Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - MLB Rule Makers Explain How All the New Rules Will Help Baseball | 587

Episode Date: December 26, 2022

Jomboy & Jake sat down at the Winter Meetings with Raúl Ibañez and Morgan Sword (EVP of Baseball Operations) to talk about the banning of the shift, pitch clocks, and other new rules that could be on the table in a few yearsUse code TALKIN for $20 off your first SeatGeek order. https://seatgeek.onelink.me/RrnK/TALKIN Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello, happy holidays. Welcome to a special edition of Talking Baseball. We're talking Raul Ibanez and Morgan Soared about rule changes. Executive VP of Baseball Operations, a lot of fun. A lot of fun. Hello and welcome back to Talking Baseball presented by Seat. Eek. Awesome, awesome guest today.

And awesome baseball talk with Raul and Morgan. and the guys that are leading the way and the rule changes in MLB and how they're going to affect your team and your favorite players. So we had so much fun with them. Raul was giving us like this look like, wait. I think Raul Abani has expected us to be kind of total knobs

and we were pretty locked in. And they were very impressed. At one point, they were like, I think we might have to get these guys involved because they might care too much about baseball. So go check it out And make sure you go check out Seat Geek

Code talking 20% off your first Seat Geek order That's code talking seat geek Download the app Go check it out Talking $20 off Here's our interview bong We are joined by

Morgan Sword and Raul Ibanez And we're talking some rules today And I got to This isn't fluffing you guys Okay We do talk in baseball when the CBA was going on, we dove into the CBA. I mean, partially because we had to.

Nothing else to talk about. But we also realized then, we host the show talking baseball, our people love baseball. So the stuff that you guys are doing right now with some of the rule changes, and it's big stuff. I mean, baseball, you know, we talk a lot about the adjustments and how the game naturally changes, and sometimes the game didn't naturally change,

and I think that's how we got to some of these rules. So excited to yuck it up with you guys. So how are we doing? Thank you. Doing great. Thanks for having us. Yeah. Back at you. It's nice to be here. And I think, like, off the bat, I have been publicly an advocate for a lot of the rules that got a trial run in the minors. I thought they were all like, good, this is a good direction to go. And then the ones that we're seeing next year, I'm so excited.

I'm really excited to see what the difference is. And part of this comes from during COVID and pandemic. We watched, like, the biggest innings from every World Series from 72. to 2018. And we watched a full inning, not just the plays. And I said, shit, they're right. Baseball was a little more fun when balls were put in play more. To be fair, you saw both sides of it.

You saw guys bunt in with the runner on first and no outs, and you were like, that was too much. There was too much bunting going on, yes. But anyway, so, yeah, we were not really coming. Because a lot of baseball people that talk are like, no, I don't like this, I don't like that. I'm very excited. I'm in favor of it.

Plus two. Yeah. I have a lot of questions, but I guess what is the one change? I guess the shift is where we have to start, because that's the biggest one, right? How long have people been talking about a shift in the clubhouse? How long have players been doing this, or is this fan-driven? Like 10 years ago, you know? Yeah, I can tell you, offensively, I can go back to my time in Philadelphia.

where I was watching the shift completely crush Ryan Howard. Yeah. Just completely crushed him. He hit bullets, 200-foot line drives at the outfield, one hop the second baseman, get thrown out at first, and kind of force them to change his behavior a little bit. So in the locker room, especially for left-handed hitters, it's been a talking point for a while. At the same time, I'll tell you that, you know, I've talked to people from the older generations that are like, just hit the ball the other way.

The shift doesn't mean that you're a pull hitter. It just means you're a pull hitter when you hit the ball on the ball. the ground. So if we go back in time and we look at, let's say, you know, Tony Gwynne may rest in peace or Wade Boggs and let's look at how many line drives they hit past the third baseman. It's not a lot. They were getting a lot of hits that were in the hole. Traditional, you know, baseball, base hits, balls that were up the middle, balls to the right of the second baseman where he would backhand the ball and you could beat it out. So it's been the talking point for a while from the player perspective. From the rule change perspective, was it always going to be

four on the dirt? Because then it was like, if they do to change it and make a rule, what is it going to be? Is it going to be two on each side, four on the dirt, one or the other, then the line drawn? And we came to all of it, right? There's lots of different versions of it.

We tried a bunch of different versions in the minor leagues. Where we settled is basically a three-part rule. One, you've got to have four infielders on the infield dirt. Two, two of them have to be on each side, a second base, at least two on each side. And then three, you can't switch. players back and forth each hitter, right? Because the first thing the clubs

told us is we're just going to put our best fielder on the pull side every time. So that's part of the rule too to keep that from happening. They shouldn't have said that. Well, you know, what's going to be interesting is it allows for a defensive alignment that I think most traditional baseball people would still call a shift, right? Where you play a shortstop, kind of right right behind second base, your second baseman pulled over to the right side and your first baseman on the line.

and, you know, ask kill 100 people. A lot of them would tell you that still kind of looks like a shift to me. So there's more restrictive versions of it that, you know, we could talk about in the future. But we think this one on its own is going to have a pretty big impact in terms of, you know, the way of the hitting approach. So your players are set for that inning? Like if the guy plays, you're saying they can't switch, the third basement can't run across. Correct. So it's not for batter.

It's for like the game, I guess, or the game? Yeah. Okay. I didn't know that part. Yeah. And I'm glad because we went to the World Series in 2020 in Texas, which is a raise in the Dodgers. And it was so boring watching Justin Turner,

pause the game, change gloves, or pause the game, and run to right field, and then go back to third base, and then back, and they do it like at pitches and counts. And I was like, this is bad. Yeah. This is really slow. Yeah.

And we do this because, you know, it's like all these decisions that these clubs make are good baseball decisions, right? They create more outs on balls and play. It weren't. And it works. Yeah, it's a better, best way to say it. So, yeah, it's kind of our job as the rulemakers to acknowledge that and, you know, try to restrict people enough where you restore a more traditional aesthetic to the game

and you allow the players on the field to display their athleticism, right? And that's another benefit I think we're going to see this year is when you force these guys out their optimal position, you're going to see more athletic plays, more range, you know, short stops that can move are going to become more valuable. Yep. Second basins are going to exist again. Yeah, exactly. I'm sorry, full disclosure, though.

I loved watching Justin Turner go back and forth because I was in the front office with the Dodgers then and I got a rigged out of it. So just to be clear and fair and transparent, I love that part. That game plan worked. Yeah, it worked. So I love my two favorite things shifted so much, though. It was crazy. It was like, yeah.

You never saw baseball. Like that's what we were saying. Sorry. Where you just ever looked at it and you saw four infielders, three outfielers, the whole game. You're like, yeah, it was wild. My two favorite things on a baseball field. Someone plays the hot corner the right way. I mean, that just gets my heart pumping.

Center field. And when a center fielder chases a ball in the gap, I mean, it's my favorite thing in the sport. Watching Byron Buckson just like start gliding and he gets to another part of the field. How much has outfield shifting been discussed with? you guys because I mean that's just as much but it has to be the infield like Jimmy said the options kind of got laid out a little bit with staying on the infield and using the bases like there there was a form of there the outfield gets super tricky because I mean the best thing that I came up with is you mark spots in the outfield but marking a spot in the outfield I mean

that's sinful in baseball the beautiful green outfield so I guess how much discussion has gone into maybe you put like like measurements and they can't be you have to be this much way, like magnetized them. Or like a shot collar or something like a dog. He wanted outfields shift as well. So yeah. I'll tell you, there's some merit to that idea. I think, you know, if you look at the way outfielders are positioned for the last

15 years, they've been getting deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper. And, you know, you used to, when we were kids, here the term no doubles defense doesn't exist anymore because everybody, every play is on no doubles defense. So, and, you know, when you ask fans, what do you? want to see more of in a baseball game. Top three answers are doubles, triples, stolen bases. And where are doubles and triples going? They're disappearing into the deep outfield positioning. So, you know, the logic would follow that force the outfielder's in somehow create more doubles and more exciting plays, you know, ranging and diving for the ball. Well, that's, I mean, even, you know,

we are Yankee fans. So I just, Gary Sanchez in recent years, he used to hit these darts down, left field line and the left fielder, all right, squeeze it, one out. And the double to the corner is one of the more electric plays in the sport, and that's been taken out too. So I don't know. It's got to be tough to put the actual rules around it, because even when you said, you know, you have to start your guy at one position and he's got to stay there because I just, we flash forwarded to the raise,

and it's like, all right, Willie Adamas, you're playing second basis ending. They got three lefties coming up. So that the outfield rules have to be so tricky, but I don't know what kind of path it's on, but you've got a fan in me on it. Yeah, what other things did teams, like, or what's the process of trying to think through, like, okay, what is this going to create? What are the teams like the Rays and Dodgers and all these analytical teams that are always looking for an edge to be better, which you can't fault them for? Like, what are they going to do? You know, some people are saying that you're just going to take the left fielder and put them in shallow right. Yeah. Do you think teams are really going to do that?

So we ask them. I mean, the promises are really involved in the development of all these rules and the testing of them. I mean, not only do they oversee the minor leagues where we're testing all this stuff, but they're constantly providing input to us. So, you know, we'll send questions to all these clubs. Like, hey, if we make this rule, could you guys give us some sense of what you'd do, right? How would you play this? How would you?

And there's a lot of great baseball minds. around and they've been very helpful to us and hopefully we're going into this season with as many of those kind of loopholes closed as possible but you know odds are we didn't get it 100% perfect so you know I'm sure that some things will be revealed in spring training that maybe we need a tweak or you know things we forgot about but hopefully you know we've been really thorough about this it's taken a couple of years and we're close as we can be I do feel better about it from a player perspective if you decide to take your center fielder and stick them in shallow right, force them to field a ground ball and make a throw with the guy running up the line,

you know, in the first base and having to move, I do feel better about that. Plus, as a hitter, it's a lot easier to loft the fly ball to the opposite field than it is to hit a ground ball. You just kind of block it over there, yeah. You just kind of block it over there, get underneath it, and it opens up the possibility to creating more doubles, triples and space. The risk is much higher. If a team is like we're going to do that,

the risk for doing that, the whole stadium would be laughing, and be like entertaining in itself. And it's going to play your value, right? Like someone like KK. Hernandez who plays center field but also plays infield, the guy like him might become more valuable. It's so funny how people try to trick this game and try to find the advantage. And I'm sure a couple weeks into spring training, we're going to find out a few things, a couple weeks into the regular season.

Spring training is going to be full of teams practicing all these things. And they'll never do it, but they're just going to practice it. Have you guys? and I'm sure you have so I'd maybe tweak the question how it needs to be better. You make my question better. The guy we've, yes, please.

The way, Rizzo's been our example. You know, I think he ended up hitting around 225 this year. He kind of feels like a 250 hitter in modern day baseball. Do you guys have any idea like the adjustment on the league average or? Oh yeah. Is that like forecast it out

or is there algorithms like what this will change? Yeah, we've had some intelligent guesses at it. You know, unfortunately, when you test in the minor, leagues, that's not a great proxy because there's not as much shifting in the minor league. So when you restrict shifting, it doesn't have that big an impact. And then the other thing you can't really account for in the testing is hitter approach,

right? So to what extent are hitters going to really change the way that, you know, they swing the bat? But, you know, and so the analysis is kind of limited in that sense, and we're going to be finding out alongside everybody else. But, you know, when you ask guys like this, you know, people think it's kind of a pretty big impact on the ball and play environment. It's definitely, because it gets to the point where you're being shifted and you start lining out, hitting, you know, hard ground balls, 200 foot ground balls, and you're out.

And you go, you know what? I'm just going to try to hit the ball over everybody. That's where the money is anyway. That's where the money is anyway. I'm tired of doing it. Where if you incentivize guys to put balls in play, nobody wants to go home one for five with a home run, you know, 30 times a year. Yeah.

Nobody wants to do that. It's a very difficult thing. but I do think it'll incentivize players and have an effect on player behavior and hitter approach. Because you want to be productive. You want to win the game. You want to help your team win the game.

And if there's more opportunity and more holes, then you're more likely to try to do things that help that outcome. Especially Yankee Stadium where you have where Rizzo went down and you sell to Cher and McCann and all their batting averages go down, I'm interested to see, like, how was your approach when you came because there's no doubles and triples if you're a lefty? Because the way they stack the fielders, there's no green.

there's no point in trying to hit a ball hard on the ground or on a line. It's not just that the fence is shorter. It's that the amount of grass is shorter. So to get one to drop is basically you have to miss hit it for it to drop in there and loop in. So they did a whole article about that. Fan Grafts did about the Babbat at Yankee Stadium is for lefties. And Redfield is nothing because there's nowhere for the ball to land. So it's a combination.

Did you feel like pressure or was it exciting when you see that short point? Or there's also pressure like, shit, I can't hit the ball anywhere but out. You want to pull the ball in the air, pull it in the air in the general direction over that way, because that's where the incentive is. At the same time, it's hard to drive guys in to your point. There's a lot less grass. So even hitting a hard one hopper or two hopper to the outfield, you can't really drive in guys from second base doing that at that ballpark,

or places like Philadelphia, too, where you hit a bullet at the right fielder and you have an above average runner at second base, but he can't score anyway. So it does incentivize you to pull the ball in the air, and it incentivizes the club to go find guys that can pull the ball in the air. On this topic of kind of athletic ability, defense, making plays, I have a rule proposal for you. Rod Carreuse on my side here, so that is a little backing over here. It's take paper out of baseball.

That's my campaign slogan. And I don't think outfielders should have a piece of paper. that tells them where to stand. Because I think no fan... From the reaction, it looks like there's been a discussion about that. No fan. I'm not great at reading people, but... No fan is going to stand up and be like, great preparation.

That coach knew exactly. They put it right on the paper. But that guy doesn't move to 10 feet, runs 10 feet, makes the play. A whole place is standing up. Yeah. Let me tell you. So philosophically, 100% with you,

that we don't think clubs should be competing with each other on who has the better positioning algorithm, right? That's not, like, we should be competing with each other on whose players play baseball better, right? Problem, we talked about this extensively, actually, that exact idea. And we also have started to see hitters have cards in their pockets, too, that if you take those cards away, they're just going to do the same thing from the bench. And they're going to have the out-goat coach out there. Yeah, but then you get, you know, you get the Lepenella play and, like, the Paul O'Neill play where Don Zimmer's like, get that way.

And at least, like, the fans see that. Yeah, excited. Yeah, totally. We'll put it back on the list. I went to an Angels game, and Calhoun was out there after every batter, and then literally marching, one, two, three, four, five. And I was like, oh, man, you're not even playing baseball. You want to hear something crazy?

We actually had to outlaw clubs using lasers to shoot them at the spot in the outfield where they want their guy to play. I mean, some fielders might like it. That doesn't sound like baseball. I know Mike Talkman came to the Yankees, and he loved it. He was like, they put me in the best. place to succeed. Like, this is awesome.

But yeah, I think, you know, as getting new fans and, like, getting highlight plays is that guy takes five steps, makes that play. It's more exciting. Yeah, it's definitely more exciting. And I also think it rewards the player that could actually, that does his own homework and instincts and, you know, try to get players to play more intuitively. At the same time, if you're with the club, I totally get why you're doing it. The algorithms are good.

Oh, yeah. The defensive position is really good. It works. Yeah, it works. It works really well. But that's why, like, rules get adjusted when you kind of, you kind of, break the game a little bit. You're like, oh, this is a little doll.

It's like, you know, any game in the backyard, you know, older brother starts winning. You're like, hey, that's now a foul ball. Yeah. All right. What else you got? We're making a list for this year in the minor league. So you're going.

That's my only one. Okay. I think. We'll see as we go. Roll over outs and entice the two-out double play and the next inning starts with an out. It's too early for roll over. Okay.

I'm sorry we jump there. I don't want roll over outs, but I joke about that all the time. Nothing's too gimmicky. Let's go to maybe the bags. I don't know if you had an order you wanted to go in, but... No, the bag is a nice quick. A nice quick one. The bases are getting bigger.

There's some safety stuff. There's some stolen bases. You mentioned what fans want to see and people want to see. We've got what now from first, a second, second, a third. You're going to be four inches closer, two inches on each side, right? I mean, how... Again, I know we're projecting, and it's impossible to truly know until we know, but... It's more safety, right?

then the game changing? Yeah. Because they're slanted more. You don't got to run on a... Tell us about the safety, but it's just... It's so hard, because, I mean, especially with replay now, and, you know, bang, bang play at first base. Like, I don't know.

I wonder... I just wonder how much that's going to change and how much we're going to be saying, like... Right. That guy was only safe because of the bigger basis. Right. You're going to have, no doubt about it. On the margin, it moves a lot of, you know,

bang, bang plays to... safe and it makes a lot of steals successful that weren't. And that's great. Both will be helpful. But yeah, I think that's right. The bigger impact of the bigger bases is giving today's player more room to operate and reducing the collisions that occur at the bases. And you think about when we first picked 15 inches for the size of the bases,

our players were much smaller than they are today. So, and, you know, we get a lot. of injuries that are avoidable, particularly at first base of, you know, the ankles getting stepped on and that kind of thing. How close were you guys to doing, like, the softball double bag? And is it only not doing that because it's a softball double bag and ugly? Because it seems like, it seems like, you like the double bag? I wouldn't, I mean, I'd be like, oh, that looks only because our brains see it as amateur. That's the only reason. It's like now we see guys with the earflap helmets and no one bats an eye because now they wear the face card.

But if you, in 1998, you saw one guy wearing that face card, you'd be like, I remember when Terrence Long busted it out for the A's and everyone was like, Aaron, you know, this guy's scared of the ball? I think that's a rule that even me

for like one year would be like, ugly. And then after year five, you'd be like, oh, we haven't had a collision this year. And there's no baseline dispute where we're getting ejected. So I think if that ever was to change after a little bit,

people would be like, this makes so much more sense. You can run through it anyway. What would you do if a ground ball hit the foul portion of the base? Fow ball? Fow ball? Yeah. Hits the fair, it's fair, right? Just out of the umpire to make that call where did it hit the base? Yeah.

Well, eventually you just get replay. Get some sensors on the bag. I mean, it's no, it's no harder than the line. It's a big bag. Yeah. Having that little line is harder to call than a giant bag where it's going to ricochet. Yeah. Well, you know when it hits the base, right?

Yeah. But I do think if that was ever to change after a while, people would be like, that would help. Yeah, I mean, we'll see how the bigger basis go. I mean, in the minor leagues roughly, injuries at the bases were down, like, 25% like materially. And hopefully we'll see the same thing at the big league level. But it's not enough, you know, safety base. Well, they're also better for like rain, right?

Like the water, there's like grooves in the bags now because that's what Trevor Plouf, you know, third host of the show, he was like, oh, they're not just going to be slippery bricks anymore. It was like they got the grooves. that go down. And also jammed fingers, your fingers will slide up it now. That's a huge difference. I wonder if that gets rid of the oven mitt. Yeah, I think it also adds a little bit of space for the guys,

even around second and third base diving into bases. You're seeing a lot more guys blocking bases now these days. You get three more inches to dive or slide and more space, more bag for the base runner. Makes sense. So what's the other one, the pickoff? The pickoff rule. This one, it's kind of blowing people's mind because, A, they get to the third pickoff where people are like, well, wait, can the guy just go and there's nothing you can do? So I don't know.

This one for me, I was most excited about, but I think that's because sometimes I make myself a little bit of a wild card. But there's also times you see guys throwing over to first, and it's like, you're not throwing over to first. You're just delaying a game. And even, you know, speed slows down the game. How long have we heard that? That, you know, I do love when the crowd booze now when guys throw it first, which is kind of just funny. And it's like, wow, we're doing this.

But I guess give me what you got on what's happening in the minor leagues with that and what we should be looking out for with that. Yeah, so the pickoff limit is part of the pitch timer and kind of the bigger. I'm very excited for the pitch time. Timer regs that are coming in. And the reason we got to do it is, if you don't impose a limit on the number of pickoff throws or step-offs that a pitcher can make, the timer doesn't work because the pitcher can just continually reset the timer by stepping off.

That's something we learned from the testing because the prior version of the timer had that loophole in it. But, you know, it's actually become a really helpful and interesting part of the timer regulations, the pick-off limit for the reason you said. It's like now all of a sudden, when you draw a throwover, you've actually accomplished something as a base runner. You've made your opponent kind of burn one of their, you know, you can take an extra half-step lead. It makes stolen bases a little bit easier on the margin.

It makes those types of players more valuable. And you're probably going to see more of them on rosters, you know, going forward. But, yeah, I mean, I would say that it's part of the bigger timer package, which is related to just generally improving the pace and shortening the length of the game. I've wondered if it's going to increase the sneaky pickoff throw Because usually guys in the A move and a B move And there's a B move to set up the A move You're not going to do that anymore

You're not going to waste a pickoff on a B move But if you saw Was it White Sox? There was a pickoff where he's not even looking Like that and they got him And I'm wondering if you're going to see Like I'm not going to do any real pickoffs Because it's not worth it

But one of the three For that first one I'll just do a complete Like the catcher just goes Ah! Boom! and fake it. It's more of like just a real trick play. I think there's something to that. And I also think that pitchers are going to spend a little more time, pay a little more attention and focus into their work and into their pickoff moves and how they hold runners on. So I think there's, you know, every time you do something,

nothing will ever help one side exclusively, competitively speaking. The other side's always going to adapt, improvise, and increase their level of awareness to whatever could hurt them, right? Yeah. And the rule of it. is if you throw two pickoffs, you can throw the third, but if you don't get him out, it's a balk. Bawk. And he gets second anyway. So the runner can't just

start, oh, you threw two, you can't throw another and start walking. You can still get the out. Correct. But it is going to be really interesting when you're like he's done two already. Like, how much bigger does that lead get? And I'm excited when it's like a slow-footed runner

and they're still just not even anywhere. I mean, when I ask around, that's what I hear, is that, you know, guys who don't traditionally steal are still not going to steal in this world, but the elite base dealers are going to become more like the elite base dealers in the early 2000s. But that's fun. When you know there's a guy that's going to run and you know the catcher knows he's going to run and the whole stadium.

So if you get a speedster like Trey Turner late in the game and they burn too and didn't get him, it's edge of your seat. That's an exciting point. That's like excitement built in right there. So I'm curious how that one really goes. It might not be an effect. How'd you guys, and I want to represent Trevor in this because he was a hitter. His 106 home runs don't pay on comparison to R305 together.

Yeah. But he likes to say the pitchers can be babies, his quote, not mine. How did you guys convince the pitchers into this one? Because that kind of had to be a hard sell, right? I mean, we used it in the minor leagues. We collected a lot of day as a very thoughtful approach. And, you know, we have pitchers that obviously work at the office and their input has been really important as well. But, you know, it's not incredibly popular amongst starting pitchers.

But to be honest with you, no rule change as a player was ever something that they go, hey, you can't run over the catcher anymore. You're like, wait, what? Or you can't, you know, make contact with the middle infielder anymore. And so there's always an adaptation period. And at first, nothing is ever super popular. But then after a while, you adjust and adapt. And these are the best players in world and they're going to figure out a way to compete. I like that. How many of the pitch clock, how many different versions go into it? Like, in the end, it's just straight up, everyone's under the same clock.

I was thinking, and I want to know if this ever came up, like grandfathering some guys in. Like, you got 10-year service time. We're not going to change your whole world when you're trying to, like, stay in the league. Yeah. And you got some of these guys that it might really mess with them. them for like a first take a while to get used to. So that was one caveat. And then the other one was like,

after the seventh inning in like a three run game, it's kind of nice to have the thinking going on and everybody doing that. And maybe there's a caveat there. But it's hard to make, you know, caveats. So, but did any of that come up and thought? Both of those things came up. And I think ultimately, you know, we have this committee of players and owners and,

umpires and staff from our office that votes on these rule changes and ultimately, you know, went forward with the timer. And, you know, one of the philosophical themes was, you know, if you're going to do something, like put a clock in a baseball game, which is a very significant thing for our sport, you want to have it produce a much better game. And you want that game to be fair to all players, right? Like whoever you are, it applies to you, all teams, in all situations, and you want to kind of jump in the water with both feet, so to speak. And, and that's what we did in the minor leagues. And I'm glad that we did. And I think it's going to result in, I mean, like, our minor league experience was it's very bumpy as people get adjusted. And the first

couple weeks of spring training, you're going to see some bumps. But people get adjusted. And the number of violations each week of the minor league season just falls off a cliff, right? Because once players get, you know, you have a new routine, you know, for taking a pitch or delivering a pitch, you know, they figured out. Like you said, they're the best athletes in the world. And, you know, I think one thing, you guys referred to watching innings from Old World Series games. I mean, you're going to get sort of the best of both worlds now where you're going to get today's athletes playing under the pace of the 1970s, which is something we've never seen before, you know, like at the Big League level. And I think it's going to be transformative in terms of, you know, what the game looks like. Some people think it's going to mess up the hitters more because they can't step out.

They can't really think and calculate all that. Do you think we're going to see more hitters just hunting one pitch and take their brain out of it and be like, I'm hunting slider right now? I think early on that there's going to be an adjustment period for the hitters for sure. I mean, years and years ago, it's not the same. We didn't have a hard clock, but there was a period of time where they said you can't leave the batters box. Yeah. So David Ortiz said, no, don't care. That's true.

Publicly he was left. And over time, you started adjusting your routine in spring training. And, you know, personally, I found myself not stepping out of the box anymore for years, just because I got adjusted, you know, adapt, and you do your routine of the batters box, and you just speed it up a little bit. I think the flip side could be there's less thinking from the hitter. Yeah. Less thinking and analyzing data and thinking about, you know, what pitch may be coming

and more reaction and just a natural hitter approach where you can go up, hunt the pitch that you want, and execute. And with more holes, maybe that's an easier way to hit too. You can get singles again on, you know, lesser hit. You don't need to hit everything 100 miles per hour now. So I'm excited. I don't know how much it's going to change the rest of the free agency here. I mean, we heard Cashman say something like, what do you say?

He said ground ball pitchers. or fly ball pitchers are going to be a higher. You want fly ball pitchers more than ground ball pitchers now? That's what he said something. He's like the new rules. So I think fly ball pitchers are going to get better. Right, because there'd be left shifting on the ground. So there's an equation there.

Yeah. And I was like, oh, okay. You're already thinking of it that way. So that's interesting. It was part of, you know, the thinking of this committee was to get everything locked in before the end of the season so that, you know, the free agent and trade market could play out with full knowledge of the way this was going to work.

and all our players could have a full offseason to, you know, so we've got these timers that you may have seen in the minor leagues, but a lot of the players and the clubs are ordering them to their training facilities for the off season, and they're running their bullpens, and everybody's kind of starting to the prep process of, you know, because day one is spring training. We're going to be full go, call in violations. You know, it's going to look different. How do you get the ums to buy in?

I mean, they just say whatever. Like, that's their brain, I guess. We just enforce the rules. We don't make them. The umpires have been. awesome about the timer. It's an extra work for them, and they're going to be enforcing. Less time standing back

there, you know? But you add up, I mean, call it, let's say, 20 minutes, comes off the game times 162 games, and the umpires are on their feet all game. You know, they're not going back to any dugout. And over a 20, 25 year career as an umpire, I mean, you're talking about a significant benefit to those guys. And some of them got an opportunity to see the timer by, you know,

they actually do rehab assignments the same way players, do and go to the minor leagues to kind of get loose and come back to the big league. So they got exposed to it a little bit and they came back with really positive reviews. I mean, they were really excited about it. So when we sit down in 2024, two years from now, what are we going to be talking about?

Are we challenging pitches? I think all, I think baseball, a lot of baseball fans, a lot of safety base, a lot of baseball fans have seen the clip. Was it the Fall League or one of the minor leagues where the hitter was challenging? changing the pitch on the spot. They did in the Fall League, too. Is what, not to get you guys in trouble or overstep your boundaries,

but what do we think we're talking about in a couple years? Because Manfred said like next year, there's some sort of strike zone. Yeah, we're making a lot of progress on the automated strike zone. I mean, there's a couple, we're going to go heavy on testing it in the minor leagues this year. There's a couple outstanding questions. One is the format, right? How do you actually like deploy the technology? Like, do you just use it to call every single pitch?

which interestingly has been very unpopular from players and coaches in the Miami Iron leagues, or do you have this kind of challenge just on that video you referred to where it's a normal game, but a certain number of times per game you can challenge, you know, big spots or bad misses or whatever. The best part of it is that only the catcher, badder, and pitcher can challenge. Yeah. That's something I think, I guess, a new rule is,

and I've watched so many foreign sports, or what cricket or other sports in other countries and see how they do their replays and stuff and it's like, whoa, they're ahead of us in certain ways. And I would love to see where ums can say, I don't know.

And that's what they do in other countries. The ump just literally just goes, fuck if I know, go watch it on replay. That was really close. Like we're forcing, ums to make a call and they don't know.

Yeah. And then, and then... We're asking to do sometimes things that human beings... Yeah, it's not on the ums. And then my favorite example of this is Joe West in the 18 World Series, the Astros Nationals, fan interference, mooky bets.

Joe S is out there, and he calls it a home run or whatever it was, but then he calls for an Ump review because he's doubting himself. But then the review comes back inconclusive so it stands. It's like, but what stands is the very thing, the guy who said it doubted. So how does that hold water? So that's why like, wouldn't it be better just to be like, let's just go check.

Yeah. Because we put weight into these guesses when they don't know. Yeah. So I'd love it if there was just like, that's what they do, they do, square, you know? Just go check this out because I don't know. Yeah, well, you know, we've actually had instant replay for a long time in baseball, and it's worked pretty well. I think people have their issues with it.

But, you know, the ball strike calling, you know, we're getting close to the point where we can have a serious conversation about whether we want this. at the major league level. And, you know, it's an interesting philosophical question for the sport, you know, of, you know, that's a really fundamental piece of, you know, of baseball, having the umpire back there and going with the balls and strikes he's calling. And anyway, we're not quite yet at the point where it's ready to go. Well, that's something when you're implemented and it needs to be right, you know.

It's like they implemented easy pass in New Jersey, but it could only do 10 miles per hour. And two years later, 60 mile per hour easy pass, but they couldn't afford to change the whole system. And it's like, you should just wait it to this was, you know, right. That's what we're doing. I mean, like, that one in particular, we're being super cautious and careful. And, you know, if, like, we need to be, like, 100% confident that it's right for the game. It makes it for a better game for fans. I love taking it out of the dugout.

Like, that's something that I would explore on replay itself and make the players on Because that's something else in all these other countries. Like the coaches don't get much say at all in between the actual games. So the players on the field have to call for it. And it's like on them. And then players implement like, you better not get this wrong. Because right now what does every player do when there's a close call?

And like they don't really know. And they're wrong often. Yeah, they're wrong all the time. If you held them to like, hey, you better get this right. It would be. That's what scares me about it. Yeah, but you'd really do it. when it's blatant.

Or I think Michael Kay says, it'd be interesting if you did replay, but you could only watch it in live speed. So you weren't fully zoomed in, going slow-mo, and looking at the two cleats like this, and you say, you know, you can't watch every angle, but at live-speed, and if it's that blatant, then change it. I don't know.

I had heard that before. I don't know if I like that or not, but I think it's just for that hover rule of a guy slides in and pops up for one second, and it's like, well, how do you do that? That's tough. I mean, you're putting your finger on the philosophical issue, which is like, what is our goal here, right? Is it to get like the truth,

even if it's by half a millimeter that, you know, like the hand beat the glove or whatever, you know, is that the goal? Yeah. Or is the goal to, you know, kind of just if it's egregious, fix it, but otherwise let it be. Yeah, that's a tough line. And you've got to draw a line, exactly.

And balls and strikes is such a great example of that issue where, you know, we're going to eventually have the ability to get every pitch 100% accurate. But I'm not sure people want that. Because we delivered it to in the minor leagues. And at least today, what we heard from the players and coaches with that system was, no thank you. Right. And 100% accurate gets tricky because what is that?

Is that the ball that shaves the pylon cam of home plate? And now pitchers are manipulating if they can touch that corner. And then do you want that? So, yeah, that's good luck. We wish you guys the best. Well, you know, you asked the 2024. We may be in the same spot in 2024. We don't know what the...

What about the three batter minimum rule? Is that people love it in the league? And is there ever... Do rules like that get brought up, like, every three years? Let's rethink this. Oh, yeah. Yeah. We talk about everything that's currently a rule and everything that might be a rule every year.

We've got, yeah, I think that 300 minimum generally has been positive. People like that it's reduced the number of mid-inning pitching changes, which fans hate. And it actually does kind of add a strategic element to the game if you know somebody's got to come in for three batters. I wonder if, yeah, the only thing I don't like is the way the Yankees use it, which actually slows down the game. That's a personal.

That's a personal. Well, it slows down. Well, other teams may do it too, but it slows down the game. They'll never let a reliever finish an inning. Every reliever starts gets the third out because then they can pull them the next inning. So everyone's doing an up down. Everyone's getting tired. and it's like it hasn't really worked for them.

But that's, the lever gets two outs. Okay, bringing the next one, he gets the last out. I almost would rather it be just like you get twice a game, you can change a pitcher in between innings. So if you have a starting pitcher and there's no one on in two outs, but it's in favor of matchup, like, tough, roll the dice there. But you get, it gets, obviously you can leave a guy in to really just lose it. Yeah.

But that's, it's like, three-hanging seems on the opposite. It's like we get more middle of the inning. changes now because they just always go two outs bring the next guy in he gets the last out the rule doesn't apply to him i'm like oh yeah you guys should join some of our meetings you guys think about this a lot i mean i love this stuff we didn't even i was about to take some in our area um because you know what trev would call him late night thoughts i call him shower thoughts i don't know maybe you guys set up some happy hour sessions where it's like let's let's let's let things run a little bit like what what gets you guys some like what would get you guys some like what would get

some gasps. If we went into a meeting, you invited us and I said, hey, what about a designated fielder? Roll over house. If I said, move the mound back, because I'm seeing Ryan Helsley throw 103 and it's like, what are we doing here a little bit? Like, what's, I guess, are there any kind of gasper crazy things that get discussed that, I don't know, they get brought up and everyone kind of thinks for a second and maybe it's like, hey, let's not touch this now. But is there anything along those lines? Yeah, of course. Okay. Yeah, I think, Everything that we consider, we try to grade on this very murky scale of this is going to offend the sensibilities of baseball fans and baseball will stop being baseball if we do this. Or it's just impractical.

And one issue that prompts a lot of suggestions like that is our strikeout rate, right? Like our league-wide strikeout rate's been kind of on a hundred-year trend upward and, you know, we're in the low 20s now. and we would love to find a way to have fewer strikeouts in the major in the major league level. But it's not easy to figure out how to have fewer strikeouts. And one of the things we tried in the Atlantic League two years ago was moving their mound back. Halfway through the season,

we took their mound 12 or their pitching rubber, 12 inches further back. And what we thought would happen is hitters have a fraction of a second more time to see the pitch. We'd make more contact. Strikeout rate went up in the Atlantic League in the second half.

And there's all kinds of theories about why that happened. More break? Like more time for it to break, maybe. That is what we heard. Yeah. Interesting. And that it just kind of messes with your timing.

I think the pitch clock will help with strikeouts, one way or the other. But, I mean, if pitchers are just, you're going to see more fastballs, I think. Because you've got so much time to, is that what I want to throw? Is that what I want to throw? Did I set them up right for this? Let's just place a fastball. And then you might, and you get, I think guys are going to be geared up to swing. Yeah.

Because you can't overthink it. So I hope that helps. I was talking to a major league pitcher like maybe a month ago who was talking to me about how he's preparing for the pitch timer. He said to me something interesting. He said, you know, when I was a kid and I was learning to pitch, one of the things that got preached to me was get early contact, right? Your job is to get through the game. You need to get this plate appearance, whatever happens, over in three pitches. And he said, that's going to be a tool for me with runners on now because I don't have a good pickoff move.

and he said, I'm going into this season, kind of mentally preparing to try to deliver earlier contact and get the ball in play, which you don't hear people say very often anymore. And honestly, if that happens, who knows? There's one guy, but if that happens, that's a better game. You get more action, you get the ball in play. I'm glad Alcantara won Sy Young, and he's a pitch-to-contact guy, because that whole skill has been pushed down where everyone all the Cy Young's strikeout number, strike-on numbers, strikeout numbers like getting early outs is much better than getting strikeouts because you want

your best pitchers to pitch longer you know garrett cole can go five innings and strikeout 12 or all right dylan sees he went like five innings to strike out 12 every game but he didn't pitch that much where sandy is going he's got the most innings pitch most games started because he gets early contact and he lasts games it's that never felt level to me i understand strikeouts the ultimate outcome because nothing else can happen but like it's a lot of pitches to strike everyone out It's incredible where we are as a game when we talk about Sandy Alcantra being a pitch-to-contract guy. At 97 to 100 with a two-sever. With serious run.

And it's hard contact, and I don't mean hard hit. I mean it's hard for the hitter. Yeah. It jams him. Heavy, jam-shot, broken thumbs type of contact if you're right-handed. But what a great pitcher. Yeah. He is and what a great season he had.

Just take the ball and go. It was awesome. Any other rules that we've debated, Mule, over? I don't know. What have we missed? I just want heavyweight ballots between pitchers, starting pitchers back, but I don't know how I think we are trending back that way. I think the game might

This year felt like a good step. Yeah. I don't know what that was, if that was front offices saying we don't want our bullpins burnt out by the end of the year or whatever it was, but I think we saw a conscious effort from teams to get that. It's hard to trust or get five guys to be on their game all the time, but even in the playoffs, it felt more like starting pitchers were I mean, what the Astros have in their guys?

No doubt. Well, one thing we've looked at with the timer coming is, you know, we've got a wide range of pace in baseball. And all our fastest pitchers are starters, and all of our slowest pitchers are relievers. And I think, you know, the logic would hold that the guy is going to be most impacted by this timer are going to be our relief pitchers. And the game's going to look more like starting pitchers are in the game, right?

With them and everything. So if that makes relief pitching less effective and encourages clubs to keep starters in a game a little longer, that's a positive as well. Do you think broadcasters are going to get upset with you guys? Like I'm thinking of Bob Costa's trying to paint the scene in the ninth inning of a big play. Can I tell you something funny? And he's going to have no time. So we, the two of us and are, you know, all the guys in our office have been in the minor leagues all year this past year kind of getting ready for this, right? Getting the timer dialed in and when you're down there, you get to talk to these guys.

guys that call minor league games on the radio or whatever. And every one of them says to you, this has completely changed my job. Like before this timer, I had to tell stories about the bus ride in 1981. And now I call the game. And that's all there's time to do. And I think you're going to see it, that it's going to be an adjustment for the broadcasters too. Like you're going to be much more focused on the game on the field because there's not

that dead time to. And more infractions have been called on the. the pitchers and the minors and the hitters because I've seen replay or highlights of both where the hitter didn't get set in time. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. You got some hitters that take forever as well.

You do. Yeah. Like I said, I mean, the beginning of spring training, everyone's just going to have to put their hands over their ears for a couple days and while people are getting adjusted. Oh,

it's going to be people are going to have complained so much. People love complain. People love to hate new things. Yeah. But it's going to be okay. It's going to be okay. Baseball is going to have a great year. No,

I'm excited for the pitch class. and the shift. I think both of them are going to go back to, like what young people actually want in a sport. Yeah. Which is weird because it is actually like younger people. For me, it's flipped. Like our age, 30 is actually more okay with it when I talk to a younger.

I'm like, what are you talking about? Just trust us. Give it a chance. Want to ask her some Yankees questions? Do a couple quick hens. If you got time. Thank you. Yeah.

Thank you guys. Yeah. Thank you very much. Thank you guys. No, thank you guys. guys. One last thing I wanted to say about the pitch timer, too, that I think is going to help overall players, too, is the recovery rate. I mean, you start taking a guy who's going to play 142 games a season or 140 games or 150 games or like Danesby Swanson played 162 at short. I think it was this year. And you start taking, you know, shaving 20 minutes off a game and the cumulative effect. And, you know, fatigue is a cumulative thing. So I think long term for those guys later on in the season, especially position players. at the premium positions, but just all of them in general. Getting off their feet in the dugout again and back home,

showered, you know, pre-habed, ready to go again. Left fielders, though, or right-fielders in that far dugout, they're going to be making that run much quicker now. Much cleaner. We thought Ian Hap was busting our balls. He was like, oh, man, stadium today. I got to run like 10s. And then we thought about it.

We were like, yeah. Like, if you got to run. Every 10 minutes, you got to do that run back and forth. I'm like, I would be tired. It's true. And when you're going to a place that's hot and humid and you're the left fielder, but you're on the first base tugout, you're like, you've got to be kidding. I never thought about that.

He's right. It's so true. It's so true. It makes a long day. That was the first thing I pulled up. I think it did it probably maybe twice. Oh, yeah, twice. You led the league one year, but I guess was that met one year?

Someone must play 163. Got traded. Damn. Damn, beat you. Yeah. What goes into that? I mean, no one does that anymore. Do you, is that a sense of pride for you?

Or do you look at the game now and be like... I mean, he had the stat ready to go. That's... It's a really good perspective that you have right there. It's totally a sense of pride. And it's almost like at the end of the season, you feel like, you know, in your mind, last game's over. You put your hands in the air in your mind.

And you said, you know, I played every game and not wanting to come out of the game. So Adrian Belchre myself and, you know, Sexton and I remember, you know, they'd be walking around, Hargrove would be walking around looking for a guy to take a day off. They'd say, I'm thinking about giving you Sunday off and I'd go, hey, you should go ask Beltray. You know, he probably could use a day off. He plays third base. It's hard.

So he'd go ask Beltrae. He'd say, you know what? You should ask Sexton. Yeah. So we do that. And then he'd go, well, one of you guys have to take a freaking day off. One of you guys is off. Figure it out.

Yeah, I mean, you got a couple 159s in here. So you were at the end of the list, I guess. Just go get him. Go get the other guy. Well, we're waiting for the big news of Yankee fans for Judge to sign. And the rumor is eight years, nine years. He's 30, 31 years old. He'll be 30.

And a lot of people are detracting. And then I bring up your baseball reference. And from 31 years old to 40 years old, your numbers are insane. You are above average or, like, slug in. Those are your best years. So it can be done. It can totally be done. Edgar Martine, I had a great men.

tour. Edgar Martinez, you know, Hall of Famer, greatest, you know, one of the greatest THs of all time. And I remember watching his preparation as a young player, and every time I'd come in, even if I wasn't playing much, I'd come into the locker room and I'd starve, because when you don't play, you're starving. So, like,

start walking to the food room and Edgar would always be walking to the weight room, and I'd just turn around and follow him. He didn't even know I was like a creepy, little brother that was doing everything he did. So wherever Edgar went, I just did it. So I would ask him, pick his brain, and ask a lot of questions, him and Jamie Moyer.

I was fortunate to have mentors like that that were really productive into their mid-30s, late-30s. And Edgar was one of the guys who told me, look, if you train, take care of your nutrition, I want to buy in a hyperbaric chamber, even though I'm claustophobic, slept in it for, you know, years. And so if you take care of yourself and nutritionally, I mean, in science and the way that you can recover now and you take it in, you know, your off-season training, there's a way to continue to be productive. And guys are still doing it now. So I would never bet against Aaron Judge to be able to do it. I love it.

I was looking at that and I was like, yeah. It's scary, I guess, but it's big money. But he's going to be playing. He's not going to be playing center field like he did this year. So that's good. That was wild. If you jump back in, I mean, it's 2012. You're 40 years old?

39 turned 40. 39, you turn 40. I turned 40. I was 40 when that happened. Yes. You're playing for the Yankees. A lot of guys' careers. I mean, we've gained such an appreciation at this point.

You know, whenever Trevor meets a 10-year guy, we never understood the value of that. And the more we met dudes in baseball and saw, like, how proud. How proud they are for each other and the family. You're 40 years old. You're balling for the Yankees. Like, what's, where's your head at during that time?

Is it just like par for the course for you at that point? Or are you like, is there so much extra maintenance that has to go in at that point? Because now we're in the 30s. there's days I still look like I'm 18, but like we're, you know, you start to feel it a lot more than we're feeling it a lot more. So take us back to that period of time. So, yeah, I mean, the off-season training, I think if you, I used to always say to myself, if you wait to train for 35 at 35, it's too late.

So you have, I think it's the cumulative effect. That's awful news for us. For baseball. I bet it was a professional athlete, not you guys. You guys have plenty of time. Okay, great, great, good. But I'm talking about from a production standpoint, point, you know, you have to, there's a cumulative effect and a compound effect to everything.

So taking the nutrition and the diet and the training series at 25, I think you start reaping the benefits and the rewards later on. And as you age, you have to adapt and, you know, you have to work more on speed and Twitch. You usually have a good strength base, but you do have to work on speed and Twitch nonstop. So I had great strength coaches like Lou Deneen and Pete Bomerito, Bomerito performance systems. And then Brian Hennessy. who helped me at the end of my career, who was a former NFL player and just twitch and speed and focusing on that side of things and making sure that you're not just your absolute strength, but also your relative body strength is where it needs to be, and sprinting a lot,

doing a lot of quick twitch type explosive movements. So yeah, going to New York at the time, they had a great training staff, and, you know, Joe was awesome and Cash and Billy Epler were great too. So just kind of that's where it was. That's where it was at that point. You got brought in to that team, which had some mainstays and some older guys. I mean, I mean, it was a veteran clubhouse, a veteran team at that point. I remember asking Greg Byrd about, it was 16 when he joined and he got called up and we were like, what was it like?

He was like, he was like, 10 years younger than the next like oldest person. I was like, I never thought of it. But was that comforting for you to go there? And it was like a bunch of guys that 10-year careers in there. I mean, what, Tex, A-Rod, Jeter. C-C. C-C. Mo.

Yeah. I mean, was that kind of comforting? Like, hey, let's go get this. Let's go run it. Yeah, it was such a cool thing when you walk into, you know, you walk into that environment, Yankee Stadium. And you have these guys who were legends in the game. But then you have these other legends that are walking around like Whitey Ford and Yogi

Barra. May they rest in peace. But these guys are walking around. Reggie Jackson, you know, these are guys that you had, their baseball cards and grew up with, grew up watching in Reggie's case. So you did find some comfort in that, but what you really felt is that everything in New York,

you know, on the Yankee club, it was all based on winning. We're going to give you everything you need. At one point, I took our strength coach, Dana, to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers because they had this belt squat that my strength coach had created. And I said, yeah,

this is a, there's Billy Epler right there. How about it? So, you know, I pointed at it and I said, yeah, I want one of those. He said, you want one of those? He said, yeah, he said, pick it up and bring it over. So they picked up this belt squat machine that weighs 250 pounds and brought it over and we took it to New York. And so it was whatever you need to get better in order to help us win baseball games.

That's what we're going to do. Well, that kind of culture or whatever of Yankees' fans and fandom came a little under the microscope this year with booing in the playoffs and Gallo complaining about the Truman he got, but you play, and then you have Bohm who said, I fucking hate this place to Philly's fans

and then Phillies in the playoffs. You also played in the Midwest and then out west. How much different was it? I know it's different, but how discouraged, because they're trying to say, like, guys don't want to come because the fans are too mean now. But on the flip side, like,

every, I don't know. Do you think that guys are really discouraged, and your day were guys ever, like, discouraged by the booing or those Philly and Yankees atmospheres? I could have talked about my experience. I loved everywhere I played. I know it sounds like the political thing to say. I really do love,

and I appreciated each place independently of each other, and I'm able to evaluate that way. I love the electricity of Philly and New York, especially in the postseason, in that environment. Now, at the same time, I was, you know, in my mid, late 30s and playing into my, you know, early 40s. So it didn't really bother me.

So I don't know how somebody would feel going in there at 22, 23. Younger, yeah. Yeah, younger. But I love the accountability and the honesty of, you know, a place like New York or even Philly. I love the accountability and the honesty. And, you know, to a lot of these scenarios, you just have to be straight up with them and you go, hey, I blew it. I stunk tonight.

And they love, they appreciate it. and you move on. I always say that in the Northeast, beeping and booing are just not big deals compared to other, because I lived in California and I lived in Illinois, and like, man, California, something beeps at you.

It's like, oh, my God, they're mad. Where you go to New Jersey, it's... It's all they do. It's nonstop. It's a beep first, a boo first state, and it doesn't hold as much. So, like, you're judging that, but that's because you're judging it from your,

perspective. Like, no one cares. Like a Yankee Stadium, people boo, but it's the same way people groan at other stadium. It's just like, ugh. Instead, it comes out, boo. And it's like, whatever. Yeah. And by the way, disclaimer here, the fans would cheer Raoul, so it sounded like a boo

boo. Yeah. You know, if I was like, oh, for 10, I would say, oh, they're cheering for it. They want me to go. Booney and moose. Booney and moose. You crushed Messina, by the way. Did you know that?

I was looking at you versus Miss. Cena stats and I think you like lit him up. Well, he was a great. He's a great pitcher. When he faced two. He went four for four one day. I was like. And then, yeah, I saw you have six straight hits off him.

So he probably remembers that. Wow. I didn't know that. Thanks for that. Feel good. Yeah. Makes me feel good. He's a great pitcher.

I've got another. When you're at the Royals, you guys hung like 16 hits on him in five in five innings. Wow. Must have been tipping or something. No. You know he wasn't. But some of those Royals teams,

we you know the first two years 0-1-0-2 we weren't great in the wins and loss column 03 was a lot better but the offense could hit I mean it was Sweeney Beltron Randa was in that lineup you know Michael Tucker was scattered through there fabulous so we could you know we swung the bats

pretty well as a team I was I was just gonna I was gonna send you more of a compliment than a question as Jimmy was yeah tasting you on me Sina so we'll keep it going no I it Jimmy let me into this before your baseball family tree you mentioned some of the guys on those royals teams. You mentioned some of the guys in Seattle and the Yankees in Philly like your family tree of baseball is awesome, man. I mean, how much of those guys do

you keep up with? I guess are looking back at the time. Like you talked about how much you appreciate Edgar Martinez, which man, for the young guys that don't know, like he was a dude whenever he came on the TV screen and I'm so thankful for, you know, some of the yes guys that were like, that man can hit. Like, watch what that guy does because he can hit. So I guess who are some of the guys that you're still connected to and who are some of the guys that you appreciate the most sitting back here now? Yeah, I mean, a lot of those guys.

And even the guys that you don't keep in touch with, you shoot them a text. They text right back. You know, Beltrae and I are close. Carlos Beltron and I are, you know, buddies and we're close. And, I mean, Ryan Howard, Jimmy Rollins, like that whole crew chase, you know, Jason Worth. Yeah, man. We all keep in close contact.

see Ruiz as often. We were going to make t-shirts to say, where's Chuch? Because he lives in Panama. Okay. But somewhere in Panama, and he's like rides horses and he's got a ranch. We'll start the campaign. Where's Chooch? But we did get to see him during the postseason. But a lot of the guys from Seattle, we were very close to J.J. Putts and, you know, Bloomquist. Have you ever seen this? This is like your teammate web. Who does that? There's a website. There's a website that does. He's type in a player. So, like, you can see you and Moyer, uh, 10 seasons. Shit.

That's his. Let's see. He's got you. Moyer's got 9 million people, I'm sure. Yeah. He's got one of those like sperm donor pages. And then you got Edgar, Arod.

I mean, but even on the outskirts, you know, Randy for a bunch of years, Griffey, Cole Hamels. I was looking at, I was like, you played with a lot of like, you know, a Beltray down here. Felix. Griffith.

Griffey, yeah. He's all right. He's all right. He's all right. You guys should one day have. have the experience of walking through a major league clubhouse with raoul it's like nothing you will ever experience every single person you walk by like the trainers the coaches the players everybody is his best friend and it's i've never said anything like it's really amazing just means

i'm old that's really cool yeah yeah i haven't been on this in a while but yeah it's cool dobs this is just for me and i think it's my last thing it's not even yankees it's back to griffie because I- 580 different teammates. Total. Name them. No. There's a, I don't get into actual debates

because I think you hit a certain age and you're like, what are we doing? But, you know, there's a lot of people out there that are like, you know, bonds is the best. Look at the stats. And, you know, there's a really good argument there. And I don't even want to have the argument. There's a lot of other stuff there.

And I don't want to talk about that either right now. Griffey, up until age 30, 31 or so, he's like unmatched, man. And I, Jim. Did you play in the minors with him? No, we were together at the big league level. Yeah. So in Seattle, we got to play alongside and played with his brother in the minor leagues.

And I got to play with Mike Trout, which is another, you know, all-time great. We'll throw him on there. Yeah. That's incredible. When I saw Mike Trout, I'll tell you some Trout stories that I watched him do. If I didn't see him do it, I would think I was lying to. Yeah. But Griffey, you almost became a fan on the field.

We're playing a double-header one day in Detroit. and Luis Gonzalez hits a ball in right center and Griffey goes over the wall and he goes like belly over the wall, right? And in my mind, thankfully I didn't do it on the field, but in my mind I was standing there with my hands on my head. Like I can't believe this. Now I was like the double cut guy home, right? Griffey comes back over the wall, catches it and fires to first base to the bag. And I'm standing like in the middle of field watching the play happen and I'm like, hey, that's me. I had to sprint over to first and catch the ball.

because I became a fan on the field. I heard people say that about Michael Jordan. That's what Griffey was. Junior one day he comes by me and the dugout as a young player and says, I'm going to hit this ball to left and did it, got a base hit. I was like, okay. And he walks by me again, he goes, I'm going to hit this ball to center. And he hit a bullet to center and got a base hit.

I'm like, okay, that's different. Like as a young player, I was like, okay, that's different. So the third time he walks by, he looks right at me. He goes, now I'm going to hook him. And he goes, and went deep to right. And I was like, I've never seen anything like that before, since or after that.

Wow, just incredible. Called three shots. Yeah. That's what I was looking for. I'm good. Awesome. Well, thank you very much for channel with us. Appreciate it.

Thanks, guys. All right. Thank you for tuning in. That was a lot of fun. Go tweet at Raul? Yeah, Raul uses Twitter. He was, he's really excited about this. I might tweet at Raul right now.

And by the way, go check out that baseball reference. There's some impressive stuff on there. One of the bad ones you'll find. With our guy, Raul, and thank you to Morgan Sword for joining us as well. And yeah, it was cool deep diving into all those topics and knowing they're testing and what they're trying and what they're thinking. And hey, maybe if they get a big enough response,

tweet at Raul and tell them to add us to the committee. And then we'll literally be infiltrating the game. Yeah. And we run baseball. So cool to chat with the guys like, literally, like, in charge of figuring out the new rules that we're seeing next year. Where we're trying to go. I think we threw out, yeah, I think we, at one point threw out, like, the designated

fielder, and Raoul was like, yeah. That's my favorite part. It was like, wow, Jake asked a really good question there. You guys just listened to it, but when you were like, in two years and we're doing this again, but we'll be trying to corner them there. That's art of the deal. Hey, happy holidays. Hopefully there's some breaking news that comes in.

We love you guys. We'll see you soon. Go baseball. Maybe Korea's switches teams again. Maybe it already happened. Chick-sucks. Watch this again.