Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - The Padres Are Toxic From Top Down? (Jimmy's Three Things)

Episode Date: September 19, 2023

00:00 Intro01:14:42 Padres are Toxic?13:34:36 Rangers Bullpen is so Bad19:29:42 Worst Swing & Misses 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.

Good morning. Happy Tuesday. Welcome to Jimmy's Three Things as I sit my coffee, get situated into the day. We'll talk some baseball. Thank you guys very much for listening and tuning in. I appreciate it that you've allowed me to find this avenue to once a week. Just get into some topics that are piquing my interest and share them with you and go into crazy rabbit hole deep dives. If you are appreciating this and enjoying it, subscribing helps. I really want to get the channel on YouTube to 100K. That's awesome. today's three topics are Preller and the Padres. Are they toxic? Whole article dropped by Kenny R. Big Dog article. Rosenthal getting involved.

Uh-oh. Preller. Uh-oh. Padre's toxic. Rangers bullpen is still just awe-inspiring in the wrong way. Awful inspiring. It's just insane. Sorry, Rangers fans, but I got to go dive in and get some of the German

shrewd and fruit or whatever that word is. And, you know, I'm a Yankees fan. I'm having a bad season. You're a Rangers fan. you're having a pretty good season minus the bullpen, maybe. Maybe the season won't end good. Third topic, Jimmy Liddix, I got one today. Hopefully it's quick and I don't get too lost into it.

We're going to find the worst swing at a fastball all season. But this first one, I woke up, got the notification this morning. Big old article, big old expose from the athletic. Now, there's a ton in this article. It's really well done. It's really well structured. They got like the players, the managers, the front office, like all these topics.

There are some quotes from some name sources, some unnamed sources, insight into Bob Melvin, the manager that they brought in and how he's not working out. Like one quote that I did pull was, what will happen with manager Bob Melvin, whose relationship with Perelor, one player described as unfixable. That's not good. Everyone knows the Padres are bad at situational hitting or situational baseball. That's been their whole thing.

haven't been tuning in. They're awful in one-run games and close situations. Pitching and hitting, they're just brutal. Soto said about that, Soto said, that's what good offense is. Go up there and try to put the ball in play, try to bring that guy in instead of hitting 500-foot homers. That's what's been lacking a little bit, just knowing the momentum and the situation. And then an unnamed source said, yeah, we've talked about it, addressed it, everyone's aware of it, we're trying, another player said, for me, it's almost like these guys don't really know how to do it. That's, I can see why you wouldn't put your name on that quote. And you know what, to that player, just don't say it.

Don't say that line in that sentence. For me, it's almost like these guys don't really know how to do it. That's a pretty terrible mentality, in quote. That's a bad one. So it's anonymous player, but not a good quote. The whole article is really good. Preller's had six different managers in 10 different seasons. His relationship with Bowmel's bad.

Read the article. There's one part I'm going to deep dive into that I will spoil the one section because it just fascinates me. But the whole article is good. And I don't want to give, you know, it's behind a paywall and all that, so I don't want to be all rude. But I do have to talk about Don. Tricker. Don Tricker. I had never heard about Don Tricker. Padre's fans might know him. He's from New Zealand.

He was a professional softball player in New Zealand. He then was working for the rugby team, the All Blacks, and helping be a consultant and helping them, even though he'd never played rugby. And he did that for a long time. And then the Padre's front office or crew, flew out to spend time with New Zealand team, the All Blacks, just to see how they operate to pick up some stuff. Actually, I'm in big favor of that. I want MLB to go travel to other sports and see how they do replay and transparency and adapt to there.

But I like when teams go like to another, almost like sister cities of sports, another sport, how do you guys do this? How do you handle this sprain? How do you handle this pull, you know, all that stuff and then actual gameplay and how do you prep for a meeting and all or game and all that so i like that they liked this guy don tricker in new zealand so much they hired him away they hired him to a three-year contract to come be part of the padre's front office and a three-year extension was part of that which they picked up so this is his six year i don't know if they're going to pick him up again but when you ask what don tricker does

it's very confusing um he was at first expected to oversee multiple departments, including the medical and training staff and the analytics. Preller sought the unique perspective of a man who also had played and coached for New Zealand men's national softball team and worked in the information technology industry, but he's not really an information technology guy. The article goes on to say, he did not possess a medical background,

and he was quickly shifted away from analytics oversight because he arrived with a rudimentary knowledge of baseball. He frequented the clubhouse and sat in on player and staff meetings, quietly taking notes, and some players believe he is effectively a spy. Some players on the Padres believe they have a New Zealand man spying on them in their meetings, who sits back and takes notes and asks questions but never offers solutions.

that's and he's been there for six years in the article it says some believe he is effectively a spy which obviously front offices are going to have guys that go hang around the clubhouse and report back up any management has that it's just a really funny visual one former staffer said tricker as an outsider to the sport regularly posed thought-provoking questions like why for example did the Padres take batting practice that did not replicate the intensity of in-game pitching? Thought-provoking. Why do you take batting practice against 40-mile-power pitches when you face 90-mile-power pitches in the game? Said every toddler and fan that's ever watched batting practice.

Hey, former staff, stop acting like you're the only one that has never heard that thought before. It's actually the new wave of coaching is doing that all over because they got all these college coaches that never played. Just face higher below. and it works for like a year. The Giants did really well. The Yankees just tried to do that high-velo training, and they fired their pitching coach because all the professional players.

Like, this sucks. We don't want to train hard every single day. It's 162 game season. We get tired, which is part of the article. Padre is saying that Preller makes them do like full in-field, outfield batting practice every day. And that's like why they run down and collapsed in, was it 2021 when they collapsed or whatever?

But I was just like, Don Tricker. His name is Mr. Tricker. And he's, I don't want to say tricked his way into these jobs, but maybe because when you go through all the old articles, like I was going through all the old articles when he got the job. Former professional softball player worked for rugby and then and then the Padres. This is an article I found, New Zealand.com. dot New Zealand, I don't know. Don started with us officially as a high performance manager in 2010, but in reality he had been involved with us for some time as a highly regarded performance consultant. This dude's a consultant. I mean, and consultants are good and they exist. Usually you can hire them,

you know, on a like, you know, come in and audit us and give us some advice, not be around for six years straight. Here's another article from 2017 back when he first took the job to move from New Zealand to San Diego and be with the team. I said it was very humbling. It's a big decision. But there was one quote in here that I liked because it was like the same quote that I found in every article when people said, what do you do there? My role is to bring different thinking to a talented group of individuals that will enhance the performance of the Padres. I want to put them in a position to be serious contenders, but it's not going to happen overnight. Tricker was working in the IT sector when he was coaching the Black Sox and said he was a self-reflector who likes to ask the right

questions. That's everything I found when he describes his job is just asking the right questions. Another article here, another New Zealand article, Tricker is in charge of overseeing anything that touches the athlete, including medical support, but he's not a medical doctor. also works at the coaching level, but he's never played baseball and had a rudimentary knowledge of it, which requires close liaison with Padger's manager Andy Green, who's not there anymore. So this guy is basically, uh, and I don't, and I'm, listen, consultants are good, and I'm going to get to some bullet points of actual tangible stuff, but for a while I was reading this and I was like, is Don Tricker just a toddler? Like, he just walks around and go,

why? Why are you doing that? Why? Why he's not playing? Why is he playing hurt? You know, like it didn't really make sense. Every article was like that. And then I found this another New Zealand, like scholarly article or something like that where he was a motivational speecher. And he actually had like bullet points of here's like what he thinks is important. And a lot of it's common sense, but a lot of times consultants are hired basically to just throw common sense back in your face and be like,

that's dumb. As coaches, you can get blinded by wanting to play your best players all the time. But the best players do not, but the best players not operating at 100% are not better than the players who are playing, or the worst players that are playing 100%. Obviously, you know, Trout at 80% might not be as good as Renfro at 100, back when Renfro was having a good year, just the name that popped in my head. Right now, or most of the times, that's a bad example that I just used. But you get the philosophy. So that's that. He also wanted to create an environment where you think about the athlete's families and there's significant others just as often because athletes don't make decisions alone. No one is irreplaceable as long as you

have a secession plan in place. Like I like all these bullet points. And they can come off as platitudes, but actually like, you know, you have to implement them and really think about them. But it's, they have, they've had this New Zealand guy walking around their clubhouse for six years. Just his sole job is to ask why. He doesn't, he works with the medical staff, but he has no medical degree. He works with the analytics department, but he doesn't, he rudimentary understanding of baseball. The players think he's a spy. And all he does is ask why, why. And then the player said that when he came, he was supposed to make all these like good changes to the mentality and the, and the message. But then they think Preler just kind of like smashes that. Yeah, right here. According to multiple

members of the baseball operations department, Tricker originally said he hoped to get employees more time off to spend with their families. However, those employees said such assurances gradually disappeared while Trickers boss exerted his influence throughout the organization. And then there's quotes about this that go on to say more stuff along the lines of that this is what Preller does. He hires a lot of different voices. They have like four hitting coaches. Schult from the Cardinals, we got fired from the Cardinals is with the Padres as like an instructor of like youth or something like that, but he's in uniform, which is not normal. And then they say, Preller on the outset hires all these voices because he knows it's a good strategy. But when push comes to shove, he just reverts back to what he knows, which is

work hard, practice hard, work hard, da-da-da-da-da, nose to the grindstone, which is too much pressure and all that. And there's a lot of other stuff in the article. But Don Tricker, hell of a job. Getting some awesome jobs by asking why. You know, should I be a consultant? And then a company brings me in and I just walk around the room and I go, why do you do that? And they go, oh, shit, Jimmy.

That's thought provoking. You know what? Shit. Guys, why do we do that? Maybe he's right. Maybe there's a better way to get that done. Jimmy, you have any ideas on, no, no, I just, I don't, I just lead you to, this is great. I've done my job.

You guys now I see the flaw. It's up to you to change it. All right, thanks. Thanks. Actually, do you want to be hired full time, six years? And you want me to just do what I just did? I just go around. I see stuff I say why.

All right. Bad ass. So good job by Don Tricker. It's a great job by him, actually. Moving on to the next thing. The, oh man. The Rangers, they were on my three things. earlier in the year, or like August 29th.

Damn, August 29th I was talking about their bullpen and how they had more blown saves than saves. Man, tweet from Evan Grant here, they're three for 16 in save chances since August 13. Holy shit. Look at their game log. This is their pitching log. And in September, if I make it big,

so you can see all this. the pitchers used and then I will command find BS. Oh, let's go back down to September. Well, three blown saves into September. Do they do like blown loss for other ones? Oh my God, look at all, look at all the blown losses. That had to be August as I'm scrolling down. So two.

And then I went to baseball savant, one of my favorite sites. And what I did was I put in the queries, I did, okay, regular season game from 23 since August 30th. So since the last time we did this. The Rangers, or no, not the home team. Batting score difference. Okay, I'll do batting score difference because I want the Rangers to be the pitchers, whether they're getting the save or not,

negative one to negative three, or is that negative three to negative one? So, yeah, so the batting team is losing by one run or three runs. The Rangers are the pitching team, and we have the go-ahead run at the plate, go-ahead-ah-round-on-based, tying-run on the plate, tying-run on base, whatever. It's a close game.

I could probably take that out. And then I have all, like, no outs. so the bat ends in a hit or a walk or something. Let me see if I did this batting score difference. I've never used that one before. Oh, shit. We have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten games since August 30th where this has happened.

And so many different pitchers. It's crazy. Jose LeClerc here in the bottom of the eighth, facing, oh no, Pete Alonzo hit a single, and then DJ Stewart homers. I mean, don't watch this. No way. Just through the infield single for Alonzo. And then let's see, DJ Stewart from the left slot.

Follows it up with first pitch Homer and pimps it. That was a 5-3 game that the Mets tied up. Damn. All right. Two days later. Brock Burke came in. He gave up a single to Carlos Correa. It was a 1-0-0 game.

Rangers were winning. Correa with a bloop single to center. And then the next batter is Leplo, and he goes outside fastball down the line. That's a two-run homer. That blows them the lead. Oh, my goodness. Two days later, we have, what was this, multiple blown? saves, no way, it is. Uh-oh. Two days later, we have the top of the seventh inning.

We have three singles to score a tying run, and then in the eighth inning, another single. So, Brock Burke and Jose LeClerc. Oh, that kind of rhymes. Rangers up five to four in the top of the eighth. Two on. So it's a lot of singles. That was September. 3rd, September 4th, another game. Glenn Otto this time gives up a single, then a homer. That seems to be a sequence. All right, then five games later. September 4th is September 9th.

That's a nice jump. They made it, maybe they just lost big, but shit, man. Chapman got him this time. Top of the seventh inning. Zach Gieloff, homers off Chris Stratton. It was a 2-0. game. There's a runner on second and the A's hit a two-run homer to tie it. So bullpen loses it. Then they retake the lead. Do they hold them in the 8th? Yeah, I think they hold them in the 8th. And then

Chapman comes in in the 9th and walks. You know what? I think they hold this one down. I think Chapman walks too, but they get the save. Oh shit, good. But that was scary. That was scary. This one looks like that was good too. September 11th. Dane Dunning gave up a run on a sack fly, but maybe this one wasn't bad. They're up, okay, so they're up, they're up three. They just allowed one run. So even when they're getting the job done,

it's a little shaky. Three run games become two run games. Two walks in this one. I don't think that hurt them. Good shit. The 16th, this one looks bad. This one looks bad. Bottom seventh, Qon singles,

and then the eighth inning, we have a single, a double, single, that one looks bad. And then last night against the Red Sox, they intentionally walked, or no, yeah, they intentionally walked Devers to bring up Ref Snyder, or it's not available yet, ref Snyder against the lefty, which is just crazy.

So the Rangers are having a really rough go. Okay, let's go back to my favorite website, Baseball Savant, and I put in a bunch of stuff here to find the worst swing and miss at a fastball, four-seeing fastball, So pitch type, fastball, pitch result, swing and miss, or we'll take foul tip out. So just swing and miss. And then I put the attack zones as waist pitches.

So this white square all the way, like not even close to the zone, just to weed through the data more. And then I have some of the search parameters as where it crossed the plate on the, you know, height and width. So Nick Ahmad has the highest pitch swung at from where it crossed the plate. Let's take a look at that. This is the highest pitch of the season. Fastball with no movement that was swung and missed at. Watch this. Okay, so it's super high.

As we know, we got lady in the front row on the left cheering, little fist. And then watch, okay, so it's like above his head. and I don't it's almost like a protect swing anything's gonna hit him or just it lit up his eyes watch the grimace on the batter's face afterwards Nick and Matt is like so right there watch the batter

that was dumb now watch the pitcher's face what was that and it was strike three okay so that's the highest one let's go take a look at the second highest which is uh CGA and I should say the pitcher there was Brandon Williamson for the Reds.

Is what that the game is? Yeah. Okay. Now let's go look at the second highest one. So that was five feet high, five feet, five point zero four. This is five point zero three. So it's just a little lower. And this one is Nick Povetta, pitching to CJ Abrams. Watch it in full speed once. Oh my goodness.

Okay. I actually think this one's worse because he, He was nowhere near the ball. At least, at least Ahmad was kind of close to the ball. And this is an 0-1. And Nick Amad's was a two-strike pitch, so he's a little like in protect, just make contact. This is an 0-1 high and away above his head, and he's taller,

and it's a check swing that's a foot lower than the ball that he can't hold up. Oh boy. Okay. All right. So now those are the only two that are five foot high and swung at. Let's do the other axis. So this Brandon Lowe has the one that is two feet to the right or is it going to be to the left. Let's see. And again, just a fastball. No movement here. It's actually to the left. So inside. So lefty on lefties. This is way in. Oh, yeah. way inside a 2-1 pitch. And maybe the pitch before that was something that broke in or something like that. And then that one just stayed straight. Maybe I'll check that out in two seconds. That's the only one that's two feet off the plate when you're looking at home plate

to the pitchers left. And there's none that are two feet off the plate the other way. But Elvis Andrews has the... furthest the other way. So it would be inside to a righty. Oh, no. Yeah, inside to a righty. Oh, did that hit him?

This is Oviedo pitching. Oviedo hit Ocuna recently. So that hits him in the arm, but he swung. Oh, that sucks. Las Diaz calls swing. 99 hit him in the arm, swung. I want to go look up Anthony Banda to Brandon Lowe on April 3rd.

Let's just go look up that at bat. Anthony Banda. So we're going to go pitchers, banda, batters, low. And then, I don't know how many times they faced each other. Looks like just one at bat. So one at bat. All right. So let's see if Lowe swung at that ball that was.

two feet inside. No movement, nothing. Let's see if he was set up. The first pitch he saw was a slider. No thoughts. Just don't kill me. So that does go inside and darts away for ball. The next pitch he sees is another slider.

Ooh, that didn't have that much bite, but it was stayed inside, but it moved a little bit. The next pitch is a fastball. Oh, that's a nice. Oh, he wants that one back. So he is doing what I thought. He's working off the fastball.

And then he goes fastball way inside. and that's where he swings at. So maybe he thought slider was coming again, or he's just geared up. Like, that ball's going straight. I know where it's going. Maybe I can make contact. That bat ends.

Oh, that's nasty. That slider off of that fastball inside. I mean, and he set him up perfectly by having him swing at that one. So there you go. Those are the most egregious swings and misses at fastball so far this season. This was three things.

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