Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - 59 | Trevor Plouffe

Episode Date: December 4, 2019

Trevor Plouffe joined us to talk about his career in MLB, the Astros cheating scandal, changes he thinks should be implemented, how he got good at baseball, how hot his wife is and some other stuff. 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.

It's Talking Baseball's first guest appearance, and he is Trevor Poop. You already saw it in the title. Let's go. What's going on, everybody? Welcome to Talking Baseball. My name is John Boy, and I'm joined by always with my good pal, Jake Story Allie. Jake, how you doing? Doing well, Jim, winding down, what is it, Tuesday?

Your favorite day of the week? week. Yeah, did some work, went to a yogurt class, cooked some animal on the grill. Some RIP noodle, my dog. But I'm good, man. I'm excited for the people to hear ploof master flex, our dude. Plufey the ploofster. Ploofy plooop. That's dumb. This is our, I think it's our, you said this when we were interviewing him. He said as our first guest, right? I'm talking baseball. Yeah. Unless you got someone else. I don't know. I can't remember. We had a lot on talking yanks, obviously. This is the first time I'm talking baseball.

So we're excited to bring that to you guys. We're going to winter meetings in three days. So hopefully we'll have tons of guests there and do much more interviews. In the future, we want to do more once we think it's a possibility for us. And it's easier. Plouf was great. I think he's been doing a lot with us. So I'm going to save everything from the interview with the interview.

We talked for an hour. We covered the Astro scandal. We covered his career. covered rule changes for the MLB. We talked about a lot of shit. It was a good conversation. There's so much that has happened, Jake, in this off-season. And last episode of Talking Baseball, we talked about how, holy shit, things are happening.

This is not the same off-season as last season. Since that episode, which dropped Monday. We're recording this Tuesday night. So much more has already happened. We're not going to discuss it at length on this episode. But, I mean, you were just throwing it at me. We had Mustakis. The Marlins picked up two infielders.

There's a lot. There was even more that I forget. Yeah, I mean, the non-tender deadline is now like an event in baseball because people were running the numbers. Like, teams used to be like they felt honored to have their guys on arbitration. Like they needed to have those guys on their team. And now teams are like, wait, I don't know. If we could get, instead of paying our guy $10 million, why don't we?

get a free agent that we could pay five. And so it's really interesting. I don't know. I think we're both getting juiced up for winter meetings, but I'm interested to hear what, like, some of the real baseball dudes have to say about it because it's kind of bad. It's kind of good.

Like, I feel like a couple players are going to put themselves in better situations and a couple are going to get screwed. I don't know. It's weird. Yeah, I don't know. I texted you today, and I was like, I think MLBs are MOU wind meetings are going to be wild because last year we went and literally guys that weren't following

along with us or following winter meetings closely nothing happened jake and i went for the first time last year we had a table we had our mic set up we did some interviews we had a lot of fun but as far as baseball moves nothing happened and they always talk about like it's so crazy people are running around this just dropped this just dropped no literally the only breaking news which Again, and I think you and I have been running this through our heads is like, you know, I bet Winter Meeting is pretty cool when something breaks. Yes. Because like basically everyone starts gossiping about the same thing.

Yeah, you want to know the only news that I believe broke while we were at Winter Meetings last year? I remember, yeah. The Orioles hired Brandon Hyde. Hell yeah. And it was pretty funny because one of my buddies is an Orioles reporter, and we were talking to him. He's a young dude. He was kind of our comfort zone who was like.

legit there. And he's like, yeah, the Orias told me they're not doing anything. We were like, we were like, maybe the manager. He's like, no, I don't even think that. And then they did. So we were busting his balls a little bit. But yeah, last winter meeting, the story was nothing was happening. That was the story. So, so we're going to have another episode before winter meeting. So I feel foolish like saying this because we're going to have another episode, three episode week from us, because things are happening. And I guarantee more happens. So this is Wednesday. You're listening to the Plufe interview on Friday. We'll drop another one and update everything else that has happened. And then I was going to give a whole winter meeting spiel,

but I'll give that on the Friday episode of just follow us and all that good stuff. Let's just go right into this interview now. Do you think one of the semi big guys falls between now and in Thursday night when we record at this point? See, here's the thing, Jake. Right. The days before winter meetings and even the first couple days of winter meetings. Look this hair I got. What is that? Yeah, you got a wildcar hair right now. Oh, no, the hair's already turning on you.

No, it's just the end of the day. Oh, boy. Fuck. What was I saying? You're saying the days leading up to winter meetings are full of nonsense. They're like, this latest report, this latest report came out that I was like, Wheeler says he plans to sign before winter meetings even start. Oh, yeah, because leverage.

much dumb dumbs like that's not a real report that's someone feeding you something for leverage which that's reporters have to report what they hear um but like there's a lot of hogwash that gets sent out these days before winter meetings i'm i'm just interested i mean everyone's doing their cole strasberg meeting i don't think either of them are going to drop but yeah people are being really serious about Wheeler, Rendon. And I don't know, some of the, like, some of the back channel stuff we have heard is that if there's a dude that would sign and doesn't care about when he announces it, it's Rendon. So I don't know.

I'm egg-sighted to see. But yeah, we'll be covering all the baseball, baseball, baseball transaction stuff next step. Has our dude had any good tweets? Which you got to tighten that. up that scope for me a little bit. Heyman. Oh, your dude. He is not, that's not my man.

Yep, yep, they got one. We got one. Okay. New segment. Oh, yes. This is a new segment on talking baseball. It's called Get Stupid with John Heyman. Okay, here's a John Heyman tweet update. Wheeler is White Sox top pitching target. No belief they are in on Cole.

Strasberg and seem less so on Madbom. Also, reportedly in on Wheeler. The twins, the Rangers, the Reds, maybe the Blue Jays, maybe the Astros. The Southsiders could go for two starters. Also could use a second baseman. So, why does he think, why does he think that's a tweetable thing? We're down to six. That one's not one of his.

more egregious ones. There's going to be a lot better coming on this segment. Oh, there will be a ton, dude. But like, okay, so this update is that. I mean, we've got, there's no mystery team in that. The white, the white socks, the twins, the Rangers, the Reds, maybe the Blue Jays, maybe the Astros. So one, two, three, four, five, six teams. I mean, how many teams are in need of top line starting pitchers? Like, you put the Yankees on there and the angels and you have every team that he could guess. Yeah, his, his, his wheeler one before that. I mean, it's a fairly legit tweet until the end.

He kills me when he does like open-ended ones. He goes, White Sox, twins, Rangers, others in. Like to me, that's more pathetic. Yes, he does that all the time. Like you left, in that one, he left a full open door. And that one he gave six options, which that's pretty

tight for Heyman. Others, he basically limited to all the MLB teams. Not even. He didn't specify. Just anyone else. Yoma Yuri. All right. Here is our new best friend in the entire world, Trevor Plouffe. But first, I'm going to run all the ads, then Trevor Plouffe.

We have history today. The first guest in Talking Baseball History. And it is drum roll. I tried. It didn't really work. Drum rolls don't work well on podcast. Trevor. Loof, the former first round pick of your Minnesota Twins in 2004, debuted in 2010.

Little third base shortstop utility. Fourth in doubles in 2014. Thank you. Led the AL in double plays with 28 in 2015. Wow. That's what I was my most much for. And then I had led a. Turned?

Grounded into. No. Grounded into. I take back my claps. Yeah. So no claps for that. And then I had AL errors, third base in 2012, but we don't have to talk about that because errors are a little overrated. I regret asking you to do the intro.

I told you. I was going to go in. It's okay. I actually have explanations for both of those. So, you know, grounded in the double plays means you just hit the ball hard, just at somebody. Exactly. Okay. That's how I look at it.

actually but the air is whatever whatever you just had better range than the average third baseman that's all i wasn't to say that but i don't want to make too many excuses for myself right off the bat but no it's like our chapman most errors but he's the best third baseman so you're actually the best that year congrats basically chathman and i are the same player yes we're we're joined by matt chapman thanks for joining us matt of the oakland a's um no dude Trevor what's up man we're we're buddies We're buddies. Yeah, we got to hang out in LA a little bit. They got to meet each other and here we are, right?

Perfect. You're putting our setups to shame, so we're happy about that. You forgot the Yankee Killer in my intro. That's what I really wanted you to say. Yeah, Yankee Killer. 800 OPS at Yankee Stadium. Did you ever play? No, you didn't.

You only played at the new Yankee Stadium. Yeah, yeah, the new one. I debuted 2010, so I think the new one was, it was 09, right? They won the World Series there. Yeah, thank you for reminding us. It was a good year. That's a one, right? Thank you.

That, that's, come on now, come on now. That's the rumor on Twitter. Yeah. First decade without it. So Jake, you have the most notes I've ever seen you have for an episode here. Yeah. Hit him with one of a random question. Yeah, hit me, man.

I know, I know Jimmy normally, he doesn't like some of this stuff, but as, actually, we had our ideal meeting situation. We, we linked up with you. in the valley outside of LA. We had a couple beers. And that's like Jimmy's goal of this whole thing. Please, we could have interviewed some pretty serious people. Yeah. But we waited.

We wanted to link up with you. We wanted to get your vibe and you vived with us and that was awesome. I want to start with an apology. Not for my intro. You met up with me and Jimmy and we had Jimmy's brother Luke, formerly intern Luke, we call him. Now he's producer Luke. And producer Luke said when he came up and he met you, he said he stepped on your shoe. He feels so bad about it.

He keeps talking about it. I stepped on his show. I feel terrible. Oh, my gosh. I honestly do not remember that. And luckily for him, I'm not like a sneaker guy. Okay. Okay.

Perfect. So Luke's like kind of a young swagger. So he's like, oh, my God, I stepped on his clean shoe. So I'm glad I could clear the show because I would have acted. you know, upset with him or whatever. Another cat's out of the bag, I don't really care. So here's my first question that's completely just a tangent. How many guys in the MLB are like, like brands guys?

Like they need the newest stuff. They need the newest hat because like in, I played hockey and I was, couldn't care less growing up. But there was tons of people like need the new stuff. Our MLB clubhouse is full of guys who don't care because they're so good. You said, did you? Baseball equipment. Like were you like an equipment ham? Like needed the new glove, needed the new bats.

Yeah. There's all sorts of guys. You know, I think there's the guys that just get sent everything. And so they have everything. There's guys, usually the guys that really want like all the cool shit. Those were the guys that don't have it. The younger guys or like maybe guys that just got called up or guys that don't have the big deals. Because, you know, then they're like, man, I see so and so.

And, you know, Jake Gerietta is probably the person I saw got sent the most shit. Like, we'd come home from road trips and his entire locker and his extra locker next to him would just be like boxes and boxes and boxes and boxes of stuff. So for a guy like that, like he doesn't really care. He kind of just like opens up a box and he's like, oh, where are these today? It's a nice lot. I would pretty much like I liked whatever I had. That was like a creature of habit. So I wore the same shoes from Under Armour.

They were called the yard ones. And I think they're like on yard 11 now. So I like always requested the yard once. So I was a guy that wanted what I was comfortable with, I guess. But definitely you have all those guys. Like I said, most of the time that the young guys that like want all the cool shit, they want to be like flashy. And then if they suck, we always would just make fun about me.

Like, you have all that cool gear on and you suck. So it's like Little League. That's how it is in Little League as well. Kid shows. It doesn't change. It doesn't change. Were you, how many gloves did you go through during the season? Same, man.

I would just, I had my one glove that I loved. And I would constantly try to break in like new gloves. but for whatever reason, and I think a lot of guys will probably share the sentiment with me. Like, you'll get, I think I got sent in like five gloves a year from Rawlings or something like that. And you'd get one or two that would break in like the way you wanted them. And then the other three, like I have like sitting right over here, I have maybe four or five gloves that I haven't even caught a baseball with.

So I had a lot of time with my one glove, molded it perfectly. And even though I did lead the league in errors, it was still, in my opinion, a pretty good. I always like, I always like when the guy wears the same hat, like John Wetland on the Yankees and the 90s wore the same hat the entire season. By the end of the year,

it was just disgusting and gross. And I was like, that's cool. But I can understand why you wouldn't want to do that. But I was not like that. Like my, give me like a clean cup and sliders and all that like nasty stuff. Like I needed that like fresh. Like my cleats. You know, whatever.

If they felt good to me, I'm going to stick with them. But either that new hat, new cup, all that stuff. Yeah, we are hard opposites on that. I was neighbors with John Valentin growing up. And he hit the first grand slam ever in interleague play. And they took his bat away from him. And his dad was like, he was really upset about it. They put it in the Hall of Fame, but he was like,

I was on a hot streak with that bat. And they fucking made me give it away. He was really upset about it. I always thought that shit was in. Interesting. Yeah, I think that's like when people come into the clubhouse and you'll take them back to the equipment room and they'll just go with the equipment guy and he'll just be handing out shirt after shirt of pants and shorts and everything you can think of. And these guys, like, their eyes are so wide. And as you, you know, play ball for a while, you kind of get used to it. So you forget like how special it is. Like now I have so much extra crap. Like I'll bring it to my high school and just unload a bunch of like pairs of batting gloves. And the joy. on these baseball players faces. It's amazing, you know, stuff that big leaguers take for granted, you know, and you really have to remember where you came from.

Like, I never used batting gloves coming up because they were too expensive and they would just get ruined. So I didn't even wear batting gloves until I got into pro ball. Damn. And now, like, if I get a speck of dirt on my bag of those, they're gone. Like, I need that. Yes. I got to have that grip, like that gripe right.

So definitely funny to, like, see everyone's interactions and reactions to all the gear that everyone gets. It's pretty funny, man. So I had a question, one question that I didn't write down. I'm snaking it from you, Jake, because it's a weird question. It's pretty open. How did you get good at baseball? Like you said growing up, like, do, are you, is your dad a ball player?

Do you have older brothers who, like, were hard on you? Did you, it was a group of friends? What, tell me what I didn't have growing up. Okay. Honestly, I think the biggest thing was my older brother. Okay. So he played, my dad played baseball in high school. I was pretty good.

I had an uncle that was okay. But again, only high school. My uncle played like junior college ball. But they just started working right when they got out of high school. But I had an older brother. He played baseball. He was good at it. I'm four years younger than him.

So it was like my entire childhood. He'd just try to keep up with him. For the most part, I got my ass beat, you know, and then get a little bit older, start to get a little bit better. And then it's like, okay, I can beat them. every once in a while. And just that, like, him pushing me, even though he probably didn't mean to, like he did, though, because here he is.

I'm watching him. He's doing well, and I just wanted to be exactly like him. So I think that's a big thing. I tell people all the time, like, your second son is most likely going to be better than your first son just because of that, that pushing that motivation. This is the exact answer I was looking for as the first son. So thank you very much. Jake doesn't have any older brothers.

So, Jake, we are exonerated. My parents' first son was awful. I hate that guy. Trevor, I think before we start deep diving into thing, I think we still got a couple just like backstory boxes we want to check, and I think we can hit a couple of these quick. A, do you, so first I'm going to go baseball reference on you. 6-2-215.

Was that playing weight? Are you still there? What do you got? Well, baseball reference and probably, I guess, all the teams, they usually give guys an extra inch. So I want to, like, correct that for the masses. I'm 6-1. I don't want to be out here, like, people thinking I'm 6-2,

and then they're disappointed when I show up. My mom tried to do that for me on my license. She was like, just make it say 5-8. And I was like, Mom, I don't give a shit. I'm short. Yeah. I did. Like, I wanted to be, like, a beast, like, on, like, the Jumbo-Trom.

Like, show me, like, 6-4. Which a lot of teams do. You got to watch these people, man. But 6-1, I played mostly at, like, 2-10. And, you know, but now after, I don't lift the same way I used to lift. I don't eat the same way I used to eat. So I'm probably down to like $195 right now. Same thing, you know.

Same. I get that. Okay. And then this is a big one for me and Jim, because this is a big part of baseball life. Do you have nicknames? Because, I mean, ploof is an awesome last name. I mean, that's fun, rolls off the tongue. On baseball reference, they've got special tea.

I was running through my head. I mean, TP. I don't know. What are we missing nickname-wise? Because you're, I mean, you're a part of the family now. Well, also, but ploof is very close to poof, which is a very, a very derogatory term in the UK. If you went to London on the London games, they'd have a jolly old time. Yeah, a puff, a poof.

Is that like, what is that? It's derogatory. Do you want to go into it or what? It's what they call gay people when they're being mean. Oh, you know what? I have heard that before. Yeah, no. Luckily, that hasn't come to me in the States, but I mean, my name's been butchered so many times.

I mean, ploof is like the last thing people say. It's like, you know, plough, pluffe, whatever. I think it's too easy. It's like this can't just be ploof. It's got to be something different. Yeah. Well, it doesn't look like just ploof, you know. Yeah, there's a you in there.

There's a you, a couple Fs, you know, people get it, they get scared about by the E at the end. So, like I said, it's been butcher. But, yeah, special T was like, I mean, they ask you for, like, those names. nicknames on the players weekend jerseys like hey give us right and i'm like i literally do not have a nickname pluffy trev tp like that's like the standard but i was in a biker gang growing up so yeah check it out so that was my biker name gang name specialty so special t so special i look that as like an homage to my my history there but really no one calls me that so you can call me i mean you can start it up Do most guys just call you ploof?

Trev, pluffy, ploof, yeah, that's it. Jake's got a lot of nicknames. Pluffy, that was like a big Minnesota thing for me. So. Fluffy. Jake's got, Rocky,

flying salami, toilet nostridamus. He fell off his toilet and hit his head on the floor. And then he got his next, you get next five bets of the day, correct. Toilet. Is it a real fucking story?

Yeah. Dude, we did this daily radio show last offseason, and he would give his bed of the day every day. And one day he showed up and he had a bruise on his head. Sorry, sorry. Sorry, Jacob. He was shitting his brains out because he was sick and, like, lost off fluids. And he passed out on the tour. I did a nose dive, bro.

That's awesome. Nose Dive. It was enough about me. Toilet Nostradamus? Yeah, toilet Nostradamus. It's a pretty good nickname. I'll take it. Do you have one of them actually call you, though?

Because, like, you know, nicknames, you can just make anything up. Like, people do so much stupid crap on the back of their players' weekend jerseys. Yeah, no. You got Yonder, Alonzo, and John Jay, they're, like, Mr. 305. Like, nobody is ever going to call you Mr. 305. Ever, you know, it's like a joke, but no one's really going to call you that. And then you have the guys, like, we're talking about Chapman before. I think his on the back was Chapie.

And that's perfect. That's actually what people call them. I love baseball reference needs to differentiate because they give you nicknames like like Rocket for Roger Clemens, boomer for David Wells. People actually called them those things in passing. And then you have like the human rain delay. Like no one like saw him in the hallway and was like, yo, human rain delay. What's up? Who's human rain delay?

Give me that one. Oil can. Like an axel? No. Yeah. Steve Tracks. A lot of people that a lot of pitchers are have that nickname. Yeah, Steve Tractual is the one, right?

Mike Pelfrey, he used to call that. He was the worst. Took forever between his pitches. How much has that changed as an infielder? Like, Sunny Gray took forever when he was on the Yankees, and they had so many errors behind him. And we always wondered, like, is there a correlation there? Like, do infielders legitimately get so bored when the pitcher's taking forever?

And does it, like, make your mind stray? Is there anything to that? Absolutely. Absolutely. Like, you'll be out there and this guy's taken forever. And literally instead of being like, all right, like once you count, like catch your setup outside, probably off speed and you know, I'll go to the hole or to the line, whatever, you're like, this motherfucker. Like, can he just grow the ball? So, yeah, your mind strays. And all of a sudden, you know, you have your 28 errors and you lead the league.

Wow. So, so. I don't think it was 28. Hold on. Grab and grow, grab and throw pitchers. like Mark Burley or Lance Lance Lynn. Like those guys really actually help like the team as like this is better for us. Yeah, you hear that all the time.

It's like guys are like this guy we love playing defense behind them. And it's true. It's like here we go. Like you know he's going to throw strikes. So like the action's coming. You know he's going to be on the mound. He's not like walking around like wiping a sweat off, whatever. Like that helps a ton.

So, you know, there's like kind of, you know, you guys are used to like those long ass games watching the Yankees. and the Red Sox. Yeah. Those are miserable games. Give me the two hour, 20 all day, you know? The Yankees, red socks. I mean, what's the average time on those?

Three and a half? Yeah, I was going to say three 40. It depends on who's upping. If it's Sunday night baseball and Joe West is umping, it's probably like four hours. Yeah, that's horrible, man. It's bad baseball. Do you have an ump you hate the most?

I mean, not really. Like, they're all pretty bad. I try to like, you know, I like some. I like some. How that? I hate mobile and I have a few that I like. It's probably better that I tell you the ones that I like. Yeah.

Ted Barrett, it's amazing. Okay. I think everyone likes him. You guys know his background story. He's like spar with Mike Tyson. What? No. He called someone's no hitter perfect game and they tell the story about it.

And yeah, I've heard that he's like a badass dude. Stubb. Like he's a guy that like he just sticks to his strike zone. So I remember one game in particular, We were facing David Price at the trough, and he just kept throwing a two-seamer, like a front-door two-seamer. And so it starts off the plate, and it was like coming back, but not enough. And Ted was calling them balls.

And you can just see David Price and like, okay, I'm just going to keep going there. Like he's going to give it to me. I'm David Price. And boom, you just have hitting the glove, hitting the glove, hitting the glove, and he would not waver. And it was, that's what you want. Just give me the zone. Don't change because this guy is all of a sudden hidden spot a bunch.

But he's great. you know obviously most people just don't like the joe west semy buckner's angel Hernandez of the world because they're just bad at their job there's no other explanation for it i mean they're nice guys i think with um with umpiring and driver's licenses when you hit a certain age you should retake the test like these all the time like my grandma she was like 87 years old and i love her she ends every episode and she watches games with me so don't take this She shouldn't have been on the road for the last five years she was on the road. It should not have been legal.

And the same with like Joe West. Dude, Joe West has been umpiring for almost 40 years. Like at some point, we should retake it. He should have to retake the umpiring test. Is there an umpiring test? You have to retake a test? I mean, it's pretty crazy. I read a book about the process.

And it's Mark Feinzen dad, John Feinzen wrote a book about it. And it's pretty nuts like to graduate to the MLB. But I think once you're there, you're in. And they get their cue score after every game. And it tells them how many curls they got correct or wrong. And when they implemented that is when the strike zone actually became real. Because have you ever seen like LeVon Hernandez's perfect game?

Oh my gosh. So bad. And well, Blike and I was named Cubs who struck out 18 guys. Prior. Carrier. Carrie Wood. Carrie Wood. Carry Wood's strikeout game.

Like go watch that. Like they're just not even close to the plate. and ums just call it up there's a documentary the ums like yeah if he hit his spot we used to just call call it called a strike that was how the game was umed they changed it all they have like like most guys are nice guys they want to be good umpires so you kind of like all right like it's it's just kind of a hard job especially like in real time like that calling balls and strikes so you kind of give them the benefit of the doubt but then there are some guys that are just egregious with it and then if you question them at all they got some lip back to you or they don't want to hear it from you

those are the guys we were just like, dude, come on. This is really affecting my career. You know, let's, can we at least have a conversation about it? And I'm trying to think, you ask me the question, who do I hate the most? And I've,

I've come up with one. Okay. I really feel bad saying. You don't have to say it if you don't want to. Greg Gibson. Greg Gibson. You're naming, I know,

I never even heard of him. Well, I heard of Ted Barrett. Oh, oh, I know Gibson. Just does not, like,

if you say anything to him, it's just like, You're wrong. He's right. No matter what. And that's that's the stuff that I don't like. You know, let's at least have a conversation, buddy. Do you ever get tossed? Not in a big league game, which is. Really? Yeah, I know. Yeah, I want to pay that fine. Come on, man. Yeah, that's true.

No, honestly, I don't really think I ever had, like Eric Cooper could have, you know, RIP, Eric Cooper, he could have thrown me out a couple times. Him and I had some back and forth early on in my career. He had an awesome accent. He could have thrown me out. The first time, I was like a rookie or first year, and we had some words. I expected him to throw me out and he didn't. And then for a while we were kind of iffy, but then we made up. I mean, playing third base, man.

It's like... You hang out with that guy. It's tough because, yeah, you know, you get the empires at home and the next day they're there. So it's like, you got to be ready to talk to him. So that's probably why I was... I didn't get thrown out too much because I knew I had to deal with them the next day. And I didn't, you know, I'm kind of a... not like an aggressive person per se.

Nice. I've got one. I didn't write this down. I wanted to ask, normally you hear this with football players a lot, but we used to be in a pretty geeky fantasy baseball league. Do you have a good or bad relationship with fantasy baseball? Because you got something going on.

You're still underweight. I mean, you were like a power hitting infielder, and you had the shortstop eligibility going on. Did you have good experience with that, bad experience with that? Do you hate when people mention their fantasy team to you? Honestly, I didn't get it mentioned too often to me. I don't know if I was on a ton of people's fantasy teams, to be honest. Oh, you're on my team, baby.

The only ones I've ever heard, people are like, hey, thanks, you did this for me. I picked you up off waivers and you were pretty good for them. Okay, that's not bad. Streamed you for a week and you crushed it. Yeah, like, hey, like I said. saw your power surge and you held me for a couple weeks and then after that I dropped you back to waiver so do you well and where where I was going to segue that was and I thought this was a really fun question and you might you might have some real ones that might have been passed to you

through the years but I was going to say if if someone wasn't familiar with you they're new to baseball they didn't know Trevor ploof's game I wanted you to give a scouting report on yourself slash have you ever received any scouting reports and you were like Oh, shit. What is this? Okay. All right. I definitely have received the scouting ports playing on different teams, and then it's

funny to hear guys come over, like pitchers, and they're like, oh, yeah, this is how we used to attack you. It's always the same shit with me. It was, it was expand the zone in to set up hitches away late. So, like, hard ins off the way, which is a pretty standard. Yeah. Couting report, you know? Mine was just throw the ball.

Just throw up. Throw it anywhere near him. But people thought they could get in on my hands a lot. So, and they could. You know, yeah. So they'd have to expand the zone, get me cheating in. They start throwing that stuff away. So my best years are when I really was laying off that

and then using the whole field going the other way. But it's hard to do that, man. It's hard to be to stay disciplined like that. I make the breakdown videos on weird plays and ejections and all that shit, if they're one from your career, that you're like, ah,

that would have been, that was a weird, weird play. Because I know we have the, you have two home runs off two position pitchers. Maybe I'll make that anyway. I told you to make your Twitter bio that. Best ever against position players.

Yeah. Yeah. Minimum two at bats. Best hitter ever against position players. And then my other claim to fame is, ha, hottest wife while that was in the show. Wow.

Wow. yeah i did was that a was that a one-person vote i got that vote from like four or five guys i have a funny the reason i say that uh i i actually mean it but uh logan morrison i get over to the raise and i'm playing uh with him and he's like hey man like just want to let you know like big fan of years i'm like you're a big fan of mine like why and he goes oh we used to have our and we'd go over our defensive meetings, excuse me, they'd go over our defensive meetings, like, okay, Trevor Plouf. And apparently their video guy used to like kind of check out the stands.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. So they'd seen my wife. So every time they would game plan against me, it'd be like Trevor Plouf and someone be a hot wife. Well, when you Google your name, everyone's Googling pictures of your wife right now that's watching this religion is. When you Google your name,

yeah, check her out. The top, the top drop down is Trevor Ploof Twitter, Trevor Plufe wife. Yeah, there you go. It's true. I'm proud of it, so, you know,

it's okay saying that. But yeah, I would love the, I would love to break down the, the Kike Hernandez. Well, and that was a lot of fun because he was doing, you,

I think you broke that down, like maybe he was, when he was doing like the hit gyrations and shit. Kike, yeah, he does a lot of weird stuff. He's a fun, he's a fun guy.

He was the one, go ahead. Oh, yeah, so he got on the mound, was doing like the hip gyration, it was, like, having a lot of fun with it. So that's, like, a fun thing to break down. And that same play, you could probably find Gabe Kapler, like, in the dugout, just, like, just going like this, like praying and saying, thank you, Lord,

they're bringing a position player in. A lot of funny stuff from that, yeah. Yeah, for anyone doesn't know, is a tied game, like 16th inning or something, and they bring in Kike Hernandez to pitch, and he walked the first two batters, and then he had two strikes on you. And then it was like a high fastball you put

opo for the walk off home run. How do you celebrate that? When you're rounding the bases, you're like, am I allowed to go crazy? Am I not allowed to go crazy? Like, that's a hard one to celebrate. Yeah, I don't know what the rules are on that one.

I was pretty stoked, but, you know, I was trying to play cool, I guess, you know, but it was also like two in the morning or something like that. I was like pumped that we got to go home. Let's go home. That's always, I have fun breaking down when people win on walk off box or walk off walks. There was one against the A's walk off error.

And it's so fun to break down the awkward celebration. Because they're like, well, we have to do the Gatorade. But then they're like, we can't get too into this. I think I had like a walkout. I might have been against the Yankees, actually. I hit a swinging bunt to someone pitching. and he like overthrew the first baseman and we won. So that was a very awkward celebration for me, you know,

because you want to get a hit. That's my high-life reel. That's my career highlight real. You want to hit a homer. You want to do something. And all of a sudden you hit like a swing bun. You're like running down the first base pissed off. And then he throws the ball away and you have to turn, you know,

turn your frown upside down real quick. And then, you know, all the cameras are on. It is. It is very awkward. There's a great old highlight of Paul O'Neill who thought he fled out to right field in old Yankee Stadium. And he like slams the bat down. And he's fucking pissed. And it ends up carrying over the short porch for a go-ahead home run in like the eighth inning.

And he rounds home and everyone's trying to celebrate with him. But he didn't get good wood on it. So he's still just blivid the entire like he can't get himself to understand like just be happy. It's really funny. funny man i think i mean price harper's done that a few times hasn't he yeah i think so and then people take it people take it

people love to hate on him so like what a dick like with paul and nil we're like that's so awesome it's funny how people can do the same thing but get perceived different jake and i like harper we think i like people that play play the heel like harper's not afraid to be hated neither is bregman and i don't really like

bregman but i i like that he does that you know baseball needs people that are going to be like villains i like vado a lot because he'll fuck with opposing fans in uh when he's playing first and uh who are the villains i mean you're saying bryce tarper i guess he's definitely a villain people love to hit him you're right i don't know why like i guess even i had some big indications of him but he was a pretty good guy i met him in spring train this year like when he came over that was cool um i'm trying to think of other villains stromans like a villain right kind of yeah archer

before he kind of got bad enough. No one's scared of Archer. But he, no, it's scared of, but dislike just because he's, it's mostly guys that are 100% themselves on the field, good or bad. Like, Tim Anderson right now, everyone loves to hate that guy. He's my best friend because he retweeted my video I made on him. So me and Timie are close. Actually, I like everything the White Sox are doing right now.

They're kind of. Yeah, he's a good player, man. You see that a lot. like you'll see guys that are on other teams you're like oh i hate that guy like i can't stand him and then he comes on your team like oh okay he's all right yeah i don't know i mean obviously we're yankee's fans but you hear that about derrick jeter and all everything i read is like guys would come over and be like oh he's overrated he's overhyped he gets too much tension then they'd spend a season with jeter and they always came out of it like holy shit that dude works really

hard so i don't know maybe you've heard some other stories that are differing that but it's always cool like it's anyone who gets publicity i'm sure people I don't know. You think anyone hates Trout, like, within, like, players are like, fuck that guy. Because he seems liked by everyone. I'm sure. I'm sure there's some people that hate him. There's always haters.

But, you know, he's kind of like one of those guys who does. He just stays out of the limelight so he doesn't give himself, like, opportunities to be hated. The only thing you could really hate about him is just, like, how good he is. So, you know, he's kind of got that going for him. But I agree with the other guys, you know, the Bregmans and Strachman's, the Yard Those guys kind of, they leave it out all in the field, so they leave themselves opportunities for that. But I like those guys. Are you into like this youth movement where, you know, hey, let them bat flip, let them show emotion and all that?

Would you have been up in your bat flips if you were, you know, because 2013, 14, you played kind of an error where it was slowly transitioning to where I feel like the last two years have been the league saying like, no, let's do it. Like, let's allow this to happen. would you have liked it or dislike it? Would you have partaken or did you? I'm all about it because I think it's a way to grow the game. I think that's kind of what the MLB is seeing. It's the people want to see that stuff. So now that I'm out of the game, I kind of understand it more.

But I was brought up or mentored by like a couple of guys who would never do that. Like Justin Moreno, Joe Maurer, Jim Tomey. Like these guys are just knocking it. Yep. watching these guys their pedigree and they're not doing it it's like you just

you automatically just say okay I'm not doing it either like I'm going to act like I've been there even though I necessarily haven't been there but like you said now it's part for the course and even the older guys like the bronze of the world

like they're like I saw him absolutely pimped a bunch of balls this year and he never would have done that in years past but now it's kind of like commonplace I'm okay with it I think it's funny going back to the heel thing a little bit. I think like baseball players don't get enough exposure to be the heel. It's not like, oh, Jake Lamb's coming to town.

That guy pisses me off. Like, no, not enough guys are watching those D-back games. And I think we're getting into the current players a little bit. And Trevor, we kind of heard this about you. And then you got a FaceTime while we grab beers with someone who's gaining popularity in baseball. but you're still pretty well connected to the game. I mean, is it, are you still at the level where, I mean, you're just rooting for your buddies, you're rooting for the California guys?

I don't know. I think you're trying to do some sports media stuff. Are you, like, where are you at with baseball fandom or watching the games? Right now with baseball fandom, I'm rooting for my buddies. I think that's the number one thing. I don't necessarily have a team that I'm rooting for anymore. I'm partial to the twins because most of my basic relationships are there, but I don't necessarily care if they win.

When they got smoked by the Yankees, I wasn't like, oh, you know, dang it. I knew that was going to happen. Yeah. You know, I think I think everybody did. I made my postseason picks, and I picked the twins just as like a fan appeasing pick. I was like, this is stupid they're going to lose. You got to pander a little bit. I know, you do.

But so, yeah, I'm rooting for my buddies. And even then, it's funny, like, some of these guys will face each other. Like, Flaherty, who was the FaceTime you're talking about, he faced Max Fried in a playoff game. It's, like, hilarious to see that happen. So I just love watching the game without any allegiances. I think that's kind of, like, the way to do it. Like, these playoffs, it was, like, I don't care who wins. Like, I just want to see good baseball, and I want to see these games.

And you're kind of, like, happy either way, like, if, you know, the Astros would have pulled it out like I wouldn't have cared. Obviously now it's a little different from what we've learned, but it's kind of fun to watch the games with no allegiances because basketball, I have a team, football I have a team, college football I have a team, and baseball, I'm just wide open. I think it's been the most fun I've ever had, like, you know, enjoying this sport. Yeah, you can talk easily about it, which I found, because we were covering, you know, all of Major League Baseball this year for the first time where I would always watch the World Series and stuff, but I never was sharing my thoughts. And I was like, oh, this is cool. I can make jokes at both teams. I can celebrate.

And then I found out that everyone thinks you're rooting for the other team no matter what you. I got Joe Buck syndrome happened to me. Sucked. But now, now you're right. Like, now I'm glad the nationals won. I have, uh, I have, uh, what do you change when you change history? What's that called, Jake? There's a term, asking me for words? Yeah, there's a term when you change history. Borderline literate. Yeah, I don't even know what you're talking about. I do know the you're not allowed in the state of Texas anymore, at least the city is, is that right?

They're mad. They're mad. They probably were watching this video, uh, saying, get to this Astro stuff. I want to hear what he says and then misinterpret it and then be mad at him. Yeah,

I'm probably going to join you with the band from you. Yeah. Let's, let's get into it. First opening question. If you were on the 2017 Astros, what would your slash line have been? Oh my gosh.

I mean, we kind of talked about this before. Like, you just can't quantify. how much knowing what pitch is coming helps you. You know, so I know we've done like the home and away splits and some of them are good, some of them aren't that good, which I don't really understand. All we can see, all I can think of is a lot of the guys maybe there were times where they wanted

at times they didn't want it because that does happen. Sometimes you'd be like, yeah, give me that pitch. I want to know everything. And there's some guys you face it. Like, I don't need it. So it was better than a 2000 slash line that I actually had. because that was probably the worst year of baseball I've ever played. I have it up here, but I wasn't going to read it because, yeah, it's, it's really,

it was going to be a bounce back year for me, and then I didn't bounce back. You forgot the bounce back, yeah. Yeah, I forgot that part. We'll add 100 points to every, every line if you were on the 2007. Yeah, I like that. It still wouldn't have been that good. I don't even know what happened, man. I can't tell you.

It wouldn't be that. That would be pretty good. I mean, 298, 372, 372. That's pretty good. Don't, don't, don't even go into it. Yeah, now people are subtracting the 100. Let's not. It's funny, you know, that's that year was fucked.

You know, I went to the A's. It was going to be the third base bent starting, and I don't know what happened, man. I just couldn't find my stroke, dude. And then I went to the Tampa, and I kept telling the hitting coach, that fixed me. Like, something is going on with my plane.

Like, help me. And he'd be like, you're fine. You get more bats. Well, I'm not getting any of bats. my swing sucks like you like something has to happen and uh it just it just never did man so we joked when we were together and i said you spent 2017 playing uh at the coliseum and then playing at the trop two worst places in the MLB was maybe let's blame that your environment sucked i agree i i'll blame anything besides myself you know what definitely was to me what was worse

the trap or oakland from a player perspective Everyone knows what it's like to view it on TV. I think Coliseum is not that bad. The Trap I fucking hate. But from a player's perspective, like the clubhouse behind the scenes. Oakland's the worst. And the guys do a really good job in the clubhouse. I don't want to talk shit about them.

But they can only do so much. You know, it's like putting lipstick on a pig. There's much you do with that stadium. and the trough at least you had the good weather. You know, in Oakland, it was freezing cold all the time even during the summer. And the trough was like, you know, 71 degrees every day. So at first I liked the trop. It was like a nice little change.

You got the dome. It was like you're playing in a different galaxy. And then you start to realize like, wow, like I'm vitamin D deficient or something is going on because I'm shot up to the field and I just feel like crap. like you said like i played at the two worst places maybe we can't start i'm gonna start telling people that's what happens to my baseball career yeah there you go there's uh yeah there you're lucky you were playing and lipstick on a pig and coach fix my swing i mean i'm it's sophomore year in high school all over again for me um i pleaded i pleaded with them man but tom of my dude like please

like let's work on something he's like your swing looks great i'm like dude i know it doesn't fucking look great. But, you know, it didn't happen for me. So it's okay. All right. We got to get back to, we got to get back to the Astros. Yeah, sorry. Yeah. No, it's all good. The Astros cheated. The banging is real. And all the other stuff for you Astros fans, I don't think it's proven yet.

I don't think the whistles are proven. I don't think the eyeline or the buzzers. They're all just rumors. And maybe they didn't happen. But the banging in 2017 is very real. It was banging before pitches. And the only reason you would bang to let a batter know the pitch is because of cameras, right? Is that like, is there any way that the banging would make sense without cameras? They wouldn't need it, right? It's just, it's, it was too often and too quick for it to be from a generic, regular old,

I have a tip on you type of thing. Because, you know, it was going from pitcher to pitcher, and it was so accurate. happen unless you're literally looking at the signs. So we know that that's real. That's like you can't even, if there's any Astros fans out there that are still questioning if they cheated and stole signs in 2017's and banged on the trash can, you're delusional. Like that happens. Like that's 100% true. So we'll see what happens with that. The other stuff. I thought you said the whistling was proven. I read some articles on that. You can kind of get the sound here and there, but it's the definitive proof is the banging. Yeah, now they're saying like they were changing the whistling.

And then there's that charge whistle. And a lot of Astros fans said like, no, that dude's a staple in the stadium. Like the broadcast asked him to be quiet. So I'm backpedaling a little on the whistling. Even though I never was that too deep. I thought for sure it's something. I think the Yankees heard it and they were going into Houston like listening, like active ears. Like let's figure out what they're doing.

But the banging's real. And then logically, just like deductive reasoning, if you win the World Series with the method in place and you think the rest of the league is doing stuff like this as well you're not going to just morally be like okay we're done you're going to change the relay system

so their culture you know has guided them into this type of mindset you know like it starts from up top you know we saw the email that came out asking the scouts and the advance scouts to do whatever they could to get signed so it was coming from the top leaking down to the players

and like you said you start to have success with something, maybe you start to rely on it, and then all of a sudden it just becomes commonplace, and you go from there. So I went to, I went to Houston twice in 2000. I'm pretty sure we'd have to look this up, but I'm pretty sure I went there with both Oakland and Tampa, and I do not remember the banging, which now, when you go back and look at the games, it seems like how could you not hear that? Yeah. So I wanted to ask you, because this is something that me and Jim haven't been fully able to wrap our heads around. And we don't know if we're giving too much respect or not enough.

But when we thought about this and we thought about the Houston Astros and the players, like, we're baseball dudes. Like, I don't know. There's something that hurts your soul when you actually hear they were using the cameras and stuff like that. Like, that's so not baseball. It hurts. And we were thinking about some of, we were thinking about the guys in the Houston

organization and it really was all these. young guys that came up through Houston or like, you know, Gurriel, that Houston's his only team he knew and, you know, you go through the main guy, Springer, Altuve, Bregman, et cetera, et cetera, that we've kind of give them a little bit of a pass just because like, hey, if this is all you know, this is all you know. So, I mean, is that where people should be thinking, or do you think these guys kind of need to be thrown in front of the bus a little more? I see what you're saying there. Like, you know, you're, oh, hey there. I see where you're saying.

When you come up, you're a young guy. Like, you're going to listen to who the older guys are. No matter what. Like, you know, the Astros are a lot of these teams now. They're letting the young guys, you know, hit in the middle of lineup. They're letting them kind of do a lot of things that maybe necessarily didn't happen, you know, even five, six, seven years ago. Where it was mostly veterans making all these decisions. So, like, there are teams that do that.

But I'm telling you right now, there's no way that one of those are. guys, those young guys came in and said, like, let's implement this. It was definitely an older guy, and I think the reports have been, have been saying that as well. I don't want, you can't really necessarily name a name of who it was, but, you know, in my thinking, if I came and, you know, Justin Moreno or a Josh Willingham type figure for me, it was like, hey, this is what we're doing, I got to be honest with you, man, I probably would have bought into it. And it's just because they're, they're essentially the boss, you know, like these older guys in the team, you listen to those guys, you know, you're going to do whatever they tell you to do,

especially your first couple years. You know, you start to get your identity a little bit later in your career, but, um, so it's, I do see what, see where you're coming from. Um, but it's definitely still, they're still fault there. You know, they're not, they're not just like, hey, like, those guys didn't have anything to do with it because they're young guys. Like, they still went along with it. and we definitely know what happened in 2017.

We don't know about 2018-19 definitively, but you got to let them, you know, wear some of the responsibility as well. Yeah, we, we, uh, I heard some people say this to me and it's on the same thing. Like maybe like these guys actually thought everyone was doing it to this extent. And a lot of a assurans are saying, we're not the only ones that are doing this.

And a lot of the report has said, you know, they're not the only team doing this as well, which I believe to an extent, because why are all the fingers being pointing? at the Astros if there's more teams that are doing it to this extent. This is honestly just my opinion. I think maybe these younger guys did think, hey, this is league-wide. Like, we're just trying to do it better than everyone else.

So do you think this is league-wide? Like, I know that teams go to lengths to steal signs. We've seen it with the Red Sox with the iPad. That was Cora after he left the Astros. There was something interesting there. The Yankees got fine for misusing their bullpen phone, which every astro fan has sent me my way, but they didn't use it to steal signs.

They just fucking misused the bullpen phone. Is this rampant? Do you think every team is like trying to this extent, top down operation? I think teams are trying to do whatever they can to pick up on either the catcher sequences, you know, kind of like the regular stuff, like what pitchers are doing, where they're coming set and whatnot. I do not think that there are multiple teams using cameras.

like a live feed direct to somebody relaying signs. I don't think that's league-wide. Is it just the Astros? Obviously, you can't say that definitively. But I've now played in, let's see, you know, five organizations, and that's never even come up. So I had a scout reach out to me when that email leaked. And he was like, dude, I've been a scout for 20 years.

I'm with, he gave me this team and proved he was a scout. but he asked me to stay quiet but he was like that email is fucking crazy that is not normal to ask scouts to help install cameras or binocular spots

old school yeah scouts do not want any part of that you know like yeah you can argue that the new age type of front offices the guys I don't want to you know categorize guys just as Ivy leaguers but you know those kind of front offices

coming in. You know, you have like the Wall Street guys type numbers type guys. Maybe they don't have that type of love for the game or the history of the game. So it could be more of like these guys come in and say, hey, we could win like this. And this is going to make us better and implement it. That's kind of what happened. And if that's the case, then you kind of got to look around the league because there are a lot of these front offices that are built the same way now. Yeah.

It's crazy. I have to ask you this because people will tell me what. didn't you ask, but I hate when people ask me this, so you can give whatever bullshit answer you want. What do you think the punishment should be? Yeah, it's a tough one. I've thought about it a lot. I think if it comes back and it's a 2017 thing where it's like, hey, this is isolated to this year, I think that you can do the draft picks if it's one, if it's two. I think there's got to be some suspension of their manager. and possibly the general manager.

I think those are kind of, I think everyone's almost like in agreement with that. But if it extends to 2018 and 2019, then I think we got to start talking about, you know, something a little bit different, possibly postseason ban or something like that. Yeah. Something.

You know, it's crazy. If you say one year, I get it. You know, you did this thing and maybe MLB got wind of it and you shut it down. But if you start doing it for, multiple years, I think there's got to be like a huge punishment because they're trying to deter other teams. That's basically, I think all you want and all I want is you just, all we want is just the game to not have this anymore. It's terrible for the game. If every time someone gets a home run or they're on a pitch that we think like, oh, shit, maybe this team's doing it too. My thing is I, at this point,

I'm so fed up with the Astros fans coming at me every single day that if the MLB comes out and said, we did a full investigation, we are 100% positive. positive they cheated i'll be like fine that's punishment enough for me because you guys can't say dick to me anymore shut up i just i just think they need to they need to make it uh harsh for the future right so i don't know what is what is that though like what's harsh you know like yeah i mean jake said this once and it kind of sounds hot takeies but like if it if they did it for three seasons fucking ban hinch look i mean i mean on the table i guarantee you that's on the table not only Hinch but the front office as well like they're looking at yeah it's not just a suspension

bans yeah so i've heard like Lounow's going to step down and be blackballed and then you know Hinch might be suspended but if it's a three years if everything that's alleged comes to be out to be true and who knows you know the buzzers they seem crazy enough that maybe i hope they're not true because that's fucking yeah terrible but if those come out to be true it's they need it needs to be big what do you do with the players too then you know like Dude, I don't know how you handle the players. Because I don't know how you handle the players. I don't think you can do that.

But I think if you ban Hinch, no one cares. He's not, like, no one cares besides Hinch and his family and friends. Because he's not fucking Pete Rose, Hall of Famer. He's not Shulis Joe Jackson, who was one of the best players in the league at the time. You know what I mean? It's AJ. I know he's well respected before this, but. I understand what you're saying.

It's pretty easy to do. And same thing with the general manager. Like, you know, no offense to either of those guys. But, you know, if you're at the helm, you got to take responsibility. I mean, they say it after every loss. Oh, I got to wear this one. This one's on me. Whatever.

Well, now you're getting accused of something, you know, that's game changing. Like, history is going to remember this. If they get convicted, you know, maybe forever, you know. Oh, I mean, like. It's a big story. It's, if this is, uh, if it's all true and they get in trouble, this is the Astros identity for like 20 years. like they would have to it'd be a long time before the astros aren't no art they care if they take a world series title the way just say to say we're going to strip them of this title like obviously you don't get to hang the flag none of these guys do they or let me ask you do you think these guys get to call them to those world series champions uh they not publicly like and even fans like you're not going to brag about it because everyone just can respond and be like well it's it's it's the scene from semi pro it's uh it's what's his name on

the back of the bus and he turns to Monix and he goes, yeah, riding the bench like a bitch. It's going to be like you guys, like, I think when you guys said players like, no, I think these players are going to have stink on them for life. Like that's their punishment. Like, and I think the other thing, and Treve, I'm not saying this to hit your, hit your core, but baseball is a young person sport. I mean, the only time we've really seen old dudes thrive in baseball was the steroids era. Baseball is a young person's sport that like, you know what, Springer, he's going to hit free agency next year.

And, you know, Bregman's going to, Altuvae's getting older and he's got a small body. Like, look what happened to Padroia. Like baseball falls off quickly. And I think these guys' careers are naturally kind of start going downhill. And everyone's going to say, oh, yeah, it's a lot tougher, Springer, when you don't know what bitch is coming, huh? And I think that's what they're getting. If they're not, they're going to get that for, you know, the next 10 years.

How long they play, that's all anyone's ever going to say to them. The funny thing that I think about with this situation is they paid a lot of these guys, right? Yeah, that's the weird part. They went to $7 or $100 million. Is that what it was? Something like that. Yeah. It turns out they were cheating for three years of your, like, reference on him.

Like, that's not a very smart, you know, business move for you. Like, maybe you don't know what this guy's like without. And I'll say this. I think he's a hell well player, and I don't think he needs the pitches. I think he's that good. But, I mean, you're basing what you're paying this guy of what he has done for you. Maybe Braggman says, hey, I'm going to rat you get, I'm going to rat out, pay me my money. I mean, look, dude.

It's such a, like, there's so many caveats with the situation. I mean, we just tend to talk about the cheating and then what's going to happen to the organization or what are the punishment is going to be. but like stuff like that like players who aren't that good or were on the team for a little bit I think when if this comes out you're going to start seeing more and more people just come give a little bit more tidbits of information here tidbits of information there and we're going to start to see the whole picture like there's no doubt apparently the MLB offered like amnesty to any player that was on the Astros that comes out like we you won't get in trouble but uh they're going to have there's people lining up for their amnesty I promise you that because they don't

No one wants to deal with this. I mean, if you get suspended as a player, I mean, these guys are making big money and you're going to lose four, five, six, seven million dollars. What about this punishment that I thought of the other day? What if on opening day, 2020 for the Astros, before the game starts, they have to take down the flag in front of the full stadium,

and then they have to put up a flag that says 2017 cheated. And they have to slowly pull it up. And then they do the national anthem. then they start the 2020 season. That's pretty good punishment. That's really bad. I mean, and the camera crews,

they have to scan the entire audience. It's got to be picture and picture. Flag going up and they just need to scan all the Astros fans' faces watching the cheated flag go up. And then I'll make a breakdown of all their faces. They should do that anyway. I would catch somebody so often. If it's like proactively they did that,

at the start of 2020, just got the flag down. Oh, man. They all had their rings and, like, gave the box back. Yeah, they just all had to open up their hands. And then one by one, a guy walked down. And, like, a few lashings, like, a guy behind that, they got this, like, smack. Yeah.

Shame. Shame. Shame. They would do that. They start proactively. prepare. That's pretty good though. I like that one.

Joe Tori taking all the rings off the players is a pretty good image in my head. Dude, Joe Tori, I was watching this, this is, I'll save it, that was a tangent. I miss the old Joe Tori. Joe Tori in the front office sucks. He was part of this ejection or this brawl

I just did and he's like the Braves manager and he was just such a fucking pistol of anger. Like just an anger. So I miss him. Jake, you got, we've running long. you've got a bunch of questions. Good. Let's go rapid fire. I've got one natural segue.

I've got a segue from everything, but we were talking about doling out the punishment. I was going to do, I mean, this is the classic mayor for a day. I was going to give you the commissioner for the day, and I have my one example that me and John Boy aren't fully on because he likes AL and NL being separate. I think every team needs to play each other. Like I think every year, Albert Pooleholz, I think year eight, this was his first time back in St. Louis and they had like a giant party.

Like if you're a Yankees fan in Colorado right now, you're not going to see Aaron Judge for like five years. And it's like, I just want that to grow the game. I think it's something great about the NBA. If Portland comes to L.A., you're like, oh, yeah, let me see Dane. You know, so your commissioner for a day, you get to put in whatever you want. You're slowly winning me over on that one, Jake. Just let you know. Oh, I know, babe.

I love the reconfiguration of the visions, trying to get more regional matchups. I think that makes a lot of sense. It's tough with 30 teams, so we'd have to put 32 in and do the 8-888. 8-88. I like that, so I agree with you on that. More regional rivalries,

and everyone should play everybody. Even this year, you know, I was watching the Dodgers play the Yankees, and I was like super stoked. I thought that was such a cool match. show up and that should happen more often. You like those uniforms? I love it. I love it, man.

You like the all-white uniform? Oh, oh, when they play a Dodger's show. Yeah, no, no, no, no. That was bad, yeah, yeah. But the classic, like, Dodger Blue. Oh, yeah. Those are nice. So, love that.

I think Universal D.H is, like, an absolute no-brainer. Nobody wants to see pitchers hit. I can't stand it. Thank you. So that one's, that's also, like, the easy one. I think the one, another thing I would implement and now I'm drawing a blank I just

had it to my tongue gosh I can't have that happened to me that's incredible I just had something that was awesome that I was going to say you were so ready to rip it I was so ready to get in move on to the next question I'm gonna

okay but universal DH 100% reconfigurations of the divisions I'm in for sure about one shirtless player I got it came back to me I get it came back. Yes. Yes.

It's going to happen. Okay. Uh, you should be able to have, uh, like a mercy rule. Yeah. Okay. Okay. A lot of people are talking about that now and we talked about that when we had beers

together because we're seeing so many position players pitch now. And let me, everyone that listened to this or watch us and just got like disgusted by the thought of it here, here's the best way to think of it. If your team is up by eight runs in the seventh inning and it's eight nothing and you're like, uh, like, I don't want to. to leave early, but this is nothing. Well, now, after the seventh inning, if it's 10-0, you win. So now you're rooting for two more runs because once that 10th run scores, it's a walk-off, and you're all like, hell, let's get out of here. And if your team is losing 8-0,

you're like, you feel obligated to sit and stay because you want to be a real fan. But then, like, okay, just put us out of our misery. And you're like, all right, let me get out of here. So there is some, like, more fun and drama to it where I think both fans don't walk away feeling jipped of baseball. Yeah, and I think we mentioned this as well. Like if you are at one of those games that gets cut short because of the mercy rule, like your ticket stub could then be used for whatever, a free beer next time, or 25% off your next ticket purchase, whatever.

You know, something to incentivize fans. Yeah. So I think that one, for me, I love that because there are a lot of games that's like, especially now, just way out of hand. And you want to save your bullpen. Like, it's bullshit to, you know, have to throw a bunch of guys. And then all of a sudden those guys are going to go down the AAA, you're shuttling guys back and forth. So it's a, you know, a butterfly effect.

So I'm all about the mercy rule. All right. All right. A couple more quick ones I have. What was your favorite steroid? We'll save that for next time. This is like a kind of serious baseball question. As you see, we can flip the switch on and off pretty quick.

We've been very impressed this year. Buck Showalter did some stuff for the Yankees. And it was awesome. Like the dude put on a baseball clinic on the air. Like one of the worst media presences you've ever seen on TV. Like it was absurd. Said that weird. Is there a guy that you met in baseball, whether it's with the Twins organization or just someone you came across that you're like,

that dude like knows baseball in a different? level than me. Yeah, you know, there's a lot of guys who in different aspects of the game are just knowledgeable. It's kind of, you know, through out baseball, you'll see that. So the guy that I always say is the most knowledgeable guy that I remember was Paul Maldor. And maybe I'm a little biased there because he was a coach around, like a roving instructor in the minor leagues. He helped me a lot. And then I had him as a manager as well. So I got to see, you know, his wealth of knowledge just about the game is incredible. He obviously was a gifted athlete, but, you know, the work he would do, even as a manager, like he'd be in the video room and he'd be in there and he'd be like, hey, like, come here,

like, let me show you something. And he'd say, look at these numbers. Like, this guy, this pitcher hasn't picked off to second base in six years. He was weird. Like, he literally can't do it. Just little stupid shit like that. Like, you don't even think to work for. And he was, he was so good at that.

And he was another guy. He taught me how to dissect a pitch. you know, you know, four tips. Henry Hunter were two best at it, and I tell people that all this well, but they really were. And I think, I'll say,

Mulder was, was the most knowledgeable guy that I came across and got to, like, work with and pick his brain. His career stats are stupid, Jake. You've seen him? 21 years. 21 seasons, 306 batting average,

369 on base percentage, 817 OPS. over 21 years that's what he averaged at it. He's a stuff. He's super like soft-spoken guy. You asked him about his numbers and like he just won't even like really talk about it, you know. And the thing I really like about him is he's so honest. Like he'll tell you like, but like in like the most polite way.

Like, oh, you play like shit today. But like he like will explain why you play like shit. And you just like walked away like, oh, I think he was insulting me the entire time I was in his own. But I feel good about myself. Nice. That was nice of him. We were blown away, Buck Show Walter, and this is kind of embarrassing because maybe this is super obvious. But he was like, yeah, when pitchers off the mound, they normally miss high because on a mound they're thrown downhill.

And I was like, 25 years of baseball, and I never put that together. Interesting. But he was just one of those small things. It was like, yeah, that makes so much sense. And yeah, we're running a little long. I think I've got one that's a Trevor Ploof question. We'll say it's out. Molliter's Wikipedia is a bang of a story.

Yeah, he's got a quiet in the background. The opening line to his personal life is during the early years of his career, Molliter began using cocaine and marijuana. Boom. This is his personal life. Usually it's about his wife and kids. He doesn't like to talk about that. But if you get to know him a little bit, he'll go into it.

Again, now he's like the nicest, like most straight-edge guy, but he's not shy to talk about it. I was young. I was in Toronto. Like, here we go. Yeah. Damn. Just Wikipedia going crazy. It was in Milwaukee, right? Yeah, I think so. Milwaukee.

Yeah, Milwaukee. I got a Trevor Ploof question for you. It's the weekend. It's a Saturday. It's outside of baseball season. Your hot wife and your soon-to-be hot kids are out of town. What's that Saturday look like for Trevor Plouffe? What are you doing? Oh, man. I guess it depends what time of year it is. I went tuna fishing, like sport fishing the first time. And we drove 140 miles like in this little kind of dingy boat.

And if for anybody knows anything about boats and fishing, that's a lot and it was not fun. We caught we caught one, like bluefin tuna in the entire time. And we thought we were going to catch like 25. But that one that got me hooked. So like I haven't gone again since then, but I cannot wait to do the that again. So if you're asking me like ideal Saturday, it'd be like, I got my cooler full of beers. I'm going out in the ocean and I'm going to go try to catch these big ass fish and like have fun while I'm doing it. The other day you played, Jake, he told me he played a game called Over the Line. I googled it.

It looks like the most fun. Like I wish I knew about it when I was 16 through 25. Yeah, when you told me you hadn't played it about it hadn't played it. I think it looks like a, it looks like a California beach game. Interesting. That's what it looked like. Yeah, I wish I would take in some videos of this, this tournament I was in, because it's, it's very competitive and it's very, it's almost dangerous because you're only, I want to say you're 15 yards, you're 45 feet away from a guy swinging. And we use these, like those highlighter yellow softballs, but the soft ones.

I saw it. 45 feet away is insane how close you are. with that. So it's a cool thing. And it's like it's something, you know, my dad when he was coaching us when we were little, like that would be fun at the end of practice. We would do that and like people would go nuts. We had like a great time doing it. Yeah, never heard of it. Looks fun. Yeah. You also need to up your personal life Wikipedia page, man, compared to Paul Molitor. You got nothing. It just says ploof and his wife, Olivia, we're married at Pepperdine University's Stauffer Chapel. They have two children. This is all true. I mean, do you, do I have to do that?

aren't you like not supposed to update your own I don't know how it works or are you saying I need to like get into some troubles yeah you just just feed them along mix it up like mix it up a little bit may or may have not done drugs with Paul Molitor the internet with you guys maybe

maybe that's gonna happen we can make something happen I'll often defend myself from some Houston fans yeah they'll come after you now I know I'm gonna name this video Plouf wants Houston band for life bring it on Bring it off, man.

I'm pretty sure I raked in Houston, too, so I got that on them. You can't say these things to me because now I have to go look into that. Jake knows this about me. This is what the Houston fans don't understand. I like research. I'm kind of nervous now that I said that. You're nervous about this one? Because you said it about Yankee Stadium.

But you were correct. At minute made, 271 batting average, 741 OPS. That's not great. Okay. You were plufin. I had some homers there. Career 707 OPS versus the Astros. Okay, so I'm sorry.

So never mind. Houston fans got that on me. If you want to talk shit. Damn. Damn. No, they're going to send that at you all day. Your best stadium was Colorado. No.

Chicago. Cubs put on a show. I played one game with the Cubs. Against the Cubs, I guess. Not at. Against the Cubs. Yeah, yeah. And that's wrong anyway, because you were the best against the Padres.

Congrats. That's all. I need to look up with some of these stats. Yeah. Bruce, I know this. Bruce Chen was my guy. Like, if I have to, like, go.

Ooh. He was my guy. So. All right. Well, we'll end this. And then I'm going to look up your stats versus Bruce Chen. Thanks for joining us.

Ploof will be on. He's going to become a regular. It's going to be a lot of fun. We're going to have a, we're going to line some things up, figure out what we want to do. But say hi to Plouf and don't say bye yet. but thanks for coming on. Jake, give us that ending. You always give us.

I just ploofed my pants. That's terrible. That's bad. And there you have it. The ploofster of full hour covered everything. He did not answer Jake's steroid question. But, I mean, seems like a pretty open book. Good guy.

We're a fan. No, I said we're saving that for next time. And yeah, it was just really big of Trevor to admit that everyone in Major League Base baseball thinks he has a hot wife. Like, I'm glad he could come on here and really just be open with us on that. It was nice of him. You know, I mean, some guys would take that to their grave.

Yeah. Like, you should hear, when I was in high school, man, the compliments I would get about my group of friends, Jimmy hangs out with the coolest people. And I was always too embarrassed to let others know. Yeah, I don't know what that was. I thought you were about to make a joke about your sister being hot because that was your go-to in high school. What?

But yeah, Trevor Ploof's a friend, and he's going to be doing a lot more stuff with us, and we're excited for that. Yeah. And now we're done with the episode.