Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - 56 | Pirates Hire Cherington, Rule 5 Draft & Astros Update

Episode Date: November 18, 2019

The Astros scandal rolls on. The Pirates hire ex Red Sox and Blue Jay, Ben Cherington and we talk about the Rule 5 Draft and how it works. 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.

What's up, everybody? The Pirates hired Ben Charrington Rule 5 draft is coming up, and the Astro scandal rolls on. Let's do it. What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to talking baseball. My name is John Boy, I'm coming to you from New York City, and I have my co-host, Jake, wearing an air-hick shirt coming to you from Denver, Colorado. Jake, how are you doing today? Doing well, Jim.

Some good weather in Denver this weekend. Went skiing for like four runs just because we rented gear for the season and the girl likes to test her gear. So it's kind of a lot for a little. But it's all right. You get your ski legs under you. And then I played a little golf the next morning. So that kind of is Denver Rocky Mountains area.

That's how it goes. I was going to say, what did you mean by good weather? Like, I didn't know if you meant like nice snow or warm. Oh, no. I mean, in Denver, it was 60, and then you head into the mountains, and it was ski conditions. Damn. Like an hour away. Yeah.

Pretty cool. Sorry for my voice, everyone. I'm sick. Mm. I'm a sick little child. Sick and tired of angry Astros fans. That's what you told me. I'm so sick and tired.

I'm not tired of angry Astros fans. I'm tired of dumb Astros fans. and it's only a small percentage, but they're fucking in full force. They honestly, they're mad because they think I'm leading the investigation against the Astros. And then they keep telling me, you think you're a reporter. You're not leading this investigation. I'm like, I know I'm not. Yeah.

Like what you're mad about is something I admittedly am not doing, but you're getting mad at me for perceiving that I'm doing it. Whatever, it's annoying. There's a lot that are perfectly fine. But like, Ken Rosenthal and Evangirlet, and fires and Farquah, and a lot of guys, they're giving the information. All that I'm doing,

and really I should say we, because people are sending in the clips, is finding visuals to be like, oh, that kind of matches up to what they said. Like the World Series DVD, someone sent that to me. And it was like,

hey, this looks like the place they were describing in that article. And it looks exactly like the place they were describing in the article. which is pretty funny. It's 2019 stuff. And that's, I don't know, it was funny to me just talking about and thinking about, you know,

and the article came out and baseball kind of left it as like, you know, there's going to be more to come on this. And when would that have been from baseball? Would that have been soon? I personally don't think so. I think, you know, obviously you bringing it to light. And then, yeah, everybody chiming in with like, look at this. look at this, look at that. And yeah, it's gotten worse.

Yeah, the Astroscanos has gotten worse. Did we even talk about the emails on here last time? I forget what we've talked about and we haven't. So the emails leaked that they were looking. They asked their scouts to find ways they can use binoculars or cameras to steal signs.

So that's a bad look. Technically, Astros fans will say, It wasn't illegal yet. The law, the rule came in in 2019. That's patently untrue. Red Sox got fined in 2017, the same year for using technology to steal signs. In 2001, they prohibited the use of electronic devices to aid you in communicating and stealing signs. Then they gave them iPads.

That's what a lot of Houston fans are saying, well, then how come they have iPads? Well, because the league sanctioned those. They're completely different than installing. cameras. So, I mean, there's a lot that's come out. Where are you on it, Jake? Because I had like a scout reach out and say, yo, I've, like everyone's saying this happens across baseball. He's like, I'm a scout in this organization and proved it. I've never, ever heard of scouts being asked about sign stealing. Yeah. It's, uh, it's gotten worse. And, you know, our astro fans that are tuning in at this point are very sadistic people.

But no, like I think that's what's funny to me is the article comes out in the athletic. The Astros were stealing signs, and we kind of came out and were like, yeah, it's kind of not a shocker. This happens in baseball. Those dirty Astros, they got their ring. Well, you know, maybe they'll lose a draft pick. Now, they seeked out how to cheat. They seeked out cheating. They had people working in their organization to cheat.

And again, I normally end up landing on the players. And, you know, how does this affect how we view El Tuve's MVP? Jordan Alvarez just won rookie of the year, the World Series that they won. And now I think it's very real. I think punishment is going to happen because this wasn't, I mean, this, like the players, you almost could get something. Like, if you had the players that was like, if there was a bullpen catcher that came up to me and I was the third baseman on the Astros and he said, hey man, I'm pretty good at picking up on the catcher and the pitcher. Sometimes I can even see the signs from center field.

if I put my hand on the wall and you've got two strikes on you, that means a breaking ball is coming. Like, as a player, you kind of get that. Like, yeah. Like, that guy's kind of my teammate. Sure. Like, I could use a heads up on that. This is the front office, the owner, the GM, the team, the scouting staff,

the managers saying, hey, no would be an easier way to win if we know what pitches coming and we'll tell the guys. And that's not baseball. We've gotten fully away from the sport. So I think they're going to get in real trouble. It depends what that looks like and what they can do or what addendums they can make because this, this doesn't happen all around baseball. I'm sure there's some other teams that have some sketchy stuff going on, but not this.

We would have heard about it by now. Yeah. Yeah, man. I, like you said, I'm battling off like, you know, a handful of people that are yelling at me. And then I just remind myself, I can go to my DMs. and find all the, like, really esteemed journalists that are thanking me. Yeah. Like, Ken Rosenthal thanked me through Carrig and said,

tell him thank you for putting our words to like video, you know? Yeah. Because I'm lending credence to that where we are by finding these videos. I heard that what's the GM's name, Lunlo? Lunlow. I heard he's out. It makes sense. Yeah.

That's a rumor that I wouldn't. say take to the grave or bank on it. Just a rumor I heard that there's no way he stays. So I'm starting to hear that this is going to be severe. Because I kept saying I thought MLB wasn't going to do anything harsh, you know. But the more of this comes out, the more I think it's going to be kind of severe. And yeah, I mean, Alunlow is going to be out. it's going to be, is it a straight fire?

Is it a band from baseball? What is it? And I think we're essentially into that. That's going to be the next part of this process. It's who knew what. And the GM and owner, they're the top of the organization, so they're going to get into this. But the rest of it is going to be a witch hunt to, you know,

what did AJ Hinch know? And he fucking knew everything. They had a setup right outside the dugout, and they were banging trash cans with bats and they had a video set up. And yeah, I don't know, man. There still is going to be a trickle effect that I think we haven't thought of yet. You know, we've mentioned Cora and Beltran, but how much were they tied into it? You know, the players, man, this is dirty.

This is, it's what I said with the bullpen catcher. Like, I get it. If you're on a team and you've got a guy that thinks he's got something for you, yeah. But this is not that. So I don't know. I don't know if there's a book on what they can do. I think you have to leave that book because we haven't seen a situation like this. And yeah, I mean, the only people that are still mad or angry or loud are like blind Houston fans that are choosing to be blind.

And that's, hey. Yeah, I think it's not even 50% of Houston fans. Yeah, it's not even all of them. Yeah, it looks bad right now. A lot of it's circumstantial, but like they're doing, they're like discrediting fires. They're discrediting, crediting Farquhar. They're discrediting that the banging patterns perfectly with off-speed pitches for every pitcher. The Astros aren't out there perfectly getting tips and tails on every pitcher they face.

It's, it's not, it's not a good look. And go buy a shirt. We've sold a ton of shirts. Trastros. Trash Trows. And I felt bad about it at first. You know, like we had a big discussion. Should we sell these?

Is this like kind of not fun? And then we had people remind us that what we do is supposed to be fun and shit talking is fun. And now I'm happy, Jake. I'm happy that they're flying off the shelves. And it's good. It's good that there are, there are good Houston baseball fans that are like, yeah, this is starting to make me disgusted. And it kind of should. It absolutely should

Because if you're a fan of baseball You don't like this And Jim, I think my closing note on this Is something that you've heard me say a few times And it's like one of the few things I believe in From the business world Is that organizations are run top down I used to see it when I used to travel

To different divisions I could tell day weekly When I used to travel Which was a well-run division And which was not I mean the Astros, the Tobman thing, the cheating thing, all of it. Like when you start putting it in a blender, it's exactly what I'm talking about. And I don't know, maybe the owner might be forced to sell the team.

I have no idea what extremes they're going to go to. But no, it's also gotten overlooked in this. And if you want to mix this into a tweet at some point, Jim, knock your little panties off. There was a story earlier this year that, I mean, forgotten. but it ties into my tale I just told. Remember the former Houston executive that was on the Cardinals? And he went back and he stole all the files from Houston? Cardinals stole the files from Houston, yeah.

And he was a former Houston executive. Yeah, yeah. That's exactly what they were breeding over there, man. They had no rules. I think you made like a young finance example this weekend. Yeah, that these are Wall Street guys that were just thrown into baseball and they were told, hey, anything you can do to win this team of championship, we'll do it. And they did that.

Yeah. Another thing I found out someone told me was that, let me find it. I don't want to. I haven't broken anything that's come my way. I sit on it until someone else breaks it publicly and then I share what I know. You know what I mean? So I don't, because things, because I'm telling you, people are thanking me for just keeping this going. So anyway, someone told me the name.

So the guy that's picking up the monitor and putting it away in that 2017 picture, someone sent me like his name and the, the division that that was called. Department? Yeah, the department. So it was directly, this is what I've been told. So I'm not dressed. It was directly under the direction of Tobman, and they called it the pro scouting analysis. And it was just a two-man department that sat at that table.

The pro-scouting analysis team, huh? I won't share the names. But there are. There's this one rumor. There's this one rumor going around that there's no proof of at all right now. And I'm just over here with my fingers crossed. hoping someone finds proof because it would 10 times this. And I've run it past a couple people and everyone said,

I've heard that rumor too, but there's no proof. So get excited. Hopefully that comes out. Or in 10 years, I'll tell you. That's the other thing that's crazy. It's like we, when this started, we didn't know if it was tip of the iceberg or whole thing. Now we know we're past a tip of the iceberg, but they're still, there still could be more.

If this rumor comes out to the public, we're still at the tip of the iceberg. Wow. It's crazy. Let's take a quick break, and then we'll come back with some Ben Charington, unless you have more on this. I think I'm good.

Ben Charrington has been hired as the Pirates General Mannington. manager. Gratz Ben. I'm happy for Ben. Yeah.

I'm happy for him. You don't know who Ben Charrington is. He was the GM that took over for Theo Epstein of the Boston Red Sox. He made a handful of magical trades to win the Red Sox the World Series in 2013, was it? I think so. 13, 15, something like that. With like the He hurt. Koji Yukara trade, Gomes, Shane Victorino, and he dumped that salary.

Yeah, that was the big one that it was welcome to the world, Ben Charrington, because he was another one of these young kind of Red Sox executives that were getting their shot. And, well, Theo left the team. But yeah, he did the Carl Crawford, Adrian Gonzalez. as who else was in there? There was some bodies in that trade. It was over 250 million in salary. And he pulled the trigger on it, which is insane.

Not a lot of guys would have the stones to do that. Josh Beckett, Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford, and Nick Ponto to the Dodgers. They got essentially nothing back, but they unloaded $258 million in contracts. And then from there, he went. He got Dempst, Ryan Dempster, Mike Napoli, Shane Victorino. But he's also remembered for a couple awful contracts he gave out. Rusney Castillo, the Cuban outfielder. If you don't know this story, Red Sox fans, turn your ears off for a minute.

Actually, I think he's become endeared in Red Sox land now. They gave him a seven-year, $72.5 million contract. Russney Castillo. He's only had 99 games with the Boston Red Sox. He just lives at Pawtucket, their AAA team. He's going to be there next year. It's his final year.

And they're starting to treat him kind of like a hero, which God, like that's, make that a weird 30 for 30 or weird baseball movie. What's Rosny Castillo's life like? He's the Crash Davis of the Pawtucket baseball. Yeah, but he got paid.

It's true. He's got $72.5 million to live in Pottaquette. Who was that after? Is that after Pueeg when Pueig was really young? Because there was a mad dash of Cuban players and like, you got to get the next Cuban player that comes over. Now there's more coming more frequently because it's become easier. But was it right after Pueig or was it someone else?

Cespitis? I'm not sure. I think it went like Cespitus Puee. Yeah, I think it went like Cespidus Puege. And then everyone was like, we got to get the next one. Yeah. And then Sandoval, who reported in a little too thick to Red Sox Land and left a little too thick for Red Sox Land. Domestowning ever.

So, yeah, I don't know. It's, I'm kind of excited for it. He won one World Series in the other three years that he was the GM. They finished last place. So, hey, swinging for the fences, Pittsburgh. Well, here's the other thing, Jake. he built up the Red Sox farm Devers, Ben Tendi

I'm blanking There's a couple of others Bogarts I don't know if that was him Maybe yeah Betts? And he just built up Blue Jays farm system

Vlad Kavin So he's got a good track record of his department's building up good farm systems And this is The Pirates lead

A complete overhaul they need prospects and they need, you know, free agents and they need to figure out everything. Yeah, and I started thinking about it. And there's a couple things I like. And this will sound a little bit also like I might be walking over myself for some different things. But I like a dude. I like him in his second opportunity. Like he had success, but he also had a lot of failure.

And, you know, I like the opportunity that you get a second chance. And you can learn from some of the. mistakes you did make. So I like that aspect of it. You're right, building up the farm. And I mean, that's the way the pirates have to go with this. Because, I mean, look at that division. You, like, every team, like, the Cincinnati Reds want to compete next year. The Cubs are going to be competing. The Brewers are going to be competing. Like, if you're Pittsburgh, this is actually a good time to, like, take the foot off the pedal for two, three years, let some of those things cycle out and put yourself in a position to do it.

And hopefully, hopefully Sherrington goes out and he makes some big moves. They've got a couple guys on that team who could have value. I mean, Starling Marte. I know he's towards the end of his contract. I think he's the biggest name that's likely to move. I don't know. I mean, tear down the house.

Let's have some fun with this. The Chris Archer trade, I mean, almost set them back an ace and an all-star player in the field. So that sucks that he has to inherit. That was such a bad trade. It sucks he has to inherit that. Josh Bell had a giant year. You wonder where they're at with him because I know after the previous season they were kind of concerned. So is that juice ball? Is that someone they'd want to move? Is that someone they want to make like a cornerstone of the franchise? So I don't know. I mean, I'm hoping they make big moves and tear it down because they, I mean, they had a couple guys that you're probably not too familiar

with Kevin Newman, Brian Reynolds, he got some rookie of the year voting, that it's like, hey, you know, those guys are super young. Let them slap it around and see what they got there. If you can move off Marte, Polanco, and Josh Bell, and get yourself a two, three-year plan, I would love that. And I think a lot of guys are scared for that, but what we know about Ben Sherrington, he shouldn't be. Yeah. I think it's a decent hire. You get someone with experience, looking to do it again, and that has been around baseball for a while as the GM. Now, manager is a different story. They still have like, they're not even narrowed down to three or anything, Jake.

And I think that's good because I'm hoping they want someone that can communicate with the general manager. You know, how many times in sports do we hear these situations? You mostly see it in football, but it's like, oh, well, that's not the GM's coach. He'll probably be gone after the year. Oh, so this was a fucking waste. So, you know, Adam Gase is here for no reason. Oh, talking jets. But, uh, yeah.

week in the football talking. It's a football podcast. Phil Nevin is a candidate. Did you know that? Yankees' third base coach. It might be a proper transition from Clint Hurdle, a couple tough guys. Jeff Bannister is a candidate? Yeah, I heard Bannister.

I kind of like that one, a little bit of experience. Mike Bell. Mike Bell. Matt Quattaro has interviewed. He's the raise bench coach. Joey Cora, the Pirate's third base coach. Can't do that. And George Lombard Dodgers first base coach.

Then there's a lot of others that are still coming in for interviews. I don't know. No buck. Give me quattraro. Give me the Ray's guy. Boston and the Ray seem to get along pretty well. No buck showalter. I don't think he wants that job.

It's like George are already turning down the Reds last year. Like, I want to go to something. where that's ready to compete. And then he's at the Phillies. The Reds might be better than the Phillies this year. Ooh. They may. The Girardi Bowl, yeah.

I don't think that's unfair to say. No. What would you do if you were the GM of Pittsburgh? I mean, I'd go video game mode, but that's why I'm not a GM. But yeah, get a couple pieces for Josh Bell. He just had a huge year. And they were, like, they were down on Josh Bell. Starling Marte can play a valuable position.

He can be one of the best center fielder's in the league. So, yeah, I don't know. Josh Belgium, the year before this, 2018, he's 25 years old. It's his second season. They're expecting big things. He hit 12 homers and hit 261 with a 768 OPS. So he went from kind of a big prospect to them like, oh, is this dude going to be a bust?

And then he comes out last year, 37 home runs, 116 RBIs, a switch hitting first basement, a 936 OPS. And hey, you know, he's a big dude. How much of that was any of that juice ballated? I mean, everyone was a little bit. But if you can convince someone that you're getting a 26, 27 year old switch hitting first baseman, who is a potential all-star every year, that's someone you could get real prospects for. Like the trade deadline, you're going to get three top prospects. That doesn't happen anymore.

Baseball executives are smarter than that. But if you could get a guy with some team control, then GMs are going to actually offer you a package. Yeah. Like the first, when I was Googling articles, I saw like a Pittsburgh Pirates block pop up and they were like, the pirates need to trade for John Gray. And it's like, okay, what does that get them? Up to 75 wins? and what young guys are you going to give to the Rockies to get John Gray? It's just, it's fans wanting to win, and I love that,

but that's not how you run an organization. John Gray is going to fix them. That's bizarre. I mean, what does that do? Yeah, the Rockies need pitching, too, by the way. You're a fan of the Pramante Bros. Sandwiches? I haven't had one. Never had one.

You know what they are? I mean, they're the thick Sammies. They put the French fries in the sandwich. I mean, I've made my own Bermanti sandwiches in my day. But no, I've never had the real thing. I don't think I've spent time in Pittsburgh. They have them. They have like a Permanthys in San Francisco that I went to once.

Ah. And I ate it. And I was like, this is good, but I think it'd be better if the fries were on the side. Ooh. Yeah, you missed it. It's just too dry. Dries everything out in the middle there. Hey, I know we're a big clapping podcast,

which is getting a little odd to a degree. Yeah. But how about us running a nice little segment for the Pittsburgh Pirates? And we won't hear from you all off-season. I can't wait to get back into the segments that we had during the season. Like segments. Swing hard, that segment. I guess we could bring back the wheel for the off-season.

I always bring back the wheel. We'll do that next episode. Okay. This is kind of like a mini episode. And we're going to take a quick break. And then we're going to come back with some Rule 5 draft stuff. All right, everybody. The most important draft in baseball is coming up.

It's not important, but it's interesting. And we may have some listeners that don't know what it is. So we'll explain it. I think it says interesting. kind of get your hopes up and then nothing happens usually. The Rule 5 draft. The Rule 5 draft guys is,

I'll explain why it exists before I tell you what it is. Say Derek Jeter's your shortstop and he's your shortstop for 20 years. If you have a shortstop in your farm system, his chances of getting promoted probably are pretty slim. So the Rule 5 draft comes into play to save guys like that. So, hey, if this shortstop up is really good. He's doing really well, but he's not on your 40-man roster because you just

have no need for him. You have the depth ahead of him. Another team can say, hey, well, we have a spot for that guy on our 40-man roster right now. We draft him. But, so say the Astros take the young shortstop from the Yankees in the Rule 5 draft. The Yankees didn't put him on the 40-man roster. They didn't protect him. The Astros draft him. Now, that kid needs to be on the Astros 25-man roster all season. And the day he comes off the 25-man roster, he gets returned back to the original team. That's the Rule 5 draft. So what you'll have all teams doing right now is setting their 40-man and looking at all their prospects and saying which guys do we have to protect and which guys are we okay if they get snatched. I think the

rule is five years in the minors, Jake? If you spend five years in the minor leagues, you're eligible for Rule five? Yeah, it's the, I forget if there's years, because I think ages matter in this a little bit too. But yeah, I mean, the objective is to not keep guys in the minor leagues for too long slash organizations from hoarding prospects, which I thought it was pretty funny that it was listed this way.

Let's see. years or younger on June 5th preceding their signing five years earlier. Yeah, so that makes sense. But yeah, and it's funny because it's a nice opportunity for teams to take shots on players. There is the rule, like you said, if you do this, they have to be on your team the whole year. So if you find someone who's a dud, I guess you can return them, and there's some licking your wounds after that for both GM and player. But I'm surprised more teams don't take chances on it. And we're seeing teams try to find new ways to finagle the system.

We saw the Toronto Blue Jays this year had one of the youngest guys in baseball in their bullpen. He was terrible. He wasn't a major league level pitcher. But the Blue Jays said, hey, we're not going to be good this year. So let's, but we can get this guy, keep him on the roster. We'll throw him out if we need an inning or two. He also ended up getting hurt, so they were able to dance around some innings that way.

But now they have that guy as a part of their team, and they can actually send him up and down from the minor leagues. So he's a guy that they thought that maybe two years from now, he could be an elite reliever on their team, and they just hit him in their bullpen for a year. Elvis Luciano. It's funny watching teams navigate that. Yeah, it's kind of fucked up because they might have hindered his development

because he had never pitched above like a ball, I don't think. Yeah. I think he had never pitched above rookie ball, Jake. Yes. He had never, he hadn't even reached a ball yet. Got them big league dinners, though. So he pitched in the MLB before he pitched in a ball. They went from rookie ball.

Toronto snatched him from the Kansas City Royals in the Rule 5 draft and said, you know what, we'll just stash him. as our 25th man all season. Because as soon as we do that, and he completes the year, now he's in our farm system. So he was 19 years old last season. So now he was a 20-year-old. He goes into their farm system. They have him for the rest of his contract or whatever.

The Padres did this a couple times. So there are some weird things about the Rule 5 draft. I know that, and obviously we're Yankees fan, so I don't keep track of other teams' rule 5 picks. That would be fucking weird of me. Ivan Nova got selected in the Rule 5 draft and then got returned to the Yankees and then went off. Mike Ford got selected in the Rule 5 draft by the Mariners and then got returned to the Yankees. So it happens a lot when you bring a guy in, you test him out and then he's not going to break camp with the team. You return him.

Yeah. And there are some different examples of this. A lot of guys that normally are Rule 5 draft picks are normally like back in, not back in the day, but normally like kind of light hitting middle. infielders. Those were guys that you were that are tough to find around baseball. So if there was a young guy that you thought had a shot, you'd throw him out there. A good example is that is Everth Cabrera, former Padre shortstop, stolen base fiend used to be partially illegal in fantasy baseball, but that's all he could do. But yeah, I mean, there's been, and this Rule 5 draft goes back, it's one of baseball's kind of quirky things. Technically, there's been three Hall of Famers.

That were Rule 5 draft picks, Jim. Three? You know them off the top of your head. Well, you sent me the list or I found a list. I don't know if it's the same list you were looking at of, like, good Rule 5 picks in the history, and I was expecting it to be impressive, and it was rather unimpressive. I was like, oh. Yeah, I think the first one I posted on there was the last 10 years, and it's not too impressive.

Roberto Clemente was a Rule 5 draft pick. That's going back a little bit. What the fuck? How long is the Rule 5 draft pick? I'm not been around. Yeah, baseball, Susan. We've been doing this for years. And then Red Faber, who I know you wear your Red Faber jersey around a lot.

I'm a big Red Faber guy, yeah. Big Red Faber. Let's bring it up to modern day a little bit. Some names you would know. Jose Batista was a Rule 5 draft pick. Well, I mentioned... He was bad at baseball until he was good. Right, until he figured out just be good at baseball instead.

I mentioned Everth, Cabrera, Alfredo, Simon, Bobby Bonilla, your guy, Jim. How about Josh Hamilton? That one's, well, drugs and stuff like that, so there's that. Oduble Herrera, the guy that's been knocking around for the Phillies the past few years. So I think in the end game, and then there's a lot of relievers that you've probably seen, Shane Victorino, ooh, Fernando Vigno, Dan Ugla, Wachim, Wau, Wachim, sorry. Ryan, Presley, Darren O'Day. So basically what we're saying is the Rule 5 draft.

Like if you're the Pittsburgh Pirates, you know, maybe grab a couple guys and take a shot. It's a good way to give dudes opportunities. It's also really weird from the baseball player perspective. And sorry, we have to use another Yankees example, but it's what we know. Mike Ford, who's drafted in the Rule 5 draft, he got selected, and it happens after the GM meetings. I think it's this week, right? If not today.

They should be over, I think. Oh, Rule 5 is coming up very soon, yeah. Yeah. So Mike Ford was selected by the Mariners in the Rule 5 draft. He goes over to that organization. He does spring training with them, the full spring training. He's basically finding out if he made the team. They say no, he goes back to the Yankees.

It's just like, damn, that's a, that's the side, part of the side of a baseball player's life that we don't get the full story on. Him and vocal back, two big boys. the big the big hefty lefties they made a decision on that you shouldn't have said jose batista's name to me jake i'm sorry because now i'm gonna say something i don't want to say okay it feels like you're he took steroids right oh um i i think you used to always say future steroids because he was after the steroids weight yeah i mean i don't know i don't want to talk out in my butt I don't want to be mean to Jose Batista.

But the dude never had a slugging percentage higher than 420. So did Gio Orchella do steroids? Hmm. Well, Juice Ball helped him. A little bit. Okay, but Jake, he never had a slugging percentage higher than 420. And then all of a sudden, 210 comes around and it jumps up 200 points. He was a career, like, 600 OPS.

guy. He was a career 720 OPS guy and then all the sudden, bam, 995, 1.056, 886, 856. Something happened. It was like a sharp turn. It was a sharp turn. Yeah, I know

you used to jokingly, slash seriously always say that he was on future steroids at the time. I don't know. I think there's articles out there and there's the whole story that he changed his batting stance and Let's see

I don't know Now I'm in a whole It looks like he read Malcolm Gladwell's outliers I don't know There's articles out there that That defended another way Yeah okay I mean

He probably he probably didn't take steroids But if you were to say Hey whose stat lines are fishy I'd say The Jump Jose Batista made From 2009 From 2009 to 2010. That's the top of my, this is fishy list.

Jesus, this article's like his whole story. I've just scrolled down half a page and we're up to him getting drafted. Tell me how he got good. Oh, there is a good quote that they said when J.P. Ricardy got him on the GM of the Blue Jays. He said, this guy isn't Mike Schmidt. He's not going to come and hit 40 home runs. It's pretty good. And then he did?

And then he did. I wasn't even looking at his home run totals. Let's see. Oh, my God. He never hit 20 and then he hit 54. Yeah. I mean, fishy is fishy. Okay.

And then he hit 43 the next year. So we've got stuff about his psyche. They said his hip started too late, let the ball travel deeper. I used to start when the pitcher would let go of the ball. His position would be like this, freeze his arm at a 90-degree angle. The ball would come out of his hand. I'd be late. When the pitcher takes the ball out of his glove now, I'm moving.

I'm loaded up. He added a leg lift, Jimmy, drew inspiration from Canoe, A-Rot, and Ichero. Great. Me, too. Didn't work. Rajé Davis calls his video sessions maniac. Whatever. Dude, in 575 games from 2004 to 2009, 575 games, he had 59 home runs.

Then 2010 comes and in 161 games, 161 versus 575, he has 54 home runs. I mean, it's just a little fishy Jake. I'm not saying it's not fishy gym. Hard work pays off. maybe maybe are these smelling salts

consider steroids I don't think so no I've only done once I want to do them more but now I'm sick I wonder if I think if I did it now my nose would just run

like a faucet yeah I think it'd be a bad time net net net yeah I agree I agree little science on today's episode all right

so do you have any more Rule 5 drafts, I interrupted you so we could talk about the fishy fister. No, I mean, it's a... If you want to Google it, I mean, you'll see a lot of names you've seen throughout baseball. Again, not a ton of impact names, but yeah, if your team drafts a guy and, you know, he's going to be the last man in your bullpen, you'll find a way to get excited about them. And maybe there'll be a Marwin Gonzalez, Jim. There's a fun one. Caught me a Marwin. Caught me a Marwin.

Delano DeShields Jr., Justin Boar, Chris Shelton. So, yeah, I mean, if you're a baseball fan, you'll see a lot of names you know. Jake Cave, Jimmy, your guy. Twins. Gray Hair Brigade. He was actually returned after, but they do have a list of drafted but returned or traded before the start. Do you think I should dye my hair? Frank Catalanato.

John Wetland, how about that? Are you going full gray? No, I'd take out the gray. Oh. Oh, well, I think you just got my vote. So you want me to die full gray. I'd lean into it. I don't know.

If you want to. I mean, it feels like a lot because, I mean, it's the beard. Like, you've got a decent head full of hair. I wouldn't do the beard. I kind of like the gray in the beard. I don't like them. Oh, you'd be one of those guys. That's a slippery slope, bro.

I don't like the male pattern bald and gray. Right. But I feel like, you know, like Big Cat, he dyes his hair from Barstole. Yeah. But I feel like once you do it once, then you're stuck. Like you have to just continue to die. No going back. But just like how I shaved my face entirely a couple months ago or whatever, you know, we pasted it to your face.

I got to see what I looked like and I needed to know. And then I was like, oh, never do it again. Yeah. So I feel like I have a different thing. you knew you were going to hate that. Like there's a good chance you could like it. 10% chance I thought like I could, I was like going to not hate it as much,

but that 10% was wrong. That was very wrong. No, I don't know, man, that's tricky. I think you've got, I mean, I'm obviously biased. I'm coming from the different end of the spectrum. I still look 14. But what you do have going now is now that you're in the public light.

Like people are seeing you with some of the grays. Like 20 years from now, you're still going to be gray. Like gray people, if you age early, yeah, it sucks then. But 20 years from now, it's like, wow, Johnboy is barely age. And it's like, oh, he just looked older when he was younger. Oh, that's cool. You like that?

Yeah. Okay. Maybe I'll die one half. Okay. See, now you're speaking malingity. Yeah. That would be cool. I got to get a haircut before we go to this Easton thing.

That was I was going to do, I was going to let the audience know where we're going before we pack it up. up. Yeah. Jake and I on Wednesday, so if we do another episode this week, which I'm not positive, we will, we are heading to Los Angeles

to go to the Easton factory, warehouse, compound, headquarters? I like compound. I like compound, because there's supposed to be a field. Did you see the outline of the field they sent us?

No, it's looking like this is, it's looking like this is sillier than we thought. Like, to be like a kitty pool on the field and stuff like that. Really? Yeah. I'm going to look it up now.

I didn't look at that. Reminders and updates. Well, it's us and a bunch of other creators and YouTube people that make MLB content. And I believe there's going to be some professional players there. Creator roundup email. I think we're going to have, oh, damn, we're going to have to go play baseball and like swing a bat and stuff, which is really, going to embarrass us. Jake and I aren't that excited about that.

Okay, so yeah, it looks like they have Okay, this is crazy. Am I allowed to share this? I don't know. I don't think so. I think we've already teased it pretty well enough. Yeah, there's definitely many pools. We're going to have some good content coming. Damn, that's cool.

So if you follow YouTubers, we also have Fuzzy. Fuzzy is an awesome dude. Very helpful to me along this way. Coogs, Shelfy, me, and you, Jake. Yeah. Cool. Why'd they put your nickname as John Boy 2 out of 2? I guess you work for John Boy Media.

It's the group. It's the company. Company. It's hard to differentiate. So we're going to do that. Maybe we'll get some interviews. Maybe we'll just make some content. Follow us on all of our social medias, of course.

And that'll be fun. And then I'm going to be in the Bay Area for like the next 10 days until December 1st. So we're traveling. Yay. Yay. Yeah. Anything else, Jake? We'll be back if there's breaking news this week.

That's something we've kind of committed ourselves to. If there is a big signing or Ben Charrington does trade Josh Bell, we're here for it. Yes. Follow along. Oh, dude, trade Josh Bell to the Blue Jays and go get like three of your prospects you like. That's a no-brainer, right? Yeah, but you go get you go get Rowdy Tellez, you go get a pitcher and you go get another field guy, boom, I just did the trade. Jake has done it.

Big clapping episode. A lot of claps this episode. Thank you guys for hanging out with us. Thanks for listening. We'll be back. Whenever we're back, we may be in person down in L.A. Or something else. You'll have to just tune in.

Know how I say Rowdy to Les's name? Yes. Do you know in one of the Kanye West songs, he says, Rosie Perez cheated on every test. You got these, mother, rowdy to Les, cheated on every test. So that's what goes on in my head.