Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - 54 | Astros Cheating, Kapler hired, Manger and Rookie of the Year Awards

Episode Date: November 13, 2019

The Houston Astros have been accused of cheating by filming the catchers signs. Gabe Kapler get hired by the San Francisco Giants as manager. The Rookie of the Year and Manager of the Year winners have been announced. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices 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.

The Astros have been accused of cheating by using equipment. The Giants hire manager and the baseball writers pick their awards winners. What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to talking baseball, where we got some juicy storylines here. Some fun, some excitement. Maybe baseball, Jake, you always want this, has taken the top story in sports in the off season, dominating the content calendar. Way to go baseball.

Good stuff all around. Oh, wait, it's a bunch of cheating and a bad look. Damn. Well, this episode of Talking Baseball is brought to you by Sam, Warren Nova Scone, Charles Stillman, and Alex Broad. Our most recent Patreon supporters, patreon.com slash johnboy media. I need to give out the jerseys from the raffle winners from October. We've been in a crazy spiral, so that will happen.

And there will be a winner for November as well. So join up $2 a month. You help us out as we grow, and we're hoping to start really pounding the extra content for you guys as well once we kind of get going here in the offseason. My name's Jumboy coming to you from Manhattan. And I got Jake. He's in Denver. He looks really good. And he's really excited to talk to you guys.

And Jake, four is all yours. Damn, what a leading. That's how we do it. Awards. Yeah, man, what a day. Baseball won. Tuesday, November 12th. They won the news cycle.

Everyone was talking about Mike Schill and that NL Coach of the Year award, so that's good for baseball. Yeah, and I don't know. Are we past accusations with the Astros cheating? I mean, I'm kind of talking to the right guy, but. Well, you have some firsthand accounts from inside the, the, we'll back up. Yeah, we're a little past accusations. Yeah.

We're a little past accusations. It's happened. And, oh, my God, are the Astros fans in a tailspin, Jake? Oh, a lot of backs against the wall. Oh, oh, I admire them. Their backs against the wall right now, and they are just throwing punches and kicks, maybe some scratches, maybe they'll spit on you, and they're just doing whatever they can to deflect. That's how all their arguments start. It's like a muttered sentence where they don't know which excuse they're going to do.

That's what the Astros fans are doing right now. There's a couple I saw that are pretty taking it in stride and be like, this sucks. And I mean, we'll get into everything because there are other teams doing this. It's not just the Astros and all that nonsense, but it's a bad look. Yeah, I had one guy gave the fellow named Scott, and he, I mean, he, he showed his cards pretty quickly that he was an Astros fan, not arguing with any logic or facts, but he was, he was fighting. He was on the front lines, and you need those guys. I need them.

I admire them, dude. I have this woman who's like one second in a paragraph she had me. She was like, who the fuck is this Jim Bob? It's just great. That's good. Old Trump taxi. Just say the name wrong. She goes in the first paragraph, she probably lives at home with his mom watching Astros video all day.

And then in the second part of the tweet, she said, and then sends it to the Yankees to help them cheat. And like, that's badass. You have me like at home with my mom. And now you have me as a secret informant. for the Yankees? Like, am I super cool or super lame? Make up your mind, lady. Yeah, that sounds like the start of a pretty cool, like, magazine. Like, that's the next Marvel comic. Yeah. Yeah, for my guy, Scotty, he's like, okay, so we've got one piece of evidence and we're rolling with this. And I was like, well, we got a lot more now. And so I dropped,

I was like, I know this is lame, but I knew he was back against the wall, scratching and clon. So I did the gif of the classic Scotty doesn't know. I put that and I said I was like hey I know this is pretty this is this is a layup but you got to make the layups like I know it's not the most creative gift but I know it works right here and Scott goes oh wow very clever next time don't let your kids run your Twitter account and I was like you're going to try to clever me and you're using the old video game excuse that's been going for 30 years Oh, my little brother had the remote. I was like, get out of here. I appreciate that you're scratching in Klawn, Houston. Let's see where this lands. I'm trying to find this lady.

Because she just went off. I woke up to one guy, an asterist fan, who had messaged me like five paragraphs. Yeah. Oh. That's him. That's him. Yeah, that's another one.

So whatever. It's fun. If you have no idea what we're talking about, we'll back it up even further. So the Astros cheating with cameras and any team cheating with cameras has been a thing, a rumor, a hushed conversation for a couple seasons now. And I don't know why, but Mike Fires who pitched for the Astros, then went on to pitch for the Tigers, and now he's with the athletics. He broke John Carlos Stanton's face and has a stupid mom. beard that like there's a patch on his face that he can't grow so sometimes he swirls his beard around that well i think that's a pretty normal beard for a lot of people so thank you he's thrown to no hitters um mike fires uses pine tar mike fires um everyone does just getting all the info i have on my fire's out on the table now okay he he went on record with our my dude ken rosenthal

and said they have a system in place where they have a camera on the catcher and then they have it fed, wired to a computer in the tunnel, and there's a guy's watching it, and there's a guy next to the garbage can that bangs on the garbage can for off-speed pitches. Danny Farquhar, so that's an inside source saying, yeah, I was part of it. I don't like it.

I try to tell any new pitcher when I'm on other teams, hey, this stuff happens, so be aware of it. Danny Farquhar, a guy from Shrek, who almost died, and then made an awesome recovery. That's everything I know about Danny Farquhar. He says, yeah, I heard it. I was pitching against them in 2017. And every time the catcher put down the change-up sign,

I heard banging. So I changed the signs. And that's what we found on the video that I did the breakdown on. If you go, all right, anyone that's bored as fuck, right? If you're bored as fuck after you listen to this podcast at your office and you have the ability to have downtime, go to YouTube and type the words in all caps at AT, then HOU, all caps, 2017,

and that will give you all the full games that are on YouTube, right? So at Houston dash 2017. That will give you all the full games that MLB or any YouTube account has of games that took, place at Minutemade Park in 2017 and just go to the seventh, eighth, ninth inning, and you'll hear banging before breaking pitches. I was doing it last night. It's too easy.

It's literally almost every game. So, I mean, this is why we see catchers throw multiple signs with no one on base. The only reason they do that is because they think people are up cameras. And announcers used to kind of scoff at it. say, oh, everyone's hypersensitive now. Maybe the players know some shit. We didn't. Maybe they knew this was really happening. So,

I mean, that's kind of everything. I've been told to go look at the playoff film, which I'm going to try and look at that. And, uh, yeah, it's pretty bad. It sucks. It, it sucks. And we're, we're going to do awards on the second half

of this episode. And I mean, it, it even trickles into stuff like that. Your Nalvarez wins rookie of the year. You know, did he know what pitches were coming for part of that? Did John Means get screwed over a little bit? We'll do that a little later. But yeah, and it's, I'll give the generic thing just because, again, if you're a baseball fan and you're listening to this, you probably know.

But, you know, if you ain't cheating and you ain't trying, that phrase has gone with every sport throughout the years. And there, but there is a fine line. And our guy, Jeff, Jeff Passing, and I saw him on SVP Sports Center last night, which again, hey, baseball was talked about. I'm the SVP Sports Center. We did it.

But he said, it was a really good delivery by him. I'm going to give him a slap on the pooper at- Do his delivery. He goes, well, he basically said that. He goes, you know, cheating has been a part of baseball since day one, or sign stealing has been a part of baseball since day one. and then he pauses and he goes, but there is a fine line in the Astros crossed that line.

There's gamesmanship and then there's breaking the rules. Yeah, it's, you know, and we've seen it for years. So, like, I guess, you know, Houston's going to get shat on pretty hard, but know that this has literally happened for years. We've had telescopes in the outfield going back to, like, the 1920s. we've had all sorts of stuff. So yeah, I mean, there's an aspect of this has been done before, but it's also with technology getting better.

I mean, right now, basically the assumption is they have a live feed focused on the sign the camera's giving, guy in the dugout ready to whack a trash can if it's an off-speed pitch. I was just on some radio show. We'll talk about that guy's job. Okay, so I was just on some radio show this morning. Tucker This is rude of me

But I honestly don't know Tucker Ross show Home and Home with Tucker Ross Something like that They had me on Very nice of them And I kind of stumbled Into that thought process

That you just had Like who the fuck's that guy This is all game Just with a baseball bat And then like a guy Looking at a computer Off speed Boom

Boom Like give me the footage Of that dude Imagine Imagine casually walking by that And it's like A guy hunched over at a computer screen and another guy with a baseball bat and like you just walk by and like

the fuck are you guys doing uh we're giving the guys the signs yeah i uh i would i would love to know more about that dynamic you know i heard a rumor i heard a rumor i heard a rumor austin i heard a rumor was the one bang in the garbage cans yeah that's that is the big rumor swirling the internet that all of this is taubman yeah um which by the way i do respect the hustle on astros fans saying that like if you've got if you've if you've got if you've if you've I mean, they're saying it jokingly, but if you've got a guy already going down with the ship, yeah. Yeah. Fucking Tobin.

Just tie that anchor to Toby. So, yeah, it's, and it's like you were a big part of the reveal to the world yesterday with the video. And it's, as I told you, I rarely like to fluff your balls. But I think it's some of your best work. And like, like when Danny Farquhar steps off when he calls for that. third changeup, you're like, yep, okay. Because, like, you could start playing these games where it's kind of, yeah, maybe this is a coincidence.

There's some banging going on. Maybe they just know what's coming. They're really good with sequencing. Then when you see them step off, it's kind of like this, oh, yep. So everyone knows what's going on. And they have the ex-players. Mike Fires is on the forefront. And people were guessing at the other former Astros.

who were involved in this and like giving confessions basically. So yeah, it's, I mean, it's not good. I mean, thank God. Dude, no, it's a big thank God here. How about if the Astros won it this year? Yeah. Like, how bad would that be for where we are right now?

Maybe it'd be even more fun. And like we said that, I think we said that during the World Series, what was the game where, oh, Rendon hits the home run after the interference call in the baseline. And we're like, thank God that happened because that saved everyone some terrible baseball drama. Thank God Washington won because this would be 10 times the story otherwise. A lot of people are wondering like, what happens? and I would probably want our thoughts on what happens and I disappointed the radio show I was on

because I said I don't think anything happens I'll prepare myself for baseball to not do a thing because baseball is going to baseball Well something's going to happen But it's however you label anything Light fine I feel I want big things to happen

Right the end will be to Well say that Say what you're feeling Well, I want them to. I don't think they will. Right. We'll give us both. I don't think titles or anything should be rescinded.

Fuck that. I don't care about that. Like, rescinding stuff, I think, is so lame. And anyone who, like, rejoices in something being rescinded, like, come on. I don't get over. Astros won the World Series. Catch him in the act. But I do think there should be some harsh penalties moving forward.

I think they're going to go back and, look at all this footage and like I just told people, go find it. Anyone can find it. If you're listening for banging and I think, I think in 2018, 2019, they change systems or whatever because like that was so obvious. Yeah. So I would like harsh penalties. I don't even know what that means, like draft picks, fines, all that stuff.

I'd like teams to not feel like they can do this because a lot of other teams are doing this and it sucks that the Astros are going to have to be the scapegoat here. and the example setters. But there's also a reason for that. Everyone hates these guys across baseball. Yeah. Like not just fans. Like I have people reaching out to me that I can't say.

So whatever, but are like, hey, do this more. Check out this game. Check out this game. Like this is, we need this to blow up. People within baseball, they want the Astros to be taken down. So I don't know why the Astros are. hated from within the smugness or how blatant it is or whatever but well it was the smugness it's it's it's tomlin it's um a little bit that fan base that was that was ready for a dynasty that now

looks looks a lot different and that was um one one of my favorite things yesterday was like hey houston PR after winning the ALCS is like ooh we might have to start prepping for the world series and then it's like, oh, well, we've got an assistant GM who mocks domestic violence. We, and then we tried to ruin a reporter's career, okay, and then we lost the World Series. Oh, and yeah, now we're cheaters, okay. So that's kind of a tough cycle. Yeah, I think what's going to happen is that they're going to get, and it depends what you consider a big fine or not a big fine, and Passan talked about this a little bit,

that I think they can get a fine. It's like two or three million max. Because there's like rules in different CBAs and stuff about this. Like if you are caught doing this, these are the penalties. And so I think it's loss of draft picks and there's a decent fine. But that's not enough. Like if that does come, if that is how this all ends and it's like, well, yeah, it says It says we could take away five of their draft picks and fine them $3 million.

Guess what? They don't give a shit. They won a World Series. That's the goal. And yeah, when you talk about something drastic happening, like, we're not going to get to the level that they actually put an asterisk in the book. I think it's just going to be something known that goes on with this team when you do look back in history. They're not taking down flags or anything. They do need to take it a step further.

I don't know. I'm running hot from yesterday because I listened to some Bart Giamati stuff, which was actually awesome, former MLB commissioner, and he's well known for being the guy that suspended Pete Rose. I don't know. They need to find a way to make Houston an example, because guess what? If you're an organization and you're just going to lose,

ask every fan base an organization if they could trade a couple draft picks and $2 million. for a World Series because they would. So they need to find a way to make an example. I don't know if it's something with Hinch. I mean, can you ban Hinch from baseball? Like, that would be a nuke, and that would keep managers on their toes.

I don't know. They need to find something to make an actual example of them. Because what we're talking about, I mean, 2017, Altovae wins the MVP. They win the World Series that year. We're going to talk about Jordan Alvarez, winning the rookie of the year later. And that's part of Mike Fires' speech that's important is he's like, yeah, man, when I was on the Tigers, we had young pitchers going in there.

And I was like, their career's about to be ruined because they're not going to get through two innings if these guys know what pitches are coming. And it's true. Like the actual day-to-day ripple effects of this are awful. Yeah, it's really bad. And I mean, I'm just watching my notifications come in and just like remembering all the scratch it and clawing. Astros fans were doing. Someone's like, oh, so they cheated to pop out. It's like the results don't matter. The Astros were better on the road in 2017 than they were at home. They're still a really good baseball team full of really good players. The results don't make the cheating less. Using

technology to get the pitches is bad. Whether it helps you win or it doesn't, it's against the rules, strictly against the rules. Yeah. And it's, yeah, I saw people coming out with those stats and they're like, well, it doesn't matter. And it's like, well, that, that's not the point. There's not the point at all. It's not the point. And you don't know how much it matters.

What if they were supposed to be a lot? What if they were going to be worse at home? You know, what if there was stuff they were doing on the road? I know some players were hinting at that the other day. So I don't know. Like, that's the part when you opened with accusations. I said we're past that. But there's still.

I wouldn't say tip of the iceberg, but there's still a lot to unfurl here. And what was actually going down and were they doing stuff on the road? And that one chart that guy posted in the feed with the – Walk to strikeout, right? Strikeout percentage minus walk percentage or something like that. And it's a pretty – it's like you said this – and it's one of my favorite things you've ever said, Jim, ever. Wow. It was, we were working with a chart one day,

and it just looked like a fake chart. It looked like if you were, if you were making a movie and you needed a chart in the background. Like it looked like a fake chart. This chart looked like a real chart, but it looked like it was perfect. It was exact correlation. Like, you know, all 29 MLB teams were just a little better or a little worse

at doing, from their strikeout percentage minus their one. walk percentage, except the Astros, who they were their own little place. And it's, and it was funny. I didn't fully bite my time, but one of the geeks came in and was like, well, you know, these are still good baseball players and, you know, it doesn't seem significant enough with the cheating. And it's like, you have no idea the significance of the cheating. All I have in front of me is a graph that has all the other baseball teams in a line

and then Houston's not in that line with cheating allegations. They referenced Pete Alonzo. They were like, well, Pete Alonzo hit the most home runs. That doesn't mean he's cheated. And I was like, well, if you found out he had a corked bat, that would mean that. So I don't know. Baseball's in a little bit of a titty. Tizzy.

We've got Astros fans, backs against the wall. We've got analytics people trying to defend it with analytics when it's like, hey, hey, you guys, you wait a second because we'll use you. but cheating is cheating. Wow. Good. Good podcast visuals. Oh, that was for the YouTube crowd.

YouTube crowd only. Do we have anything else on this? I'm very interested to see where it lands. Interested what Hinch says because when the Yankees said they were heard whistling out of the dugout and stuff like that. Obviously, hey, you know who was on the New York Yankees in 2019? Cameron Mabin. You know who was on?

the Houston Astros in 2017. Cameron Mabin. I think Cameron Mabin told his teammates in the ALCS. Hey, listen for some stuff coming from their dugout. Plausible? In my head, it's plausible. So the Yankees are on high alert. This is rumored within the walls.

Hey, check out when you play Minutemate Park. Listen for stuff coming from their dugout. Yankees listen. They hear some whistling. And then AJ Hinch just scoffs at it. Ha, ha. If I knew it was that easy to get in their heads. We would practice that at spring training.

Hinch, we see right through you now. I liked you. I thought you were a super cool guy. Super cool guy. Nah, a smug bastard. There's only one way to lie, Jake, and it's to be smug about it.

If the MLB were to give out a significant punishment, is Hinch the guy? I have no idea. All I know is that they can, if the MLB wants to, spend time and money, they can do a full investigation. They have the entire 2017 home games, all 81 of them.

They have the isolated audio of just the park. I don't have that. We don't have that. They don't offer it right now. They can do an extensive look into this and listen for the banging. And they can ask people within the inside. Like, hey, can you corroborate Fire Story? You were in there, you know.

And it should be a very easy, investigation. Like people on Twitter are saying, because all the asterers are saying, we don't have anything. And like some lawyer chimed in. It's actually, you have enough to go to trial right now. You have enough. You have inside witnesses. You have evidence. Like you have testimonial. Like you have enough. And that's what you were saying is past accusations. We kind of have enough. So we'll see how I'm going to be acts on this. I'm not holding my breath. And I also, make it stop in the future and have the Astros be embarrassed about it for now, and that's enough for me. Basically, make it stop in the future.

And I think the other thing that we unfortunately need to address, because maybe some of the crazies are on here that are saying that it's just Yankee sour grapes. A, I think you're going to find out in the coming months or so that it's not just Yankee sour grapes, Does it suck that the Yankees lost to them in the ALCS twice in the past three years? Absolutely. And depending what actual punishments come from it. But no, it's just there's when you get introduced to the world of baseball, I mean, there's like there's a couple things you learn. It's like, okay, don't step on the foul line.

That's, I mean, that's a little more gimmicky. But I mean, you just don't, you don't steal signs in an unorthodox way using technology. or anything outside of the realm of the baseball field or context clues. And that's the part that I think sucked for us the most, Jim, was that we saw the tipping pitches this year and the, you know, who was it, Glassnow for the race. Yeah. He kept his hands lower if he was thrown off speed and his hands higher if he was

throwing a fastball. And it's like, that is the beauty of baseball. Like being able to find that out and being like, yep. game time and then cheating it's cheating gamesmanship and cheating yeah i think that that's all we have to say on this one which will end this first half of the show and end this portion of the youtube video thanks for watching and thanks for listening we'll be right back if you're listening to the podcast after a little break welcome back the fun stuff the awards and Gabe Kapler gets by the San Francisco Giants, which I think my quote was last episode,

if you don't care about winning the next two years, just fucking hire Gabe Kapler. And honestly, it all adds up. Gabe Kapler comes in. He'll fuck around for two years while they don't care about winning and they're trying to just shed contracts and get new prospects up and running and shit like that. And then they'll hand the reins back to Bochie.

Yeah. I think that's the biggest news. Your Bochi goes away for a year or two and comes back theory is fully on with the Gabe Kapler signing. You feel bad for Joe Espada. Joe Espada is a baseball guy who's now entering that territory where he's interviewed for a lot of MLB jobs that, like, he just can't be the sexy candidate anymore. Like, he almost needs to go away from interviewing for MLB jobs for like three or four years,

and then it'll be like, hey, you know who never got his chance? who's a really good coach, Joe Spada. Yeah. Joe Espada, actually, I heard a rumor that... Here comes a lie. That did... No, no, this is... I heard this.

Okay, you heard this. Yeah. Joe Espada sat down and said, you know, we got a couple things that we were doing in Houston that I'd love to implement here, kind of help the batters anticipate a little better. I'll tell you if you hire me. Yeah.

That's what I heard. heard Joseph in his interview. That's, uh, yeah, and I, I know we, we have to stop talking about Houston. And it's cool that you heard that somehow. Um, yeah. The only guy that was kind of denying the Houston stuff was Carlos Beltran. And no, it's also convenient. Carlos Beltran is, is trying to get a managerial job. Has one. So I, uh, yeah, it, he got one. Um, so yeah, I, I, if I was him, I'd be, be full cold shoulder and working on the Mets, babe. Anyways, yeah, Gabe Kapler, I don't know.

I kind of, he's a much better fit for the Bay. He's this, he's a ripped up. He's kind of a Bay Area guy. He's like roped up, yet he's kind of soft-spoken, a little offbeat a little bit. The Bay Area might come to like him. And here's the trick. There's going to be one next year is going to be a bad year for the Giants.

They're going to lose. So Gabe Kapler needs to make sure it's not. not so bad that he gets chopped after one year. And then he's got one year to earn the managerial job before Bruce Bochy comes back. And we still don't think they're going to be good in two years. But if he can show improvement and if the team can like him, he'll get a third year. But otherwise, yeah, I mean, this, the, my quick hitter line that I was going to use on you that I thought you'd like was, this makes the Mathini signing look great.

Yeah. Gabe Kepler. Why hire him, Jake? Now, the Phillies had like some, he didn't have like the best pitching staff or bullpen in Philly. But no one was really sticking up for him. Inside or outside.

No one was like, you know, that guy deserves another shot. He got a bad break here. Like, that didn't happen. Whatever, that's great for breakdowns. That's the weird part. He, like the Giants owner, uh,

Was it Farzad Zayin? I slaughtered that. I wasn't even close. I thought, like, you sounded like when I go to Google translate audio. Like, that's perfect. Yeah. So the Giants owner, I'll leave it at that. Farzah closet.

They said, they said Kapler was his number one the whole way, which like, that's like, okay, that's odd. That's odd. Shouldn't have gone into it with that idea at all. Hold up, hold up, hold up. can we dive more into that? Yeah. What do you mean? He was my number one all the way.

Or just mean why? Basically why. Just give us the reason that it would be that. And yeah, I think that was funny, though. There was a report that they did do a thorough, like they went through Philly. They talked to people in the organization, people on the team, and they said they got rave reviews on Kapler. So maybe it's just the Phillies wanting the Giants to lose the next couple years.

but yeah, I don't know, man. Good. The Giants got their man. No, he's hired to get fired. You got to replace a beloved manager by a franchise that expects to compete every year and they expect the organization to put the top quality out every year because the Giants have been pretty good at that. So I think this is a recipe for disaster because Giants fans are going to really feel

hopelessness for like the first time. Now they've they've lingered on it last year though they got some hope they didn't trade they were going to go after that wildcard spot and I think these next two years are going to be like full on no hope rebuild and we don't have a beloved manager anymore and capler's just going to be such an easy target because he is because of the way he goes about himself so I'm excited for the breakdowns and I think um he's going to get absolutely roasted. Well, you know his game plan. It's the fence is getting moved in six feet for the bullpins. Just aim over there now. I will say this. Gabe Kapler was the only man in Major League Baseball, but that honestly didn't know sign stealing with cameras was going on. And he is appalled.

What? In our sport? Because that's how he handled every fight with an umpire. call the game fair he hasn't been able to get out of bed I don't know if I want to be part of this league anymore yeah all right so good job Kapler congrats on the new job he's not going to be able to stay tan in San Francisco

prove us wrong their son their son yeah San Francisco is pretty overcasts like 11 months of the year you're not tan that's Gabe will be tan he'll go to some salons

They spring training He's got some sprays They do road trips Like he's Gabe Kapler's gonna be tan Don't be disappointed by that Would you think Gabe Kapler Has like

A very sad shirt tan line Because he wears the uniform all time And like hat tan line I think he spends majority Of his off time Eliminating tan line tan lines. He might have some at-home sprays, a booth in his house. If I see his shirtless Gabe

Kapler and he's got a farmer's tan, I'll be pretty disappointed in him. Like, you got a reputation to uphold here. Yeah, I think, I think again, you kind of got to spin this hipster style. I think that plays in San Francisco like, bro, look, check out Gabe Kapler in those tan lines. Yeah. Okay. All right. Good to know. You want to move on to awards. Awards. So Jake, I was going crazy with the video yesterday and all that stuff. I texted you this morning, who won? Who won stuff? Yeah.

So you are going to have to remind me in the audience who won and who'd they beat and who was up. And don't they have like the official voting breakdowns? Like we can see who voted for who? I believe they do. I saw a couple links. Just like, excuse me, I didn't see links. I just saw a couple like screenshot images. So, yeah, I'm not sure where you find that,

but I guess it's out there somewhere. But yeah, we had, we'll do the rookies of the year first because those came out the day before. In the American League, it was, as you heard us mentioned, Yordaer Alvarez, he ends up winning the Astros' Mighty, DH, left field, first baseman. He did crazy stuff. If you're a stats, if you're a stats geek, go check it out.

Because what he did in, like, his 83 games or something is unbelievable. His all season, he was breaking records that were the last guy to do it was pool holes and just a lot of special names. So he ran away with it. I don't know if these are first place votes or if these are total, but it looks like Yorden Alvarez won 35 to 19 over Eloy Jimenez. So there you go. He did it. He did it.

It all makes sense. That makes sense to me. Sure. Jordan. Yeah. Who's upset? Who's most upset? Soroka?

Well, that's the National League. John Means came in second. Brandon Lowe came in third, Eloy Jimenez, Kevin Bish. Dude, it's Jordan Alvarez in the landslide. Yeah, Jordan Alvarez won big time. He had 30 first place votes. John Means had the most second place vote 16.

Yeah, I guess you can find the complete results. Oh, check this out. Hey, good job baseball writers. Wow. Across the board. It's easy to hit when you cheat, bro. No, but across the board, Alvarez got every single first place vote. there's always there's always one asshole

it's consensus my what I love doing is finding the asshole voter and say and take their vote away like if if 99% said alvarez and there was one fucker was like I think it was a low then I'd be like take that that guy gets he gets his vote taken away for a year because he's being dickhead about it i like that um and yeah this is something you hate about the rookie of the year voting but it's my favorite is that i mean like Vlad Guerrero ends up finishing 7th And, you know, he's still expected to have this crazy career. We'll see where guys like John Means, Brandon Lowe end up. Mercado got a third place vote.

I think if you're, yeah, Oscar Mercado, our guy, he was, he's an athlete. We'll say that. Luis Adai. Yeah, I don't know. Who's mad is, it's Baltimore. They're saying Jordan Alvarez doesn't win if they're not cheating. And John Means would have been a nice, a nice rookie of the year to put on the Orioles rebuilding mantle.

Give us something. Give us anything. Give us something. Yeah. Well, whatever. I'm not happy to watch this. I'm fine with a lot of these voters for this, but I will get mad at someone soon, so let's keep going.

Okay. The National League. Pete Alonzo wins. Mike Sarata comes in Saka. Fernando Tatis Jr., who really was the biggest rival to Alonzo but got injured. So this again was Alonzo in a landslide.

I called this even if Tate's stayed because I think Rookie of the Year is very much a storyline vote. There's no hard and fast rules that it has to be who was the most valuable or who had the best season. It's just who was the rookie of the year. Who was the guy who, you know,

and Alonzo winning the home run derby, which shouldn't count, but I'm telling you guys it does. It's storyline. And Alonzo was definitely, he became the leader. Oh, shit, he became the leader of the Mets. Jake, he also won the baseball American Writers Association, whatever that is, Good Guy Award,

which is the player who is the nicest and most easiest to do post-game interviews with. And usually it's like a vet that wins that. So for a rookie to win, that's kind of cool. So Alonzo wins in the landslide. We got any dumb voters here? Yeah, he did some charitable stuff. but Jim, I mean, he also led the National League in home runs. He had a crazy year.

Yeah, I wasn't trying to say the stats weren't there, obviously. Right. But yeah, I think if you're a Braves fan, you probably got yourself excited about Soroka a little bit. And yeah, maybe, and we're going to hear the opposite of this argument when we start talking about manager of the year. But there's a little New York in this. Like Pete Alonzo was the Mets, and he was like a shining.

light for them in the polar bear. Soroka's kind of this quiet Canadian dude who just went out there and shoved 174.2 innings of 268 ERA ball. I mean, pretty wild year by Soroka and very impressive. Probably wins him rookie of the year in a lot of other years. But yeah, I mean, Pete Alonzo, man, 53 homers. 53 homers. That's insane.

Good for old pistol. There's one guy that didn't give him a first place vote. I mean, it has to be an Atlanta guy. No, San Francisco guy. Oh, yeah, but he grew up in Atlanta. Oh, God damn it. Research for a second. I was going to be mean to this guy in like a joking way.

So I went to his Twitter. He retweeted my video, so I'm not going to. That's how you win me over. I'm pretty easy. Andrew Baggerly. Why didn't you vote for Pete Alonzo? You haven't. Roca had a higher war.

I saw Pete Alonzo naked and I liked it and I don't want to vote for him. Okay. J.J. Cooper, good vote. Tatis got a couple seconds. Who, Reynolds got one second place vote. Yeah. I mean, that was Joe Frasaro. No, it was.

Guarantee it. Ben Fredrickson. Yeah, it's Joe Fersarro's friend. Joe Frasarro. That guy's funny. I'm going to his Twitter now. Okay, he didn't retweet any of my videos. What are you doing, Ben Fredrickson?

What are you doing? Cota Hudson, Victor Robles. Yeah. There's not a lot of people upset about either of these, right? No. The manager of the year is more contentious. These, we had, each division had two mawlers and each division had a mauler and each division had a mauler and each division had a pitcher, the mallers won.

All right. Now we go to Manager of the Year in which both winners did not get the most first place votes. Gotta love the system. Well, didn't Rocco and Boone tie? Yeah, so Rocco didn't get the most first place votes. Well, he tied for the most. Yes, which means he did not get the most. He shared the most.

And Schilt didn't get the most. You can't get the most if someone else has the same amount as you, Jake. You're tied for the most. Yeah, which means he's not a standalone leader. He's not standalone, but he didn't have the most. So if you tied for first place, you'd brag about coming in first place? You're tied for the most. I mean, that's just a fact.

This is semantical, but you sound like a loser. But mine's right, yeah. They're both right. If me and you both... I mean, he had the most. He didn't. He shared the most with... He's tied for the most.

The most. Yeah. Whatever. It's still weird that neither manager had the most first place vote. Schilt got outvoted in first place votes by council. And Boone and Rocco tied. Kind of odd. Yeah.

Yeah. Let's do the ale first. Rocco Baldelli wins it for the twins. The twins have a great year. They set the MLV home run record, which we talked about a couple times. I mean, even when you take a step back and you just hear like the Minnesota twins, you know, a team decade ago that used to be not a poverty franchise, but they weren't going to resign their stars. And it was the twins, the twins were going to be good year by year by who were their young guys. They were almost like the raise a little while back.

And they have a crazy year, 100 plus games. the argument that's going against them is that, well, A, Aaron Boone, his Yankees had the most wins, well, of the managers listed, his team had the most wins. They had the most injuries ever by a team, which again, you start talking manager of the year, diversity stuff, blah, blah, blah, adversity, excuse me, not diversity. And then the big thing is, and Jim, I mean, I'm going to give you most of the credit for this. I mean, they played 57 games against Detroit, Kansas City, and the Chicago White Sox. Three of the worst teams in baseball this year, three teams essentially trying to lose. The White Sox weren't at first, but then they were. And the ALE East was a tougher division.

And it's just tough because, okay, let's say you're, one of these non-Yanky persons, and you're going to sit there and say, well, the Yankees had a massive payroll. Boone doesn't get manager of the year. A lot of guys could have just juggled all the injuries and bring up these no-name players to have special seasons. Anyone could have done that. I mean, the Twins' opening day payroll is 114 to the raise 68. And a lot of people thought Kevin Cash was going to win this if it wasn't Boone. So I think that's where this gets even more bizarre. If you just talk to baseball people, I mean, it was kind of, I won't say clear cut, but I think a lot of baseball people ended up leveling out and being like,

Iraqo's the third guy. Because if you're going to play the Yankees card, then the Ray's win. And if you're just going to look at everything as a whole, you know, what Boone went through this year in a tough division is insane. It's absolutely insane. Yeah, you said a lot of what I wanted to say. and a lot of it is, hey, keep your bias out of this. It's talking baseball, not talking yanks.

Fuck that. The twins weren't that good. They played so many games against teams trying to lose, and they didn't have a good record against teams that were good, Jake. What are we looking at here? Rocco Baldell is a first year manager, and he did good. And everyone's like, oh, the twins were so bad last year that they, you know, they improved so much.

They fucking went out and got a lot of talent. It's not like Baldelli took the same 25 that were terrible and then made them into winners. They fucking signed guys. They were never injured. And they played against teams that sucked. And they had a bad record against teams that were good. Cash should have been over Baldelli.

Like, Baldelli was the clear third of these three. What did he have to deal with? he had to deal with when his team gave up a lead when the Indians caught them in the Central but then they traded at the deadline and got hurt again oh no that's not that's not good stuff that was twisting the knife a little bit

no I mean it it the overshadowing thing is like the Twins won the Central when everyone had Cleveland before the season and yeah I think I think I genuinely genuinely do think this

and if you're going to call me a Yankees Homer or whatever you want to call me, that's fine. But Yankee bias went into this vote. It's a pity vote for sure. If the Yankees had a different team name, and even if they had the payroll, which, you know, if it was the Red Sox who they had the biggest payroll the other year, if it was the Dodgers, if it was whoever it was, and they had all the injuries the Yankees had, This team literally set the record for most injuries.

That's not hyperbole. That's fact. And then to go and win the AL East, which, hey, that Kevin Cash guy we're talking about who had, who was in this race, he's in the AL East. The defending champion Red Sox, although their season fell apart, they're clearly a better third team in the division than what's going, than the Chicago White Sox were in the Central. So it's really tough. Kevin Cash had to deal with a lot of injuries as well. well. This is straight up a pity vote and they little old Minnesota. They're trying so hard.

Let's give them their due. Honestly, it's insulting to Minnesota that Baldelli got this vote. Yeah, a little bit. Okay. Moving on to the NL where we have Schilt, not getting the most first place votes, but winning Craig Counsel got the most first place votes. The Cardinals did go on a very impressive run. the end there. So I don't, the voting system's weird. Part of me loves that Schilt got hired from college and never was in an MLB dugout ever. And now he's one manager of the year.

Part of me likes that. Both teams had to deal with a lot, like Yelich going down and then the Brewers going on that stretch was a lot of managing. Like it was a lot of managing from council. It's a lot of, okay, we don't have. starters anymore. We have throwers mixing and matching. And they use the most bullpen arms through September. Like they used like 25 guys through pitches for them in September. And they went on an insane stretch. That's managing. Like that's a lot of what council did. But Schilt,

don't I'm saying it right? Shilt. Schilt. I always feel like I say it. Not snit. It's not snit. Snit is the third place guy. Um, yeah. But, uh, you know, Schilt, the, Cardinals, they were in that division as well. They end up winning the division, which counts because they were in the middle of it for a while and they took off at the end. So I think both are deserving. I don't have as many hard feelings either way. But what do you got on this?

I think this is the one where we just did our most picker off. I mean, Craig Counsel, with three more first place votes, I mean, that's pretty wild. that he walks away without the award. At the same time, you're right, I mean, you can defend it more. I mean, what the Cardinals did this year was pretty special. I mean, we wrote them off a few times. You know, when we were talking about the Cubs and we were talking about Milwaukee, we're like, oh, these teams are kind of fun.

I think we literally said, like, who are the sexy players to get into on St. Louis? And we found Jack Flaherty, and that got exciting. But yeah, and I think the bigger thing you need to know going into this vote-wise is that Brian Snicker wasn't going to win. He won last year. So that's not cool. The Braves didn't take enough of a leap. So it came down to counsel and Schilt. And yeah, I mean, this one is bizarre that you would actually have to go through the votes and say, counsel got 13 first, Schilt got 10 first. Why did Mike Schilt get 14 second-place vote? votes and why did Craig counsel get six seconds? I don't know. So I'm doing my little witch hunt here, Jake. Sure. These are the people that didn't vote for counsel in first, second, or third at all.

Are you ready? Richard Morin from Arizona Republic. Okay. What's your deal? What's your deal, Rich? He hates counsel from his diamond back days. The big news media from Chicago. Oh.

Yep. Eugene McIntosh. No counsel. what's your deal eugene yeah joe k from cincinnati no counsel what the butt kyle newman from color oh no no no yes kyle newman from colorado yeah man i don't know it's weird that like he has the most first place votes and then you just leave him off whatever there's a lot options here though like a lot of people got votes roberts got some second place votes why yeah snitker where that's

some. Lovalo. Lovalo got some. Why? Why? Why? What did he get some? Fighting D-backs, babe.

Yeah, I don't know. Oh, dude, they're fucking, ah. Levello got two third place votes, Jake. Yeah. From the fucking two Arizona beat riders. Yeah, Jim. You didn't see what he went through this year, dude.

The system's so stupid. So that, that. Yeah. that cost one of the Arizona dudes wanted Lavello to get some love because he's their manager and that cost Lavello that cost counsel winning so stupid so stupid and then that's the reason why Boston and New York don't win these awards a lot because their media hate them don't love them but if you go to like San Francisco or Cincinnati their media like wants to like, hey, we're doing some good things over here.

Vote for our manager. And in New York, they're like, our manager's fucking trash. Let's blast them on the back page. Yeah. It's a little bit of the difference. Yeah, they do need to like, I don't know. We need to whittle down the options a little more so that

you know, Terry Francona doesn't get one second place vote. And even Dave Martinez, which is hilarious in hindsight, but that's why these are regular season awards. I mean, he gets 15 points when there is four guys ahead of him. Like, maybe bring it down.

Like, they need to do almost a Heisman trophy round where they bring, do a round and maybe bring it in a little bit and then have everyone vote for four guys or whatever it is. Because, you know, yeah, sure, give those other guys credit. And why actually? No, no. Why give those guys credit for being the fifth place? manager of the year. Who gives a shit?

I don't. I don't. You were fifth out of 15. I wouldn't clap. And half those teams were tanking, so you were basically average. I'd clap for that. All right.

We'll clap for that. Average. Let's hit him with a break. All right. Jakey, jakey, rattlesnakey, ate himself. and then wakey-bakey stoner head. What's up?

What are the next awards that are going to come our way? We might be doing later today or tomorrow. Hey, thank you. Thanks for the introduction. Hey. So today, James, you know what's getting announced today? What's that? You hear about this one?

Have you heard about this one? Let me tell you about this one real quick. Sy Young Award. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Who are the options? Can you tell me? I hate award season, so I'm out of tune. But I'll be in tune.

I mean, wait, it's Colin Scherzer? Colin Strasbourg? It's in the AL. Cole. Winner. Verlander. Second place. And Charlie Martin.

Third place. If that's not how that land. We have a big problem. I expected to be the top three. Yeah. And then in the National League, the National League gets pretty some weird wild stuff, Jim. I mean, DeGrom.

Weird and wild stuff. Scher, Strasberg, Rieu, Flaherty. Say them again. Say them again for me. DeGrom, Scherzer, Strasberg, Rieu, Flaherty. I actually want to like that. like look at the stats on this one. He's actually going to look at the stats

this one time people. Yeah. But I don't have this set up. How would you do this? Is there like this already set up somewhere? I can do it. I mean, not really. I can do it.

We got DeGrom. Okay. And then I'm going to go. I'm going to go. So we're giving it to Cole and the A.L. Yes. I mean, he, yeah.

He, he, the A.L. should be Cole, Verlander. Morton. And there will be some fucks that vote for her. They changed the third because they want someone from their team to get it. And it's like, get out of here. So we got DeGrom, Strasbourg. Who are the others?

DeGrom, Scherzer, Rieu. So no Strasberg. I don't think, like he's going to get some votes from somewhere, but I don't think so. All right. How do you pronounce Riu's first name? I think that's the part we slaughtered. once. I'm nervous about it. Hjong Jin.

Hjong Jin? Hjong, Jin. And then Flaherty is the fourth? I don't think, like he'll get votes, but. Okay. I think like DeGrom's the leader. I'm pulling up a comparison of these pitchers.

DeGrom, Rieu, Scherzer, Seroca, and Flaherty. There's not a glaring miss right here, right? Don't think so. Okay. I'm going to make my calculated winner. Okay. Okay. So I think they've, it's Cole, Morton, Verlander, DeGrom Rieu, Scherzerzer, are the finalists. So I don't think those other guys, so maybe they did do this Heisman style where everyone cast a vote and that these are the top three and that's what's announced. Okay. So DeGrom, Scherzer, Rieu. Yeah.

So first what I'm going to look at is. innings pitch, Jake. And DeGrom's got them by a lot. 204. Scherzer only has 172. That's the big jump. Rew's got 182. Okay?

Earned runs. Don't really care. Kind of care. Rew's got the best 2.32. DeGrom has the second best 2.43. We're looking at 22 more innings out of de Grom there. game started. DeGrom has 32 games started. Rew's only got 29 and Scherzer only has 27.

So I have Scherzer based on all that as my third. I have DeGrom as the clear winner. And that's kind of the shrug looking at each other that's going around in baseball right now is like, I think DeGrom's going to win this and we didn't talk about them all year. Yeah. So now I want to look at the game logs and see who like, blew the most game.

You know what I mean? Okay. Yeah, well, if you remember DeGrom kind of got off to a bad start to the season, and then from them he was lights out. He has what I look at is starts where they allowed more than four earned runs. The John Boy staff. Yeah. So DeGrom has three starts where he allowed more than four earned runs.

And he has no like his four earned runs, he went seven innings. so I'm not going to that's not great but it's not he didn't blow those games but six runs there's three of them reu Jake he had same thing three starts with seven earned runs and the rest were pretty good but he just doesn't have the innings that that degram has and the starts now a lot of people care about strikeouts. For this, I don't care how you get out. Just get the guys out. I think the best pitcher pitches the most and allows the least amount of runs.

And I don't care in which way he does it. I know that you value them more than me when looking at this. Do you have, I mean, if that's the case. I mean, it's just a way to show domination. And I think Ryu would get hurt in that. Scher gets a little bump. And DeGrom is still right there. Yeah, DeGrom should win this.

Yeah, he's just got the better body of work. It's kind of funny that the NL. Sy Young vote was really excited, like, right after the All-Star break. It's like, whoa, Ryu's putting together a special season. Scherzer's going to be there. There's just no DeGrom talk the whole way. These guys get nicked up. Kershaw was in it for a little bit.

And then it was just the definition of slow and steady wins the race. Like, DeGrom just did his thing after. April and it's looking like he's going to be back-to-back Sy Young Award winner, which that's crazy impressive. Good for him. Good thing you wanted to get paid. Yeah. Yeah. I think that ends everything.

Covered a lot. And we had some fun along the way. And that's just always key. You know, I have a couch cushion on my desk right now to try and help with Echo. Is that cool? Oh, no. It's a studio. My most viral video ever.

Now I have the couch cushion behind my head. See, that's cool. Maybe this helps with the echo. My most viral video ever, Jake, I needed to make sure the echo wasn't there. So I surrounded, I built like a pillow for it for myself on my desk. Yeah. Yeah. That's cool.

Just having a pillow on your desk, not cool. Well, it's not a pillow. It's a couch cushion. I mean, like, everything you've done since has been so much cooler. And I think you need to acknowledge that. You're balancing it on your head right now. Thank you. Thank you.

So where you started and where we are, thank you for listening and talking about. Leave a five-star review. Say Houston Cheats. Houston Cheats. Yes, please. Leave a five-star review and say Houston Sheets. And also, the Pirates. Yeah.

Wake up. It's almost time. You don't have a GM still. You don't have a manager still. Pittsburgh Pirates hire Mike Tobman. Pittsburgh Pirates are the only team like, whoa, no plan. You knew Gabe Kapler was your guy from the start? Wait, Padres, you knew that Jay's Tingler?

Yeah, that's actually pretty good. You knew Jay's Tingler was your guy from the start? We had no plans here. We kind of thought we were going to ride Hurdle until he died. There's bailed on. But they're still old school over there. What's spring training for? Are they keeping Clint Hurdle in the organization,

Is he, like, gone? I think he's gone. Because he should be gone. Gone! No, he's... Clint Hurdle decides to retire from baseball. Yes, because... Obviously.

Same reason I retired from playing. Yeah. No one wanted me to. All right, that ends this show. Thank you, guys. We'll see you probably tomorrow to recap the next two awards. Huh.