Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - AI in Baseball + Jackson Holliday Called Up | 822

Episode Date: April 10, 2024

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Hello and welcome to talking baseball. Today we're talking about AI in baseball. Get ready, people. Terrified for this episode. Hello and welcome to talking baseball, presented to you by Seat Geek. This is going to be an all-timer. I feel it in my bones. When Trevor Plouf on Monday walks away and says,

I've got some thoughts on AI in baseball. And I've been talking to people. God, if you've ever seen me behind a fireplace or with a beer in my hand, you know there's not a conversation I would sign up for more. Treff, how are you doing, my good man? Jacob and Beavers and everyone listening, what's up? Yeah, this was going to be an interesting episode, and I think I just want to start off by saying,

I don't know, like, most of the stuff, I don't know about a lot of this stuff. I don't know what I just said right there either. I'm just trying to say, I'm talking out loud about AI. I don't understand it fully. Even if you think you understand it fully, I don't think you're right about that.

So basically we're just going to, we're to scratch the surface of this and then kind of give some opinions on it. So it'd be nice in the comments. Also, I got my Boba Shet shirt on today. Big Homer. And there's a reason for that. Jake, how are you doing?

I'm good, man. I'm good. We also got, you know, some, Trev, we love some young stud stuff that we might close with. Jackson Holiday getting the call. He's going to be wearing number seven, like pops. That's pretty insane. Orioles haven't been too much on my radar.

And I don't know. I guess I'm kind of excited for them to be. And maybe that's just because the Yankees are 10 and 2. Whoops. Rafaela gets the eight-year extension with the bow socks as they get really tough Trevor. Story News on the other side. And then we also, since we talked pitching injuries, Framber, Povetta, and Josiah Gray. So, like, that story is not over in general.

So it's freaky, dude, is what it is. Like, everyone's like, it's not a rash of injuries. These things happen all the time. And then, bam, we just keep getting hit with them. And that's where I do, I think we circle back around on that, because we talk to Booney a little more about it. Since we last talked, Verlander, Cole have talked. And Trev, I think part of the reason you hooked me on this AI

is that a chunk of the section is talking about injury prevention. And that's where I, again, hey, I'll be honest, I have a little old school Italian man in me that kicks in and is like, oh, AI in baseball. I don't know, man. I don't need that. But, hey, I'll tell you this, computers, if you can figure out the injuries, I'm all in on you.

So we'll get to that. And I do want to tell the people about Shady Ray's just because every time there's not an eclipse, you should be wearing Shady Rays. Shady rays are the best Sonny's in the game. Those are my words. And that's not on the sheet, but that's just me being real. I'm wearing my shades right now. I wear them every day.

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All right. Trev, man, I am full coin toss. Pass the rock. Madden. Pass the rock. I am deferring. Because you said you were talking to people.

This is very much late night. Reves Lane, which I think we need to start tapping into more. So, cook. Okay. Again, people, I'm just, we're just talking out loud about this. We're researching in real time. I'm a high school graduate, okay? Even though I am a Stanford man.

Yeah. I'm a 2004 Cresby Carmelite high school graduate, even though I did graduate with a 38 GPA, only brought down by my bad freshman year when I was a bad boy. I'm sure they got straight a anyways I think I want to start

with saying these two get lumped together a lot and I think there is a distinct difference between like data analytics and AI learning and I'm going to give you

a definition that I found online right I don't need it but if you could if you could tell the people because I'm good but the most glaring difference

between AI and predictive analytics is that AI can be autonomous and learn on its own predictive analytics often relies on human interaction to help curate the data, identified trends, and test assumptions, so it can also use, I don't know, it goes on. Anyways, so we've been using analytics, you know, for over a decade. I think, you know, LUNA coming over from the Cardinals and the Astros being one of the first teams to really use predictive analytics to scout and to, you know, just kind of

help their scouting department. And now we've seen just it explode. You know, it's data everywhere. We're tracking, you know, pretty much every single pitch, every single play that's out there. And we're using that, I would say that organizations would say to the best of their ability to better your team, whether that is, you know, in drafting a certain guy, trading for certain guys. every team thinks they have the algorithm to identify, you know, players and trends that are going to help their organization. We know that because we've talked to people that are in front offices and, you know, they, I don't want to give the team away, but I remember during one free agent year, there was a team that paid a player much more than I think most teams were willing to because they're,

predictive analytics said this is the best player available in the free agent draft. Collectively, the baseball world did not agree to that, but their own software did. I think they were wrong about it. How about that, Jake? I'm not going to name the player because that's not fair. So that's been around forever. I mean, I remember in 2014, the twins had already had an analytics department. It was one guy by the name of Jack Goen, so shout out Jack.

Good guy? Great guy. Nice. But like, what a tough position to put somebody in. One guy, speaking a completely different language than, you know, dumb baseball players. I don't want to say dumb baseball. There are some smart baseball. But you know what I'm saying.

I'm exaggerating there. Trying to come in in the clubhouse. And he only did it with a few players. He did it with me because he knew I was like, I could joke around with him about it. and trying to explain, hey, like, you've got to do this better, and then your numbers will increase. And I was like, what are you talking about, man? Flash forward to today, I mean,

analytical departments can range anywhere from, what, like 30 to 40 people, maybe even more. You had Enosaris on Wake and Jake, and he was saying, you know, the analytical departments, there's certain people who are, their job title has analyst in it. but there might be other people consulting that you don't even know how many or how deep these departments run and you can have your opinion on it like do you think it's bettered the game I think it probably has to be honest with you I mean we're learning a lot of different things

the more data you have the more informed decisions you can make so I'm kind of on the fence of it's probably better for the game I think a lot of people are like that's why I say managers don't matter anymore because we have a lot of these decisions already made up because we have all the information and all the data already sorted and and you know when I played for the Phillies it was a book that they opened up and each situation was kind of had its own page and there was if your name had a green by it that meant you were good for that situation it's like sea geek yeah if it was red you were not like I would look at this same like all right shoot um seventh inning who's the pitcher, okay, go to that page.

Runners are a scoring position, or the other page would be, base is empty. And I look at my thing, oh, two reds, all right, better go get some more seeds and sit down on the bench. Like, that's how the game has gotten for most teams. I think, you know, there are still a few

managers who might go against those decisions. Surely when I played the A's, Bob Melvin did not go against those decisions. He said, he kept telling me he wanted to, but if he did, the front office would be calling him. He said it's me on multiple occasions. I wanted to start you today.

But Bob, you're kind of making it worse, Pop. Yeah. I wish I was out there. Your Yankees are a, you know, a very analytically driven team, although people think they just spend money in championships. They have one of

the bigger analytical departments in baseball. So, like, this is, I've kind of gone loose here, but this is one, this, analytics has been around for a long time. People know that. essentially. What I'm talking about here

and AI and autonomous learning is different. And I think there, I just, the reason I brought it up, I feel like I want to put my foot down and just talk about like, almost like the ethical part of it

and like what should be allowed in baseball and what shouldn't be allowed in baseball because I do believe that we can't just continue down this path. I believe there are, there's pathways, or it turns into cheating.

Right. Essentially. And I've mentioned this a little bit already. I already don't think that you should have people who are not uniformed personnel, coaches or players, analyzing video for people tipping pitches. I just don't think it's right.

Like you're not on the fucking team, dude. But how do you stop that, Jake? Even that, humans that aren't on the team doing it, that's their only job. Like you can't stop that. Right. Like some guy, you know,

he has a computer at his house. And all he's got to do is just scour the video and then give you the results. Like that's already happening in baseball. I don't like it because I think that that's a part of the game that's, to me,

sacred. I really look at that. Like, if you can pick a picture apart and get a tell, like that's a sacred part of the game. It's a real game within the game type thing. and we need to keep it that way. Add into it AI,

where you're just inputting these videos into a program and this machine learning is, the more videos you put into it, the better it can do, all the sudden, you don't even need a person. The videos automatically are being, you already have the video,

so the videos automatically go into this thing and then bam, out comes a sheet, here it is, here it is, here it is. that to me is not good for baseball. So I don't want to go necessarily down that path. And I think that that's like the first thing that came to my mind. And I hit a few guys up in the front office that will remain nameless. And they said that's not happening yet.

they also said in a couple years that's a layup pitch tipping pitch sequencing which is another thing that we kind of talked about like what was the astros 2017 a camera pointed there knowing what pitch was coming in real time a lot of people believe that with the AI you know self-learning I don't know what do you call them programs sure we're going to be able to basically Basically, with enough data, we're going to be able to know the sequence of pitches that's coming. Not just 2-1 change-up. This guy throws 60%. It's what batter the sequencing of pitches before, you know, what part of the year,

how many pitches is he at? We're going to have all this data that's going to be in real time telling us at a pretty high success rate what pitch is going to come. And then how easy is it to relay pitches to the hitter? All I got to do is go, or, like, there's so many things you can do. I can't have that in the game, Jake. So how do you combat that is my question?

It's a big one, and you're asking the right guy. That's the good news. I think so. You're at the right point because, Trevor, I will be honest. At one point I got a little dizzy. like just a little bit dizzy because I guess for me it's I always like finding out the things I can hang my hat on it at especially for a topic like this like what can I walk away and be like

ooh I don't like that going that way oh I'm interested in that going that way and then there's going to be filler that I have no idea about because I'm I should not be the expert on AI in baseball but I'm working my way up um I guess for me and I want to do, again, as we're just chewing this off a little bit, because you're saying AI and analytics and it's trying to find that line in the sand, I guess for me, isn't, it's one of those things I'm trying to think of the, where, like, oh, you say North America can be an island and a continent. Like, isn't AI basically turning into analytics? Because, like, you're saying, it's running and conducting all these tests. Like, I guess I'm trying to compare it, uh, like,

I think in the world of medicine. But there's no people involved in AI necessarily. Like it's autonomous. It can learn and can take the role of 10 people essentially. Okay. So what can we focus on the good first? Like what can be the pros here? What can be the pluses?

And I want to talk about either on a team level, like my team can get an advantage because they figured out this and now example. The one that always gets me, that again, I think it's analytics, not AI, but I think there's a way you could punch it in and figure it out. Paul Seawald for years was told, you don't throw hard, keep that fastball low, kid.

And then they crunch some numbers on it. And it was actually like, well, actually, his fastball plays high in the zone, and he's become like a lights out closer. So what does that mean? Does that mean I can put into a computer system Paul Seawald's Builds throwing angle

fastball but that sounds like analytics to me so I guess I don't know I mean they're joined they are joined I think the difference is like I said

it's autonomous and can learn and basically create whatever you want it to create you can input like there's an article you know like a study done by you know

like a college thesis this kid did. And he used the Google Bard and chat GPT. And basically input a bunch of statistics and prompts into these AI learning machines. I'm still searching here, people. We're just talking. And, you know, it said, hey, come up

with your own statistic to rank these players and to predict their season. And like, the more prompts you put in, the better results you're going to get. So in a sense, yeah, you already have to have the data. Like data analytics is part of AI. You're prompting it, doing all these things, but it can come up with completely different things

than we have already. I mean, this is a fucking, like, the human brain. Oh, here we go. Beautiful thing. Here we go. Human brain's a beautiful thing, right? We haven't unlocked what the brain can do.

We only use how much of it, BBD? I'm sure you have that knowledge off the top of your head. 10%? That is, that is, That is an adage, yeah. 10, 20%, whatever the fuck is. Inaccurate.

A computer's a thousand times that. It can do things that... If you Google how much of the brain is used, it pops up. The notion that a person only used 10% of the brain is a myth. Okay.

How do they know? That's the thing. How do we know? I don't know. It could be 5% people. Could be less. I haven't you ever seen that Bradley Cooper movie, who takes that pill?

I didn't see that. Was that good? That's a weird... That's where the phrase kind of came. I was still close to my college Adderall days that I didn't want to watch. It's kind of like the movie Blow. You just want to watch the beginning of it.

Don't watch the end because it gets sad. Charge! Yeah, just watch the beginning. Sure. Okay. I don't even know where we're at. Okay, so you want the good things. Yeah, give me the good.

Give me the... Bring me into AI. a positive way. I think that we're going to see like AI personal trainers in sports in general. I think that a lot of guys for a long time were really

weary of wearing like wearable tech and like sharing that data with a team. And I think they kind of still are because teams can kind of use it against you. I want to keep that information to yourself. And maybe you do it with your agent or or somebody. But essentially now, if you're tracking all your biometrics, like there can be, and your movements and your biomechanics, and you have your own, like, kind of little AI trainer,

it can tell you, you know, when to rest, what to do. Is your range of motion there? You know, what's your sleep pattern? We all see it. We did, you know, there's watches out there that do that. I mean, that's essentially AI helping you better your life. I think that's going to get even more integrated into our training programs. Training programs are going to be super, super detailed and player specific, which I think

is going to end up being good for the game. Jake, you talk about the rash of player injuries and pitcher injuries. I don't know if A has to help with that because essentially everyone's just trying to throw as hard as they fucking can, and that's bad for your elbow. And I think the computer be like, don't do that. But guys are never going to stop doing that. Right? Like, isn't the computer going to kick back and be like, hey, you know, every pitcher should be built like date? David Wells. He threw 250 innings a year. Maybe it would, Jake. I don't know. Okay. We're going off a little bit. I asked somebody in the know, I said, here, it's all off record.

Is off record mean I can't say what he said or I just can't say his name? I definitely can't say their name. I would not say their name. And I think you can discuss the topics, but like not verbatim. like, I'm going to paraphrase. Yeah. Yeah. All right. I don't even know what's going on anymore. Okay. I just asked him a bunch of questions.

And basically, like, how much is AI influencing the game of baseball right now? And his general response was, it's not influencing the game in a meaningful way. Okay. He said in a few years, he thinks it really will be heading, scouting departments. And I think he was more alluding towards like advanced scouts. Like for, you know, for a team, advanced scouts will go and scout and set up packets for you on teams that you're going to play in the near future.

You know, a week from now, they'll go in an advanced scout. And then they put together all the information for you and you have your team meetings before you play that series. He thinks those are going to be AI generated, you know, rather quickly. And he included, you know, sequencing. and pitch tipping. I pushed back on him a little bit on that, and I said,

that's got to already be happening. It's too easy for teams not just put the video into a program and say, tell me what the pitcher is doing different on all these pitches. And the program's like, oh, that's easy, bam.

Like, I think that's already happening. I have no proof of that. I've been around, I'll say this. I mean, I've been around, like in the dungeons with the twins, and I've never seen him doing that. But again, this could be just somebody at home

with the computer doing it. So like, that's going to happen. He also mentioned using some of these prompt machines like chat GPT and they're using it to code and create different algorithms

and stuff like that. That's already happening. That's only going to get more in the future. So like, I think the main point of all this is I just don't believe, I want to use it to make baseball better. Right. You can do scouting, you know, player development. You can do, you know, health-wise, you know, biomechanics. Like, I don't love the idea of like a computer program telling you, like, or like, creating new pitches on its own,

which probably it will, Jay. like it'll probably create pitches for us. Okay, see, hey, man, all you got to do is just, you know, here's the, here's the pressure, here's where the seams seem to be, here's the arm angle, go get it. Like right now, the only way we're doing that is, is, you know, slow-mo cameras, and then getting the data and then trying it again, which is already, like,

faster than we've ever been able to pitch design. But having AI create pitches for us is, like, kind of crazy to me. I was wondering when sad history, Trevor Trev was going to come out because everything you were saying before was kind of beneficial for the hitters. We're talking about tip and pitches and sequences and things like that, which again, I know that starts to come up on the edge of cheating or not and that's live time. We're a problem there. I mean, I just kind of, I laughed in my head a little bit thinking about, you know, we've done a lot of talks about how pitchers on their throw day, they can find a new

pitch or they can try a new pitch. And that's one of the biggest advancing advancements in pitching that if you hear David Cohn on a national broadcast, he's a pitcher's pitcher. He was always tinkering. He was always throwing new pitches, you know, making it up, start to start. That he was like that technology was my absolute dream that I think, A, it's funny that they could do that. But Trev, this is a little bit of sicko kind of going like Game of Thronesy on it. Like, couldn't I, if I could replicate with AI a pitcher's arm length, how hard they can throw a ball, couldn't I basically have a robot arm practicing the pitches for me? So the next time I come to my bullpen session, it's like, hey, robot arm banged out 10,000 curveballs from your arm length and your slot.

And this is what you need to be doing. that's a little freaky deaky it wouldn't be like a robot arm actually throwing the pitches it would just be a simulation of the pitches in a program but yes but yes

Jake and you know what I know the comment section is going to be full of you'll be like you guys don't even know what you're talking about you're right we don't and you know what you commenting that you don't know either you don't know the capabilities of AI and what's going to happen in baseball I just think that there needs to be

you know, as we're at the forefront of this, essentially, there needs to be some clear guidelines. And, like, if you're not proactive about something like this, you're fucked. Yeah. Like, I'm not waiting for Major League Baseball 15 years down the road to say, you know what, we can't do, we can't have that computer, you know,

getting guys in their movements as a pitcher. I just don't want that to happen. So I'm putting it out there right now if anybody in Major League Baseball is listening. like let's make sure that isn't happening in the game. We need to make sure this is still a human-driven game. And I get, we're using some of these tools to better enhance the humans in the game,

but we can't take it to the point where we're just, like there still needs to be the human element. Like we talk about with umpires, who cares about them? Really. Love some of the umpires. I don't mean that in a negative way personally, but I'm just saying, like, it's about the play on the field.

We can't have it impacting it that much, where we get into that area of where it's cheating. Yeah, I mean, umpires, that's just, it's calling the game properly that we've seen in the minor leagues. If you, again, there's still some crazy calls that dictate games that, you know, the 3-2 pitch that's outside, that guts called strike 3,

that literally would have been, a runner on base or maybe a runner scoring if his base is loaded, that like instead it turns into an out and the innings over. Like that's, again, that's not, that's using AI in the way that we already know and makes sense and is good for the game. Like, and I think when everyone first saw those minor league replays where they just touched the helmet, it goes up, boom. Like, that's perfect.

And I'm in on that. The other fear for me, you know, NBA, And a lot of basketball games at the end, because they go to replay so much, it can be a bad watch. And at the end of the day, we are kind of making content here. And I think with the speed of that and how that goes, that's easy. I guess for me where I, and again, it's AI analytics a little bit that I think we've already seen the good teams take advantage. I think it's always been at the minor league and scouting level. And I think a lot of that has kicked into gear with some of the stuff that's problematic,

between, you know, we've been talking a lot about spin rate and how hard you can throw in all of that, where we've measured some of that. I think there can be some really cool stuff again in that Paul Seawald example of, hey, you know, find this pitch. Or like we can, you know, a guy that throws 91, but with good spin rate high in the zone, like we might be able to tap into something there. I think there's something cool there. I guess for me, and the human element, I still think,

A, that'll never be gone, because these damn computers, they can do whatever they want. End of the day, a human's got to process it, and then a human's got to go play ball. So, like, I think we're going to be covered there, and you're good. For me, it just feels like this is going to, there's going to be some genius that figure something out that we're talking about in five years

that they knew how to use AI the right way. it gave them a huge advantage in the minor leagues and baseball, and we're going to have to diagnose that, and I'll be all ears at the time. I guess for me, when we're talking about player health, which is currently a huge issue, and I'm sure they've been messing with AI, and when you're talking about training programs

to keep guys healthy, I don't know, man. Like... Well, don't you know? What do you mean? I think there's stuff in the injury realm that we could crunch every number ever and we could let AI crunch more and more numbers go tell Trevor's story that AI is going to figure out how to keep him healthy

because I... There are certain injuries that aren't preventable that are just part of the game and like that. And also what you're talking about to really get into injury prevention, you've got to give yourself up to being analyzed. On basically a consistent basis, like you just have to be,

wearing wearable tech, you have to go, you know, in front of these cameras and do your range of motions every single day. I mean, that's the only way to really, really tap into this kind of injury prevention side of it. You just have to feed the data, feed the data, feed the data. If you're only doing it as a baseline at the beginning of the year and then an exit program at the end of the year, that's not going to tell you anything. That's why a lot of teams are trying to do it during the year. There's just player pushback on it. At least there was. I mean, I don't know if I think as we get further and further down the line,

guys in the minor leagues are just used to it. Like there's this, I read this article about that. I was talking about the Dodgers. I actually have that up. That was one. Yeah, we do want to tell the people, we've told you a few times we're not experts. We do have a couple articles that we tapped into. There's one, baseball America's chat with GPT.

That was an interesting thing. That was interesting too. Forbes article a little more in-depth on the actual topic. There was one article talking about a, it was a Dodgers executive, and he was talking about they had basically 0% buy-in at the major league level for like biomechanic tracking and 95% buying at the minor league level with it because in the minor leagues you're just like, okay, sir, I'll do whatever you want to do. and the big leader's like

nah bro like I'm good you know you really have to buy into it and do it all the time and guys are really I think guys have been told by the PA by their agent to keep that information close to the vest chest

I think both can be used there because you know there can be things used against you if you know something slight is you know showing up you don't want that to be used against you in contract negotiations and stuff like that. So I think that's, I don't know how far we'll get in that. But again, I think player participation will rise because guys are used to it.

That's why when you ever see them testing things out in the minor leagues, like eventually it's just going to be fully acceptable at the major level because guys are used to it. It's true. And that's, I guess, again, I will be open to what that data can bring me. But it still feels like we're pulling in opposite directions. And this ties back to the pitching thing that, hey, if you want to be a good pitch, or throw this pitch and throw it hard, that I don't think that, like that part is not worried about health. And then the health part is going to say, well, you need to rest and do this,

this and this. And I don't know, I think the other thing it's going to tell you is throw less V-Lo. So on the pitching side, I feel like AI is going to be pulling in different directions that I don't know if that'll help. And then I don't know, man. Like I, again, I hate to keep throwing guys with injury track records out there, but I do think, I don't want to say there's an injury gene, but I think, you know, Jeff Passon, who wrote the arm book and, you know, is on the forefront of this. The only thing that's predictive for future pitching, for future pitching injuries is past pitching injuries. There's a direct correlation. If you have arm injuries, you're going to have more arm injuries. Like, that's just, that's like the only thing that's been

confirmed. So that goes back to the sick discussion of all the kids getting hurt. And I know I'm getting away from AI a little bit. But if all those kids are getting hurt, again, where we talked about it being a 10-year problem, that just means we're going to have more people getting hurt. So that shows how bad that is. But for AI, like, you know, is AI going to measure Wade Boggs in what he was doing to play every day for 12 years?

because it was drinking 30 bros. Like, I just, I think we're trying to do, and maybe this is the dumb human in me, I think we're giving, I think we're giving AI unsolvable tasks. Because I think if anyone stood next to Byron Buckson and Trevor Story, they'd say, man, that guy's in crazy shape and he takes care of his body. Trevor's story before he came on the show, I'll never forget, and I've told on here, he sent over his stats.

Like it was a combine. They were like, yeah, Trevor Storri is a fan of what you guys do. These are some things he likes. And he's really proud of how in shape he is. Yeah, he was a baseball player. He's an athlete. And I think that's like the comical joke right now around baseball is like, hey, if you want to stay healthy,

you almost need to be less in shape, which don't get me wrong. I understand how that's not a perfect solution. that I don't know, man. It's not, it's as, as dumb as you make that sound, Jake. Right. I don't think it's that far off. Like, okay, if you're doing something at 70% of your body's capability,

like you're probably in the green zone for injuries. Like, you're not going to get hurt. It's when you get it close to 100% of your body's capabilities, that's when the stress gets put on your ligaments and your muscles and injuries can happen. That's what's what's happening with pitchers. If these guys went out and through 80%, they're not going to get hurt, dude.

It's the max effort that gets them hurt. It's Byron Bucston. It's Byron, I know, we're not talking about that's why they do it at max effort because they're trying to get results. I'm just saying, I mean, there's something to that. Like Byron Buckson runs so dang fast. you know some of his injuries haven't been you know they've been fluke but he runs so

dang fast that like clearly there's more stress put on his body than if you were to no offense Jake if you were to just run around the ballpark a little bit interested right yes i i guess and we're going down a different path now again man well you know what let me before i get to my final statement i at bloomberg's the deal hosted by rod who has He's got opinions on this, and I won. Was he a hurt guy, or did he play every day? A-Rod played a lot. Played a lot.

He had the one, like, hip surgery that he got in his later 30s. The deal. Co-hosted by Alex Rodriguez, Rod. Him and Bloomberg reporter, Jason Kelly, speak to big-time athletes and entertainers, Maria Sharapova, Michael Strahan, Derek Jita. The deal takes you behind the scenes in the world of sports meet and entertain it. We got to link up with Rod.

Joe's has the connection. Do you're a couple third base studs. Talk some hitting. We talked about it. I think him and I would probably get along more than I give him credit for. The Bloomberg. You have more in common. From Bloomberg podcasts and Bloomberg Originals,

you can listen to the deal on Apple, Spotify, wherever you get your podcast. Click the link in the description. You listen to podcasts. Go check them out. I guess. And again, Let's wrap up the AI.

Maybe this is cop-out J-E. shit and that's kind of a chunk of my life because sometimes the easy way out to save yourself 10% of the stress that's that's worked well for me like it feels like a little bit like we're spinning in circles like all the pitching shape stuff makes sense to me I've talked about that a few times a lot of the hitting stuff whether it's you know if we can pick up on sequencing or like you always said if you know like I think there's a legal good side to it that it's like, hey, you know, if they go fastball, fastball slider, you know, 70% of the time it's a change up and that's coming. Like, I think that's

awesome. Those are the original almost analytics and guys used to just have more feel for it. I think some of that stuff brings the game to a good place. And I, like I used with my Paul Seawald example, I think we can find more minorly guys that have different abilities that we can tap into that are guys that maybe got a we would have moved on from that it's like no there's there's something there i guess for me it's how much are we spinning our wheels about trying to improve the margins which could be hurting the margins in general like again in the pitching example we've got all of these guys that are excelling at pitching because they're throwing harder and they've tapped in everything and blah blah but now they're getting hurt and so they're gone for

a year and a half two seasons that my Yankees have gotten a lot better this season. And I don't know how much of it is analytics or stuff on the margins or how much it is that Juan Soto is on the team, who's a generational baseball player, Alex Verdugo, who's a great bat-to-ball, contact bat. Giancarlo Stanton and Anthony Rizzo are healthy, and those guys are, like, generational ball players in their own way. that, you know, we mentioned the Dodgers, and we're talking about their health.

And again, I don't want this to be unfair just because they were mentioned in the article. But, you know, right now on their pitching I.L. It's what, Walker Bueller, Clayton Kershaw, a couple other guys that, I don't know, for everything, for how far deep we dive into this, it turns into still like who's good at baseball? who's healthy and on the field and who's good at baseball. But it gets those guys on your team. I think that's what a lot of analytical departments will do. 300 mil also got Yamamoto on the team.

And Juan Soto, the Yankees were one of the only teams that were going to trade for him because he's going to have 500 mil coming up and they're one of the three teams that'll pay that. Yeah, but it's it's drafting Will Smith. And it's like, you know, you have to be able to do that. And I think a lot of times they're using, yeah, that's where they're using data analytics and possibly AI in the future to, you know, find the quote unquote diamonds in the rough. These guys are doing something that, you know, we need.

And this goes back, I mean, that goes back to Moneyball and what they, and what the A's were doing. And the players they were trying to acquire. It's a mixture. Of course, if you get guys who are proven superstars, your team is going to get better. and one thing I'll say this, that, you know, the analytics can't capture, and you hear baseball players talk about it all the time, and we get shot down because we're just done jocks. It's the vibes, bro.

Yeah. Like the vibes within a team, you can't measure. And that does mean something. It really, really does. So that's one part of the human element that'll never go anywhere. I think my last talk on this is, man, again, we're just spitball in here, people. I'm just very curious in how this is going to shape the baseball landscape. So I wanted to get on here and talk about it.

Leave a comment. Let us know what your feelings are. My foot is down. No video analysis by people who are not uniform personnel. That includes AI and the robots. You're not allowed to do it either. I don't like that. I don't like them learning what pitch is going to be thrown

or finding a pitcher's tip because they just input video into a program. I don't think that's fair and it should not be part of the game of baseball. End scene. Yeah, I think I'm with you there. I'm excited to see what this episode sounds like in five years when they have...

It's another reason I wanted to do this episode. When they have... I look back on this, like, what? Oh, yeah, we will laugh at this one day and that's kind of the beauty of it. Yeah, man, I don't know. Like, if you look at the good teams around baseball, if you look at the good teams around baseball,

I can't argue with any minor league stuff because that is the lifeblood of like any good team. But it's also bringing in the good players, whether that's via trade or whether that's via free agency, that the Texas Rangers like, hey, why? Langford, Evan Carter, Josh Young, guys that, you know, Leoti Tavares gets overlooked, who's been a really nice young center fielder. They traded for Nate Lowe, and then they paid big boy money for Simeon Seeger,

you know, a whole pitching staff and a half, Avaldi, Gray, Heaney, de Grom, Molly Scherzer, and now Lorenzen, too, that I don't know. no. I think there will be small, cool wins from AI that'll be excited about. Like, there will be a stat out there that's that we can't punch in mentally that it's like, hey, if a team after seeing a starting pitcher that throws 98, the next day, if they see a softball and pitcher from the opposite side that throws 87, that team wins 80% of the time. Like, I think there can be some cool bubble. pop-up shit like this, but end of the day.

Like, good players still win in sports. Good players, good coaching. And I was laughing, even hitting is the hardest thing to do in sports. And I, you know, I know some of the golfers will get jazzed up about that. But in the home run derby, hey, you're getting 70 over the dick. And you see some of the sports biggest stars that put up, you know, four homer round. So actually performing in this game or whatever analytic I could give to the pitcher on the three-two pitch, hey, man, if you throw that change up and that grip and you bang it perfectly, you're going to get this guy up.

Well, if he feels a little ticking his heart rate and he just bounces it in the dirt, what does it matter? So I don't know. I realize I'm probably going to look back on something like that in five years and laugh at myself because I miss this, this, this, and this. but end of the day, sports are very much still played with the guys on the field. Yeah, I agree. I agree. Speaking of guys on the field, Trev, we do have one of the more excitement, exciting call-ups in recent history. Wasn't ready to make the team out of camp. No.

Oh, he was not ready, Jake. Jackson Holiday, Super Prospect, 20 years old. Number seven, wearing Pops' number, which is pretty cool. Gets called up from the Orioles. Again, I was kind of laughing. The Orioles are off to a six and four start. They've actually been pitching and not going nuts with the sticks so far. It'll be interesting.

Colton Couser, one of the top prospects that you don't hear about because he was like eighth on their top prospect. I think he had a monster game the other day. Jackson Holiday, it looks like he's going to be slated to plug and play at second base. I know Jordan Westberg has been moving around for them. And again, I guess me combatting the computers a little bit. I bet the computers say this Jackson Holiday call-up can be a pretty good thing if they're looking at his minor league stats.

I'm just going through the numbers right here. Orioles are 19th in OPS. Jackson Holiday right now is one dotting it at the AAA level. We know about the Norfolk Tide and the things that they've been doing as a team. But Jackson has a 949 career OPS in three minor league seasons. He's 20 years old right now.

He's 6.6 years younger than the average age in the international league. Like this guy's a superstar, dude. So yes, he's going to come up and he's going to help. I'm assuming what? he's going to play second base. That's where they have them listed,

and it's, you know, Gunners kind of had short that I, Orioles fans, I guess, let us know. Does, would something have to go down to realign that infield? Because I, I don't know, like, our spots up for sale. If Holiday looks nasty at second, is it going to open a conversation? Let us know. Seam Gunner play third, like in, yeah, and imagine it's on the table.

I don't know. I'm looking right now. Let's see what they say about all this. Usually, you know, MLB trade room, which is pretty good about all this stuff. And it feels like all three of those kids can do whatever. Yeah, the timing of this promotion surely isn't coincidental. By calling holiday yet before the end of this week,

the O's are still in position to afford him a full year of service time. Okay. Yeah. Despite his two weeks sitting in the miners' holiday will narrowly surpass that mark if he's in the majors for good. Okay. Oh, we just got the Jackson. Holiday video too. Nice cut off.

Yeah, I, uh, man, I know they, they posted a video of Jackson Holiday like playing on the field with his dad and that was crazy. Buster only. Buster only. Keeping receipts. Buster only tweeted out in 2013. 2013. It's 2024. He said Matt Holiday's son, future All-Star. Yeah, that's pretty cool. Buster. You see somebody replied to it like, don't you think it's a little early to say that? Because he was, what, 13 then? And he said,

Buster doubled down. Buster said, I saw the swing. I'll, I'll stand by it. So I think he hasn't going to play second base. That's why, and that was one of the reasons

they sent him to AAA. Also, you know, the PPI is the, how do you, what's that? Prospect promotion incentive. That's to, you know,

they put that in the CBA so people, organizations wouldn't just hold the guys down, until they couldn't accrue a full year of service time, thereby getting an extra year of service of controllable time with a player. They put this in. Now, if you finish top three in rookie of the year,

you can get not only the player is going to get a full year service time if he does that, but teams can also be incentivized by draft picks. So, you know, for them, if they waited a week, one more week to do this, they would have had another year of control on him, but they also wouldn't be eligible to receive, any of the PPI incentives. So they see this guy going off. They're like, fuck, we got the call him eventually.

Even if they waited another week and got that full year of control, if he goes out and bangs and his top three and rookie of the year, he accrues a full year of a service time anyway. So like maybe they were hoping he like struggled at the AAA level a little bit and then they could kind of, I don't know. Well, does this leave them? The fact that he went off and is crushing it, they're like, all right, this guy's, he's going to be a guy.

Let's just get him up here. Is there something we're kind of missing there? Like, are they leaving themselves a little bit of wiggle that like, If he does struggle that they could send him down for another week. Basically, any send down would then get them the year. Exactly. If he struggles at all and they know he's not going to, they know he's not going to be in contention for, you know,

a top three rookie of the year voting. Yeah, they send him down for a week or so, and they'll have another full year of control on him. But again, I'm assuming we're going to see a slew of extensions with this Orioles team. Like, I'm assuming that's going to happen. New ownership. Yeah, they have just too many guys that they already believe in

who, like, people universally believe Gunner Henderson's going to be like a superstar. Jackson Hall, they will see him at the bigley level for the first time. That'll be nice. But you've got to lock these guys up. So what does it even fucking matter? Trev, I guess this is a super unique situation because, A, these, those kind of extensions haven't really been around the game for too long. Like baseball was kind of like, you got to earn it.

to get that contract. But now we've, after the brave success with extending a few of those young guys early on, it's almost become the hopeful model. Do you think there could be any, like, I don't say weird vibes, but, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if the Orioles office probably has low-ballish offers

out to Gunner, to Holiday, to, I don't know, one or two other guys. Or at least under the previous ownership did. That they're, They're waiting for someone to kind of cave and take the cheese. And do these guys almost have to bond together and be like, hey, like, I don't know. That's so weird because it's your own business, but it's also, I don't know.

If you're Gunner Henderson, your contract kind of could affect Jackson Holiday or if one of them signs, the other won't sign? I don't know. These guys could all walk in. Adley Rushman, Gunner Henderson, and Jackson Holiday, probably Grace and Ruff. Rodriguez could all walk in to the front office right now and say give me a seven years of $80 million deal.

But they could all walk in right now and say give me that and they would give it to them. So, you know, to your point, like if one of them takes a lowball offer the other ones are kind of screwed, I don't know if that's necessarily the case because the more you put up numbers and the further you get along arbitration,

obviously that all changes. But I'm just, assuming and it's it's person by person man right if you if you're just like you know what like my family comes from this i've worked so hard if i could just do this and secure my family for life like a lot of guys are into that and i think a lot of guys should be into that josh willingham always said never pass up like your first fortune you should say that all the time like if you're getting a deal like this go take it and you know try to earn more on the back end but like that's what, I mean, dude,

didn't he get a nice little contract? What's that? Didn't willing him get a nice little contract at some point? He did pretty well. Okay. The truth is, and people are like, hopefully don't scoff at this.

The truth is probably the greatest joy a baseball player could have. It's not a World Series title. It's being able to secure, like, his family's life, monetarily. Like, that's got to be the best field. I get it.

Like winning, I never played a play-up game. it's not my fault people me and mike trow are very similar in that regard okay winning world series great feeling everything's amazing i love that i understand that god i wish i would have played in the playoffs i've been so good um slow heartbeat guy securing your family's like future how does that not mean more like that means more like you have to see that right I mean, part of me gets that, part of me doesn't, without any pups yet, but yeah, I could see that. And Josh Willingham, it looks like he might have got a three-for-21-mill deal at the end there, which that's pretty nice.

And fingerprint still on the MLB season, Josh Willingham was traded for Royals prospect, Jason Adam, coming out of that raise bullpen. Oh. So how about that? Josh Willingham effects still in the game. Let's see how the kid plays for the birds. You know, Grayson got called up last year and got punched in the mouth a little bit. I don't know. From everything I've seen about Jackson Holiday and those minor league sets,

same amount of walks of strikeouts, he's got steals. He's like one dotted at every level. I wonder if that provides a spark for the birds. Glad to see him in the show. We want more talent in the show. That's kind of what AI is. trying to do too. Look at that. I'm looking to see

if we've had any Instagram interactions. He does follow me. Okay. The other... We have not talked. There was another top prospect who got the call

Erigetti for Houston. So... Yeah, so hey, coming off of the Framber News, let's see what he's got. Top prospect for Houston and your team probably has a top prospect coming soon. So let us know about all of that.

And like you mentioned, the team-friendly kid extensions. Cedon Raphaelah, the young Red Sox outfielder, eight for 50. So, I mean, again, like you said, snaps for him, dude. This guy's played a couple major league games, and he's got a guaranteed 50-mill coming his way. And if he's a good ball player, it's a massive win for the Red Sox.

And are Red Sox who have been playing a good brand of baseball? the window's starting to become like a little more apparent. They locked up Bayo for six years 55. So, hey, socks, kid. It seems like we got a little plan for them. They have not operated that way whatsoever. You know, they haven't been giving, they typically don't give out like pre-arbitration extensions.

You know, they've gone, they dabbled into, you know, the big time free agents. You know, they've extended Devers, but that was only after, you know, he's been one of the best players in the game. Yeah, like... Yeah, so they haven't operated like this, but, I mean, I think if you look around, I always say this, and it's been about five years of saying this,

is like, I think more teams need to just be doing this. You've got to take these chances. Some of them aren't going to work out, dude. Totally get that, but I think you've got to take these chances to put yourself in a position. If we're going to have all these artificial caps that you're putting on the game, these soft caps, and you want to stay within some sort of budget.

Like you've got to take these chances on some of the young guys. Cost control. Teams love cost controlled. I love Costco. Yeah, it's been out of my life in the city. But my suburb boys will rub in a Costco trip most weekends in Connecticut.

Talking baseball crew, it's a funky one. It's a funky one. Would love to hear your comments. you know maybe maybe next day I have we have to do late night and really let it eat no simulation talk chick sucks

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that was talking baseball that's what you came into the show thinking that we were going to talk about was baseball.