Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - 498 | How to Break Out of a Slump

Episode Date: June 8, 2022

Jomboy, Jake, & Plouffe break down the highest-profile slumps in baseball and talk about how to break out of it.   Use code TALKIN for $20 off your first SeatGeek order. https://seatgeek.onelink.me/RrnK/TALKIN Go to http://getroman.com/talkin TODAY. If approved, you’ll get $15 off your first month of ED treatment 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 the midweek episode of Talking Baseball. We're talking slumps and how do you get out of them? And Mariners every day, let's do it. Hello and welcome to Talking Baseball midweek episode. It is June 8th. As you're listening to this, Trevor looks beautiful. He's in the middle coming from California. Jake looks good as well.

On my left, you're right. And BBD, bottom right corner, stage right. It's talking baseball episode 498. Wow, 500 episodes is coming up soon. Holy smokes. Is everyone going to be here for it? You guys going to bring the noise?

Who's got the I-L on Monday? Me? I'll just get real high for it, 500th episode. I thought you wanted to be different for the 500th episode. Jake's finger and a frog. How are you, Jake? James. Before you set,

before you get into it. Yeah, this show is brought you by Siki. Code talking, T-A-L-K-I-N, if you want to get tickets to any game. I was just telling Trev that our biggest region, biggest region of the company

is the Southwest, California. People might think New York wrong. Or a Dodgers company and an Angels company. Angels. And a podcast. Andre's company. Snakes. And the snakes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is a Rocky Southwest, or they Midwest? It depends on how you cut up the map. Some people cut up different. All right, let me get back into it.

Seatkeeks, sitting up prices for you. They're cutting up prices. They let you know what the best price is and the best seat and they got green and red. Green means good. Red means bad. Red's an awful color.

Code talking $20 off your first seat geek order. I, uh, all right, Jake, how are you? I'm good. James.

Trevor, BBD, everyone listening live. I hate to start on a serious note, but want to send our thoughts to Joe's McFly as he's recovering from Tommy John surgery. Get well-grud. We love you. This will get better. This will get better. I heard he wasn't even hurt.

You just wanted to get it. Just get the sympathy. I'm excited to yuck with the boys. Trev, I mean, now that you've thrown the batting glove on, you just look. You look like you call. problems at local parks. If you saw this coming into the box. Oh.

You knew that you at least have some show time. Yeah. Hits the ball pretty far. And that's basically sums up my entire baby career right there. Trevor Plouffe has juice. Trev, batting gloves and your topic are two great things that go side by side because Kyle Tucker just broke his slump by wearing batting gloves. Also, James, he wore.

two different colors in that game. Yeah. You know, you got to be funky. Joe's is calling Jake. I think he's... I'm going to pick up quick. We'll see. This might get cut out.

Might get cut out of the episode. We'll see. Great call with Joe's McFly is now at the end of this episode. If you've been tuned into the Tommy John drama, we got some updates on that front. I'm still a little confused, but let's talk some baseball. Talking slumps. Yeah.

Trev. The first time you met me, you said I looked like a good. good little slump buster for you. What was that about? That never came out of my mouth. But now that you say it, there's some truth to it. Okay. I don't think I would consider you a slump buster, but some people would consider you a slump buster, yes. Thank you. I liked him a little bit rounder. Okay. We have, we hold on. Hold on. Time out. What was, Trevor, what's the worst? Hold on, hold on. Let's start out. That's horrible. Yeah, we'll leave that. I believe that. Trev, what's the, what's the worst slump of your career? Like, if I, if I say that, do you jump to a certain place in time?

Not really. I don't, I had, obviously I had slumps in my career. None that, like, stood out like, oh, my gosh, like, the world is ending. Although I felt that way after, you know, a series makes you feel that way as a hitter. And that's kind of like what got me thinking about this. We've had some really good, you know, quotes on slumps. We can start out by reading Joey Votto's tweet, which I thought just really encapsulated what it feels like. This is pretty good. So the experience of being in a batting slump is that it feels like a labyrinth. One feels trapped, alone, and disoriented. When you finally get out, you are relieved and can't believe how easy it was to find the exit. Unfortunately, that exit eventually leads to another labyrinth. And it's true. It's you go to bed one day feeling like you're a majorly baseball player, you wake up the next day, get to the park, maybe you have a good BP,

but then the game comes around and you have no idea what you're doing. The ball looks different. It looks smaller. It looks blurrier. Sometimes you don't even see it at all. And you don't know what happens and you do so many things to try and get out of it. And like Joey says one day, it could be a broken bet single. It could be a walk. It could be a jam shot to the second basement. Something clicks. You start to get your timing and you see the ball. things go back to normal, but inevitably, you're going to find yourself feeling like that again. And my topic kind of took a little turn. I was going to go over, you know, we've had some big slumps for some marquee players for us this, this season. Mike Trout is in one right now. We're recording

this on Tuesday. He broke out of a 1 for 28 or an 0 for 28 effort with a single, but it's one of the worst slumps of his career. And we talk about all the time. Baseball is just hard. even the best players even Mike Trout goes through that. Andrew McCutcheon was 0 for 32. He was 0 for 4 in the game. He gets a hit in his last to bat, walks it off to break his slump. It's a text with Ketch about. I say, you know you're about to go off right now.

He goes, you know that's how it works, dude. You go through these slumps, you come right out and you start to bang again because you start to find this confidence. So I went and Googled, what are some slumps for, you know, some good hitters? Because I don't want to hear about the bad hitters. No one wants to hear about my slumps. They were, it happened a lot. And I guess I want to, before I get into these, there's a funny story about that.

And I was just telling Cole Tucker this the other day. You know, he's had his ups and downs this year. He's with Arizona now. That's nice. And I was telling him all these things. And he goes, hey, that's good advice. I said, yeah, Paul Mulder told me, you know, similar things. And I told him like, dude, I cried in front of Paul Mollander before in the minor leagues.

Like I was in a slump so bad. So I guess that could point to that, a minor league slump if you wanted to, Jay. I was in such a bad slump. I didn't know what to do. I mean, I was in tears to this guy. And he is such a good person. He helped me out of it. And I was like, dude, what do I do to get out of a slump?

And he point Blake said, Trev, I didn't get into a lot of slumps. I'm probably the wrong person to ask about this. Whoops. And then he went on to say, you know, have confidence yourself, all the things you're supposed to say. But, you know, that's kind of how it goes with slumps. You got to find your own way out.

There's no secret potion. So we can go to some of these. This is an article. written in 2021, David Adler, Sarah Lange, Andrew Simon at NLB.com. I love the title of it. I told you guys this before.

It's 18 slumps that can comfort Lindor. And then Dor was going through a slump at the time. And I just love the idea of Francisco Lindor opening this article and finding solace and looking at other people's misery. Like sitting in his hotel room on the road being like, oh, I finally found comfort because I'm looking at all these other people

who sucked too. But sometimes, what do they say, Jake? Misery loves companies. Maybe they're right. Every day. Bryce Harper, when he was with the Nationals, May 31st to June 23rd, 2018. Through 83 plate appearances, he had 143 with one home run. It was a horrible stretch.

He found, but he got out of it. He found his footing. He finished with 34 home runs. He led the league in walks, 130 walks, 889 OPS. And this was the year before he signed. his record-breaking $330 million deal with the Phillies. So Bryce Harper goes through it, finds a way to get out of it,

signs the massive deal. Another recent example, Paul Goldschmidt, this is when he was with the Debecks, April 27th to May 22nd, 2018 through 98 plate appearances. He had won 16. He finds his stroke. He finished the year 290, 389, 533 with 33 home runs.

He got traded. The off-season to the Cardinals then signed his five-year, $125 million deal. Trout's done it before two. I guess the point is everybody goes through this stuff. It is scary, but you end up finding your way. Now, these guys are like the elite of the of the elite, and this is where my topic kind of took a pivot. I talk about here a lot about how pitchers have the edge with technology. So mine started to wonder, you know, we can talk about it all we want, but how do we, as hitters, you know, how do we get ahead? How, what can we do to, you know, try to compensate for what these pitchers are doing.

Because if you think about what pitchers can do, I mean, everything is so tangible. Like, if you bring your arm angle up here or you twist your finger on the baseball to here, you lift these specific weights. You do this arm care program.

Like, you're going to get better. And, like, and quickly, and that's just, that's just how it is. With hitters, if you ever went into,

like, one of, like, the hitting guru's setups, it's like a loony bin, bro. We got playground, balls under your elbow. You got chains on your feet. You're on a wobbly board. You're on a PVC pipe between your arms. You're doing all of this ridiculous stuff trying to get a feel, you know, a

direction. Okay. And yes, you can put on like a K vest and and map your biomechanics, but more than, not, you're doing some, like, kind of silly drill. And like, what used to be silly drills are more accepted now. But like if you really take a step back, like there's silly drills, all sorts of different heavy bats, light bats, long bats, short bats, fungo hitting, all sorts of crazy stuff. So what can we do to like bring the tech in? So I started texting my buddy Jay Gibbons. Now Jay, former big leagher, really? Yeah. I didn't know you and Jay Gibbons were boys. So Jay is an understudy of like Craig Wallenbrock. He was in there with Rob Van Gogh. You know, Like he was, he learned from all those guys.

He teaches from the same book as all those guys. I went through VanSkoic. He becomes hitting coach the Dodgers. Me and Jay's linked up and we did some stuff together. So I started texting. I'm like, how can we, what can we do? And my question to him was with the biomechanics, a guy like Taylor Ward, right?

Like seemingly kind of out of nowhere, right? But he like found something that worked for him. I said, do we, do we ever take guys in the middle of a hot streak like this where they feel amazing, they can't miss the ball? And do we hook them up to these machines? And he said, no, not really. And that's me, it was surprising. Because whenever you see someone going off, what's one of the things people say?

I wish I could bottle it up. I wish I could bottle that feeling up. You can't. But this is like the closest thing. And basically I'm on here making a cry out to people. Like, let's, as hitters, let's unite and figure some stuff out. I think this is a place to start. I'm sure people are already doing it.

But let's like, let's raise the awareness on this a little bit. Let's get these guys. I know people really love when I talk about myself. So I'll just do it right now. Okay, 2012, I go on this incredible hot streak. I wish I could have bottled that feeling up. I wish I could have got hooked up to these machines. Because like Taylor Ward, I got banged up.

Coachiver busted my thumb up, had nerve damage in my thumb. I missed like six weeks. I hate that guy. So I come back trying to have that same feeling. I don't have it. It's gone. Now, maybe if I was hooked up and I had, you know, all my movements, like put into data points and I had my cadence tracked, I asked him, can you do that with the cave vest? He said, I think you can. I think you can measure like your hips and when your hands kick in. That way you can measure your cadence, your movements there, that you can start to really feel like how you were feeling when you were good. And essentially, you can bottle it up. So I'm playing that we start to do this more. And if we are doing it, I want to hear more. Like if there are people in the comments want to

say, this is already happening. Please tell me about it because I need to raise the awareness. Pictures are getting away with far, far too much, dude. Far, far too much. And all we've had as of late is some VR stuff. I think that is another logical step. We've seen Cece and his son having a national commercial for that. I think this is a better way to help people. When you're feeling good, let's track your data points and try to bottle it up the best we can.

Well, this is a little bit of what you're saying because I just reported this. I talked about this on talking Yanks. is his pitchers, Trev, but it's what you're saying. The Yankees for the first time, from what I heard, at the end of the season, when pitchers were feeling right and they found themselves, before they went away for the off season, they invited every pitcher if they wanted,

to go down to Tampa to the complex and throw a bullpen in front of the, what's it called? The tracking and the, I'm blanking on the word again. I blind down last time. The Rhapsodo. So when they come back from spring training, they can find that same arm slot immediately. They can find the pressure point

and the finger grip all immediately. And like, oh, no, no, no, no. When at the end of the air, like your fastball was here and now you're here and get back to normal. And that's what you're saying you want them to do for hitters. Yeah. Pitchers, when you direct pitchers, it's like literally you're directing them. It's right there.

You tell them what to do. You have that all track. We don't do that as hitters. And then, you know, part of it is, you know, we have to react. We have to react. We have to control the variables. or we don't have control the variables. Yes, that's the biggest point. This is just a starting point. You know, you're not going to be able to bottle it up. I talked to Jay about that. So obviously these readings are just a starting point, but at least, you know, maybe it'll help you sustain that hot streak too. Say you are in this streak. Taylor Ward's doing it. Say he's not hurt. He's still going through it, but maybe he's feeling a little bit off one day. Hey, let's go back to these readings. Let's try to mirror this in real time, see if we're a little early, if we're a little late with our separation, whatever it may be. So I just, I just,

we got to do something, man. The balls really hurt us at the beginning of the year. The dead ball is really hurt. Jay was talking, he worked with Matt Chapman in the offseason a little bit. And he's like, dude, there was like 10 balls that probably were home runs last year at the beginning of the year that, you know, we didn't get any credit for. So I think the balls have changed. That's like a thing now.

We're seeing the home runs at a much higher clip. But we got to do something, man. What kind of superstitions have you seen? seen around the league for getting out slums. Like as a team, talk about team reactions first. You bat a guy leadoff maybe. Say, go get as many at bats as you can. I think the Yankees that would Jeter at one point. First pitch, Zito, Homer broke the slump. Curtain call for it. I was at the game. Or you wear a gold thong. Jason Giambi. He would put the thong pass it to a teammate. Jake's story. Ellie, you need this. It's going rough. You know. Everyone's got different

stuff. We've had, you know, naked BP, which is something that I knew a couple guys have done. Go on. Seances with the bats. I used to bring my bats to chapel, pray for him, whatever you could do. Justin Moreno was probably the most superstitious guy I played with. He would, he didn't, he would eat mac and cheese. This is like back in the day before he was like Mr. Health and juice guy. He would have instant mac and cheese before a game that was like his thing and like it was comfort food for him for before a game he felt good i think he had the microwave for two minutes or something like that but he would never put two minutes in he would only put three three three in and then he would make sure he stopped it at two minutes so there's just there's stuff like that but there's really

nothing you can do to get out of a fucking slump the only thing that i think you can do is bunt or there are times where I've heard guys say that I'm going to go up there. I'm giving away this a bet because I'm probably going to go give it away anyway and they'll just let the ball get as deep as possible and try to see it deep and then still put the barrel on it. So guys will try it. Basically what I'm trying to say is guys will try anything and I wish it didn't have to be that way.

I wish we had something that could get you back to your baseline. and bottling up a hot streak with the data points, it's not the whole equation, because obviously you have to react to pitchers, everything's different, but man, it's a start. Because we're getting steamrolled by the tech right now. And like I know I talk about all the time,

but trying to come up with some solutions. I like it. It makes sense. We know a lot of teams have their mental coaches, talk to players about everything, but one of the things they do is they make taster reel. You know, we used to talk about taste and yourself a lot. And this is, I mean, Trev, that's basically the next step is instead of watching a taster reel of you hitting homers or driving a ball the other way, it's getting the actual measurements on it.

So when you are in a slump, you go to the cage and you're right. You know, you're opening up your hip a split second too soon or whatever it is. And that could be a really good way to do it. And slumps men are wild. it's for anyone that has ever played the sport of baseball or softball, you've been in one. Yeah. You know, Barry Bonds to Trout, to whoever it may be,

to yourself listening to this in Little League. You probably remember a slump. I know one of the first Jimmy Jake's stories when we were playing freshman baseball, I was in a slump and I told them if I don't get a hit, I'm running polls till I throw up. I think I put up a little one for tree. day with a dribbler through the infield, but you do anything to get out of it because it feels ridiculous.

And everyone at home, you watch your teams and when a guy's in a slump, it's paralyzing. You know, he's not in a slump right now. Ah, uh-huhenio-Swarres crushing the ball. That's right. That's right. Go Mariners. It just feels like whenever a guy's in a slump, it's unreal. And you see hitters trying stuff at the plate.

You'll see them go, you can see a hitter mentally go, all right, this. first pitch, I'm just going to unload, I'm going to get off my A swing, and I run into one. And that's the pitch they get a slider in the dirt. And that at bat's basically gone. And they're behind. And it just feels like you're caving on yourself that, uh, yeah, man, I, I don't know what, what you can do, but you're right. You might as well check in with the technology.

And I was thinking about it from a hitter if that would like freak me out a little bit. But no, it's kind of like, yeah, I, hell yeah, I'm hot right now. measure this shit. You know, like, you know when you're going well. You show up to the park you're feeling like a G. Like, everything just works. You don't have to think about anything. If you were able to go there and measure it.

Like, okay, so I was talking to him. I'll get a little bit more in depth of our conversation here. And so does anybody doing this? So the Dodgers do it somewhat. But from my knowledge, they'll do it in spring training and say, okay, let's get some, let's just get your movements on. you know, with the data points. I don't know how to say this.

How do you say that? You get your movements and you categorize it. You, what do you, whatever? Measure. I'm an idiot. Collected. So they do that and they, you know, in the offseason, they'll do it and whatever. But doing it during the season, I don't know if people have done that yet.

And I'm really hoping that maybe we start trying that. I know why. Super hot right now. I know why. I know why this would be a tough task for you, Trev. And I think that you should get it going. J.P. Crawford with a good start today. You were saying that before.

Yeah, no, he's been good, yeah. Because you ask a guy. I should have bottled it. Yeah. Tramel's been hitting well. Yeah. Guys are superstitious, Trev. They use superstition to get out of slums, but they also use it more to stay in a heater.

Because if Jeter was even asked, like, hey, Jeter, you five games in a row now with a hit? Like, you're feeling good? his response would be, come on now. Don't talk about that. Like he would always push back whenever someone said like a hot streak or you feel, you know, because they're so superstitious about it. So the moment they track it, then they go one for four the next day with a single.

They're going to be like, oh, my God, we're near the end. I knew I shouldn't attract it. hitting so dumb that James if you're if you're on a heater and you or like a big long hit streak something like that and you go one for four you get the hit in the first abat and the next three of bats you strike out that might affect you the next day but if you struck out your first three of bats and you got to hit that last abat you're rolling into the next day feeling solid that's how that's how crazy you know hitting is mental so maybe you maybe we can never do it and maybe we're just doom.

This is like, isn't Terminator about that? Like we gave them too much power. Like maybe pitchers are just going to rule this forever and I'm going to be stuck in misery. I don't know. But I'm going to go out fighting, bro. I really am. What about, what about this?

When a guy's on a heater and then he faces a tough pitcher because now they have the analytics like, oh, his ball is more an X-axis movement and your bat doesn't, it's Y-axis movement better. so we're going to sit you down to not break it up, to not like give you a bad night. But then a lot of times she's like, well, does that ruin him? Because now he's sitting when he could be hitting.

But teams are doing that now. Like in the middle of a hot stretch, they're just like, hey, you know what? Rather do you not face Chris Sale while he's throwing as good as he is. And let's just sit you and skip a start. I never got that treatment and I wish I got that treatment. I saw my good buddy Malibu Mike, Mike Mastakis, would get that treatment. Like he would get hard,

like he would get tough lefties off. And, you know, I'm sure it hurt him like he wanted to play. But I think the Royals knew like, yeah, let's keep, let's keep you feeling good. Like we know about like the mental part of the game. And if you're feeling good and like there,

there are data points to say like you're probably not going to do well against this guy, whether it's a track record or whether you're talking new age stuff like what access you're able to get to. I'm all for that. And I don't think people, especially with a 162 game season, I don't think people are too mad about that because you can also know that you're going to be available off the bench.

If that guy gets out of the game, let's go. Let's do it. All right, I like that. Jake, you had a topic leaching onto this topic. Is that what you said? I said, I'm a leecher. I did say that. Who's leading the ale and steals right now?

Probably a mariner if I was to guess. Center fielder. Julio. Also on a heater. He's like hitting 320 in his last like 10 games or something like that. He's really good. He caused a brawl and an ejection. Are you guys roaming ready?

Wait, wasn't that? That wasn't Julio. That was France. Well, he hit a Homer after the brawl. Oh, yeah, yeah. And then they threw over Swarres his head. Was that the Astros hitting coach? I haven't looked at it yet, but someone,

Thai Francis quotes don't add up. I'm sorry. Mariners fans but oh jimmy they don't add up i like tie france but they're i like him i like frenchman i like ty francs but it's like your uh recollection of what happened in the in the moment you always kind of make yourself sound better like when myel straw said i was just telling him not to talk shit about my teammate but really myel straw said hit me motherfucker and or recently recently row and Wick said, I said to, all I said to Joey Vado was, you're going to bat flip a walk when he actually said, bad flip a walk, you motherfucker?

So, like, you know, sometimes you're a recollection, but. You filter it for interviews. Ty, France. Why would you call Joe Votto a motherfucker? Ty, France. Maybe he did. He did call him that. Ty, what?

I wasn't talking about. Oh, I see. Ty France. He said, all I said was, uh, that hit me, because I thought the um, didn't call it. And the umpire said, I know. I called hit by pitch. And then he said,

I said, you don't think that was on purpose, do you? And the umpire said, no, I don't think so. And I said, yeah,

me neither. And the next thing I know the Mariners are coming after me. That was his quote afterwards. It's like, that's not how that combo went. There's just no way. You're giving the Mariners so much love.

I am giving, I like the Mariners, but I'm just saying, I'm probably on Thai Francis side too. I think they were yelling at service. I think they were, I think it was one or two different nights though what I'm talking about no one one was Presley getting injected one was Nairus getting injected yeah but you're talking about the

narris one yeah Presley got ejected because they said it was intentional and they that was twice that was ridiculous but that's because the umpire crew knew there's bad blood from the hit by pitching the head up in Seattle so they were like waiting is one of the good guys I don't know what happened there you anticipate that and then you you run amok What was your topic? I'll take some of the Mariners heat off you. Services neck kind of weirds me out. Just the angle of it.

I don't know. He's got a crooked neck? It's not crooked. It's just, I always notice it. It's the only thing I see when I look at him. Interesting. My topic, if you guys are Roman ready.

Roman, Trev, if you're having trouble, in the bedroom with erectile dysfunction. A rectile dysfunction is when it's just a picture of service when he was in his playing days as wearing the catchers gear and it looks like an 80s movie.

It looks like an actor being in a movie playing a catcher. You don't see a lot of neck there? No, not in this picture at all. Josh Young. There was other. It's not a thick neck. I think it's just a little long. What you're missing

is he has lower lip to chin is tight. Okay. See this? That's a small lower lip to chin, which makes the neck look wide. Is it like the guy from men in black? The bad guy?

No. It's all contorted. It's just, there's a lot of neck in the back. I think Jimmy's chin thing is true. There's just, everywhere I see his neck. Oh, he played college ball in Creighton,

where his coach was former Cubs general manager, Jim Hendie. Henry. Roman, we're taking the stigma out of a record. tell this function. There's no need. We have a solution. This happens to 52% of guys age 40 to 70.

Just yesterday you were saying it happened to you. Trev, how old were you saying Chris Roses? Fuck, I don't know. A lot. A lot. Okay. Here's what you should do. If you or your loved one is struggling a little bit,

why don't you reach out to Roman? They'll get you in touch with a medical licensed medical professional. And if you're prescribed, you will get $15 off your first month of treatment with code talking. That's get roman.com slash talking today if you're prescribed $15 off your first month of ED treatment. Make sure you have the confidence and control to be Roman ready. Don't go in a slump. Don't put yourself in a slump.

Get Roman. Going up with some hot wood. And I can be your slump buster. If we did find some tech that helped hitters out, do you think that they would use it or not use it because they were afraid of what, what people would think? Steroids, they used those.

They did. They did. Not me. Not Trev, cleanest guy in the game. Yep. Showered in regular. Still hit freaking tanks, too. Jake, are you going to have a topic?

Tell us. What is your leachy topic? Leachy Jake here telling you about, Kind of what Trev was talking about. We're a third of the way through the season, Treff. Did you know that? I did. 54 games on the nose for the Yankees and other teams right around there.

A third of the season. And Trev, you mentioned slumping. You mentioned baseball being tough. There's also guys that are first half guys, second half guys. And we see it every year that there's dudes who have a horrible first half and then something clicks and they do it in the second half. I'm going to give you guys a list of names, if that's all right with you guys.

Some guys that are on the struggle bus around MLB right now. Some big names, by the way. Big Fran Miel Reyes, a 533 OPS right now in 195 in 35 games. He's had some injuries. A couple of these guys have. Thanks for bringing it up. Harvey Baez, 198, 234, 540. Look at that in that, Kahn, Scott, Service.

What's that pose? Excuse me. Tyler O'Neill, our thick king. He just returned from injury, but in his 32 games this year, 195 of 552 OPS. What do you think about calling him TAN? Like T-O-N, T-N?

Yeah. Interested. I think it sucks. I think it's awful. He's 5-10 and back. Bobby Dahlbeck. Now remember this one. That little pissa.

50 games this year. 179, 265-5-56. Jake, we get it. These guys are playing bad. Whitmerfield. A.J. Pollock, Trev. It's a rude segment. I don't know if that's good news for you.

He's having a tough start. Max Muncie. Guys, a 591 OPS. Been one of the best players in baseball the past few years. Trev, it's baseball. Maybe it was actual baseballs a little bit. The pitchers. It's still early.

It's a third of the season through. You can still have a good second third of the season. You could have a good half of the season. Joey Gallo and Yankee land. Trev, so I wanted to go back because there were some guys last year that had horrible first halves. And they took,

turned it around. So I want to give some hope. If you're a Tigers fan and you've seen Javi Baez and it's looked bad and you gave him this big contract, guess what? We got two-thirds of a season left. Havi can still go. All these guys can still go. And I want to give some examples from last year.

And I just told you guys what name? Let's see if you guys were paying attention. Which name did I tell you guys to remember? the little pisser BBD got it right Bobby Dahlbeck but you said in an accent and I'm not good with the Boston accent

Bobby Dahlbach Back back back to Last year he had a 7 A 6773 OPS in the first half Not great A little below league average It's whatever Young Bobby Dahlbeck

That's fine Bobby Dahlbeck's second half last year 269 344 a 955 OPS. So I remember when we were doing TPPs this year, we were all kind of surprised by Bobby Dalbeck's numbers. He had a big second half,

and maybe Bobby Dalbex is just going to be a second half guy. He could potentially be building up to that, a little Teshera. You can get a daisy that way, if you're good enough in the second half, but you can't get an MLB All-Star vote. and that's that's a bummer potential reverse All-Star Bobby Dalbeck

All-Star voting's a fraud 100% That's why we have the LJM team When we go to the All-Star game Right I just want to if we You know red carpet it And you say you know you're not done

Right You just getting statted This doesn't mean shit Or we could say Congrats on a good two months And a proud fan base And this guy won the Daisy And not you actually

so there was a guy last year we talked about a lot we've talked a lot about this year um his first half last year he was 183 a 296 on base a 626 ops ick but then Ian Hap who went 268 350 and 886 OPS to get himself a bottle of wine that he's still waiting for nine figures eye on we call him for the other guy. Well, that's Ian Anderson. This is Ian Hap. I know.

We haven't said Ion Anderson. Ion op. Ion op. H. is silent? That ain't working. It sucks. That ain't working. Our guy Happer had an atrocious,

atrocious start to last season. He turned it around big second half. And that could be your guy. That could be Lorenzo. Lorenzo Kane, who don't look at his stats, the way. We talked about Lorenzo on baseball today. He's had some pretty interesting quotes about himself. Don't look at his stats. I don't know dice this up. Just Jake reading off bad stats,

all that. Frankie Lindor, first half last year, 698 OPS. Treve, you referenced that article. And he read the article and he said, oh, I find comfort in this. Second half, he had an 813. Actually, all he had to do was beat up Jeff McNeil. Yeah, Rat Raccoon. Gosh, do you think we'll ever get to the bottom of that? I think we did, right? Someone said it in the off season. They fought Indoor punched McNeil. Okay.

I think so. And then... Here's a! Here's a! This is probably my favorite one from last year. There was a trade involved. Oh, yes. You may remember this.

Big Jorge Solair. 186-279 a 599 OPS. in the first half last year. In the second half, a little change of scenery. 263, 357, a 911 OPS. Now, tying it together with Treves, I'm sure these guys have some stories, and they'll tell you they looked back at some tape,

and they were working on their A-swing. I think they started running into a couple baseballs, and then the baseball gods took over from there. So mine was kind of to be a PSA to baseball fans. Detroit, you cannot love what you've seen from Havi Bias so far. You just rolled out the bag and it hasn't been pretty. But guess what? There's still a lot of time left in this baseball season.

And some of these guys, not all them are going to turn it around. Max Muncie. That's a stud, man. A.J. Pollock. It's interesting you haven't talked about Jesse Winker turning it around at all when he had a good first half last year and then had a better second half

and will 100% turn it around. James, and it's just super interesting you didn't mention him. I'm glad you brought it up. I'm glad you brought it up because Jesse Winker is a goddamn stud. And right now his numbers are way below where Jesse Winker normally is.

So yeah, him, A.L. Westfriend, Marcus Simeon, Rangers fans can't be You know We got a couple people in new New places here Joey Gallo Winker Simeon Simeon's not really

What Winker yes Changed leagues A lot of new faces Simeon went back to He stayed in the AL And he went back to the West Well it's a new surroundings

It's a new clubhouse It's a new team It's a new drive to the ballpark All that's I'm talking about pitchers Like when Stan came to the Yankees He was very vocal about how Right

He keeps Do you know that Stan keeps a notebook, Trev, like a journal of every, after every game and tracks how every pitcher pitches him. And then before games will, like, go to his own. That's kind of what you're talking about, but not for the body. But, like, right, like, he does it, like, after the game to get in the moment his thoughts so he can, like, die back into that headspace kind of versus that guy. And when he came to the Yankees and he went from NLEs to AIL, he was like, I got an empty notebook. I don't know any of these guys.

And I rely heavily on that. A lot of guys, I've known a lot of guys to have done that. Some guys bring it on the bench and do it during the game. I think most of the time you'll get the scouting reports. You'll make your own little notes on them. As your role changes, that changes. When you're a starter, you don't have to do that as much because you're kind of getting enough reps where you see these guys.

But when you're a bench player, I think that really helps a lot. When I went to the Phillies and I was coming up the bench, that was something that I wanted to do was really go over the release. levers like to a T like study every single one from every organization because I didn't know any of them. And if you could do anything to help you have that advantage, I mean, the Phillies are pretty good about platoon splitting and getting you in an advantageous situation. But still, just knowing what he goes to on a two one count. If there's a glaring thing, 70% he goes to this, you want to know that. It's probably what he's writing down. Feelings too. I mean, yeah, it's all about

just like trying to bottle shit up. Please, can we stop? writing in notebooks and doing silly stuff in the cage we need some like we need some tech too it's going to be i am going to figure this out i swear we're going to do it and it might it might be as simple as a better VR system i don't know but we're going to do it we're going to do it do it do you remember let me have you guys seen where they have the big screens in a little hole and they'll put the pitcher up hated and and they release and the ball comes out of it i hated those it's brutal yeah i didn't like those either i hated those Doesn't work.

Those should be... Jimmy, chime in when you're ready. Okay. Those baseball pitching machines... Because think about what you know about me, between baseball being a secret try-hard in video games, those baseball pitching simulators with the hole in it and the arm comes through, those should be like my favorite activity in the world.

And I hated those things. They stunk. They make you feel horrible. Those were a nightmare. Those were closer to nightmare than wet dream. A lot of people hate hitting off machines for that reason. Now they figure it out what the angels are doing. They're doing it with soft balls.

Because if you just get your shit beat in, it's not like going to hurt you. You don't not want to swing again. So maybe these are the little things that hitters are having to do. We're having to hit with soft balls, bro. Soft balls. Like literal Nerf balls. Something's got to be better, man. We got to figure it out.

I'd like to chime in. Okay. Logan Gilbert. Ooh. Rided the ship last two starts. ERA 2-2. Got to look to him. I didn't realize how much of a look he had to him.

Yeah. Yeah. I mentioned... He looks like he went to summer without shade. And light food. Hmm. He looks like he looks like. He's like he fought in high school people.

Who? Logan Gilbert. All right. He's got a little Tyone meets glass now for me. Like if they had a baby. I don't see that. I have like Chris Sale meets Sunny Gray. Should we do a hole up on that one day?

Who looks like who's baby? Yeah. Which two MLBers could have birthed this MLBer? Yeah. Do you guys know about Penn? Do you guys know about Penn Murphy? I do. We did a DVD and I did a Wake and Jake episode that are the best relievers in each bullpen you don't know and Penn Murphy was on the list.

Vandy boy, you should know him. I know him now. Palanti, I know you too, bro. Just today. Shout out. What's your first name? Do we kick it to the Joe's call? Yeah, let's kick it to the Joe's call.

Fuck slumps. Andre Palante. What's up? You say that name again? Andre Palante. What? It rolls off really well. Penn Murphy.

Yeah. Both name spelled, interestingly. His first name is William Murphy. I don't know if I've ever seen Murphy spelled like that. Yeah. It's super odd. Oh, is a hit or two? Oh, for one with a strikeout last year.

Hmm. It's a great. Yep. Goodbye. Be so bad. I'm so hungry all the time. Fight on, baby. Hmm. Hey, Joe's, we're doing talking baseball. How are you doing?

I'm doing well. You're good. Surprising? That's good to hear, man. That's really good to hear. I don't know. Why are you so surprised? Everything is good.

Everything has always been good. Thank God. But just wondering what's going on. Chris Rose is texting me and also Peter Moyland text me. That's nice. It's probably good to get, you know, a pitcher's advice. I don't need it. I don't have all be honest.

You don't know this, right? Take the full 18 months, Joe, before you start pitching. Do you like that people are reaching out to you at least? I appreciate people saying, you know, with the well, wait, but it's, I don't need it. I think I don't need it. Joe's, you need to post a picture of your elbows without scars

to prove it. You know what I need to post a picture, a selfie picture of two elbows? So you've been trying? Can you try? You try it. All right. You try to take a picture of two albums.

All right. It looks weird. Um, so you're, this is something else. So you're okay. Yes, I'm okay. You shouldn't be surprised.

I don't even know how this even started. I'm as just confused as you, man. I'm trying to walk us through. Wait, so did he have it or not have it? I'm still not sure if he had it or not. I think he had the experimental one. Jane, what the fuck is going on right now? We might have to cut this and put it at the end of the episode.

Yeah, maybe this is extra credit. Joe's that spread like wildfire, dude. Chris Rose. Chris Rose. I don't even think he's on the internet. He texted me and said, what fish is, buddy, man? Do you respond?

I said it did not have Tommy Johnson. It's got to be. That's a confusing conversation. Now that's an interesting one. See Rose is serious. Yeah, I don't know. I see serious or jokes? Do you think Chris Rose is in on the joke?

I don't know. I don't know. I've been joked too at this company, okay? It happens to the best of us. Peter Moyland? New York Porsche just tweeted it? I don't know. Oh, no.

Oh, this is crazy. Joe's It was kind It was kind of a throwaway line From Jimmy I should have just never said anything I should have just said Okay

Just let it rock And I should be quiet This is what I'm paying for this It's beat I mean pretty good engagement though Dude Yeah What is that?

Oh no Dan Canobio is tweeting Oh no The boxing world is about send their condolences, Joe. Yeah, Canobio's in now. Canobio. Kevin tweeted.

I just sent you a picture of my elbows. People are tweeting pictures with me. People are tweeting pictures with you? Yeah, like pictures that they took with them. Like you died. It was like your eulogy in memoriam. Like they're putting me on a teacher. I don't know what, I don't know, what should I say to you right now,

I don't know. I don't know. All I can do is wish you well. All I can do is wish you well. It should have never been wished because I don't, like, of course you take well wishes, but I don't need, I don't have Tommy John. I'm still confused. Because why would Chris Rose reach out? Because you guys confused him.

Okay. Okay. All right. All right. All right. We got to. We got to. talking baseball, but sorry, sorry for this

mix-up or surgery or whatever happened. There's no mix-up, everything's very clear. I cleared it up. Until you get that picture, I don't think you're going to clear anything up. Yeah. I don't know who made that picture anyway. With me with the helmet on the bag? I don't know who made that.

You know that wasn't me. Immediately. All right, Joe. Hey, we'll talk to you in a little bit. Good luck, man.