guys that are out there like high-fiving because it's a weird form of baseball. I totally agree, James. Like, yeah, they wanted to shorten the games for health reasons, you know, get people out of the stadiums,

I guess, because they don't serve beer anymore. so why do they want anyone in the stadium? But it doesn't, yeah, you're right, it just doesn't entice people the way maybe we should be thinking about. And it's okay, like people need to like relax and open their minds up a little bit about baseball. We don't have to fundamentally change the sport.

That's why I totally disagree on like the shootout or shoot out or swing off thing. But we can take the standards that we have and kind of move them around a little bit. I really love the idea of having it come down to, you know, your best players. It's what people want to watch. Like, I was rarely the best in the middle of lineup in my career. People weren't coming to really see me.

But if people came to the ballpark and they got to see Justin Orneau and Joe Mauer back to back when the game's like crunch time. I mean, that's, that will get people juiced up. I don't know what that is for, you know, for Yankees, it would be like you got Aaron Judge coming up with Stanton right behind them. Let's see what these boys can do. One swing, the game's over because this is baseball. I like it. Miles Daily in the chat just suggested,

what if they play it like normal, but after 11, you get to pick the part of the lineup they want to start with. So I think he gets credit for your idea now. Yes. That is the Miles Daily idea. To be fair, I'm pretty sure I stole that from somebody. Yeah. but it is what you presented.

All right. Well, that, that, that goes, be ready for expanded playoffs. And then Jake and I had a revelation that they should make slop time at the end of a tie game exciting and not dull. And if you're going to expand the freaking playoffs,

let's, let's get some pageantry to it. I'm like kind of all in on that. I am, I am a little, like I understand they want to up the numbers, but the one game wildcard playoffs. are exciting.

You can tell by the ratings. People tune in. Non-baseball fans, just sports fans, tune in. They're gut-wrenching. Like, if they go away from that, like, I don't, they're going to lose that. It sucks. I hate it.

We can do it where if the lower seed team has to win two and the higher seed team has to win one like that, that's just as good as a winner-go-home situation because it literally is a winner-go-home situation, but you can have more games that way. Yeah. If you want to go to these games and see this stuff, you've got to use Seat Geek. This whole show is brought to you by Seat Geek.

They sponsor us. They got an app. You choose the event. It could be baseball. It'll be a concert, basketball, football, festival, whatever you want. They rate every ticket zero to ten to make sure you're getting a good deal. Green means good. Red means bad.

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Some exciting things. Tommy White, first ever game goes five for six with three homers. Other stuff happened. Bizarre call I just did a breakdown on. A lot of home run. And now we have technology and as well as technology than the watches. They're all wearing quarterback belts with notes on it. Yeah.

Like positioning scouting reports. So, man, I couldn't like this any less. Vanderbilt's pitchers were looking at their watch for every pitch. And then we got clarity on it. They're allowed to use technology in college now. So teams are doing it. and Vanderbilt, all nine players in the field have the watches and see what the coach is calling before as it's happening.

Treve, you tweeted about this. You didn't like it. Jake, you responded. Say you didn't like it. I responded to say, I didn't like it. I want to clarify something. I really, really, really, really, really don't like the other fielders having the info. I also really, really, really, really, really don't like the coaches having the info.

if there was a device that the catcher was hitting numbers on his wristwatch and the pitcher was looking at them on his, I'm not against that. So I'm not 100% against technology to change signs stealing and make it, you know, the easier for the catcher and the pitcher to communicate. I'm not 100 for it either, but I'm not against it. But I hate that the coaches have it and that the fielders have it because they're turning baseball. into out of the park baseball. Like more and more and more,

they're taking the athleticism and the brain out of the athlete and just like using them as pawns. It's so different than non-American sports where the coach can't even do anything during the game. Like, you know, like tennis is an individual sport, but even cricket the coach, he can't do shit. The captain chooses who bowls and who hits

and where they're going to field. And I know like netball, my sister played that in Australia. coach wasn't allowed to say a word during the game. And in America, like, our coaches run our sports. This is too much for me. It's way too much. I hate it.

Yeah, I mean, I sent that tweet out. I asked for ball players to respond. Of course, Jake was the first one to chime in. That made a lot of sense. I'm glad I got your take on it. But most of the guys that responded that were former players are all against it. And for a variety of different reasons, I did learn. I asked the question, I said, okay, coach has given the signs to these guys.

All defenders have this watch that tells them which pitch is coming. So now all the defenders can anticipate, you know, for instance, you're on the left side of the infields. You're playing shortstop or second base, or, excuse me, shortstop or third base. And an off-speed pitch is called to a right-handed batter. You're going to take a step over to your right towards the line because, you know, the tendency on an off-speed pitch typically is, you know, ground balls to your backhand side. So you do that.

Instead of, you know, the old way was the shortstop is looking into the catcher's signs, reads it, gives a little to the third base spin. You have to relay this, you know, but you have to do it soft enough where the third base coach doesn't hear you so he can't relay it or the runner on second base doesn't hear you so he doesn't take off the third because he knows the pitch is coming. the dirt. There's all these things, you know, the game within the game, and we're losing that. And so that's a big, that's a big thing for me and for all ballplayers. I think that that's a separator usually. And now we're just trying to get everyone, you know, kind of on the same page.

I did ask what happens if you shake off. Can you shake off your, because it's not, it's not foreign that, you know, a college coach would call a game. I feel like that happens more often than not. The college coach is calling the pitches, which I also don't like, but I understand like a lot of it has to do with them having to win these games to keep their jobs. That's what I got. I heard from a couple of different people that work in the industry. Like they're very, it's very much a win-loss thing that they need to do. It's not a development thing.

They need to win games to keep their jobs. So they want it in their hands. But there is a system in play. I guess it's like a swipe thing. So if you call, he calls a pitch and they don't like it. He shakes it off. and one swipe moves to the next pitch, one swipe up moves to the next pitch.

It's one of those things. I said in my tweet, I'm okay with tech and pregame and getting ready and training and all that. But wearable tech for me on the field is just like an absolute no-go. Because of all the reasons you said too, James, we're taking the athlete out of the game, essentially. Yeah, I'm fine with catcher and pitcher having something, if that's what it comes down to,

just should be like a little vibrate thing or whatever. And I get that coaches called the game. I think that was a, was that a, Bregman tweet at one point? Like let college catchers call games. Was he a catcher in college? And he tweeted that.

Some catcher, like, rallied against that. He's like, how is anyone going to learn to call a game if you don't let him call in college? But just the coaches don't want to get fired. A lot of catchers weighed in on that and said the same thing.

How are you supposed to learn the game? It's a, you know, it's, it's tough. It's a classic American trait. We take things too far. I mean, look around at pretty much anything, whether baseball, Tiger King, whatever it may be for you. And by the way, Treve, you mentioned you wanted ballplayers to check in. A couple ballplayers tonight, Blitzball Battle, 7 p.m., awesome game. Jerry Blevins, Jolly Olive, versus Mac Flurry Power, a couple of minor league dudes.

my guy's Kyle and bossy um coaches Jim like you just said they have to win to keep their job so they will do anything to win to keep their job coaches or anyone

look at the Astros scandal their whole thing was and that one guy is you know how do we increase on the margins how do we push things as far as we can go and that's where we're at Like, and I really didn't want this opinion because I think it's kind of easy and it's generic and oh, something new. I don't like it.

And so I was like, you know what? Let me actually think about this. Are, you know, is this going to lead to better action? Is this going to lead to better baseball? And it's all around no. It's all around no. We're getting closer to a video game than baseball. And, yeah, it's part of the.

reason we love sports and I was wondering if this was a technology thing because there's rumors out there I'm not the most tech savvy guy um you know I was thinking about golf and like technology and golf is actually has really helped that sport you know we've made better clubs better balls like you know some of the shot tracer stuff but that isn't affecting like the active gameplay of golf like they're using analytics and numbers for you know where they should place their shots and things of that nature, but we're now affecting play with technology, which is, like, we need to get away from that. Like, how many times do we have to learn?

Remember when the Dodgers were fielding their guys with lasers and stuff like that? Like, let's get back to sports. I'm all in on using that stuff for scouting reports and trying to approve, you know, where you're lined up and what pitch they're going to throw in this couch. couch, excuse me. It's just not right. It's not sports. It's not sports.

So yeah, man, a little bummed out by it. You know, it just feels like we're just getting further away from coaching and learning. And that's what helps the game evolve. And it's almost like, shocked to say this phrase, but baseball like getting in its own way. Well, I mean, I started. a campaign last year after Kiermire stole the catcher's

piece of paper and I started a campaign called Keep Paper out of baseball. And who's the Cub Coach Ball game's favorite player? I'm completely blanking. It's a rude blank. He agreed with me. Ernie Banks?

Ernie Banks or Andre Dawson. Andre Dawson, I believe. The Hawk. I believe he quote tweeted me or is it or I forget who and said that he agreed. keep paper out of baseball. So I am also off of the defensive alignment sheets. That'll tell you obviously how you're off those.

I'm off those. I'll tell you how we feel about wearable. So now it's like, yeah, I was like, wait, wait, you went the wrong way.

The wrong way. The wrong way. And it's, it's, I don't know, man. It's, I think we have to be able as a society,

which is called our baseball society. we have to be able to say no to some things. Like I'm all for progress and progressing the sport and keeping up with times, but only when it's necessary or when it makes sense. You can say no to things. This is something I'm saying no to. This doesn't make the game better.

You're saying what does this do to the gameplay? It takes away offense, even more. Like being able to anticipate, you know, a pitch and a location while you have your quarterback sheet of where you're supposed to stand because you have the spray chart of where this guy hits the ball and his last 500 at bats. I mean, come on, man. Nobody wants to see the ball hit right at somebody standing in the outfield.

As the great Bob Costa said on our show, you want to see a center fielder, be a center fielder. You want to see him go get that ball. You want to see Byron Bucks and do his damn thing out there. You don't want to see him flat-footed catching a ball without moving. Nobody wants to see that. Like, we have to keep a game, a game. Keep the game a game.

And I think another, a funny side effect that might come from this is even more pitch tipping. Like we're leaving more room for error with the catcher, the pitcher, and now all of the fielders? I thought it'd be hilarious if they, if like the curveball sign came into a righty and every fielder just took a step to his right. Right. Like the third base and just takes a lean. You can, you usually can do that. Like you have to wait as a shortstop to make your move to make that anticipation sometimes it's just a lean and i'll tell you what it's very hard for a shortstop to always relay the shortstop in the second baseman trying to relay what pitch is coming to the corners like it takes a skill you have to be able to

see there's all these things are just part of the dang game it was rod carew just to update everyone named a couple good ball players keep keep paper out of baseball i guess my i love rod My closing argument while I have the jury present is what's the counter move? You know, when we think about sports, like, okay, you know, Trev, this guy keeps throwing curveballs away. Maybe you move up in the box a little bit. You scoot up. You look for that pitch.

Like, what's the counter? The other team is passing the football more, so we're going to throw another defensive back out there. You know what the counter move here is? it's like finding some tech nerd to steal whatever Bluetooth or RFID or however they're sending the message. Like that's the counter. Seems easier. And that means we've gone too far because that's not sports.

That's not sports. Can I do a PSA announcement? Jim thoughts? I don't know. I have an announcement before your announcement. All right, fine. If we're all going to make announcements, I'll find one. My announcement is that Draft Kings is giving $1.

Or they're giving away great odds. If you bet $1, you can get $150 and free bets. All you got to do is pick an NBA team to win. The All-Star game was last night. Jake watched it. I did not. I heard Macy Gray. He won a lot of money.

This is my confession. Jadal Lago and a Stumbull. No, it's funny. I think I might have found my betting. game slash strategy. It's placing a lot of bets. I'm not sure why Trev laughed at my strategy. It's placing a lot of bets.

And I end up coming out like... Even? Plus 25, like plus 40. So at the end of the day, it's like, okay, you just placed 10 bets and you ended up plus 25. But that had been better than some of my betting practices before. So I'm in a pretty good groove. Who would you bet on tonight, Shea Station or MacFlor?

power. Oh. It's tough to get me to pick either of those guys. Okay. I love both of those guys for very different reasons. Well, the Blitzball Battle isn't available on Draft Kings yet, but maybe one day, if people watch it enough, it gets big enough. We'll do it.

Download the Drafking Sportsbook app now. Use promo code John Boy. Bet just $1 in any NBA team and get $150 in free bets if they win. That's promo code John Boy at Draft King Sportsbook, an official sports betting partner of the NBA. Must be 21 plus and physically present in New York. Eligueling restrictions of line. $5.5.5.com slash sports.

full details. Gambling problem call 8778. Hope N.Y or text Hope N.Y. 46737-369. Trevor Plouf. What is your PSA? I was talking to an agent friend of mine this morning. Right and early. We're up in the wee hours. So we speak in the morning. It's one of my favorite things.

And we started talking about the wearable tech. And he started giving me a heads up. that at these different scouting combines, you know, these different showcases kids are going to, and also in the minor leagues that they're making these kids, they're not making them, but they're asking them and basically, you know, they're asking them to wear this wearable stuff, to put this arm sleeve on. I'm going to measure the force that you're going through your window with or, you know, wear this ring. I'm going to find your heart rate and your sleep schedule and all this stuff.

My advice to any ball player out there, like really listen to this. If you're into that and you want to train yourself and you're going to use some tech and training, do it yourself. Do not, do not give anyone access to that information. I don't care if it's some dude that says he's going to get you noticed by a college program because of it or you're going to get drafted because of it. Absolutely not. if you want that information, get it yourself. That's your information. If you're a minor leaguer, say hell no to the organizations having your biometric data. Okay, they don't need that. Okay. If you want to use that, by all means, just get it yourself. Protect your data. Do not give people that because the only thing they're trying to do is keep tabs on you and they can use that information.

a plethora of different ways, mostly not to serve you. Like I said, use it, but use it yourself. PSA for any ball player out there. Please listen to that. End of PSA. They got your data and then just send it around. And then they don't think you're ever going to change. They can do a lot of stuff with that.

Think about stats, dude, how you can cherry pick a stat in an arbitration case. You can cherry pick some things with some wearable tech and it's not good. that's a bad path. It's good advice. It's a little scary, I guess. They all have, dude, it's crazy how much it's,

and it's definitely help people improve. So I'm not like 100% against tech as a training device. I am against it in the field. Like, I really don't like it. It's just, especially like, how young are you going to go with this?

Like our high, there's got to be very competitive high school teams are going to start implementing this because they got to prepare them for college, where it happens. And then they get to the next level and it just all vanish. is like it's pretty odd.

Don't like, I don't know. I think there's, do the best pitchers in college baseball, the guys like the jack lighters, like the guys that are going to go, you know, top of the first round, are they calling their own pitches? Did Adley Rushman in college call the game or was this a college coach? Like, I don't understand. I was calling my own pitches in high school. Like that was a sign of respect for my coach.

He knew I could handle it. He knew that, like, I was a guy that could do that. Like, does anybody give? that grace or is it just like no man this is how we do it here i don't know but i'm sure there's some pictures that like even in the in the pros there are pictures that don't want to call their own game i mean burleigh didn't like it i don't think lans lind calls his own game a lot of the throw and go guys they don't want to think and maybe there are pitchers that uh get to college and be like can you call it so i can like learn why you call it the way you do so i'm not like you know there's probably

a lot of times. Maybe if you want freshmen, like, no, I call your game when you're freshmen so you can learn how we do it, what we like to teach, all that. There's definitely pluses to that. You got to be able to shake and stuff. Stop technology. Jay Cates technology. Stop it. You were catcher James. I mean, you were calling your own games or what? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I only caught through freshman year of high school. Were you heater heavier? Were you off speed heavy? I loved opening. I loved opening up. a third pitch, first pitch for, we had a pitcher that was really good. And then we had, what was Benetti's name?

Benetti was good. Benetti had a third pitch that he didn't trust at all. And I'd always call it first pitch of the inning and just say, just do it once. And like, if it's good, we'll do it again. If it's not, we'll just scratch it and move on. But like, let's just, let's not sit on that bullet for a while and it ache. So I like doing that because I thought it unnerved him. And I said, don't shake me out first pitch.

And then I called the silliest thing. And then, dude, I didn't know what I was doing. I was 14. Love that. Just mixing it up. Wasn't reading bats. I was like, oh, this seems good. Man, I got into a long discussion about that with Dallas Braden.

Hmm. He was, he commented on something on Twitter, like this questionnaire that these starting pitchers fill out after their starts. It's like a homework assignment for them. And I was like, do you guys really do this? Like, you have so much time on your hands as a starting pitcher. Do you got homework? Like written homework?

And he sent me a paragraph, I mean, a scroll of a text explaining about all this stuff. And so my pitchers, man, they're just a different breed. I was like, we don't have, as real ball players, we don't have time to do homework assignments. We've got to get ready for the next day. We're scouting the pitcher trying to figure out how we're going to get through 16. but shout out Dallas gotta love that guy I think we got to recreate the eastbound

and down scene with you in Dallas get a car dealership just line it up he claims he's got Blitzball skills he does can confirm if people saw my Blitzball game they know it's not all roses over here

year. Hitting's impossible. I wonder, I mean, I've prepped everyone after the first round, we changed the rules to bring more offense into the tournament. And, uh, because some people are complaining that there's no offense. Majority, vast majority people are very much enjoying the games because they're like wildly entertaining and really well done. But some, the some of the responses are like, there's no offense.

And then others there's like, the speed limit rule is stupid. And it's like, well, you guys both can't exist at the same time. So. You can't exist. But, yeah. I mean, someone said that in the words of Trevor Plouf, soft. And I said Trev was a main advocate of it. So.

Yeah. I want to, someone that chat asks me if you're scouting pitchers for the next day, isn't that homework? In, in essence, I'm not, I'm okay with, like, you know, going back and learning from your start or learning from your at-bats. but some of the questions on this thing weren't just like hey like you know what'd you think of your sequencing like what would you change like i get that like you have to think about those things you make adjustments that's what baseball is all about but it was talking about like the day leading up like what they were doing to get ready for like their start and it really was like very in depth to the team it's a little too much for us position players we're focused on the game not what we wore to

a field. One day at a time. What music's playing? Not you. You don't care what's playing. Oh, the music. Yeah, no. I got it.

All right. Hopefully, Thursday isn't too much of a fired up negative energy episode, but we should have more because they're meeting every day this week

to reach some conclusions. I'm happy they're meeting every day. Should have done that two months ago. Imagine they fucking figured out Really cool Would also fuck up our lives a good amount So let's go baseball Yeah

Shit's coming Jake's thug