Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - Padres Drama, Expanded Playoffs, & Best Offseason Additions | 716

Episode Date: September 20, 2023

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Hello and welcome to talking baseball. It's September 20th. There's 11 games left of the season. And we got a lot of stuff to say. Hello and welcome to talking baseball episode number 716. My name's Jimmy sitting here with Jake and Trevor, who just left to take off his sweatshirt, I believe, producer BBD, behind the dish. and we've got some topics for you guys as the season winds down. And the NL Wildcard and the AL-West are just like those marathons

where everyone's cramping and like hurt, but they just need to finish. You know that lady's screaming and crawling and her muscles spasming that viral video? That's a fun one. Jake, how are you? James, Trevor Davis, tiebreaker, Trev. Hope everyone is having a great week so far. September 20th, that hit me in the mouth a little bit.

It hit me a mouth a little bit. It felt like September 10th to the 19th just didn't even happen. Excited for next week of baseball. Trev, like you said, we're in a little bit of a showhole with baseball. It's like, give us the next chapter. Let's see the Rangers and Mariners figure it out. But we've got some other news. How are you doing, Trev?

God, I know the tiebreakers are just still tearing you up. No, we don't need to talk by the tiebreakers, although I know James is going to go in a little bit on the page that has been frustrated me for weeks on end. I'm doing great. I'm excited to talk ball with all three of you. I like when we have the split screen like we have it now. It's nice to have you, James.

You know, I agree with you. Like this little time here, the last 12 games, you just want to get to the last four games. Because then we really know what's going on. And because of the extra playoff team and the extra wildcard team, like, there's just, there's still a lot to be figured out, which is the crazy thing. Because right now we're sitting here and we know that. But there's nothing we can really do or talk about because they got to play the game. And then once we get to that last series, I feel like that's when you can really lock in on who's going to be playing who,

what needs to happen. Yeah. But right now we're just kind of like, all right, let's get this over with. I am interested in the Texas, Seattle, Astros, how that plays out. The fact that we were talking about it, but the fact that Texas and Seattle play each other so much and the benefit the Blue Jays and the Astros get by getting the, third wild card spot and by getting the,

by the, the, uh, A-O-West for the Astros. It's a little bummer. Like if that is like, I don't know, it would make it more exciting if that wasn't so easy for those two teams to beat up. You almost need, and I don't know which one,

because I want all three to stay close, but it's in, I guess that's it. It's impossible for all three to stay close, I think. Because they're going to get wins and loss from each other. I have one just dom, That's fun, but now it's a two-team race in both areas. I don't know. I guess I'll see how it plays on.

There's still six games left. If they split those and the Blue Jays and the Astros split whatever they're doing, we're going to come down to the last series, which should be great. Last game for Texas and Seattle is October 1st. I would love for it to come down to the last day. I think everyone would. That's kind of like best case scenario. And Blue Jays have to play the race who are still in it to win the division against the Orioles.

six times. So those games are going to be really fun too. So yeah, there are stuff. The NL doesn't do as much for me right now as the AL does. AAL, there would be some fun dancing too. You know, Trev, I respect your Minnesota twins, but I do think some teams would rather play the twins than Tampa, whether it's at the TROP or the new stadium,

if they get it built in time for the playoffs. I haven't looked into that yet. But that's going to be, that's going to be, fun for the matchup side of things because God the Trops a nightmare Well, they're moving to St. Pete. Seattle has their work. I just look at the Houston now.

They play Seattle as well. They go Kansas City, Seattle, Arizona. So Seattle has Texas, Houston, Texas, if I'm not mistaken. A little Texas two-step. You guys see any of the Houston

Orioles stuff last night, man? The Orioles are such a problem. I saw two nights ago. Austin Hayes, two homers on your head. Like they just they are a problem, man.

Jolly, when we did baseball today, he says it's just feels like it's kind of just their year. Like things are going right. The ball's bouncing the right way. They're getting performances like that when they need to. The young guys they brought up have been great. Grayson Rodriguez had a mid-season

turnaround. Like things are just working out. We've got Jay Flair in the bullpen now. What do you give him? Two or three innings last night? The final boxer, I think it was two. Two innings? I think it was two. And they're looking for that. A hide after the game was talking about, you know, we need a right-on-right guy. We need kind of like a bulk innings reliever type guy. And, you know, they have enough starters. And he didn't really. fare well in his starter capacity in Baltimore. So I'm happy. Like if this, if he, if Jack gets in there and has

success and is a part of the run, that's all you can really ask. Well, you know what I always say about playoff formulas, you need to send starters to the bullpen. So you have length back there in the playoffs. You don't want to lose. You want to be able to, you know, have a guy throw multiple innings in a huge winning effort or huge losing effort. It's so many games now. So I actually, the teams that are able to do that, I think are way better off Blue Jays. They have a ton of arms. Just need to get into the dance. Yep.

And they need to make sure their eyes are covered. By D.L. Hall. We got the win last night for the Orioles. With Shady Ray's. Shady Ray's the best eyewear in the game. Today's episode is sponsored by Shady Ray's. Our friends at this point. Because they make a world-class product at a world-class product.

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Trev and Jake. I did my Jimmy's Three Things episode on the Kenny Rosenthal athletic article about the Padres. And kind of a crazy article, not a crazy article to write, but like you need to really stand by an article like that because basically a tear down of Preller. Like just attacked A.J. Preller and the Padres top down organization in like a long article that covered every aspect of the Padres. So I talked a lot.

I like my New Zealand guy, Don Tricker. I'm interested to hear you guys thoughts. But I think, yeah, I'm interested to hear. if you read it, Trev, your thoughts on it, and how much you, you know, obviously as a player, like how much can top-down org stuff affects things? We heard this with the White Sox, too, about how when Keenan Middleton said there's no rules.

Kenyon? Kenan. Kenan. Kenan said there's no rules in the White Sox. And when you have no, like, this is how we do things. And the Padres, apparently Prellors just like, pedal to the metal too much.

And they're saying that's why the players collapse, get tired. I was never part of an organization necessarily where the front office was down and I felt like they had a strong influence on day-to-day activities.

Now, if there were suggestions they wanted to make, if they wanted to be in the club, if they wanted to come talk to you, obviously that's part of being in, you know, any company, any organization, you have to speak to some of the higher-ups. But as far as like leadership and rules, like that's, that's the manager.

And then the manager sets it, you know, has his leaders in the clubhouse. Like those, like the manager kind of sets what he wants to happen in the clubhouse. And then he goes and tells the dudes, make sure it happens. So in the article that they say the dynamic is that Preller tells Bommel the things he needs to do as like the bad guy. So then Bommel has to be the bad guy and Preller goes to the players and plays nice guy. So then the players can tell that he's making other people say the bad shit or whatever. And like that's not Bomell's thing. Like managers are supposed to be like the players manager.

and like I'm the advocate for the player. I'll fight for you. And instead, Fereller is flipping it. I would, I'd almost fight back on that one. I'm obviously not there. But I do have experience with Bomell as my manager and him dealing with a front

office dude who's probably a little overzealous, Billy Bean. And which in the article, they're like, Billy Bean, you know, stood from 40,000 feet away and let Bomell do a thing. No, he did it. Bob,

Bean was all up in the club else. He was getting work in the training room for God's sake. Don't tell me that Billy Bean was 40,000 feet in the air. That just wasn't the case. And in fact, multiple times, I had Bo Mel call me in the office and say, hey, man, I really want to play you, but we got this lineup. And if I start you in this game, well, whatever, he didn't want to play me. But the roles were reversed is what I'm trying to say. Bowe was trying to trying to be the good guy saying, look, we want you in here. This is a thing. I'm getting it from the front office. If we do this at this point, whether it was me or whether there's anybody else, if we do this at this point, I'm going to get a call from the front office.

So now this article is making it seem like it's reversed. Like Bomell is the bad guy. I have a hard time believe in that. No, they're saying that that's what Prelor's making him do. And that's why him and Bommel have an unworkable relationship because there's a Preller makes other people be the bad guy so he can always save face and be the friendly guy. And Bommel doesn't like that because it's not supposed to be that way. I just can't imagine Bomell being the bad guy and not saying what he said to me. Like that's just all like managers who have to deal with the front offices, which is pretty much every single manager in baseball now, like deal with the front offices, giving them a lineup,

you know, talking about pitching rotations, that a lot of that, all of it, is, you know, a dance between the on-field coaching staff and the front office. But Beaumel, I just can't imagine him ever doing that role, ever being that guy that he's the bad guy. That doesn't make any sense. That's not in his personality. That's not in the way he manages. He's a great communicator. He does, like, he'll let you know how he's feeling.

But I would, I've never talked to anyone. I've never had any experiences. where Bomell's the bad guy. That just like doesn't make sense to me. Can I say something that's, and the answer is yes. Can I say like this got brought up on the Yankees broadcast last night, and this is going to seem off the course a little bit,

but I'll bring it back. That's what I normally do. Alejandro Kirk, our short, thick king, won the Silver Slugger at Catcher last year. Now, this year he's kind of been up and down with the bat, and he's had some injuries, too. His numbers aren't awful on the year, but it's not where they thought Alejandro Kirk would be,

especially like there's some power. I wonder if there's an injury or something, whatever. But the conversation in Toronto, don't say that second T, is that Alejandro Kirk, you know, should really work on his weight this offseason and get in better shape. no one was saying that last year when he was in better shape.

So this Padres season, that's been a bizarre one. And by the way, Jim, good to have you. By the way, they're on a six-game win streak right now, and they have the run differential, and it's been this weird year, and if you flip their one-run games and the extra innings and all of that, like it feels like they're the easy target right now, and they're kind of going for that

where, you know, I don't know. There's definitely things in a lot of front offices that need to be tweaked, but this season from the Padres seems like a bit of an outlier, and some of the hyperzones, I think, are good, and there need to be some changes made, but a lot of it just breaks down to this team

lost a lot of one-run games that flip every year, and it wasn't theirs. They talk about that, but this article isn't about this year. It's like they've been working on this for a long time about how toxic the environment is in San Diego. And they have players from previous years and for an office people from previous years. So it wasn't this year's team like the collapse in 2021. The fact that they've spent so much money and they've only been to the playoffs once.

And they have a New Zealand spy. And Preller makes all the players do infield and batting practice before every single game, which you're saying led to the collapse in. 2021 where guys are just fucking tired. And Beaumel's a manager who traditionally doesn't care about that stuff, like gives the guy's rest, gives the guy all this. But, but Preller is the one saying, no, like work harder, go there. And they hired this guy, dude from New Zealand, Don Tricker,

to make sure that the player's families were cared for. And like, everything was being handled well. And that's his whole job. But he's trying to do his job. And Preller saying, no, not that. So the article wasn't just this year. It's about like how it's a takedown of a preller, would deserve it or not.

They're saying he basically ruins everything with his like, you just have to do more and be better. And that's the only advice he ever gives. So it's a weird article. That's what I'm saying for Rosenthal on them to write it like they have this must have, this was an article that wasn't done in a week. Yeah. It's, it's, it's Ken Rosenthal and Dennis Lynn.

And you're right. I mean, it seems like it's spanned over. in time. I just, that's the thing about one of the, one of the parts of the article that I just couldn't comprehend, or another part of the article that I couldn't comprehend is Preler, you know, dictating what goes on pre-game and dictating what kind of work you're putting in. Here's my thoughts on the front office. You guys put the team together and then shut up. That's your job, is to put the team together, get. players here and then you have managers and coaching staffs that are supposed to manage and coach

and then you have players who are supposed to get ready to play. That's that's the hierarchy. You put the team together. If we need a piece at the deadline, go get us a piece at the deadline. You telling me what work I need to do, if you didn't think I knew how to be a professional, why did you bring me here? If you're this great talent evaluator, why would you bring me here? Like, and that's just, to me, is nuts. I can't. Yeah, you sound like the anonymous players.

And there's no way the front office is being like, you guys need to hit 100, you guys need to hit the high velo machine because we're facing a guy that, that doesn't come from the front office. That comes from the hitting coach or yourself. But Preller is hiring guys that are yes men. I believe in that.

That don't even have the knowledge. Well, there's the disconnect then because if you have a team like he has here in San Diego and you pay guys, fucking $2 and $300 million, $11 years, 14 years, you don't need to tell those guys that. If you're giving those guys those type of contracts, they don't need hitting coaches explaining how to run a routine. Like if you get that type of contract, you're established. you have your own routine it works you might need help if you go to a coach and ask for help you might need help with something but like for him to try to dictate pregame routines with guys like manny machado yeah zander bogarts won soda like come on man that doesn't that doesn't make any sense

i honestly i read the article and for a lot of it i was like i don't know if this is if this makes sense and that maybe that's the gist of it but maybe if it is true then you sound like the players that they're saying like this doesn't make sense. This is a bad system. Yeah. And that's where the analytics side definitely kicks in. And I know that's almost become a bugaboo to even say that word anywhere in baseball because either analytics people think you're going to use it the wrong way in attack

or vice versa, basically. But Preller seems like he's a pretty dialed in guy almost too much. And that's kind of the concern that, yeah, like he, in his head, this work ethic guy, has, okay, so more is better. So more high-velo machine. That'll make us better. More infield. That'll make us better.

These are decisions that shouldn't be in his hands. And I think that's the best thing that the article is highlighting. And we've already seen over baseball in the past three years or so go from the front office is everything. We rule the world. We make the lineups. We are. We know more than you up and down our organization.

Where we've seen teams start to draw that. line again because that's why. There's a reason that line is set up. So I don't know. Hopefully that's when they do their internal audit, popular word this offseason. And we'll see if Beaumel is back for it because it sounds like Preller will be. That, you know, hopefully they check on that and they tell your guy Don Tricker to get out of here. Mr. Tricker. His contract is up. Tricker. So they might extend him, though. game a three-year deal and then there was a three-year extension

and it was 2018 was the first year so my math right there, this is six years. Don Tricker's big contribution was why don't they take more intent on their batting practice? Yeah. More like...

Yeah, he's basically a top. What are you going to do? You gotta hire a bunch of former college pitchers to come throw live VP before every game? Yep, tire everyone out. He asks why, Trave, that's his whole job. Get 600 more played appearances besides your actual 600 played appearances. I listened to the YouTube interviews with Don Tricker and I read a ton of articles from New Zealand websites and now.

And all of them, besides one was kind of tangible. All of them were, what do you do? I ask why. Just asking why. The power of why by Don Tricker. I think you could just like pay like an intern to ask why. Toddler, you can have bring your kids to workday. I think kids, that's the best.

Why do they do that? What? Why do you do that? You guys are, Don Tricker is one of the best speakers on this planet. And for you guys to put that down. Well, you know, he should be brought in twice a year. Consultants. At most.

Consultants are good when they're experts in that field. But Don Tricker, they admit, has no knowledge of baseball. They said he came in with no rudimentary knowledge of baseball and no knowledge of the medical system. Right. And he worked for the rugby team and he didn't play rugby. So he's kind of an awesome gig where he's a consultant to places that he, industries he knows nothing about, which the whole reason you would hire him is for an outside voice that,

like, knows nothing. But to have that guy around for that long seems nuts. The players think he's a spy. That's so funny. The players think there's a man from New Zealand spying on them for proler. And I just, when you say players, I think it should be driven home again. Mani Machado, Fernando Tatis,

Sandra Bogartes. These are, these are like legendary all-time players who are in their meetings. Who are in their meetings, turning their head and seeing New Zealand legend Don Tricker. That feels off. I actually have an example of real, real life,

and I did this, and I feel like this correlates to what Don Tricker does. No knowledge of the game really comes. over to ask why. I was watching a tennis match. I don't, I mean, I play like very recreational tennis, right? Very limited knowledge of the sport. I'm watching a match. And I said, you know what? These guys are professionals. Why do they have two serves? Why don't they just serve their first one twice? It seems like you should be able to get it in if you're a professional twice. And the success rate of your point, if you get the first serve in, is much higher than your second serve. And so,

like that's me just being an outsider be like this makes sense to me and then you go look up and you and you start to see like you have to get to a certain percentage of first serves in if you want to do that and only so many people can do that and some people on the tour already do that every once in a while but it's not worth

it to do it all the time so it's like I'm an idiot and I just see something casually on TV I think I have this like excellent idea but I have no knowledge of the sport if I said that to an actual tennis player they'd tell me to shut up Is that what's going on?

Our buddy meathead Rob asked me one time Why there's not more bicycle kicks in soccer Because whenever he sees a bicycle kick, There's a goal. Hey, the Yankees just had to do this, man, because Rizzo came over and you had some, and veteran bats came over. And they had this,

they had Dylan Lawson, who did good work in the minors. And his whole thing was train against high velo, just like Don Tricker said, and face high velocity and hit strikes hard. And none of it resonated with Rizzo, DJ, Stan, the veteran guys at all. They're like, what are you talking about? That's not how standing in on pitchers. That's not the brain like waves we have.

And they just like, but he came and he overhauled the whole system. And he's like, all right, shit, all right. And they brought in Casey, he was a former player. So, yes. How was that gone? I haven't even He's been great For stats gotten better

DJ LeMayu Credits Casey For helping him His firm like first half Second half And his second half Yeah is really good Glabors had a good

Second half But I don't know Who's using him or who's not And overall the team isn't great But there's not a lot of talent Tough to say But the one story We've heard is a good story

DJ's the one Because he says Sean's helped me out a ton And then DJ is interesting Trev because he said he never thought about hitting fundamentals and mechanics. It was just, he just played

natural for as long as he could. And then he suffered his toe injury. And all of a sudden, he felt like he was swinging in a foreign body, but he didn't know the key words or like the foot placement or he didn't know what made him good. So he had to like kind of figure it. Go like figure it all out again.

He said it was very hard because he never was a guy that like, you know, when you have Donaldson tell you you were 60, 40 and he would, DJ's like, what does that mean? I just go up there's hit. So it was interesting. That is interesting. You know, like the high of VLO training, I feel like is a little bit of a conversation.

I do believe in it, but I believe it's more just eye training than actually taking swings. Because there's no real, there's no real way to get high VLO training that makes any sense or that you can get comfortable with. Now, what they're doing now is they have these machines. They can replicate spin, spin axis. shape, everything you can think of, they can just mimic pitches with these machines. So you see guys taking, you know, swings.

Like, for instance, I saw the twins out there. They had the machine out there facing Corbyn burn. So they set it up to mimic his cutter. Such bullshit. You should have seen some of these swings in the cage. I'm like, dude, you guys are fucking, mentally it would crush me. I'd prefer to just not swing and just to see it.

Because your swing is going to be there in the game and hitting off a live pitcher is so much different than hitting off the machine. So what they're doing now, because you mess your hands up so much, you get beat off the end of the bat, off of, you know, the label, you start to get really timid with your swing. What they do now is they're doing these foam balls. Foam balls, which is like great, maybe like in the off season,

but dude, that doesn't give you real feedback. They try to make it seem like it does. Like, Drive Line has these balls. They're selling. They're peddling out to all the kids. Like, hit these foam balls. that doesn't give you the real feedback. I think, my opinion,

and I'm somewhat of an expert on the fucking subject. You know more than Don Trigger. Velo needs to be seen with your eyes. You need to train your eyes. So just go in there and stand in. And, you know, give a nice take, an aggressive take. And, you know, your body, your swing will be there during the game. But to say you need to do it every single day and hit against it

and try to take batting practice. away and do that. Now, I'm not a fan of batting practice every day either, but the high veto doesn't work because of that. You can't swing against it every day. You can watch it every day. And I would, I actually am on that side. I would tell if I was a hitting coach, I would set up, whether it's an iron mic or some machine, I would set it up to 100 miles an hour and just say, go watch 25 to 50 balls. 50. That's it. All right. So it slows down. It just slows down for you. We'll do that tomorrow in the warehouse. Put the blitz off the machine.

I'll just watch. I won't swing in them this time. Pretty much everything you just described was like managing the team. And as the organizations get back to letting the manager manage the team, should the boys take batting practice today? Yeah. Should we have an infield today? That's more of a coach, coach Trev.

Thank you. Managers just coach the coaches, you know? Front office stay out of it. Just stay out of it. Like you. That's the gym. of the article. Preller's very good at evaluating talent and getting talent into his team and then he squeezes them to death with his micromanaging. People have said, I mean, excuse me, I've

said this before on the show. The role that Sam Fold was in with the Phillies was so good and every team should have that role. He was just a liaison between the front office and the players. Smart enough to understand what they wanted to do and what the metrics were saying and telling them, but still savvy enough baseball-wise with the lingo to relay it to players. So they felt comfortable and it made sense. Like that should be a role on every team, a former player who can be that person. Now, I know some coaches will do double duty with that

and be the first base coach and also kind of be that. But I think a designated role for that would change cultures of teams and change the relationship between the front office. and the players, big time. Big time. All right. This next section is going to be called You're Bad at Symbols,

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Bebe is me and you or this? 2160, but there's a lot of zeros. E9. Bebs, I just slapped you an image from the website. at MLB.com. And I know Treves been going off on the tiebreakers. I'm not really going off on like what the tiebreakers are. I'm just going off specifically the legend on this website is the most preposterous thing

I've ever seen. So for those that are just listening, I'll explain it. For those that are watching on YouTube, BBD has it on the screen. They have a legend. It's awesome. So it has the Orioles and then all the teams it's competing against and it lets you know, do they have the tiebreaker? Do they not?

Is it undecided? Right? If I was to make the legend, I would say, do they have the tiebreaker? I'd say a checkmark is yes. Do they not have the tiebreaker an X? Kind of universal, right? I think you'd need one more for Open, maybe an O. For a series.

Not decided yet? Yeah. Not decided yet. Well, they don't even have a symbol for that. They just say like three games remaining, which is nice. they have a series finished in a tie, and intra-division record is the second tie-breaker. And for that, you, yeah, maybe you do an O or just like...

Not decided yet. Yeah, like TBD or, or no, it's intra-division record, so... Well, head to head, I'm saying. Yeah, you would do maybe equal sign because they're equal. are they? And then head to head. We'll just find it. Anyway, what they chose to do is that if the team has it,

they clinched the season series, they did the, I don't even know what this is called, the up arrow thing. Is there a name for that symbol? Carrot? Is it called a carrot? I think you crushed it.

I think you just crushed it with the up arrow. Yeah, like pointing up. And if the, if they lost it, they did the pound sign or hashtag as people on X. Know it. X. That doesn't make any sense.

And it's very confusing to read because now I've got to learn new symbols when checkmark and X already exist. And then season series ended in a tie, interdivision record is a second tiebreaker. They did a plus symbol, which is a symbol for positivity, which would lead you to bleed. Yes, they have it. But that's not what it means at all. So I'm not talking gripes with the actual what the tiebreakers are and all that.

I just think that this website and the legend. is dumb, and I need that to be voiced. You don't need to recreate symbols. You're not bringing me back into this conversation. I already gave my tiebreaker, like, speech. A lot of people are not happy with it. They told me to chill out. It's not that big of a deal.

Kind of think it is a big deal because this is. Things are as big of a deal as you want to make. Yeah, that's a good point. But I feel like, you know, when it's deciding a major league base, baseball season. It's, I would, I would put that in the big deal category. Well, okay. Pause on what you're saying.

X and check mark exist. Use those. Yeah. Don't be ridiculous. I guess, okay, so my one loophole on the, what are denominations, denotations? Like what, what are, what are those called? Symbols. Yeah.

Right. But there, there's a, there's an English grammar phrase when it's like, Oh, I'm using an asterisk to denote this. Is it denotations or something? Like I wonder if there's actual grammar rules that they're pretending to use for this or something like that. That's what I don't know. But no, we can't be doing that.

This is baseball. This is sports. There's simpler ways if that is the loophole. Otherwise, just what are we doing? And yeah, Trev, I think the tiebreakers aren't poor. And as you know, I live life a little differently that I do want to see these teams figure it out. Like there's a chance that we land on Sunday the first

and my Diamondbacks continue their four-game win streak and they have won over a spot and the other teams have. But it's most likely we're going to land on Sunday the first at Billy's Sports Bar doing a live blitzball game with the people. And we're going to look up and be like, oh, wow. So wait. the Blue Jays and the Rangers tied so who's in the playoffs

but hold on Trev what's your great I know you did this last episode but like you don't like head to head as the first tiebreaker makes sense now I like head to head because yes you had a chance to play these teams one thing I will say about head to head

is obviously you might play a team six times you might play them 13 times you could have played them in May for God's sake the last time you played a team could have been that early on in the season. But head to head, great. You had a chance to play it. The inner division record makes no sense to me because look at the divisions.

You guys always tell how crappy the AO Central is. So you might be in just a tough division and that hurts you because this team played against these teams 13 times and you only got to play against some six. So it's not a balanced thing whatsoever. I have thought you just opened my mind a lot. So when it comes to the divisions, like, Like if the rays and the Orioles are tied for the AL East, head-to-head is an awesome first one. I think it makes sense. They're in the same division.

And an odd amount of games, too. That's the other thing that gets me is like we're playing six games. And an odd amount of games. And intra-division makes sense because you're both in the same division. How'd you fare against your points? That's the thing is, let's just not have an even amount of games. Then we don't have to have a second tiebreaker. But I almost disagree now entirely, and I didn't know this was a stance I had,

with those being the first two for the wild card. And I guess that's where I'm now landing on the same page as you. Intra Division. So wait, if the Rangers and the Blue Jays tie for the third wild card and they split their season series three to three. Is there actually an example of this on my legend? So the Mariners and the Blue Jays split their season series three to three. But because Toronto's in the ALE, I mean.

So they're getting, so Intra Division is the wild card second tiebreaker? or it's not, it should just be versus AL and take the NL games out of it. And how do you fare against the AL? Well, that makes, that is that. That is what it is. That would be entirely. Yes. Okay.

But there, it's the AL wildcard. It makes so much sense. You're not fighting for the first place in the division where you would use the division as the, how'd you fare. You're fighting for the AL. That makes no sense. I'm fully on the same page of you or. maybe even more so.

It just seems like fucking easy. Why would the Blue Jays games against the Rays, Yankees, and Orioles stack up evenly or matter in a comparison to the Mariners games against the Rangers, Angels, Astros? That makes no sense. I've been trying to say it. Here's a thing that I keep landing on, though. As I, you know, combat these tiebreakers and want to figure it out, I just get I get pulled into the universal schedule.

The, you know, everybody plays everyone the same amount of times. And like, I think that's kind of boring too. So I get to this point where I want everything to be fair and equal where everyone's playing the same schedule. But it's like, well, what do you do with divisions then? Do we really like there needs to be a massive realignment? Sure. But like sometimes a little part of me, maybe it's a young, Trev or something wants there to be that I don't think human element is the right word but a little

bit of like well I don't know like that's just how it's that's just how it is ultimately I think the best thing for baseball would to be for everyone to play the same teams the same amount of time I don't even know if that's possible it must be possible I don't think that's I don't disagree with that being the best. Like I, I like being regional. You're always going to run into these problems unless you have a different way to,

if you have another idea for a tiebreaker. My first would be league. It's the wild card for the whole AL. Yeah, that one gets a little tough for me because I do, I think for player exposure, every team should play everyone.

And then. Well, they do. We do do that, but not equally. But that's what I'm saying. If the AL got decided by AL, that becomes a tricky thing because then, okay, you're a team at the...

What division you're and still mad. You're at the end of a three-game set and you're playing an NL team. Are you going to rest your relievers because you're playing an A-L team the next day? What about you do it versus co-divisions? Winning percentage, Blue Jays versus A-O-West, Rangers versus A-L-East.

It feels like if we're being honest, baseball is two schedule iterations away, and that's probably adding two teams, realigning divisions. and I think something is basic, and we touched upon it last time, but for the teams not in your division, either play five or seven games a year and just rotate who has the four-game homestand or the three-game homestead.

Like that feels like the easiest solution to me because then there's no conversation. Like, yes, it sucks if you played all your games in May and you were a different team then, but at least like that was like, laid out before the season and it makes sense. Okay, here's the twin. This is, I mean, we're getting into the weeds.

I don't think anybody really wants to hear this anymore. But for the twins, they played the Mariners seven times, the Rangers seven times, but the Astros six times. How does that make any sense? It makes no sense. So, I don't know, man. I'm trying to. I'm done talking about it. I am going to wait until the last.

series and then we'll kind of have like we'll have the idea what this team needs to go what this team needs to go it won't be it's not like it's like confusing for me or confusing it's just it shouldn't be this much work to figure out what's going on i think the rangers would have if you did this the whole league the rangers would have it over the blue jays oh just the a l okay yeah because the the rangers did bad in interleague play the blue jays did really good in interleague play. Judging against divisions makes no sense for the wild card. Yeah, I mean, this is all new stuff.

So it's, it's, uh, they have an idea down over the off season and did this. Go back to not having expanded playoffs. I mean, I don't know. I like that there's a bunch of teams in the race. I know you don't like that there's kind of like some mediocre teams in the race. A bunch of teams in the race that you have no faith in to win a divisional series. The A is a beautiful example. The NL is a bad example.

Like we've gotten both in one year. Yeah. The lowest record. The AL is a good example. The lowest record to get in is going to be what right now? I mean, look, there's the Reds, Miami, and Chicago all have 79 wins right now. They all have different amounts of games left. So every team is going to be over 500, which is nice.

Nobody's going to sneak in with a sub 500 record. I like that. Should you be rewarded? for going 83 and 79? I don't know. You'd like to see the last NL team get in at 86, 87. Which again, I mean, that's not a great. Reds are projected for 86.

Cubs are projected on baseball reference projected for 88. Marlins projected for 87. The Phillies are going to win. I mean, they're 82 and 69 right now, which means they have 11 games left. say they go six wins out of those 11 games, kind of play right over 500 balled, then there gets a 88.

That's a little high. I could see an 85 win team sneaking in. Yeah, the last NL team, we've got a chance that it's ugly. But hopefully. I guess I just need one of the leagues to be, like the AL this year where I think a lot of them are contenders. Yeah.

Because if you run a year where both are just kind of like races just for races, stinks. It's nice for the fan bases, though, that get to, you know, continue to be a part of the postseason talk and they don't have to totally switch gears to football. That's what's good about this for Major League Baseball is you get football kicking down the door in September saying, here I am fucking 20 million people watching a Thursday night game. It's ridiculous.

I mean, that's what that's what Major Baseball has to compete with it this time. No, I kind of like the fact that. They're not to compete with that. well I mean that's you're going to lose eyeballs if your team is not in the race they ain't watching baseball anymore but it's like saying we have to compete with mr. beast like no we don't we can both exist we're well sports fandom for you know it's yeah I actually I think your point is good like based their expanded playoffs is not I just don't think I don't know if their intent is it's it's serving the regional fan which baseball is a regional game so maybe now you're you're

changing my mind it's just not serving the national audience which I don't know of internally they that. Did you see the football, football is doing a complete game in the toy story, like, animation and showing it to kids? Like, I don't know if that's going to work, but that's the forward thinking that baseball needs. You need the kids. Like the slime game and all that stuff.

It might seem silly to adults. Yeah, I don't know, but I, I've shared my stance on this at time, but I don't agree with. I think you need kids to play baseball. I mean, I don't know. Turn them into fans when they're older. A little bit of both, can it hurt? Yeah. Yeah, we've talked about this a lot.

I mean, when I'm at youth baseball is very hot, and I know that's not the case all around the country, but. I feel like youth baseball held off lacrosse pretty good. Like, Lacks made their run, and I feel like baseball's kind of back. It's just very expensive to play lacrosse. And I don't know, when we were kids, it had too much of the football mentality. where I was like, oh my God.

Yeah. I see more kids in Southern California now coming from football. Yeah. Like they're not playing football in the fall. Like they're playing baseball because I just don't think, like tackle football is like for the youth around me. All the parents that I talk to is like no way. Flag football, sure. They're still playing flag football.

But like the tackle programs, the Pop Warner programs that used to be around and and, you know, have like. So many players, multiple teams at each age level. That's not the case anymore. Yeah. Which I think is kind of like a lot of, like there's a ton of examples of NFL players that didn't play football till freshman year of high school, like tackle football. Yeah. Oh yeah.

But also for me, football, the math never made sense. Practice five times to play once. I was like, that's so fucking stupid. It's just. Well, that's their secret is why, why they're so popular the one day a week. Well, yeah. But all the, all the practice is like when my dad signed me up, I was a, middle school or something.

I was like, what? Practice four times to play once. Like hockey was practiced twice to play three times. Baseball was practiced once to play like two times. Much better. I don't know how we got here. Know how we got here, Trow? Draft King Sportsbook.

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Void in Ontario, C-DKNG.com slash baseball for eligibility terms and responsible gaming resources. bonus bets expire seven days after issuance eligibility and deposit restrictions apply nice job jade great job your favorite your favorite team to bet on um i'll say this um one of the one of our a laugh me and my sister got my dad's been retired for a few years uh he gave us very nice christmas gifts one year um and he goes yeah i had a pretty good year and me and my sister We're like, what? You're retired. Yukon men's basketball won the national title that year.

And I think, I think dad played that strategically. So it was pretty funny that that was a good financial year for him. I'd like that. Go huskies, baby. Yeah. You didn't answer the question at all. You con. I like your dad.

I like your dad. Do you want to run down this list quickly or what do you think? What time are we at? No. We have a list here. 10 big offseason additions who have been crucial for contenders. They're ranking Dansby Swanson as the number one. I mean, obviously the shortstop position is pretty crucial position to be very good defensively at,

which he has been. He's in the top of defensive metrics over there. And also he's got MLB leading 19 outs above average. And solid offensive production, 20 home runs, 750 OPS. Solid. I'm counting 20 as an illegal number to showcase home runs anymore, just to let you know, Trev. What's that?

My home run count, for it to be a stat that is associated with you having a good season as a player, 20 is very antiquated. That's very 1990s, late 90s. What is it now? 25 minimum with something else. You hit 30, your home run hitter. But we're throwing this.

the number 20 round to Lucy Goosey, in my opinion. I'm not trying to knock Dansby. I bet he has other stats in the slash line and the counting that would be a better way to celebrate him offensively. Okay. I'm looking at a...

Okay, so who are the big shortstop signed this offseason? It was Dansby. Trey Turner. It was Xander Bogart's and... Carlos Correa. Carlos Cray to my twins forgot about that whole saga If we're looking at

Fangrass I have the shortstop leaderboard up it would be Danesby-Swanson first place in front of all those guys at a 4-9 Fangraphs war a lot of it is defensively marked but that's fine that's one of the calling cards of shortstop

you got to play Bogart's not too far behind him actually he's got a 4-1 and then after that Carlos Correa 1-1 and I'm looking for Trey Turner, he's got a 3-7

So Dansby has topped all those guys while taking in substantially less money So I mean, I guess you've got to give snaps to the Cups for that Hey man, Belly Belly came in at 3 on this list and I think people were kind of wondering

if that was like a I think people were a little surprised at first because it was kind of like MVP Belly for a little bit like OPS and the 9 he's doing everything. I kind of like it because what Dansby has done for that team, moving Horner to second, allowing him to have the massive season he's had,

40 stolen bases, the defense he plays over there. Obviously, Belly has been massively important to their season, too, but Dansby was like the culture change. And second biggest contract, I think the Cubs have ever given out, Jason Hayward. I love it. Good for Danzy, man. A lot of people were talking crap.

about him and he just shows up and plays a really solid shortstop and can do a lot of different things on the field i like versatile players man it's nice sean murphy's a huge one i mean for the the braves they acquired him before the season he leads the league and hit by pitches which is great and that helps him maintain his 372 on base that's awesome as well as four and five on this list is hilarious because it's louisa rise for the marlins and then Pablo Lopez for the twins is like, hey, nice swapsies. Both worked out. Needed it. Marlins didn't need another starting pitcher. Twin sure is

shit needed another starting pitcher. And then, you know, the twins had a couple guys, Polanco, Eddie Julian at second base. I like it. I said it from the get-go. I think this is it going to be a trade that benefits both teams. And there arise when he was hitting 400 through whatever amount of games, it seemed like, oh, this might be a lot side of thing. But if you go look at the body of work that Lopez has done and you see him around the club else you understand. Hey, it's

a great trade. I don't think any team, I don't think either side would be like, oh, no, we want the other guy back. I think it's worked out. Zach Eflin's on this list for the race. The biggest thing, he's having a good year, but just the stability, he's brought 29 starts there the whole time is pretty huge.

I feel like they have Chris Bassett too low. Agree. But he is my guy. Favorite signing of the offseason. I didn't see David Robertson on this list, Trev. He's closing out games for the Marlins now, sorry. And they're in contention. What hurts Chris Bassett is he has three stinkers. He's got a four innings pitch, seven runs, and then a three innings pitched eight and a three point one nine. So that hurts his ERA. That's three of 31 starts. He has the second most starts in MLB where he completed six.

innings and allowed two earned runs or less. So those three are really just, you know, outliers of the other 28 are pretty good starts. And I think that- David Robertson had a, Dave Robertson had 205 through 40 games for the Mets. Just I want to let you know that. Oh, and then the season ended, I guess. That was his, that was Treve's favorite signing? I had him, Jose Abrae.

I think we did best value. I think we did best value. Oh, I did Correa, because. As I said, what he brings to the twins, what it means to their organization. Like, if they didn't get him, it'd be, it set him back a little bit. And I do believe that. First week of the season, D. Rob had two saves. And Trevor was like, this is what I'm talking about.

He had a great run with the Mets. The Marlins run hasn't been as good. He's had, he's, you know, got a few saves. He's saving it for October. He's got 11.9Ks per nine with the Marlins. That's gross. A couple stinkers. They say about us.

Because Metzaf was really good. Abraeu is a miss a little bit, although he's got to go in. Well, they should just cheer for him. That was a, it was a miss. Yeah, it's a cheer for him. Every team is trying to do that now. You can't just, it's got to be real people. The twins try to do with Correa and like five people stood up.

Kind of can't copy that. No. Well, you should, but it has to be real. Or ever, you have to like get like the entire stadium to follow the league. You can't just have like a half cheese or like a. Oh, you need collective buying. It has to be a moment, right? Like it either like if something bad happens the day before or if it's like a base is loaded.

Like, hey, we're still here for you. Like let's go. No, it has to be no moment. That's what Trey Turner was. It was just very much like, dude, we want you to be good. We love you. No matter what. It was.

Yeah, but Twins fans don't have that for Karea. No, no. They're very scared about the injuries. I mean, and Yankees fans don't do that. And maybe they should, but they would have to, like, find some of it. Well, Yankee fans do. Yeah, they did do it for Gallo, but it sucked. But I remember when Jeter went through his worst slump, they booed him like the night before.

And then they would start every game before us at that back. That's exactly what I was just saying. Yeah. You got to pick it up from the day before. But in New York, I don't know if, if Trey, like, struck out after the applause, if they would have turned a booze. And that would be then you boo after. afterwards.

About applause before. All right. I'm going to pee my pants. Good talking ball. Subscribe to the YouTube channel. Trying to get to 100K. It'd be awesome. It'd be so cool.

I'll get on the door. Big announcement next week. Jake's pregnant. Congratulations. Save it for next week. You guys aren't supposed to joke about that. I'm dressed like I'm at a gender reveal party right now. You are.

Which one is it? Which one is it? Hatter shirt. Hatter shirt. I'm going to be. be naked next episode. I'll do a naked up.