February 23, 2023 • 41 mins
The Book of Joe Podcast begins with hosts Tom Verducci and Joe Maddon exploring some of the rule changes coming to baseball this season. Joe really likes one rule specifically and thinks it should've happened a long time ago. Tom feels like 'pace' of the game is more important than how long the game takes. How long does Tom think it will take for players to adjust to the changes? With the shift no longer being allowed, Joe is curious to see if it changes pitching at all. We wrap up with the one statistic that Tom expects to see have an increase this season after these rule changes and the recent music playlist that helped Joe through a tough spot while traveling.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
The Book of Joe podcast is a production of iHeartRadio.
Hey you're in the right spot. Welcome back to another
edition of the Book of Joe podcasts. It's me Tom
Verducci with Joe Madden and Joe. We just got back
from a wonderful weekend in Savannah, Georgia at the Savannah
(00:27):
Book Fair, to sell some of our book, The Book
of Joe, and to meet a bunch of really cool,
very nice people. What you think of that trip to Savannah, Joe, Yeah,
that's that's really interesting. I had a blush us like
you did. Didn't know what to expect going into it.
First of all, the city Savannah, Oh beautiful, totally smitten man.
I mean we did. We did a presentation and the
(00:50):
I think was the Ascension Lutheran Church, an old church
in the middle of Savannah. So Tommy and I like
two priests or on the altar facing the congregation, and
we did a nice job watching your language. By the way,
I appreciate that. That's it. I really backed off a
couple of times. But the first thing I brought up
I was asking if there are there any realtors in
the audience. I mean, that place is super, super cool,
(01:12):
and I can't wait to go back with a little
more time golfing. Golfed up in Hilton Head with my
buddy mic Life for a couple of days his wife Janey,
and just had an absolute blast. So anyway, Yeah, it
was a great experience, well organized, met a ton of
really cool people. So if we get a chance to
do it again, absolutely do it again. Yeah, I highly recommended.
(01:33):
That was my first trip there as well, just kind
of blown away by the vibe and the atmosphere there.
It's almost like you're on an old Hollywood movie set
and you walk everywhere. I found out that they call
everything a square, like we're asking for directions, and it
was always well you go through two squares or it's
three squares away. And apparently I guess as the city
(01:55):
was growing Joe and people were dying, they would buy
bury them in graveyards in squares, and as the city
kept getting bigger, than to keep pushing the limits at
the square. City grew. So there's all kinds of ghost
tours there and it's like kind of like going back
in time. But if you're thirsty, there's plenty of places
to get a cold beverage. We found that out, you
(02:15):
will not go thirsty or hungry. It's Avannah, Georgia. We
saw so many little private tours, like even after you
had left, I went to a private reception that night
and coming back, I mean like it's cold, it's late,
and there's little tours going on in front of cemeteries
or buildings or churches. Really an incredibly a unique and
very interesting experience. Yeah, and Southern hospitality, for sure, they
(02:39):
live up to that reputation. So that brings us to
our topic this week, talking about kind of a blend
of the old and the new. Baseball has been in
a precarious position where it's it's losing some appeal, especially
two younger fans. So this year the game is going
to look more different than it has since. Well, I
(03:01):
think you have to go back to at least the
start of the DH in nineteen seventy three to find
last time baseball went through kind of massive changes that
they are this year. Three big rule changes in brief,
no more shifts, no more defensive shifts. The bases are bigger,
three inches wider across, which means the distance between first
and second, for instance, is four and a half inches shorter,
(03:24):
and there is now officially a clock in baseball. Baseball
prefers you call it a pitch timer, but players are
literally on the clock now, like the play clock in
the NFL, the shot clock in basketball, to move the
game along. I am a huge proponent of these changes,
and we'll get into why. And Joe, my gut feeling
(03:48):
is you're a guy who he's not a big fan
of regulations, right, like being told what to do. I'm
putting boundaries on people and ideas and this maybe I'm
speaking for you, and I'll let you speak for yourself.
Of course, maybe this strikes you as something that reaches
a little too far. How about that? Well, yeah, I
mean you're right, that's who I am. I grew up
in the sixties and the seventies. It's in the book
(04:09):
of Joe. But yeah, but I will say this, I
do like the pitch timer. I think that was for me,
that was the one rule that could have been the
first rule or change that it came down the pike
a couple of years ago. As opposed to like pretty
batter minimum, you know, the ghost running all this other
kind of stuff. I think this one makes the most
(04:29):
sense to me. Actually, I played with the clock. Way
back in the day, when I was in Wichita, Kansas
in nineteen it was eighty there was a clock in
the National Baseball Congress World Series in Wichita, and it
didn't bother anybody at that time. But when I but
the Cubs not making the plaoffs that the first time
came home watching a playoff game on TV. Wow took forever.
(04:51):
Interminable was the word that I that brought to came
to my mind. So yeah, I like the idea of
getting the ball, throwing the ball. Talk about Baba Doo,
my mentor in the Book of Joe. I mean, Babaho
used to gets so upset when a pitch would take
too longer. A guy would not get into batter's box.
He would just start yelling out from the side. I
mean in an instructional league game in Arizona with nobody around.
(05:12):
So I like that. I like the guy getting the ball,
getting on the rubber batter in the box. I think
it's going to create there's not all that necessary time
for strategy, strategy, and it's actually a point of overthinking.
So get the ball, throw the ball here to get
in a box ready to swing the bat. I like
all of that, and I think there's going to be
a positive reaction with the pace of the game. And
(05:33):
I've never been concerned about the length of the game.
That's a great point. I'm glad you pointed that out.
It really is about the pace of the game. It's
not the time of the game now. When they put
the pitch clock in the minor leagues last year, the
average minor league game was reduced by about twenty five minutes.
You're not going to see the same kind of cut
in the major leagues. The clock is actually a second
(05:55):
longer with runners and without runners, and there's more commercial
time built into a major league game, especially at national broadcast.
But you may be talking out as much as twenty
minutes being cut off a game that makes a big
difference more than that. Is exactly what you said, Joe.
The pace of action the ball in play, I call
it a state of readiness. If you as a fan
(06:18):
in the ballpark or especially at home, when there are
other distractions to pull you away from the game, see
everybody's body language completely go inert. They just stop right,
They walk off the back of the mound, they walk
out of the batter's box, the head goes down. They're
staring in the space. What are you doing? You're changing
the channel, You're looking at your screen, an iPad, whatever
(06:41):
it might be. You lose interest when the game is
played in a heightened state of readiness, like the way
soccer is, like the way basketball in the NFL is,
then you are more engaged as a fan. So I
love the fact that the game will be played at
a faster pace, And I actually think I agree with
your mentor Bablue. If I'm a pitcher man, I think
(07:03):
this helps me. I want to dictate pace if I'm
on the mount. The more I control pace and almost
force a hitter to think quickly rather than slowly, that
to me, Joe seems to advantage the picture. What do
you think, Well, yeah, I mean part of this slowness
that evolved was like in the early eighties to the
mid eighties when mental skills started to come on board,
(07:24):
And a lot of what you see with this this
time in between is possibly routines that have been developed
through the utilization of mental skills coaches. You know your
breath when things aren't going right to have a happy
spot on an outfield. Fancer like Evan Longoria. We look
at the top of the left field foul poll. That
was all from Kenny Vizza hitters. I mean pictures again,
(07:49):
guards that don't get under rubber unless you're ready to.
Long ago get out of the box until you're ready to.
So all that stuff conspired to add time to the
pitch or to the yet bat. So part of it's
our own fault. I'm regarding all of that with the
mental skill. So now mental skills has got to develop
another method, a quicker method. And again that's counterintuitive to
(08:10):
what we've been teaching to this point, because you do
want to take your time, never be in a hurry,
get your breath, you control the action, you control the pace.
So that's I really believe that that's been part of
the problem or the issue in a sense. But although
I'm a really big proponent of mental skills, so I'm
curious to see how this an acts as we move
it forward. I like the idea of a picture not
(08:32):
overthinking it. I like the idea of a hit or
not overthinking it. But I agree. I mean from a
pitcher's perspective, I think, get it and throw it. It's
just like on a golf tea see it and hit it.
I mean, we get to this point where we have
too much time in between football you don't as a
football player, as a quarterback. After that first hit, it
was almost like we're just talking right now. You didn't
(08:53):
think about anything. Basketball, if you want to argue with
the referee, he gives you the ball, you have to
put it in play. In baseball, we have all these
pauses that you have a chance to overthink it. So
I'm curious with all of that not chanced over thinking
now with the pitcher, and obviously the same with the hitter.
But I do there's a lot to like about this.
But again, these guys are still gonna want to have
(09:13):
a routine that they're gonna have to expedite a bit,
and I'm curious to see how that evolves. Yeah, it's interesting.
If you remember when we had Anthony Rizzo on the podcast,
he talked about when he's facing guys in September who
just came up from the minor leagues who've been pitching
with the clock, he felt rushed at the plate. His
own kind of routine to get himself ready had to
be quickened and made him a little bit uncomfortable. Now,
(09:35):
spring training games are starting this weekend. The games will
be played under the new set of rules. You have
teams right now practicing and taking batting practice with clocks
on the field. Everybody is getting their routines readjusted. Will
it happen in the course of spring training. No, it's
still always going to bleed into the regular season. You're
gonna have a lot of veteran players in April, especially
(09:56):
complaining about it. You'll have guys maybe even punched out
by an umpire because the hitter took too long to
get in the box that the penalty is a strike
on the batter or a ball on the pitcher. It's
going to happen, folks and guys are going to complain,
but you know what, it's just part of the adjustment period.
After about two, three, four weeks, they'll be good. They'll
(10:18):
move on. It will not be an issue. But I'm
telling you, just be prepared for a lot of complaining. Yes,
no different than when they brought in the instant replace stuff,
and the result would come back and I would look
at the board and you would see the board and
you know, okay, absolutely they have to go in this direction.
Then they come back in another direction based on against
what you have thought, based on the scrutiny from New York.
(10:39):
And I you're not supposed to argue right there because
these unparts on the field that have nothing to do
with this call. But I knew that. I knew that.
But I'm still gonna argue, and I'm still gonna get
kicked out because you still have to make a point.
So I think, like, just like you're talking about, even
though everybody knows these are the rules, there's still a
lot of purists that are not going to like it.
Eventually it will be will get to the point where
(11:01):
everybody does kind of morph into it and understands it
and does it more seamlessly. But in the beginning, if
somebody gets punched out man on a time clock, God,
I don't even know what I would do in the dugout,
I swear to God. And then again, you have to
you have to understand, I mean, you was it was
the clock? Ride was the guy too quick? I mean
you're gonna try to, you know, parcel list down to
(11:23):
like really some minute moments or situations. It's gonna be tough.
And so you're right, it's gonna it's gonna happen. It'll
take some time, but they're still gonna be arguments and
are still going to be It's like anything else, unintended consequences.
As you move this further along, some of the things
that seem really obvious and good to us right now
are going to be challenged. Yes, let me give our
(11:44):
listeners a quick summation of how we got here and
why it's necessary. If you go back to the highest
attended season in baseball history, that's two thousand and seven,
that's the apex of attendance. Since then, major League Baseball
games on average have gotten twelve minutes longer with six
fewer balls put into play. What does that mean? That
(12:07):
means baseball lost fifteen million fans in those fifteen years
as they gave people less action over more time. That
is the absolute worst kind of formula that any entertainment
industry could have, especially in this day, as the options
are just exponentially greater in terms of where you can
(12:28):
get your fun from, right, So you have to give
people more action over less time. That's what this is
designed to do. Now people have said, why don't you
just leave the game alone? The game self corrects over time,
and generally that has been true. It wasn't going to change, folks.
Players were getting slower and slower. And Joe, you're right
about the mental skills part of it. I will throw
(12:49):
in also the information. There is more information that's processed
in real time during a game than there ever has been.
That is not going back to nineteen fifties or nineteen
sixties baseball, which was basically your version of what you
call amor con league in baseball. Joe, just show up
and play right, and we're getting closer, not getting ever
get back there, but we're getting closer to that kind
(13:11):
of baseball, the game decided by the players and their
athleticism and not algorithms. Yeah, I mean, there's still going
to be this blood of information that's going to be
thrown out there prior to the game. And I'll argue,
even though it's been that way, when the game begins, man,
it's hard to really utilize all that. I mean, I
had that little sheet in my back pocket. I knew
(13:31):
what I wanted to do before the game began. It
was you had to, like I would have to possibly
check in a couple times during a game of something
that really wasn't certain of but for the most part,
by the time that game begin, you should know exactly
what you want to do catcher to picture, picture to
catcher hitting before you got into the batter's box, manager
before the ending, you got to know what you're going
to do before the inning begins, several hitters in advance.
(13:53):
So I mean, I think a little bit of this
has been overblown with the information being so impactful during
the game. It's really impactful in regards to how you
set up the game before it occurs, and then it's
going to be organizationally contingent. It's the group that really
wants their manager to serve more as a middle manager
is going to have to really be there with almost
like a cheat sheet there in the course of the
(14:15):
game to make sure you'd stay with script. And there's
others that are gonna like I would like to believe
I was this guy that I would get all this information,
I would want it, But then by the time the
game began, it's more read and react kind of a
situation because nothing rare that anything goes according to script
or theory, because during reality most of the time are
two different things. So the information overload is there it's
(14:37):
not going to go away as long as it stays
before the game. I don't think it'll be it's going
to really be oppressive during any game. But like you're saying,
I agree with that, less time to really process all
this stuff is actually a good thing, and maybe they're
gonna have to reduce reduced, reduce even more prior to
the game less cheat sheets. Durre any game. Let's go
play some baseball. I think everybody would love that. Hey,
(15:00):
speaking of pitch timers, I'm up against one right here,
so we're gonna take a quick break, and when we
come back, I want to ask one of the early
adopters who with the shift, what he thinks of the
shift now being banned. Hey, welcome back to the Book
(15:22):
of Joe podcast. Joe Madden was listen. He wasn't there
with the Boudreau shift Lou Boudreau on Ted Williams or
back in the nineteen twenties with Sy Williams and the Phillies.
But in the modern shift era, he was right there
at the beginning, first with the Angels, then with the Rays.
You're talking about shifting on Ken Griffe Junior. You're talking
before man outfields those days are over. That sort of
(15:45):
ingenuity now has been legislated out of the game, and
I could see why someone like Joe would be against it.
I'm for it, But again, Joe, I want to hear
your perspective on someone who was right there at the
beginning of this and now you're being told you can't
do it. Yeah. I again, it's just it's the game
of baseball, and it should be like wide open to
do whatever you want to do based on strategical advantages
(16:07):
that you see, and you have to have kind of
like the balls to do it. I mean, some people,
especially in the beginning, we were made fun of with
the race, the fact that we did all these weird
things on defense, and you had to answer a lot
of questions and a lot of people's you're trying to
reinvent the wheel, all this different kind of stuff that
was being said in six seven, eight, whenever those cut
first couple of years were and now all of a sudden,
(16:29):
they then it becomes mainstream and now you have to
actually legislate against it. It's become it's gone so far
to the other side. My take has always been this,
and I'm a believer in this, and that you're right.
I don't like legislation. I don't think that you really
to change anything always requires somebody having to sit down
and think that I have a better way of doing this.
(16:50):
I prefer that I would have preferred that the players
handled it themselves, and even organizations. Meaning when I get it,
we're going to get young Tom Barducci in my minor
league system, strong left handed hitter out of Seaton Hall
Prep in New Jersey. This guy as a pull hitter.
He's got some pop, but I know that if I
don't give him other weapons in the minor leagues, that
eventually he's going to be subject to this method of
(17:12):
play where there's gonna be an extra guy on this
side of the endfield. I need to teach him how
to stay inside the ball, drive the ball to the
other side, or just bunt for a hit when a
situation presents itself based on the defense in front of him.
I don't think enough time was not nearly enough time
was spent on that. I know that for a fact.
So that's that's what it comes down to for me,
(17:34):
is that I don't think the industry has spent enough
time nurturing opposite field bunning you try to get it
done after the fact. I mean, Scherberg try to do it.
Anthony's kind of done it in a good way, and
there's others that have not been successful doing it. So
I just from my perspective, I like to see those
things done, and from a teaching perspective, teach him out
(17:55):
at the ball the other way, how to stay inside
the ball, how to bunt prevent this team from putting
the other guy on the other side of the endfield.
So you still have an advantage in that moment. But
then again it comes down to compensation and what organizations want.
They want home runs, so if you want There's Tommy
Verducci and he's yeah, he's got all this power, and
if we teach him this, then he's going to subtract
from his home runs. I don't really care if he
(18:17):
strikes out. I just he's got a decent I was
going to accept the walk. So there's all this different
kind of input being instilled and installed into the game
and into tom and into this this method of thinking.
Convoluted answer, but that I really would prefer would have
preferred that we had done a better job of teaching
Minor League Lieutenant hitters to utilize the whole field. And actually,
(18:40):
to the point, if you if you really wanted to
get that done, compensate I mean exactly. I mean, if
you get so many extra bassits on that side versus
the shift, or if you get a butt for a hit,
you know, different things like that. It's always going to
come down to how you com say for it, and
the players will evolve and react. Well, I agree with that.
You know, the carrot was not out there for the
guys to play that kind of offensive baseball you're talking about,
(19:02):
because they knew they could hit thirteen and hit forty
six home runs like a Kyle Schwerber and you will
get paid very well. So that was part of the problem.
But I actually think you have to give pitchers more
credit show. I mean, what happened I saw was teams
now began to pitch into the shifts. For instance, in
the last five years, cut fastballs from right handers to
(19:25):
left handers went up fifty percent. Now, if you're a
left handed hitter and that balls cutting in on your
hands at ninety three miles an hour, you are not
carving that pitch to left field. I'm sorry, it's not happening.
You've got to get the barrel out front. You have
to pull that pitch. The only place you can land
that ball in the shift is basically on the grass
(19:46):
next to the foul line and right field. That's it.
So now you can be rewarded for hitting a groundball
through the hole between first and second, the way it
was for a hundred years. I like the fact that
that is going to come back. That you don't now
have to have hitters trained to hit the ball in
the air because there's just no grass out there to
get a line drive or a ground ball through the
(20:08):
right side if you're a left handed hitter. I love that,
and I think you'll see hitters respond to that. It's like, whoa,
I just got a base hit. I didn't actually square
it up, but it got through the infield. I'm feeling
good about myself. Joe, you know what it's like when
you're on base, even if a blue pland's there. You
know that does wonders for your mental capacity and not
to mention your batting average. So I think the incentive
(20:29):
here we'll start showing up as a season goes on that, hey,
you don't have to launch everything. Guys, well, I do believe.
I mean, your logic is outstanding. The point, though, is
also that a good cutter on a left handed hitter
is still going to be defended against, even with only
one guy on that side of the field, because if
the pitcher's got good enough command in and he's going
(20:50):
to listit that soft of a contact, if you have
a decent first and second baseman, you're still going to
cover the area the majority of the time. The ball
is going to be hit, which would be more to
the pull side, more soft from where straight up second
base to the first hole to the first baseman, and
it's still not going to be hit hard. And that's
the thing about defenses. Defenses get bigger through lack of
(21:11):
hard contact. Defenses get smaller when the ball is hit hard.
So I can't disagree with your logic. It is true
the cutter is hard to carve the other way, no question,
But I just can't conceive the fact that because there's
one list gut on that side of the field and
the cutter is still going to be thrown. I'm curious,
and well, you know this will be born out over
the course of the year, but I don't necessarily believe
(21:33):
that there's gonna be that dramatic of an increase in
knocks versus the cutter in based on how defenses are played,
just because that's where the ball is going to be hit,
and it's gonna be hit softly. And could I just
jump into another point right here, because what you're talking about,
see this is this is where the defensive second basement
is going to become even more prominent. I don't even
(21:55):
know if it's going to get to the point just
say you have a right handed starting pitcher with a
good cutter against the predominantly left handed lineup right, is
that when you play your better defensive second basement, because
there's gonna be more lefties, the ball's gonna be on
their hands. I want the guy with the range of
specially two is left and I could set things and
to the point, I mean, I don't even know if
it's going to get to the point where you want
a left handed first baseman just to cover that homework stringently.
(22:18):
So these are the kind of things that I'm curious about.
Then you play your offensive right handed second basement when
you have a left handed starter, you know these are
the is this going to become part of the nuance
of moving it forward. I agree with that. I think
there's a premium on range at second base now, like
never before, you're out there on island. Now at second base,
you can't, as the Reds did sign Mike moose Stock
(22:41):
as a third baseman, say go play second base. You
can't do that. Those guys will not have a place
in the game. Let me give you two stars in
this game, sure, as an example of how the game
has changed. I'm gonna start with Corey Seeger, huge star
in the game. Right when he was a rookie in
twenty sixteen, they shifted against him only eleven percent of
(23:02):
the time. That was probably when he was playing against
your team, because they didn't shift a whole lot back then.
It wasn't that long ago twenty sixteen, but eleven percent
at a time, when he pulled the ball put the
ball in play, he hit three thirty three. Now, let's
fast forward to last year. Corey Seeger saw a shift
ninety three percent of the time, and when he pulled
(23:23):
the ball in play he hit two thirty nine. He
lost basically one hundred points the same player hitting the
ball the same way, and the total number of hits
to the pul side basically the same, and he lost
almost one hundred points on his batting average. The other
one you know very well, Show Hey Otani. Right, you
saw people routinely shift on Showhey Otani. Now, his power
(23:48):
is great the other way, but when he hits the
ball to the pulse side, when he hits it one
hundred miles an hour or more, and that smoked folks.
Hitting a ball more than one hundred miles an hour,
you squared it up, he was more likely to be
out than safe. He made more than thirty our two
infielders in a shift hitting the ball one hundred miles
(24:08):
an hour plus. What other sport would tell Lebron James,
We're gonna defend you with some funky kind of defense
and let it happen. Or with Tom Brady, we're gonna
make sure the defensive backs can basically tackle the receivers
five yards from the lion scrim They wouldn't. Why is
baseball putting governors, which is what these shifts do on
(24:29):
the stars of the game. We want these guys to shine.
I want to see Shoheio Tani hit a bullet to
right field and be a base hit and not have
a second baseman two hundred feet from a home plate
thrown him out at first base? How about that? So
I could argue, I mean I could accept the fact
the triangle because I started the triangle with Benji Gilt
(24:49):
with the Angels back in two thou and two. We
were up in Toronto and we just I just wanted
to put that out there. And I had him out
in right field in Toronto on that turf because of Delgado,
and I'm hitting the bullets from I think I was
on the first base side during batting practice. I just
want to get out there Benji. I wanted Benji because
he had the better arm, the stronger arm. You want
(25:09):
out there, the guy that's more reliable. So that is
that's what you're talking about. I would probably I could
be talked into making sure that the guy can't get
out deep in the triangle because I think that's a
lot of where the outs are at number one, number two,
I'll argue plate discipline. Corey Seeger once I figured him
(25:30):
out last year before I left, don't throw him a strike.
I mean, the biggest thing this guy's got to do
for me is recreate his plate discipline. Because what I
saw a lot, and that was after that. I walked
him that time with the bases load. We walked him.
After that I figured it out. It say no, no no, no,
no more of that. We're just not going to throw
him a strike. So you challenge guys like that to
(25:51):
swing at anything, and if you do, you know they're
going to grab you once because you can't always put
the ball exactly where you want to. But a guy
like Seeger, just don't throw him a strike. Just challenge
his plate discipline, challenge him outside the zone. You're going
to elicit a lot of weak contact. He's going to
grab one once in a while, but for the most part,
you have a picture that has great command. You could
control that at bat. So that's secret. That's what I
(26:14):
saw last your show. How you're right, And I would
I would concede that you'd have to stay on the
dirt for the reasons you just talked about, But I
still would not legislate against the shift. Oh you haven't
convinced me yet. But it was a good argument, pretty
good things. We're going to take a break here and
come right back and dive a little bit more into
the rules and is the stolen base. Actually coming back
(26:38):
to baseball, stick around, Welcome back to the Book of
Joe Podcast Joe. Sometimes. I've said this for years. I
look at a baseball game in the last few years,
and it looks like the library, the Firestone Library at Princeton.
Everybody's reading. The catcher's got scouting report on his wrist band,
(27:01):
he's reading. The guys in the dugout looking at iPads
and they're looking at video. The pitcher's got a scouting
report in his back pocket and there used to be
signed sequences before PitchCom he's reading, and the fielders are
out there pulling a card out of their back pocket
and they're reading. Come on, guys, let's play like we're
back in the schoolyard. Let's let a less take over
A quick story for you. I love telling this story.
(27:23):
Nineteen seventy eight, Game one sixty three, Loo Pinella robs
Freddy Lynn and a great tiebreaker game at Fenway Park.
Gidri is pitching and Panella is shaded towards the ray
field line against Freddy Linn. He makes a game saving catch.
He's probably a two run double if he's not where
he was. Fred Lynn was astounded by it, called it
the biggest play in the game, and after the game
he said that guy was lucky to make that catch. Well,
(27:45):
they asked Panella about it. He said, you know what,
Gidrey was pitching on short rest for the first time.
I saw early in the game he didn't have his
A plus fastball. Guys were starting to turn on it
a little bit, so I shaded him towards the right
field line. That's a ball player. That's a ballplayer reacting
to what he's seeing. We have removed that kind of
thought from players because now they have a laminated card
(28:06):
in their back pocket that tells them where to play,
and the specifications that go into the positioning is amazing.
I worry, actually a little bit about the Dodgers because
they're better than anybody. And you know this Joe from Tampa,
Andrew Friedman is a whiz when it comes to defensive positioning.
Whatever systems he uses works. They were the best in Tampa,
they're the best in LA. The Dodgers lose that competitive
(28:28):
edge this year. I mean, they'll still be a very
good team, don't get me wrong, but I like the
fact now it's more about players deciding the game than
the analytics department. Anytime you tell people what to do,
you're gonna lose their imagination, You're going to lose their
ability to think on their own. And I think that's
a lot of what we're talking about right now. As
the ball players today are not encouraged to think on
(28:50):
their own, coaches today are not encouraged to think on
their own. Analytics provides a safety net for decision making.
So if you continually follow the data and numbers and
it doesn't work, everybody's okay with that. It's no different
than going for a first down and fourth down all
the time in the NFL, And it's no different than
the three point shot that's really taken over the NBA.
(29:13):
So if the analytics provides a safety net for decision making,
so if it doesn't work, it's okay because the large
sample sides told us to do it. But I'm here
to tell you as a coach manager, I really if
you're if you're my hitting coach or pitching coach, whatever,
I'm staying out of your way because the moment I
keep telling you what to do, or I keep interfering
with your process with your players, I'm really losing you,
(29:38):
I'm losing everything that I hired you for, all the
inner intelligence that you might have, your experience, your wisdom,
because I don't want it. I don't want it. So
anytime you were constantly telling people what to do, you're
definitely losing their imagination. And I said, the years of
experience and wisdom, etc. So that's that's what I see
has been going on, and that's what really concerns me
(29:59):
about all this, And that's it. Yeah, it's interesting because
I give theo Epstein a ton of credit here because
he has really been one of the driving forces at
Major League Baseball as an advisor to the Commissioner's office
on these rule changes that do put the game more
back into the hands of the players themselves or at
least the people in uniform. And he is flat out admitted, listen,
(30:22):
we went basically too far with analytics when it comes
to the aesthetics of the game. And of course we
wrote about this a lot in the Book of Joe
that analytics, a great evaluation tool, became a way to
decide how the game should be played, the style of
the game, the script of a game that dictate dictation
(30:44):
of the game. For instance, analytics don't really love stolen basis.
If you think everybody's going to hit a home run,
there's no real reward for stealing a bag and moving
up ninety feet right, And the worst thing is you
get thrown out. You take a runner off the basis
when you think everybody's hitting a home run. That's the
way analytics works. Right Now that we have these bigger
(31:05):
bases and the distance now four and a half inches shorter,
there's a limit on pickoff throws. You can only pick
twice over to first base now, so we should see
an increase in both the percentage of the success rate
and the attempts of stolen bases. And if that's the case,
it went up a little bit in the minors. I
(31:25):
gotta tell you it wasn't a huge jump, but hopefully
there is a noticeable jump. And there's this we've returned
to the days when the guys on first base and
the thought that he might run puts energy into the ballpark.
How about that Joe blessing of the front offices. That's
what it comes down to. If the front office is
on board with that and they give it the blessing
(31:48):
to the manager, to the coaches that the player go
ahead and run, it'll happen. If they don't, it won't
because what happens is when guys get thrown out and
the out is given up on the bases. That's you know,
there's vinual sins and mortal sins in the Catholic Church.
I think that's considered a mortal sin when you get
thrown out on the basis because you get that kind
of reaction after the game. So there's gonna have to
be like a tempered method among front officers there. There's
(32:11):
got to be a buying from them that truly this
is like a more of an altruistic moment where we're
trying to make the game better and if this happens
to us or our team, so bit, we're gonna We're
just we're just trying to make this game more enjoyable.
But I also think it's discounted and it's not thought
about enough when you do that, when you have action
on the basis. Listen, I'm a base running free I
(32:31):
was always the base running coach and all the teams
that played on or a coach with. But if you
permit all this to occur, the splitting of concentration is
not given enough credit. I'm talking about from the pitching
perspective when he has to split his concentration to holding
a runner and at the same time trying to get
out a good hitter in a hot moment. Hey, you're
(32:51):
going to run into some mistakes because of that. But
nobody you can't evaluate that that there's no there's no
equation out there that's going to evaluate them. And I'll
tell you what, talk to some really good pictures when
he gets in the situation and say they're really not
proficient that holding the runners onto, they're really sold to
the plate. That really can absolutely split their concentration to
(33:11):
the point where your hitter is going to benefit or
you're gonna you're gonna get a rush throw from the
catcher and all of a sudden, runners could be on
third base. There's these are the kind of factors that
aren't even talked about that always have bothered me. So
it's the it's the unspoken part of this, it's the
subtlety of it's the layered effect of all this that's
not spoken about that can really conclude and and help
(33:33):
your team become successful. Last point, I was just at
a gig in Joliet, Illinois, Cardinal Country and Cubs Country,
and Eddie Spiezio was there. Scotty's dad. He played on
the sixty four World Series Cardinals. Lou Brockets traded there
from the Cubs and Lou Brockets to the Cardinals. And
he's not running that much because he was told not
to do that much running when he's with the Cubbies.
(33:54):
But he gets there and I don't know it was
Johnny Keene whoever calls him and say listen, or might
have been those of the players. I don't even know
what Shannon whoever, Hey, Lou, you came here for a reason.
Get out there and start running and create havoc. And
that became a hallmark of him and of that team
for years with White he did in the eighties. So
you just can't You just can't reduce it to the
point that you get thrown out. And it's a bad move.
(34:16):
You go, you go into team meetings prior to a series, man,
and you've got a team that's going to apply pressure.
I promise you. It causes confusion and chaos on the
defense and among the pitchers. When I was with the
Rays in two thousand and eight, we go to the
World Series, ask people what they felt about that team
between the action on the basis we even stole home
play a couple of times with Karl and in BJ
(34:39):
and about the safety squeeze. All these things are conspired
to help you to make you a more difficult team
to defend. And I'll argue that point with anybody. Yeah,
I love that. It's a great point. It's one of
the subtle things that maybe a fan wouldn't recognize, but
I guarantee spring training camps there's pitchers that really having
to learn relearn how to defend the running game, especially
(35:00):
if at the limit on pickoffs. And what happened in
the minor leagues with the p timer is that pitchers
learn that you better come set quickly. You don't want
to wait to come set when that pitch timer is
starting to run down, because then it's like that third
down rusher defensive end in the NFL, who can see
the play clock going down to one. You just take off.
You don't have to wait for a snap counter to
(35:20):
see the ball move. And that's for a base runner.
You know, you almost have to keep an eye on
the clock. If the guy's gonna hold it that long,
but you better come set early, and you better hold
those that second pickoff throw in your pocket just so
you have the threat of that. So there's a lot
of strategy that goes on with this. But the bottom line,
Joe is I think it's going to be more exciting.
(35:41):
The threat of the stolen base will come back, and
hopefully that means we're talking about defensive second baseman with
range and guys you can run. Hopefully it also means
we're going get better athletes in the game. That's be
a premium now on drafting and developing guys. You can
do more than just you know, swing upward to try
to lift the ball up in the air to hit
the ball out of the park. And I never thought
(36:02):
about you just said about the quicker coming set times.
That's really interesting. That's a part of the unintended consequences.
I also believe you may see more pitchouts all of
a sudden because of this. Pitchouts may take the place
of the throw over under these circumstances. And I think
if I'm running, I say a four game series, right,
I'm going to make sure I do that in the
first game of a four game series, I want to
(36:23):
make sure the other team sees me do that. When
I'm manage in the Texas League, they'll be five and
six game series. So if we're going to work against
a team that's going to run a lot, I want
to make sure that they knew I'm willing to pitch
out and that first game of the series, so it
could impact them not going later in the series. And furthermore,
if you've got a guy with good command like Kyle Hendricks,
I used to tell Kyle this all the time, Brother,
if I want to pitch out on a two one count,
(36:46):
was that going to bump you out? Is that going
to bother you? So if you could start pitching out
on counts that are typically protected counts where runners feel
very safe, and you do that a couple of times,
that also a planned for seeded doubts. So these are
the kind of things you're gonna have to you're gonna
probably see or should see this year. And again last point,
either you're going to see better deliveries. I like quicker
(37:07):
quick step to the plate. I think quick step to
the plate, arm is up and out, sooner you're going
to see a better delivery. Without loss of stuff. A
good point. And I'll add one more thing, re emphasis
on catcher's throwing ability. But Kettrick can pick anytime as
many times as he wants on those back picks. But
with more stolen base attempts, I think he will get
those stolen base attempts. You're gonna need somebody who can
(37:28):
throw the ball accurately and strongly. So add it up
for me, Joe. And as I've said on the air,
I haven't looked forward to a baseball season this much
since they invented nachos and those plastic helmets you can
take home. I mean, this is I really think this
is getting this a little closer back to probably the
best baseball it was played in the nineteen eighties. I
(37:50):
would say it was the most diverse game when it
comes to styles of play, the most athletic game. We
didn't have strikeouts over a twenty percent rate back then,
so I think you may see more balls in play.
And hey, if you're going to a game on a
school night, early in the season or late in the season,
you can take your kids knowing you'll be out of
there at a decent hour. How about that, Well, you
(38:11):
just you just brought up the decade that I earned
my craft, the eighties. I'm definitely kind of a millennial
baseball mind because it was the eighties that I really
was formed as a coach and a manager and a scout.
And I cannot disagree. Maybe that's where my influence not
maybe that's where my influence comes from. I do believe
that that was really, and I know is of extremely
entertaining period within the game of Basebine. It felt very
(38:34):
fortunate to be part of it. Yeah, the World Series
ratings were, you know, they were just really out of control.
I know the world is different than in terms of options,
but Hollywood is cranking out a baseball movie. It seemed
like every month that was a real heyday for the game.
Speaking of which a producer, Vince wanted to know, Like,
we haven't talked about rock and roll for a while, Oh,
(38:56):
so what do you got planned these days? If you
discovered rediscovering anything from your beautiful decade of the eighties
or prior musically speaking, Wow, Um, I can't say rediscovered.
I mean, I um, you know what I like. I
was talking about my terrific experience flying home from Savannah
the other day. Oh, yes, it's a beautiful trip you had. Yeah,
(39:17):
what I needed was some solace on the airplane and
the interlude there to settle down, deep breathing, reassign big
dude in front of me pushing back on his seat.
But literally, I don't know three or four inches room
to spare, So I went right by you need it,
like Anya on your mind. I bought the next best thing,
next best thing, Linda ron Stat. I'm such a Linda
(39:40):
ron Stat freak, and so I just sat there and
I kept listening to Linda ron Stats. She settled me down.
This is a lady I've been wanting to meet, but
of course she's been ill and I, uh, you know,
could not happen. I thought this might be the time
when I got out back with the angels. But Linda
ron Stat, to me, is one of the best voices ever.
And there's nothing that she did that I can't listen to.
Whether it's her Spanish music and of course even some
(40:03):
of her opera, radic music, and of course all this
stuff back from the Stone Ponies and stuff. Uh, this
girl gets me in the right mood all the time.
So more recently, when you're when you're a little bit
stressed out for me. Just pop some Lynda on on
whatever and some good it's got to be some good
sound too. One of the best voices ever, I believe. Yeah,
a good call. And when you mentioned Linda ron Stat,
(40:25):
I immediately thought of Tim McCarver, the late great Tim McCarver. Yeah,
you know, he was a master of wordplay. Sometime cornball humor,
I get it, but it would put a smile on
your face anyway. And he always had this line if
a guy was laid on a fastball, he's that was
a Linda Ronstat fastball blew by you. That was a
big part of the nineteen seventies in the minor league.
(40:46):
A catcher. Absolutely, well, it's this was fun. We're gonna
revisit these role changes, Joe. I mean, going in, like
you said, we think we know what we like and
what we don't like, and then there was always unintended consequences.
So we will revisit that once baseball gets underway. But
I'm pumped about it, and hopefully you've got something to
take us out here, Joe, I do. First of all,
(41:08):
it's too bad Joe West isn't around to interpret all
this stuff, and number two. You know, I was going
through a couple of different things and I've settled down
one of my favorites, Mark Twain, and I think this
is It's kind of applies to my overarching philosophy of life,
and it comes down to whenever you find yourself on
the side of the majority, it is time to pause
and reflect. Amen. Oh, I love that. I love that,
(41:33):
and he's one of my favorites. That's a great call.
Look forward to the next time. Joe. Thanks, Thanks brother,
nice job. Appreciate it. The Book of Joe podcast is
a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
(41:54):
your podcasts.
The Book of Joe podcast is a production of iHeartRadio.
Hey you're in the right spot. Welcome back to another
edition of the Book of Joe podcasts. It's me Tom
Verducci with Joe Madden and Joe. We just got back
from a wonderful weekend in Savannah, Georgia at the Savannah
(00:27):
Book Fair, to sell some of our book, The Book
of Joe, and to meet a bunch of really cool,
very nice people. What you think of that trip to Savannah, Joe, Yeah,
that's that's really interesting. I had a blush us like
you did. Didn't know what to expect going into it.
First of all, the city Savannah, Oh beautiful, totally smitten man.
I mean we did. We did a presentation and the
(00:50):
I think was the Ascension Lutheran Church, an old church
in the middle of Savannah. So Tommy and I like
two priests or on the altar facing the congregation, and
we did a nice job watching your language. By the way,
I appreciate that. That's it. I really backed off a
couple of times. But the first thing I brought up
I was asking if there are there any realtors in
the audience. I mean, that place is super, super cool,
(01:12):
and I can't wait to go back with a little
more time golfing. Golfed up in Hilton Head with my
buddy mic Life for a couple of days his wife Janey,
and just had an absolute blast. So anyway, Yeah, it
was a great experience, well organized, met a ton of
really cool people. So if we get a chance to
do it again, absolutely do it again. Yeah, I highly recommended.
(01:33):
That was my first trip there as well, just kind
of blown away by the vibe and the atmosphere there.
It's almost like you're on an old Hollywood movie set
and you walk everywhere. I found out that they call
everything a square, like we're asking for directions, and it
was always well you go through two squares or it's
three squares away. And apparently I guess as the city
(01:55):
was growing Joe and people were dying, they would buy
bury them in graveyards in squares, and as the city
kept getting bigger, than to keep pushing the limits at
the square. City grew. So there's all kinds of ghost
tours there and it's like kind of like going back
in time. But if you're thirsty, there's plenty of places
to get a cold beverage. We found that out, you
(02:15):
will not go thirsty or hungry. It's Avannah, Georgia. We
saw so many little private tours, like even after you
had left, I went to a private reception that night
and coming back, I mean like it's cold, it's late,
and there's little tours going on in front of cemeteries
or buildings or churches. Really an incredibly a unique and
very interesting experience. Yeah, and Southern hospitality, for sure, they
(02:39):
live up to that reputation. So that brings us to
our topic this week, talking about kind of a blend
of the old and the new. Baseball has been in
a precarious position where it's it's losing some appeal, especially
two younger fans. So this year the game is going
to look more different than it has since. Well, I
(03:01):
think you have to go back to at least the
start of the DH in nineteen seventy three to find
last time baseball went through kind of massive changes that
they are this year. Three big rule changes in brief,
no more shifts, no more defensive shifts. The bases are bigger,
three inches wider across, which means the distance between first
and second, for instance, is four and a half inches shorter,
(03:24):
and there is now officially a clock in baseball. Baseball
prefers you call it a pitch timer, but players are
literally on the clock now, like the play clock in
the NFL, the shot clock in basketball, to move the
game along. I am a huge proponent of these changes,
and we'll get into why. And Joe, my gut feeling
(03:48):
is you're a guy who he's not a big fan
of regulations, right, like being told what to do. I'm
putting boundaries on people and ideas and this maybe I'm
speaking for you, and I'll let you speak for yourself.
Of course, maybe this strikes you as something that reaches
a little too far. How about that? Well, yeah, I
mean you're right, that's who I am. I grew up
in the sixties and the seventies. It's in the book
(04:09):
of Joe. But yeah, but I will say this, I
do like the pitch timer. I think that was for me,
that was the one rule that could have been the
first rule or change that it came down the pike
a couple of years ago. As opposed to like pretty
batter minimum, you know, the ghost running all this other
kind of stuff. I think this one makes the most
(04:29):
sense to me. Actually, I played with the clock. Way
back in the day, when I was in Wichita, Kansas
in nineteen it was eighty there was a clock in
the National Baseball Congress World Series in Wichita, and it
didn't bother anybody at that time. But when I but
the Cubs not making the plaoffs that the first time
came home watching a playoff game on TV. Wow took forever.
(04:51):
Interminable was the word that I that brought to came
to my mind. So yeah, I like the idea of
getting the ball, throwing the ball. Talk about Baba Doo,
my mentor in the Book of Joe. I mean, Babaho
used to gets so upset when a pitch would take
too longer. A guy would not get into batter's box.
He would just start yelling out from the side. I
mean in an instructional league game in Arizona with nobody around.
(05:12):
So I like that. I like the guy getting the ball,
getting on the rubber batter in the box. I think
it's going to create there's not all that necessary time
for strategy, strategy, and it's actually a point of overthinking.
So get the ball, throw the ball here to get
in a box ready to swing the bat. I like
all of that, and I think there's going to be
a positive reaction with the pace of the game. And
(05:33):
I've never been concerned about the length of the game.
That's a great point. I'm glad you pointed that out.
It really is about the pace of the game. It's
not the time of the game now. When they put
the pitch clock in the minor leagues last year, the
average minor league game was reduced by about twenty five minutes.
You're not going to see the same kind of cut
in the major leagues. The clock is actually a second
(05:55):
longer with runners and without runners, and there's more commercial
time built into a major league game, especially at national broadcast.
But you may be talking out as much as twenty
minutes being cut off a game that makes a big
difference more than that. Is exactly what you said, Joe.
The pace of action the ball in play, I call
it a state of readiness. If you as a fan
(06:18):
in the ballpark or especially at home, when there are
other distractions to pull you away from the game, see
everybody's body language completely go inert. They just stop right,
They walk off the back of the mound, they walk
out of the batter's box, the head goes down. They're
staring in the space. What are you doing? You're changing
the channel, You're looking at your screen, an iPad, whatever
(06:41):
it might be. You lose interest when the game is
played in a heightened state of readiness, like the way
soccer is, like the way basketball in the NFL is,
then you are more engaged as a fan. So I
love the fact that the game will be played at
a faster pace, And I actually think I agree with
your mentor Bablue. If I'm a pitcher man, I think
(07:03):
this helps me. I want to dictate pace if I'm
on the mount. The more I control pace and almost
force a hitter to think quickly rather than slowly, that
to me, Joe seems to advantage the picture. What do
you think, Well, yeah, I mean part of this slowness
that evolved was like in the early eighties to the
mid eighties when mental skills started to come on board,
(07:24):
And a lot of what you see with this this
time in between is possibly routines that have been developed
through the utilization of mental skills coaches. You know your
breath when things aren't going right to have a happy
spot on an outfield. Fancer like Evan Longoria. We look
at the top of the left field foul poll. That
was all from Kenny Vizza hitters. I mean pictures again,
(07:49):
guards that don't get under rubber unless you're ready to.
Long ago get out of the box until you're ready to.
So all that stuff conspired to add time to the
pitch or to the yet bat. So part of it's
our own fault. I'm regarding all of that with the
mental skill. So now mental skills has got to develop
another method, a quicker method. And again that's counterintuitive to
(08:10):
what we've been teaching to this point, because you do
want to take your time, never be in a hurry,
get your breath, you control the action, you control the pace.
So that's I really believe that that's been part of
the problem or the issue in a sense. But although
I'm a really big proponent of mental skills, so I'm
curious to see how this an acts as we move
it forward. I like the idea of a picture not
(08:32):
overthinking it. I like the idea of a hit or
not overthinking it. But I agree. I mean from a
pitcher's perspective, I think, get it and throw it. It's
just like on a golf tea see it and hit it.
I mean, we get to this point where we have
too much time in between football you don't as a
football player, as a quarterback. After that first hit, it
was almost like we're just talking right now. You didn't
(08:53):
think about anything. Basketball, if you want to argue with
the referee, he gives you the ball, you have to
put it in play. In baseball, we have all these
pauses that you have a chance to overthink it. So
I'm curious with all of that not chanced over thinking
now with the pitcher, and obviously the same with the hitter.
But I do there's a lot to like about this.
But again, these guys are still gonna want to have
(09:13):
a routine that they're gonna have to expedite a bit,
and I'm curious to see how that evolves. Yeah, it's interesting.
If you remember when we had Anthony Rizzo on the podcast,
he talked about when he's facing guys in September who
just came up from the minor leagues who've been pitching
with the clock, he felt rushed at the plate. His
own kind of routine to get himself ready had to
be quickened and made him a little bit uncomfortable. Now,
(09:35):
spring training games are starting this weekend. The games will
be played under the new set of rules. You have
teams right now practicing and taking batting practice with clocks
on the field. Everybody is getting their routines readjusted. Will
it happen in the course of spring training. No, it's
still always going to bleed into the regular season. You're
gonna have a lot of veteran players in April, especially
(09:56):
complaining about it. You'll have guys maybe even punched out
by an umpire because the hitter took too long to
get in the box that the penalty is a strike
on the batter or a ball on the pitcher. It's
going to happen, folks and guys are going to complain,
but you know what, it's just part of the adjustment period.
After about two, three, four weeks, they'll be good. They'll
(10:18):
move on. It will not be an issue. But I'm
telling you, just be prepared for a lot of complaining. Yes,
no different than when they brought in the instant replace stuff,
and the result would come back and I would look
at the board and you would see the board and
you know, okay, absolutely they have to go in this direction.
Then they come back in another direction based on against
what you have thought, based on the scrutiny from New York.
(10:39):
And I you're not supposed to argue right there because
these unparts on the field that have nothing to do
with this call. But I knew that. I knew that.
But I'm still gonna argue, and I'm still gonna get
kicked out because you still have to make a point.
So I think, like, just like you're talking about, even
though everybody knows these are the rules, there's still a
lot of purists that are not going to like it.
Eventually it will be will get to the point where
(11:01):
everybody does kind of morph into it and understands it
and does it more seamlessly. But in the beginning, if
somebody gets punched out man on a time clock, God,
I don't even know what I would do in the dugout,
I swear to God. And then again, you have to
you have to understand, I mean, you was it was
the clock? Ride was the guy too quick? I mean
you're gonna try to, you know, parcel list down to
(11:23):
like really some minute moments or situations. It's gonna be tough.
And so you're right, it's gonna it's gonna happen. It'll
take some time, but they're still gonna be arguments and
are still going to be It's like anything else, unintended consequences.
As you move this further along, some of the things
that seem really obvious and good to us right now
are going to be challenged. Yes, let me give our
(11:44):
listeners a quick summation of how we got here and
why it's necessary. If you go back to the highest
attended season in baseball history, that's two thousand and seven,
that's the apex of attendance. Since then, major League Baseball
games on average have gotten twelve minutes longer with six
fewer balls put into play. What does that mean? That
(12:07):
means baseball lost fifteen million fans in those fifteen years
as they gave people less action over more time. That
is the absolute worst kind of formula that any entertainment
industry could have, especially in this day, as the options
are just exponentially greater in terms of where you can
(12:28):
get your fun from, right, So you have to give
people more action over less time. That's what this is
designed to do. Now people have said, why don't you
just leave the game alone? The game self corrects over time,
and generally that has been true. It wasn't going to change, folks.
Players were getting slower and slower. And Joe, you're right
about the mental skills part of it. I will throw
(12:49):
in also the information. There is more information that's processed
in real time during a game than there ever has been.
That is not going back to nineteen fifties or nineteen
sixties baseball, which was basically your version of what you
call amor con league in baseball. Joe, just show up
and play right, and we're getting closer, not getting ever
get back there, but we're getting closer to that kind
(13:11):
of baseball, the game decided by the players and their
athleticism and not algorithms. Yeah, I mean, there's still going
to be this blood of information that's going to be
thrown out there prior to the game. And I'll argue,
even though it's been that way, when the game begins, man,
it's hard to really utilize all that. I mean, I
had that little sheet in my back pocket. I knew
(13:31):
what I wanted to do before the game began. It
was you had to, like I would have to possibly
check in a couple times during a game of something
that really wasn't certain of but for the most part,
by the time that game begin, you should know exactly
what you want to do catcher to picture, picture to
catcher hitting before you got into the batter's box, manager
before the ending, you got to know what you're going
to do before the inning begins, several hitters in advance.
(13:53):
So I mean, I think a little bit of this
has been overblown with the information being so impactful during
the game. It's really impactful in regards to how you
set up the game before it occurs, and then it's
going to be organizationally contingent. It's the group that really
wants their manager to serve more as a middle manager
is going to have to really be there with almost
like a cheat sheet there in the course of the
(14:15):
game to make sure you'd stay with script. And there's
others that are gonna like I would like to believe
I was this guy that I would get all this information,
I would want it, But then by the time the
game began, it's more read and react kind of a
situation because nothing rare that anything goes according to script
or theory, because during reality most of the time are
two different things. So the information overload is there it's
(14:37):
not going to go away as long as it stays
before the game. I don't think it'll be it's going
to really be oppressive during any game. But like you're saying,
I agree with that, less time to really process all
this stuff is actually a good thing, and maybe they're
gonna have to reduce reduced, reduce even more prior to
the game less cheat sheets. Durre any game. Let's go
play some baseball. I think everybody would love that. Hey,
(15:00):
speaking of pitch timers, I'm up against one right here,
so we're gonna take a quick break, and when we
come back, I want to ask one of the early
adopters who with the shift, what he thinks of the
shift now being banned. Hey, welcome back to the Book
(15:22):
of Joe podcast. Joe Madden was listen. He wasn't there
with the Boudreau shift Lou Boudreau on Ted Williams or
back in the nineteen twenties with Sy Williams and the Phillies.
But in the modern shift era, he was right there
at the beginning, first with the Angels, then with the Rays.
You're talking about shifting on Ken Griffe Junior. You're talking
before man outfields those days are over. That sort of
(15:45):
ingenuity now has been legislated out of the game, and
I could see why someone like Joe would be against it.
I'm for it, But again, Joe, I want to hear
your perspective on someone who was right there at the
beginning of this and now you're being told you can't
do it. Yeah. I again, it's just it's the game
of baseball, and it should be like wide open to
do whatever you want to do based on strategical advantages
(16:07):
that you see, and you have to have kind of
like the balls to do it. I mean, some people,
especially in the beginning, we were made fun of with
the race, the fact that we did all these weird
things on defense, and you had to answer a lot
of questions and a lot of people's you're trying to
reinvent the wheel, all this different kind of stuff that
was being said in six seven, eight, whenever those cut
first couple of years were and now all of a sudden,
(16:29):
they then it becomes mainstream and now you have to
actually legislate against it. It's become it's gone so far
to the other side. My take has always been this,
and I'm a believer in this, and that you're right.
I don't like legislation. I don't think that you really
to change anything always requires somebody having to sit down
and think that I have a better way of doing this.
(16:50):
I prefer that I would have preferred that the players
handled it themselves, and even organizations. Meaning when I get it,
we're going to get young Tom Barducci in my minor
league system, strong left handed hitter out of Seaton Hall
Prep in New Jersey. This guy as a pull hitter.
He's got some pop, but I know that if I
don't give him other weapons in the minor leagues, that
eventually he's going to be subject to this method of
(17:12):
play where there's gonna be an extra guy on this
side of the endfield. I need to teach him how
to stay inside the ball, drive the ball to the
other side, or just bunt for a hit when a
situation presents itself based on the defense in front of him.
I don't think enough time was not nearly enough time
was spent on that. I know that for a fact.
So that's that's what it comes down to for me,
(17:34):
is that I don't think the industry has spent enough
time nurturing opposite field bunning you try to get it
done after the fact. I mean, Scherberg try to do it.
Anthony's kind of done it in a good way, and
there's others that have not been successful doing it. So
I just from my perspective, I like to see those
things done, and from a teaching perspective, teach him out
(17:55):
at the ball the other way, how to stay inside
the ball, how to bunt prevent this team from putting
the other guy on the other side of the endfield.
So you still have an advantage in that moment. But
then again it comes down to compensation and what organizations want.
They want home runs, so if you want There's Tommy
Verducci and he's yeah, he's got all this power, and
if we teach him this, then he's going to subtract
from his home runs. I don't really care if he
(18:17):
strikes out. I just he's got a decent I was
going to accept the walk. So there's all this different
kind of input being instilled and installed into the game
and into tom and into this this method of thinking.
Convoluted answer, but that I really would prefer would have
preferred that we had done a better job of teaching
Minor League Lieutenant hitters to utilize the whole field. And actually,
(18:40):
to the point, if you if you really wanted to
get that done, compensate I mean exactly. I mean, if
you get so many extra bassits on that side versus
the shift, or if you get a butt for a hit,
you know, different things like that. It's always going to
come down to how you com say for it, and
the players will evolve and react. Well, I agree with that.
You know, the carrot was not out there for the
guys to play that kind of offensive baseball you're talking about,
(19:02):
because they knew they could hit thirteen and hit forty
six home runs like a Kyle Schwerber and you will
get paid very well. So that was part of the problem.
But I actually think you have to give pitchers more
credit show. I mean, what happened I saw was teams
now began to pitch into the shifts. For instance, in
the last five years, cut fastballs from right handers to
(19:25):
left handers went up fifty percent. Now, if you're a
left handed hitter and that balls cutting in on your
hands at ninety three miles an hour, you are not
carving that pitch to left field. I'm sorry, it's not happening.
You've got to get the barrel out front. You have
to pull that pitch. The only place you can land
that ball in the shift is basically on the grass
(19:46):
next to the foul line and right field. That's it.
So now you can be rewarded for hitting a groundball
through the hole between first and second, the way it
was for a hundred years. I like the fact that
that is going to come back. That you don't now
have to have hitters trained to hit the ball in
the air because there's just no grass out there to
get a line drive or a ground ball through the
(20:08):
right side if you're a left handed hitter. I love that,
and I think you'll see hitters respond to that. It's like, whoa,
I just got a base hit. I didn't actually square
it up, but it got through the infield. I'm feeling
good about myself. Joe, you know what it's like when
you're on base, even if a blue pland's there. You
know that does wonders for your mental capacity and not
to mention your batting average. So I think the incentive
(20:29):
here we'll start showing up as a season goes on that, hey,
you don't have to launch everything. Guys, well, I do believe.
I mean, your logic is outstanding. The point, though, is
also that a good cutter on a left handed hitter
is still going to be defended against, even with only
one guy on that side of the field, because if
the pitcher's got good enough command in and he's going
(20:50):
to listit that soft of a contact, if you have
a decent first and second baseman, you're still going to
cover the area the majority of the time. The ball
is going to be hit, which would be more to
the pull side, more soft from where straight up second
base to the first hole to the first baseman, and
it's still not going to be hit hard. And that's
the thing about defenses. Defenses get bigger through lack of
(21:11):
hard contact. Defenses get smaller when the ball is hit hard.
So I can't disagree with your logic. It is true
the cutter is hard to carve the other way, no question,
But I just can't conceive the fact that because there's
one list gut on that side of the field and
the cutter is still going to be thrown. I'm curious,
and well, you know this will be born out over
the course of the year, but I don't necessarily believe
(21:33):
that there's gonna be that dramatic of an increase in
knocks versus the cutter in based on how defenses are played,
just because that's where the ball is going to be hit,
and it's gonna be hit softly. And could I just
jump into another point right here, because what you're talking about,
see this is this is where the defensive second basement
is going to become even more prominent. I don't even
(21:55):
know if it's going to get to the point just
say you have a right handed starting pitcher with a
good cutter against the predominantly left handed lineup right, is
that when you play your better defensive second basement, because
there's gonna be more lefties, the ball's gonna be on
their hands. I want the guy with the range of
specially two is left and I could set things and
to the point, I mean, I don't even know if
it's going to get to the point where you want
a left handed first baseman just to cover that homework stringently.
(22:18):
So these are the kind of things that I'm curious about.
Then you play your offensive right handed second basement when
you have a left handed starter, you know these are
the is this going to become part of the nuance
of moving it forward. I agree with that. I think
there's a premium on range at second base now, like
never before, you're out there on island. Now at second base,
you can't, as the Reds did sign Mike moose Stock
(22:41):
as a third baseman, say go play second base. You
can't do that. Those guys will not have a place
in the game. Let me give you two stars in
this game, sure, as an example of how the game
has changed. I'm gonna start with Corey Seeger, huge star
in the game. Right when he was a rookie in
twenty sixteen, they shifted against him only eleven percent of
(23:02):
the time. That was probably when he was playing against
your team, because they didn't shift a whole lot back then.
It wasn't that long ago twenty sixteen, but eleven percent
at a time, when he pulled the ball put the
ball in play, he hit three thirty three. Now, let's
fast forward to last year. Corey Seeger saw a shift
ninety three percent of the time, and when he pulled
(23:23):
the ball in play he hit two thirty nine. He
lost basically one hundred points the same player hitting the
ball the same way, and the total number of hits
to the pul side basically the same, and he lost
almost one hundred points on his batting average. The other
one you know very well, Show Hey Otani. Right, you
saw people routinely shift on Showhey Otani. Now, his power
(23:48):
is great the other way, but when he hits the
ball to the pulse side, when he hits it one
hundred miles an hour or more, and that smoked folks.
Hitting a ball more than one hundred miles an hour,
you squared it up, he was more likely to be
out than safe. He made more than thirty our two
infielders in a shift hitting the ball one hundred miles
(24:08):
an hour plus. What other sport would tell Lebron James,
We're gonna defend you with some funky kind of defense
and let it happen. Or with Tom Brady, we're gonna
make sure the defensive backs can basically tackle the receivers
five yards from the lion scrim They wouldn't. Why is
baseball putting governors, which is what these shifts do on
(24:29):
the stars of the game. We want these guys to shine.
I want to see Shoheio Tani hit a bullet to
right field and be a base hit and not have
a second baseman two hundred feet from a home plate
thrown him out at first base? How about that? So
I could argue, I mean I could accept the fact
the triangle because I started the triangle with Benji Gilt
(24:49):
with the Angels back in two thou and two. We
were up in Toronto and we just I just wanted
to put that out there. And I had him out
in right field in Toronto on that turf because of Delgado,
and I'm hitting the bullets from I think I was
on the first base side during batting practice. I just
want to get out there Benji. I wanted Benji because
he had the better arm, the stronger arm. You want
(25:09):
out there, the guy that's more reliable. So that is
that's what you're talking about. I would probably I could
be talked into making sure that the guy can't get
out deep in the triangle because I think that's a
lot of where the outs are at number one, number two,
I'll argue plate discipline. Corey Seeger once I figured him
(25:30):
out last year before I left, don't throw him a strike.
I mean, the biggest thing this guy's got to do
for me is recreate his plate discipline. Because what I
saw a lot, and that was after that. I walked
him that time with the bases load. We walked him.
After that I figured it out. It say no, no no, no,
no more of that. We're just not going to throw
him a strike. So you challenge guys like that to
(25:51):
swing at anything, and if you do, you know they're
going to grab you once because you can't always put
the ball exactly where you want to. But a guy
like Seeger, just don't throw him a strike. Just challenge
his plate discipline, challenge him outside the zone. You're going
to elicit a lot of weak contact. He's going to
grab one once in a while, but for the most part,
you have a picture that has great command. You could
control that at bat. So that's secret. That's what I
(26:14):
saw last your show. How you're right, And I would
I would concede that you'd have to stay on the
dirt for the reasons you just talked about, But I
still would not legislate against the shift. Oh you haven't
convinced me yet. But it was a good argument, pretty
good things. We're going to take a break here and
come right back and dive a little bit more into
the rules and is the stolen base. Actually coming back
(26:38):
to baseball, stick around, Welcome back to the Book of
Joe Podcast Joe. Sometimes. I've said this for years. I
look at a baseball game in the last few years,
and it looks like the library, the Firestone Library at Princeton.
Everybody's reading. The catcher's got scouting report on his wrist band,
(27:01):
he's reading. The guys in the dugout looking at iPads
and they're looking at video. The pitcher's got a scouting
report in his back pocket and there used to be
signed sequences before PitchCom he's reading, and the fielders are
out there pulling a card out of their back pocket
and they're reading. Come on, guys, let's play like we're
back in the schoolyard. Let's let a less take over
A quick story for you. I love telling this story.
(27:23):
Nineteen seventy eight, Game one sixty three, Loo Pinella robs
Freddy Lynn and a great tiebreaker game at Fenway Park.
Gidri is pitching and Panella is shaded towards the ray
field line against Freddy Linn. He makes a game saving catch.
He's probably a two run double if he's not where
he was. Fred Lynn was astounded by it, called it
the biggest play in the game, and after the game
he said that guy was lucky to make that catch. Well,
(27:45):
they asked Panella about it. He said, you know what,
Gidrey was pitching on short rest for the first time.
I saw early in the game he didn't have his
A plus fastball. Guys were starting to turn on it
a little bit, so I shaded him towards the right
field line. That's a ball player. That's a ballplayer reacting
to what he's seeing. We have removed that kind of
thought from players because now they have a laminated card
(28:06):
in their back pocket that tells them where to play,
and the specifications that go into the positioning is amazing.
I worry, actually a little bit about the Dodgers because
they're better than anybody. And you know this Joe from Tampa,
Andrew Friedman is a whiz when it comes to defensive positioning.
Whatever systems he uses works. They were the best in Tampa,
they're the best in LA. The Dodgers lose that competitive
(28:28):
edge this year. I mean, they'll still be a very
good team, don't get me wrong, but I like the
fact now it's more about players deciding the game than
the analytics department. Anytime you tell people what to do,
you're gonna lose their imagination, You're going to lose their
ability to think on their own. And I think that's
a lot of what we're talking about right now. As
the ball players today are not encouraged to think on
(28:50):
their own, coaches today are not encouraged to think on
their own. Analytics provides a safety net for decision making.
So if you continually follow the data and numbers and
it doesn't work, everybody's okay with that. It's no different
than going for a first down and fourth down all
the time in the NFL, And it's no different than
the three point shot that's really taken over the NBA.
(29:13):
So if the analytics provides a safety net for decision making,
so if it doesn't work, it's okay because the large
sample sides told us to do it. But I'm here
to tell you as a coach manager, I really if
you're if you're my hitting coach or pitching coach, whatever,
I'm staying out of your way because the moment I
keep telling you what to do, or I keep interfering
with your process with your players, I'm really losing you,
(29:38):
I'm losing everything that I hired you for, all the
inner intelligence that you might have, your experience, your wisdom,
because I don't want it. I don't want it. So
anytime you were constantly telling people what to do, you're
definitely losing their imagination. And I said, the years of
experience and wisdom, etc. So that's that's what I see
has been going on, and that's what really concerns me
(29:59):
about all this, And that's it. Yeah, it's interesting because
I give theo Epstein a ton of credit here because
he has really been one of the driving forces at
Major League Baseball as an advisor to the Commissioner's office
on these rule changes that do put the game more
back into the hands of the players themselves or at
least the people in uniform. And he is flat out admitted, listen,
(30:22):
we went basically too far with analytics when it comes
to the aesthetics of the game. And of course we
wrote about this a lot in the Book of Joe
that analytics, a great evaluation tool, became a way to
decide how the game should be played, the style of
the game, the script of a game that dictate dictation
(30:44):
of the game. For instance, analytics don't really love stolen basis.
If you think everybody's going to hit a home run,
there's no real reward for stealing a bag and moving
up ninety feet right, And the worst thing is you
get thrown out. You take a runner off the basis
when you think everybody's hitting a home run. That's the
way analytics works. Right Now that we have these bigger
(31:05):
bases and the distance now four and a half inches shorter,
there's a limit on pickoff throws. You can only pick
twice over to first base now, so we should see
an increase in both the percentage of the success rate
and the attempts of stolen bases. And if that's the case,
it went up a little bit in the minors. I
(31:25):
gotta tell you it wasn't a huge jump, but hopefully
there is a noticeable jump. And there's this we've returned
to the days when the guys on first base and
the thought that he might run puts energy into the ballpark.
How about that Joe blessing of the front offices. That's
what it comes down to. If the front office is
on board with that and they give it the blessing
(31:48):
to the manager, to the coaches that the player go
ahead and run, it'll happen. If they don't, it won't
because what happens is when guys get thrown out and
the out is given up on the bases. That's you know,
there's vinual sins and mortal sins in the Catholic Church.
I think that's considered a mortal sin when you get
thrown out on the basis because you get that kind
of reaction after the game. So there's gonna have to
be like a tempered method among front officers there. There's
(32:11):
got to be a buying from them that truly this
is like a more of an altruistic moment where we're
trying to make the game better and if this happens
to us or our team, so bit, we're gonna We're
just we're just trying to make this game more enjoyable.
But I also think it's discounted and it's not thought
about enough when you do that, when you have action
on the basis. Listen, I'm a base running free I
(32:31):
was always the base running coach and all the teams
that played on or a coach with. But if you
permit all this to occur, the splitting of concentration is
not given enough credit. I'm talking about from the pitching
perspective when he has to split his concentration to holding
a runner and at the same time trying to get
out a good hitter in a hot moment. Hey, you're
(32:51):
going to run into some mistakes because of that. But
nobody you can't evaluate that that there's no there's no
equation out there that's going to evaluate them. And I'll
tell you what, talk to some really good pictures when
he gets in the situation and say they're really not
proficient that holding the runners onto, they're really sold to
the plate. That really can absolutely split their concentration to
(33:11):
the point where your hitter is going to benefit or
you're gonna you're gonna get a rush throw from the
catcher and all of a sudden, runners could be on
third base. There's these are the kind of factors that
aren't even talked about that always have bothered me. So
it's the it's the unspoken part of this, it's the
subtlety of it's the layered effect of all this that's
not spoken about that can really conclude and and help
(33:33):
your team become successful. Last point, I was just at
a gig in Joliet, Illinois, Cardinal Country and Cubs Country,
and Eddie Spiezio was there. Scotty's dad. He played on
the sixty four World Series Cardinals. Lou Brockets traded there
from the Cubs and Lou Brockets to the Cardinals. And
he's not running that much because he was told not
to do that much running when he's with the Cubbies.
(33:54):
But he gets there and I don't know it was
Johnny Keene whoever calls him and say listen, or might
have been those of the players. I don't even know
what Shannon whoever, Hey, Lou, you came here for a reason.
Get out there and start running and create havoc. And
that became a hallmark of him and of that team
for years with White he did in the eighties. So
you just can't You just can't reduce it to the
point that you get thrown out. And it's a bad move.
(34:16):
You go, you go into team meetings prior to a series, man,
and you've got a team that's going to apply pressure.
I promise you. It causes confusion and chaos on the
defense and among the pitchers. When I was with the
Rays in two thousand and eight, we go to the
World Series, ask people what they felt about that team
between the action on the basis we even stole home
play a couple of times with Karl and in BJ
(34:39):
and about the safety squeeze. All these things are conspired
to help you to make you a more difficult team
to defend. And I'll argue that point with anybody. Yeah,
I love that. It's a great point. It's one of
the subtle things that maybe a fan wouldn't recognize, but
I guarantee spring training camps there's pitchers that really having
to learn relearn how to defend the running game, especially
(35:00):
if at the limit on pickoffs. And what happened in
the minor leagues with the p timer is that pitchers
learn that you better come set quickly. You don't want
to wait to come set when that pitch timer is
starting to run down, because then it's like that third
down rusher defensive end in the NFL, who can see
the play clock going down to one. You just take off.
You don't have to wait for a snap counter to
(35:20):
see the ball move. And that's for a base runner.
You know, you almost have to keep an eye on
the clock. If the guy's gonna hold it that long,
but you better come set early, and you better hold
those that second pickoff throw in your pocket just so
you have the threat of that. So there's a lot
of strategy that goes on with this. But the bottom line,
Joe is I think it's going to be more exciting.
(35:41):
The threat of the stolen base will come back, and
hopefully that means we're talking about defensive second baseman with
range and guys you can run. Hopefully it also means
we're going get better athletes in the game. That's be
a premium now on drafting and developing guys. You can
do more than just you know, swing upward to try
to lift the ball up in the air to hit
the ball out of the park. And I never thought
(36:02):
about you just said about the quicker coming set times.
That's really interesting. That's a part of the unintended consequences.
I also believe you may see more pitchouts all of
a sudden because of this. Pitchouts may take the place
of the throw over under these circumstances. And I think
if I'm running, I say a four game series, right,
I'm going to make sure I do that in the
first game of a four game series, I want to
(36:23):
make sure the other team sees me do that. When
I'm manage in the Texas League, they'll be five and
six game series. So if we're going to work against
a team that's going to run a lot, I want
to make sure that they knew I'm willing to pitch
out and that first game of the series, so it
could impact them not going later in the series. And furthermore,
if you've got a guy with good command like Kyle Hendricks,
I used to tell Kyle this all the time, Brother,
if I want to pitch out on a two one count,
(36:46):
was that going to bump you out? Is that going
to bother you? So if you could start pitching out
on counts that are typically protected counts where runners feel
very safe, and you do that a couple of times,
that also a planned for seeded doubts. So these are
the kind of things you're gonna have to you're gonna
probably see or should see this year. And again last point,
either you're going to see better deliveries. I like quicker
(37:07):
quick step to the plate. I think quick step to
the plate, arm is up and out, sooner you're going
to see a better delivery. Without loss of stuff. A
good point. And I'll add one more thing, re emphasis
on catcher's throwing ability. But Kettrick can pick anytime as
many times as he wants on those back picks. But
with more stolen base attempts, I think he will get
those stolen base attempts. You're gonna need somebody who can
(37:28):
throw the ball accurately and strongly. So add it up
for me, Joe. And as I've said on the air,
I haven't looked forward to a baseball season this much
since they invented nachos and those plastic helmets you can
take home. I mean, this is I really think this
is getting this a little closer back to probably the
best baseball it was played in the nineteen eighties. I
(37:50):
would say it was the most diverse game when it
comes to styles of play, the most athletic game. We
didn't have strikeouts over a twenty percent rate back then,
so I think you may see more balls in play.
And hey, if you're going to a game on a
school night, early in the season or late in the season,
you can take your kids knowing you'll be out of
there at a decent hour. How about that, Well, you
(38:11):
just you just brought up the decade that I earned
my craft, the eighties. I'm definitely kind of a millennial
baseball mind because it was the eighties that I really
was formed as a coach and a manager and a scout.
And I cannot disagree. Maybe that's where my influence not
maybe that's where my influence comes from. I do believe
that that was really, and I know is of extremely
entertaining period within the game of Basebine. It felt very
(38:34):
fortunate to be part of it. Yeah, the World Series
ratings were, you know, they were just really out of control.
I know the world is different than in terms of options,
but Hollywood is cranking out a baseball movie. It seemed
like every month that was a real heyday for the game.
Speaking of which a producer, Vince wanted to know, Like,
we haven't talked about rock and roll for a while, Oh,
(38:56):
so what do you got planned these days? If you
discovered rediscovering anything from your beautiful decade of the eighties
or prior musically speaking, Wow, Um, I can't say rediscovered.
I mean, I um, you know what I like. I
was talking about my terrific experience flying home from Savannah
the other day. Oh, yes, it's a beautiful trip you had. Yeah,
(39:17):
what I needed was some solace on the airplane and
the interlude there to settle down, deep breathing, reassign big
dude in front of me pushing back on his seat.
But literally, I don't know three or four inches room
to spare, So I went right by you need it,
like Anya on your mind. I bought the next best thing,
next best thing, Linda ron Stat. I'm such a Linda
(39:40):
ron Stat freak, and so I just sat there and
I kept listening to Linda ron Stats. She settled me down.
This is a lady I've been wanting to meet, but
of course she's been ill and I, uh, you know,
could not happen. I thought this might be the time
when I got out back with the angels. But Linda
ron Stat, to me, is one of the best voices ever.
And there's nothing that she did that I can't listen to.
Whether it's her Spanish music and of course even some
(40:03):
of her opera, radic music, and of course all this
stuff back from the Stone Ponies and stuff. Uh, this
girl gets me in the right mood all the time.
So more recently, when you're when you're a little bit
stressed out for me. Just pop some Lynda on on
whatever and some good it's got to be some good
sound too. One of the best voices ever, I believe. Yeah,
a good call. And when you mentioned Linda ron Stat,
(40:25):
I immediately thought of Tim McCarver, the late great Tim McCarver. Yeah,
you know, he was a master of wordplay. Sometime cornball humor,
I get it, but it would put a smile on
your face anyway. And he always had this line if
a guy was laid on a fastball, he's that was
a Linda Ronstat fastball blew by you. That was a
big part of the nineteen seventies in the minor league.
(40:46):
A catcher. Absolutely, well, it's this was fun. We're gonna
revisit these role changes, Joe. I mean, going in, like
you said, we think we know what we like and
what we don't like, and then there was always unintended consequences.
So we will revisit that once baseball gets underway. But
I'm pumped about it, and hopefully you've got something to
take us out here, Joe, I do. First of all,
(41:08):
it's too bad Joe West isn't around to interpret all
this stuff, and number two. You know, I was going
through a couple of different things and I've settled down
one of my favorites, Mark Twain, and I think this
is It's kind of applies to my overarching philosophy of life,
and it comes down to whenever you find yourself on
the side of the majority, it is time to pause
and reflect. Amen. Oh, I love that. I love that,
(41:33):
and he's one of my favorites. That's a great call.
Look forward to the next time. Joe. Thanks, Thanks brother,
nice job. Appreciate it. The Book of Joe podcast is
a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
(41:54):
your podcasts.
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