April 1, 2025 • 48 mins
There's a lot of news for the first week of the season! Joe Maddon and Tom Verducci compare the use of 'torpedo' bats in baseball to a golfer trying different clubs. Joe explains how a batter finds a bat that works for him and how analytics are once again changing the game. Tom notes the rough start for Rafael Devers while Joe offers up some drastic changes to turn things around. Atlanta has also struggled out of the gate and the PED news with Jurickson Profar is an early dagger.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
The Book of Joe podcast is a production of iHeartRadio.
Hey there, welcome back. You are back at the Book
of Joe with me, Tom Berducci and Joe Madden. Of
course this is the most interesting baseball podcast on the planet, Joe.
(00:25):
But I want to start with a golf question which
will lead into our baseball discussion.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Here.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
I understand you got a new driver.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
I have got a new driver.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
How do you like it?
Speaker 2 (00:36):
I love it.
Speaker 4 (00:37):
What I did was, I'm going to just be very brief,
but I was very consistent with the regular driver, regular
length of a driver. I just could not control the
ark whatever, so I knocked it down. I was hitting
the tailor burner. But then I figured, let me just
try a regular hitdit club. So I went and got
a titleist TS One had the guys cut it down
(00:57):
to the same exact length of the burner driver, which
is like forty four forty three point seventy five inches,
like forty five and a quarter. I think, and wow,
that made all the difference in the world. And I'm
controlling my driver, I'm staying behind the baseball or the
golf ball going farther, it's going straighter. All the above
speeder shaft, and I really don't understand the difference of
(01:17):
shaft makes in a golf club to kickpoint, et cetera.
So yes, and actually I've had my buddy Frank Ratis
now the pro at BCC Valley Country Club, ordered me
the new iteration of the I think it's a GT
one T the titleist driver with a new speeder shaft
that's been cut down directly from the factory. So let's
(01:37):
see what happens. That should be there one should be
here once there Thursday.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Well, I love all the detail you gave us there, Joe,
because you know this dovetails with what I want to
talk about here. Because you're a good golfer, but you're
not exactly on the Champions Tour. No, that's ther Ga Tour, right,
I mean you're doing this because it's fun. You want
to get better. Imagine though, if you were on the
tour right what you just described in terms of finding
the right driver for you, the right shaft just multiply
(02:02):
that I don't know by how many times to understand
what a professional golfer goes through.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Right.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
We're seeing that now in Major League Baseball with these bats.
I mean we can't do this show without talking about
torpedo bets, right, But there's something bigger going on here,
and that is customization of bets.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Now, it's been going on for a while. This is
nothing new.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
You know, Marucci was one of the first ones I
can remember down in Louisiana that had to a lab
where they.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Go in there they literally fit you for a bet.
This has been going on for a few years.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
I wouldn't say it's gone for a long time, but
it makes complete sense when you use that golf analogy.
Joe and I think that's what we're talking about here
with these torpedo bets because what they did where they
were able to find out where guys are making contact
on the part of the bet. And listen, we all
want it as baseball players, you always want to hit
it on the sweet spot, right on the barrel.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
But there are some guys maybe are just slightly off
the barrel.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
And in this case, a guy like Anthony Volpi, you know,
he was hitting the ball maybe more than he wanted to,
actually a little bit below and I'm talking about below,
being closer to the handle on the normal sweet spot
of a bet. So what they did was they got
them into a bat where that barrel now the thickest
part is a little lower, and that matches up with
(03:18):
where he's been contacting the baseball. And so we have
a lot of people now obviously talking about torpedo bats.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
Are they legal?
Speaker 1 (03:25):
You know, it looks weird, so people think maybe it
shouldn't be allowed. But I think this is a great
innovation in baseball. And I'm saying this, Joe, because it's
like your driver. Maybe I hit your driver. It doesn't
work for me. The same with these torpedo bats. It
probably is not. Well, it definitely is not for everybody.
Just ask Aaron Judge who sticking with his bat. But
(03:45):
there's something going on here larger picture that we're getting
into an age now where you know, we have so
much technology we can get guys into labs literally see
where the ball is coming off their bat and try
to get the beat either through the zone faster and
or get it on the barrel more often.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
What do you think?
Speaker 4 (04:03):
Yeah, I think I came into a letter part of
the discussion yesterday on Baseball Now, and you had spoken
about the ax bat. I did, so I chose not
to mention it. But that's another creation with the handle
and the ax bat for me, was designed in order
to help prevent a hitter from rolling over at contact.
I thought it was a great concept and had all
the I got enough of them in the Angels camp.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
I just wanted guys to try them.
Speaker 4 (04:25):
You don't have to use them, just try them in
spring training and see if, in fact, it makes a difference.
So you could go all the way back when arizona'structurally,
I don't remember exactly, but I'm the hitting coach and
I saw too many bats blowing up. I saw too
many bats splinter ring. So I ordered all the bats
for the guys that you're in camp. And what I
wanted was each bat to be within two ounces of
the length of the bat. So it was a thirty five,
(04:46):
it could be a no lighter than a thirty three.
It was a thirty four, no lighter than a thirty
two ounce, and of it's a thirty three inches no
lighter than a thirty one ounce. I was just trying
to get these guys to understand the length of the bat.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Controlling the length of the.
Speaker 4 (05:01):
Bat, plus a feel within it where the bat actually survived.
I mean, if there were like thirty five thirty one outs.
There were just anything in off the handle was just
absolutely explode, exploding. So I was just looking for a
better piece of wood and just having the guys try
and experiment with these things.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
We could keep going.
Speaker 4 (05:16):
Cup bats got the bat cup at the end, so
you get a little bit more dense wood at the
head of the bat, and you cup it to take
out a little bit of that weight, and then it
was said to be a little bit more aerodynamic.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
I don't know if that's true or not, but that
was the word on the street.
Speaker 4 (05:29):
And sometimes if you hit the ballped end of the bat,
that cup area would actually be indented. Guys would still
use the bat as long as the piece of wood
stayed intact. Thinner handle, thicker handles, thicker and thinner heads
on the bat case seventy five K fifty five. Back
in the day, the Mickey manno bats, or you could
go back to the m Ones, the Jackie Robinson that
almost you could use from either end that the head
(05:51):
of the bat was a stick as the handle of
the bat are forty three.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
He goes the Hank Aaron model on and on.
Speaker 4 (05:56):
Reggie Jackson an RJ forty four at Rondack, which I
used in coming out of college, all different land sizes fields.
I like the heavier back because I wasn't a home
run hitter, but I could. I felt this dope. I
just got the barrel of the ball. It would come
off hotter and I could manipulate and use the ball
with the whole field. So this is my point is
this has been going on forever, and so now with
(06:18):
this new torpedo bat, the bottle bat, whatever you want
to call it, I get it and I understand it.
It's always about, like you're saying with the golf gig.
I didn't realize to what extent these shafts make a
difference until I've started experimenting with different ones. Wow, there's
a tremendous difference in feel and performance. And like you said,
(06:39):
based on my body, my swing, my clubhead speed, how
I'm able to manipulate the clubhead through contact. So there's
even we could go on and on even more than that.
But I'm a big believer in all of this stuff.
Last point, even in the instructional leagues in the late eighties,
I brought ponds of machine. It's a machine that has
like this, these parallel wheels spinning and.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
That they're very accurate.
Speaker 4 (07:02):
And I got them, and I cut the legs down
to make sure that the release point was thirty six
inches off the ground and it was thirty three feet
from home plate, and I would make my hitters. This
is Tim Salmon, This is Damien Easy, This is Jimmy Edmonds,
This is Garrett Anderson, this is Todd Green thirty It
was thirty five thirty six and thirty five thirty six
(07:23):
ounce bats.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
That they were not permitted to choke up.
Speaker 4 (07:25):
And I put duct tape on the end of the
bat in the sweet spot. And the point was I
was trying and this was high velost. He was the
equipment of a ninety five mile hour fastball from thirty
three feet, which was about sixty sixty five miles an hour,
and I was trying to really incorporate or have them
use their hands and keep their body in their arms
out of it. I was trying to incorporate and promote
(07:48):
like getting top half inn half of the baseball, because
if you dipped your back shoulder at all, or today's
try to lift the ball, you would swing underneath it.
Did it in Major League camp Dave Winfield had a
really hard time. Remember the really elongated swing he had,
and remember Wally Joiner, Wallace Keith short and quick to
the ball. So I've been experimenting with these things forever.
So when I heard this long story short, I really
(08:11):
was intrigued, because, again, I believe all this stuff. I
believe the manipulation of the kind of bat, the handle,
the head of it, the weight, the ounces, and all
this stuff matters. So not a surprise to them at all.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Yeah, this is a big innovation. Again, it's not for everybody.
I mean, it got a lot of attention obviously because
the Yankees, you know, went off on the weekend and
people were saying, well, what is that thing?
Speaker 3 (08:37):
Nine of their fifteen home runs.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
In the weekend against Milwaukee were hit with guys using
the torpedo bat. Now that dovetails with about you know,
five guys were using it, so fifty five percent of
their lineup hit sixty percent of their home runs, So
it makes sense. It wasn't like everybody who was using
the bat. But then we had La de la Cruz
go to a torpedo bat on Monday night for the
first time, and he went four to five with two
(09:00):
home runs the distance combined distance of eight one hundred
and fifty four feet. He's now a believer. You know,
we're gonna see more people try this out. If you
want to look at the other side. Francisco Lindor started
the yar O for thirteen using the torpedo bat. So listen,
it's not a miracle bat. I don't want to go
that far, Joe, but I think for some people it
(09:21):
will make a difference.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
And I know that it is spreading like wildfire.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Like the bat companies were putting torpedo bats out there
to buy as soon as Sunday night after because it
was the Yankees, obviously, because they were winning by such
huge margin with somebody home runs.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
Its spread like wildfire.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
So between one hundred ninety nine dollars and two hundred
and forty nine dollars, you can buy your kid a
torpedo bat, and they're taking advantage of that. I spoke
with someone who owns a part of a bat company,
and he said, we have to get this customization out
there in the travel ball industry. Now we're talking about
millions of dollars. You're gonna see this trickle down. There's
no question about it on the travel circuit, getting your
(09:58):
kid into a cage and get analyzed where he hits
the bat and what bat's going to suit him best.
The story I always to tell Joe about how things
have changed so much involves Derek Jeter. He gets drafted
out of high school, good player, obviously a first round pick,
but it always used a medal bat. So the Yankees
sent him to rookie camp in Tampa and he goes
to the minor league complex there.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
He needs a bat.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Back then, you know, high school players were not using
wood bats in the summer.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
It just didn't happen. So he's never used the wood
bat before.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
He goes down to the Tampa facility and there's this
huge rack of bats and bins of bats there, and
he's got to figure out what bad.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Am I going to use?
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Now I'm a pro, I can't use my metal bat.
But he found one shaped sort of like the metal
bat he'd been using in high school. Wait, probably similar. Basically,
he tried to find one most similar to his metal bat.
Do you know that Derek Jeter never used another model
his entire career. All three thousand plus hits were used
with that same bat. Totally by feel. Just pick up
the bat. It feels like the bat.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
I used in high school. I'll use this one.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Is become so scientific now that yes, you will see
more torpedo bats, but no, they're not for everybody.
Speaker 4 (11:05):
I love the word feel. I do love the word
film wanting my sweatshirt right now. Feel is the gift
of experience.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
I love that.
Speaker 4 (11:12):
Now the other side of all of this, with the
torpedo bet et cetera, I'm just curious.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
I'm waiting to see.
Speaker 4 (11:17):
It's going to take a little while here, but will
analytics change.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
On these hitters?
Speaker 4 (11:21):
Will the way they want to pictures want to picture
these hitters change. This is the first time you're hearing
anything that there may be an analytical advantage that's been
born to help the hitter. Because from the beginning we've
been talking about this, and I've been pounding on the
fact that the hitters have not been helped with this
analytical revolution at all. The defenses have the pictures have
(11:42):
all that other kind of stuff has I mean, pitching shape,
you know, episodas, all this Stuffye, just slowing things down,
that's all helped the picture. The hitter has gotten very
little out of this now with the change in the bat,
for instance, like we're talking about Volpe talking about having
the ball hit them up the hands too often want
to get the barrel closer.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
To the hands that was.
Speaker 4 (12:04):
Is analytics going to change because have left He's been
pounding him in with cutters and fastballs because they know
they can have right, He's been running two seamers in
on his hands because they know they can and they're
going to be rewarded. So is this bat going to
somehow cover that pitch now? And all of a sudden,
the analytical concept of this hitter is going to change,
and how they're going to try to get him out
is going to change. So thus do we start going
(12:25):
away to the weaker part of this bats? The weaker
part of the bat has always.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Been a handle.
Speaker 4 (12:30):
Now the handle is going to be the theoretically the
stronger part of the bat. So what does this mean
moving forward? I'm just curious as heck about that. I
think teaching inside the ball is going to be more
prominent now. Like I just talked about with the machine
that I had years ago, I wanted my guys to
focus on the top half, inter half of the ball.
We were always talking about line drives and hard ground
(12:53):
balls actually are not fly balls because flyballs were considered out.
So all I'm curious. It's one of those things that
create a shifting analytics. And again people have to understand
analytics is not pure and it's not this all knowing concept.
There's always there's always biased involved in analytics. So now
that there's there's a change in certain hitters based on
the kind of bath to us and how they're being rewarded,
(13:15):
the way to get them out may change.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Also.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
Yeah, that's a great point. We'll have to see.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
But I do think the game changes more quickly than
it ever has. When you talk about you know, reactions
and reactions back again, based on analytics, these things happen.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
You know, it used to happen on a yearly basis.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
It's almost a daily basis, but certainly weekly or monthly
where they're reacting to the data. I think this is
a big innovation, Joe, because listen, bats have changed over
the years.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
You know that you just mentioned a couple of things.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
The axe handled bat, you know, the cupped end on
the bat probably dates to about the seventies or eighties.
I don't know, but This is one of the first ones.
You also had the counterweight. You see some guys still
using it with that hockey puck style thing and the
huge nom at the at the end. But this is
one of the first ones and forever that actually changed
(14:03):
where the impacts the bat, right, It's not so much
about swinging the bat. It is, obviously because as you said,
it's about feel, and as Cody Bellinger said, the bat
feels better balanced to him. But you're talking about the
area where wood hits the baseball. That's the most important
thing in baseball, and this is a change to that area.
The only time I can remember this really, you know,
(14:25):
being in play, Joe, was you know, back in the
in the eighties and nineties, people went to the maple
bats and then they would like triple lacquer them, right.
They had such a hard finish on them. It eventually
became illegal. I mean, it was just basically too good.
But it's Lacker upon Lacker upon Lacker, these hard maple bats.
That's the only one I can remember this. So this
is to me is a major change. And I know
(14:48):
bats have changed and evolved over the years of shapes,
the weights, and you did a good job hitting on
that Joe. But we need to see how this plays out.
We need more data hear about you know, is this
a huge advantage or not?
Speaker 4 (15:00):
Yeah, the maple bats, listen, I was all over that.
You remember they were exploding. Yeah, they're absolutely exploding.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
Because let me just jump in maple bats. People don't
know that's the most dense kind of wood you can have.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
Most bets. Way back when we're hickory, they was just
way too heavy.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
I mean there were forty n's bets and then ash
became the most popular model, right, the big stick remember those?
Oh yeah, and you know, Northeastern ash was the popular bat.
It's a little bit lighter, and guys wanted bat speed.
But those broke and then they went to maple. As
you mentioned, it's the hardest, densest wood you can have.
It's just a solid hunk of wood. But guys were
(15:36):
having a thick barrel and a very thin handle with
all the way to the end. And yeah, you're right,
they were actually exploding. We don't see them as many.
They made some modifications to the size of a bat
and what's allowable in terms of the difference between handle
and barrel, But we don't see as many of those
shattering go ahead.
Speaker 4 (15:54):
Yeah, they were dangerous, man, I was really, I mean
it was. I remember actually was Derek Jeter at the
Yankee Stadium and he swings and he had a black
bat and he swings like had to be maple and
it's just broke in half. And I, you know, I
always stand, uh stand next to the uh as far
as close as I can't get the home plate on
that side of the dugout, and this thing came whirling back.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
I never saw it. It was a black bat. At night,
you can't see it.
Speaker 4 (16:19):
That's why check swings are very difficult from piers to
check with dark bats. Anyway, this thing comes back at
one hundred miles an hour. It seemed it hits the
wall right there.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
I would have never I never saw that you could
have gotten paled with that so easily. I remember.
Speaker 4 (16:32):
I remember talking to the the cub Is about like
putting up a net I said, why don't we have
more netting? Uh, you know, from around home plate and
then down towards the baselines because they were there, they
were breaking and actually they were there, there were projectiles.
But they eventually did was they put a black dot
on the bat on the maple bat. Apparently that's where
(16:53):
that that was supposed to be facing you. Somehow they
determined I guess the tensel strength wise whatever.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Yeah they see, uh yeah, that and the direction of
the grain exactly.
Speaker 4 (17:02):
And then the other thing about babel bats crazy. I'd
stand behind home plate for batting practice, and let's say
a right handed hitter when he hit it on the
screws up the middle line drive between where the shortstop
stood and second base bag into the outfield, the ball
would knuckleball almost every time. And a left handed hitter,
same thing invp line drive up the middle from the
bag to the second baseman out into that short right
(17:26):
center field area.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Ballwood knuckleball.
Speaker 4 (17:28):
So there wasn't as much spin on some of these
because the ball, like you're saying it was so darn hard,
whereas the ash bat would impart more spin. The the ashbat
also would chip on the top and the top of
the bat. You always look for the thickest grained ash
bat that you could find. If you had like thirteen
grains or less on an ashbat, man, you wanted to
keep that sucker as long as you could. That was
some seriously good wood. If it was really thinly grained wood,
(17:52):
you just knew it was going to disintegrate at some point.
But it was all different characteristics of the ball coming
off these different bats. When I was a kid, I
used to take a blowtorch out of my dad's shop.
I would rub a battery, I'm seriously a deep battery
over the top of my bat, and then I would
flame it myself in order to try to get the
bat harder at the top to prevent it from shipping
so they could use it long.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Right. We didn't buy We used wood back then. It
was no aluminum.
Speaker 4 (18:15):
As a kid, so you have between that and brad
little nails to keep it alive with some glue and tape.
That's what we did. So listen, I've been on the
bat thing for a long time. I think it's interesting.
But like I said, now, my next point of curiosity
is will it now impact the analytical way to get
guys like Bulpy out. I'm curious to see what happens.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up, because you know,
I think this is in some ways response to I
see more same sided two seamers, Joe. I mean you
mentioned offsided cutters working in on left handed hitter is
right to left, but the right on right sinker. You
see a lot of pitchers picking that up.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Now.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
I mean, we went through a stage where the four
steamer top of the zone played and played and played right.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
That was a response to launch angle swings.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
And now the compliment to that high force as guys
start looking out over the plate is the two seamer
that runs in on right handed hitters. And you see
Zach Wheeler is the best in the business at it.
You see guys with great fastballs like Wheeler and Bryce
Miller and Joe Ryan, they're adding sinkers because that'll keep
the right handed hitter honest.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
So I looked at this.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
Joe Volti actually was really good on sinkers last year
hit three twenty one. He's more of a low ball
hitter than a high ball hitter anyway. But here's the
what caught my eye. In twenty nineteen, same sided sinkers
we're talking about, right on right sinkers came in in
an average of ninety two point eight miles an hour.
Well last year that average was up to ninety four
point one right and in twenty nineteen, the average on
(19:44):
right on right sinkers was too eighty eight. Last year
it was down the two forty one. I mean that's
only six years, Joe. Where that right handed to right
handed batter sinker is becoming not just hey, let me
get a ground ball or you know, show him something
inside so I can work away. That's becoming a go
to pitch. That's become a weapon. So I'm with you,
(20:07):
I'm metioned. Does this now open up the outside part
of the plate and we're going to see more guys
trying to guys with torpedo bats. We'll see more pitches
away to see if they can cover that pitch.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
Curious to see.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Let me see if I could describe this right.
Speaker 4 (20:19):
I mean, the fact that it went down is that
because hitters have been trying to adjust hitting the elevated fastball.
In otherwords, they have they changed their swing in this sense,
and now they're where they were more able to get
to this sinker lower down and in I know, there's
a difference in velocity, but now all of a sudden
they're changing their hack and now they've been trying to
catch up with elevated fastball dust, this becomes a more
(20:40):
difficult pitch.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
I'll go back to Darren Nursey.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
It could be, but I'll just go to Vello. I mean, yes,
of course, i'ming in ninety two point eight. Now it's
up to ninety four point one. And with this, as
you mentioned that these labs, the way they can shape
these pitches, I think it's just become a better pitch.
Like everything else these days, it seems.
Speaker 4 (20:57):
I've seen darrener I love, by the way, Darrenurse. That's
one of my favorite players of all time. Ersty if
you remember he had that and thirty nine whatever he
hit season I think was two thirty nine. Yeah, Ersty
was the best backspinner of a baseball I've ever been around.
I mean, as a coach, I made he want up
until present time. He hit the most vicious line drives
back up the middle I've ever seen when he came
(21:19):
out of Nebraska. But what happened was because to do
that you have to have a real flat bat, stay
inside the ball, really get to the top half of
the ball.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
They were killing them underneath.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
They were throwing breaking balls underneath, opposite side, breaking ball underneath,
two seamers underneath. All this stuff started happening underneath, so
he started adjusting to try to pull that ball, which
kind of like I didn't like, only because I thought
it would change this beautiful swing that he had, and
eventually it did because he started protecting against that and
he's better able to handle that pitch. If you look
at the home run he hit in the two thousand
(21:49):
and two World Series. That was a big hit to
right field that I think put us or tied the
game for us. But he lost that ability to drive
the ball back through the middle. So you always have
to be wary of Okay, when you make kind of
adjustments to cover a weakness, at some point, do you
lose your strength. That's always something that's always been in
the back of my mind, and it's a very interesting question.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Last point, Mario Rivera.
Speaker 4 (22:13):
He shows you what a cutter can do to the
opposite side hitter, and they said it was great against
righties too. Don't get me wrong, but this guy was
a buzzsaw against lefties, and you know that was something
that we noticed early on. Obviously, then he played out,
but I would just curiously, if this bat was more
prominent than he still would have been great, no doubt,
But would there have been more success against him left
(22:35):
handed hitter wise, only because now that that really weak
part of the bat became stronger. And that just a
curiosity thought that I would have based on all the
information we're talking about.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Bottom line on torpedo bats, it is a major innovation.
It's not for everybody. I don't think it's going to
change the game. It will enhance some guys hitting, There's
no question about it. It's just a matter of fit
for a lot of guys. And it definitely is going
to be a boom to the bat making business is
just going. It's gonna spread like wildfire, There's no question
(23:07):
about it.
Speaker 4 (23:08):
Last point that back in the day, they made aluminum
bats like that, and I I brought it up yesterday.
Also the old Tennessee thumper and.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
That Yeah, yeah, I used to think that was illegal.
That looked like an enormous barrel.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Dude, Well you caught you as a catcher.
Speaker 4 (23:22):
If somebody came up there and used that bat, the
sound that made was deafening. Anytime somebody made contact, your
ears would ring literally and actually would hurt.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
There was such a different But I'll tell you what
I did. I used it in nineteen eighty and the.
Speaker 4 (23:36):
When I was playing for Boulder after I'd been released professionally,
I was playing in a bolder collegiate in the summer league,
and I picked up one of these things. God did
the ball jump off of those. I was actually a
power hitter, although Boulder, Colorado always helps that, but there
was such a difference. So the bottle bat torpedo bat theory,
it's been a big thing in softball and actually Little
league bats in the past.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Now it's being caught up with wood.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
Well, there was a lot of news for the first
week of the season.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Joe.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
We're going to take a quick break, but there's a
couple of guys who made some news that they'd rather
they're not be making, and that's Rafael Devers and Jerrickson
Profar and.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
We will dive into those headlines.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
Right after this.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Welcome back to the Book of Joe.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
Joe.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
I should have brought this up. We were talking about
the bats.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
I think they should start looking into the size of
the outfielders' gloves. Have you noticed they've gotten biggert. I mean,
come on, there is a limit on the size of
the gloves because it got way out of hand, and
I think we're getting back to the situation where they
got to start pulling out the tape measure.
Speaker 4 (24:44):
Yeah, that's the Willie Mays the basket catch famous. These
guys are all incorporating the basket catch.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
Now it is that large.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
Hey, I mentioned Rafael Devers and it's I'm curious your
take on what's going on here. We know about the
story in spring training, right they signed Alex Bragman to
play third base.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
But announce he was immediately the third baseman.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
Instead, they had Rafael Devers say, Hey, I'm a third baseman.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
I'm not going anywhere.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
It took for me way too long for the Red
Sox to say the obvious that they're a much better
team with Alex pregnant at the third base in Rafael
Devers as the DH. But clearly Joe Rafael Devers in
his mind has not accepted this move. And to me,
these moves don't work unless and until the player buys in.
(25:31):
And the Red Sox have a player who's one of
their franchise players, he's one of the great hitters in
the game, and he clearly has not bought in. He
has started this season worse than really basically anybody in history, Joe.
He is oh for nineteen with fifteen strikeouts. I mean,
no one has struck out in the past more than
(25:53):
thirteen times in the first five games.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
That was a record set by Pat Burrow and match
by Bybran Buxton.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Gary Sanchez once went over for fifteen with ten strikeouts
to start the year, but over nineteen with fifteen strikeouts.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
I mean, this is amazing.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
His whifth rate went swinging at a fastball is seventy
five percent. I mean he swings and misses seventy five
percent of the time he swings at a fastball. I mean, listen,
I can't get inside his head, Joe, but I mean physically,
there's obviously something wrong. I know he had shoulder issues
last year, didn't play a lot in spring training. Lack
(26:31):
of plate appearances maybe has something to do with this.
But he's just not getting to the baseball. He has
no timing whatsoever.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Yeah. I watched a couple at Batch yesterday.
Speaker 4 (26:41):
I was just curious and filed off a couple of
fastballs and then really way out in front of an
offbeat pitch.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (26:49):
And I also read which is just mentioned, which I
found curious. I mean the fact that he had his
shoulders had bothered him so much at the end of
last year, and that apparently began measuring bat speed. His
bat speed was down like four or five miles an
hour as over it would have been in the past.
For me, curiously, would that be all of a sudden
I got to start cheating to get it back up there.
When you start cheating because I can't get to the fastball,
(27:10):
then you get out in front of a breaking ball.
There's all kinds of things that multiply when you have
that kind of an issue.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
I think I learned. I think you know, many years ago,
I read.
Speaker 4 (27:21):
A book about the was it halber Strum the nineteen
sixty four Yankee Cardinals series, And in that Johnny Keene,
once the famous manager of the Cardinals, had question Ray
Sideki's desire, you know, is intensity with playing and did
he care enough? And as it came out, eventually Sideki
(27:43):
walked into his office and said, listen, you could you
could tell me I stink, You could tell me that
I'm not pitching while playing well whatever, but don't never
attack my heart.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
You just don't know. And that really taught me a lesson.
Speaker 4 (27:54):
So in this situation, I'm going to give Devers a
break right here, because I don't know the kid, and
I have to believe, first of all, they did do
the right thing. They should have been They should have
been handled from like you said, the very first day,
it was obvious. There's no there's nothing non obvious about this,
the fact that this Bregman belongs to the third this kid,
either First Space or DH whatever. So yeah, there's gonna
(28:15):
be there's gonna be some you know, settling in, getting
over it kind of a thing. But they've had all
camp to do that, and there had to be a
thousand different conversations with him, to the point that it
might have got annoying to DeBras and whomever.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
But I just think, give it a little time right here.
Speaker 4 (28:30):
I don't know him. I don't know what the Batsby
looks like in person. I even mentioned yesterday I thought
he looked bigger on but you know TV, can you know,
play some tricks. I just thought he looked bigger. You
don't know where his head is. I have to be
there and the dug. I'd have to be able to
talk to the kid eye to eye, and I got
to know this kid before I understand whether or not
I believe he truly is sulking, or if in fact,
(28:52):
there's something else at work right here, easy to point
fingers at the fact that he might be sulking.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
Yeah, I'm with you, Joe.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
I mean, it's a tough place to go to try
to get inside anybody's head. But it's clear if you
look at video between life ye in this year, he's
definitely bigger.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
I mean, that's obvious.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
Whether that has something to do with the hitting, I
don't know, but that's a physical thing that you can see.
Getting inside his head that's a lot more difficult. But
you're right about the bat speed. This is a guy
who was with above average bat speed. Last year he
was in the sixtieth percentile of bat speed, and this
year he's down to the thirty first percentile. That's a
pretty big drop, which you know, typically might tell you
(29:29):
that maybe physically he's not right, maybe the shoulders are barking.
I don't know, But I do know, Joe that you know,
for Alex Korrah was a great manager and that front office.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
This is a problem.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
This, you know, begins to you know, really manifest itself
in how he's playing. If he's uncomfortable with dhing, you know,
because there is something of a learning curve to being
a DH when you've been a position player your whole career.
If he hasn't bought in, that's that's the scariest thing
for me. That might never come if he feels like
this is some sort of demotion or you know, they
(30:01):
think less of him in this regard. He put in
all his work to make himself into you know, it's
hard to even say a decent third basement because he
really was the worst fielding third baseman, but he did
work at it. I'll give him credit for that. So
you've got a problem if your Boston. If this thing lingers,
you know, maybe this is much farther down the road.
You call up a team like Seattle and try to
(30:23):
work out a deal, a team that needs offense and
has a surplus if you will of pitching and get
one of their starting pitchers.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
I just I'm trying to see the end game here, Joe,
and where it starts is getting rock Field Devors to
buy into this is the best thing for his career
is to be the DH on this team.
Speaker 4 (30:41):
I mean, I know, obviously Alex has had conversations with
him and the people there, so they know where he's
at mentally, physically, whatever. They know better than we know. Now,
this is the like epically the one of the worst
starts ever. And this might sound absolutely nuts, but I
would give him a different thought process to work with. If,
in fact, I believe you know this is just wow,
he has lost in bat speed, shoulders, she hasn't gotten
(31:04):
all this strength level back whatever, believe it or not,
I would ask him the lead off. I would ask
him the lead off, and I said, I would then
take the onus off your hitting in a sense and say, listen,
the biggest thing I want you to do is work
on getting on base except your walks. Narrow your strike
zone down a bit, try try easier, use the whole field.
Just try to hit singles for a couple of weeks
and just see if you get yourself going again. I
(31:26):
would go in that direction. When I had good hitters,
like really good hitters, I would go. I would go
in that direction as opposed to knocking them down in
the batting order.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
Again, I don't know everything.
Speaker 4 (31:36):
This is if if I had a conversation with him,
and I all the different points were satiated, and I
felt like, you know, no, he's okay, he's on board.
He's just things are not right coming off his shoulder issue.
Right now, he definitely is into the team. We're going
to try to get this thing rowing. Put him on top.
Singles and walks, That's all I want you to be
concerned with right now. Singles and walks, get on base
(31:58):
as often as you can, and then let's roll from there.
I would go in that direction first before I considered
anything else.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
What's really interesting is you look at his numbers, and
again it's a very small sample size.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
He has cut his chase rate in half.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
Okay, he's the thirty four percent chase rate guy last year,
he's eighteen percent this year. Pitchers are coming right after
him with heaters in the zone.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
But there you go.
Speaker 3 (32:20):
He just not catching up to him.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
But hey, maybe the answer is to try a torpedo bat.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
Well, whatever, listen, this is what you do. It's all
about field, right, It's all about field.
Speaker 4 (32:30):
Do something different, to keep doing the same thing over
and over again expecting a different result.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
We know what that equals.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
Well, speaking in bad weeks, the Atlanta Braves, it couldn't
start much worse, Joe, it couldn't win a game in
San Diego, lose the first game out in Los Angeles.
The Atlanta Braves, they're an interesting offensive team and have
been built this way. They slug, They swing it, man,
They'll chase pitches. They have swing and miss. They sign
up for a few more strikeouts to get the slug up.
Speaker 3 (32:56):
That's how the Atlanta Breves roll.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
They're hitting oh seventy eight against breaking pitches. They've seen
two hundred and four three five breaking pitches and they
have four hits. It's just amazing the way this team
is just cratered offensively.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
To watch it.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
I know they're still waiting on Ronald Lecunia Junior to
get back, but in the meantime, right now, Though Lopez,
their number two starter, is out with an inflamed shoulder.
He didn't look right all spring, didn't look right in
his first start, and sure enough he's hurt. You know,
he's won one of these guys who's transitioned from the
bullpen to the rotation. Had a great year last year,
but there's something not right with his shoulder. And then
(33:32):
on top of that, Jerkson Profar they signed him in
the off season three years forty two million dollars. He
was a bargain last year for the Padres as their
leadoff hitter leftfielder Jerkson Profar.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
Turns out he gets busted out a ped test.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
The test happened in spring training or in the offseason actually,
so he's gone for ninety days. If the Brays make
the playoffs, he was, he's ineligible to be on the
postseason roster because of this, and he was busted for
a substance called sure ionic Gone.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
I'm gonna miss this up basically hCG.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
I was waiting for you to try that. I saw,
I saw it written down. Good try.
Speaker 3 (34:10):
Yeah, it's hCG.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
Basically, it's a fertility drug for females, but a lot
of bodybuilders will use it to offset some of the
side effects of using steroids.
Speaker 3 (34:20):
It helps in the production of testosterone.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
It diminishes some of the side effects of using steroids
such as gonna add shrinkage and infertility. So this is
something it's it's actually in a pregnancy test for women
where it will turn up because in pregnancy that chemical
will go up. But it's manufactured from hamster ovary cells
and it's injected and you got you know, Profar coming
(34:46):
out in the statement saying I would never knowingly do
anything to cheat the game. And you know, listen, we
hear these things all the time, Joe, I mean these guys.
Speaker 3 (34:57):
One thing about this drug is a lot of at least.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
People in competition, not just baseball, might use it because
it doesn't upset the te ratio too much. It is
a banned substance. It has been since the eighties. And
here he is gone for ninety days. Makes a question
the production before, makes a question what his production will
be coming back. That's a major hit for the Atlanta
Braves to lose their leadoff hitter or left fielder. He
(35:22):
just invested three years in this guy and he blows
a test even before the year starts.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
Interesting Hampster research. Yeah, it is tough. My god, I
read that this morning.
Speaker 4 (35:34):
I've liked this kid from my first song with Texas.
I thought, gosh, when he came up with the Rangers
years ago, I was pretty special, I thought. And I
know he kind of disappeared that he kind of resurfaced again.
So I hate reading this kind of stuff. I don't
like it because I don't know anything. Because I'm met
around these people. But this guy, to me is a
good baseball player regardless. He's very athletic, you know, very
(35:58):
quick twitch kind of a thing. His biggest problem was
on the infield, being accurate with his arm. He had
some issues there that I didn't really like, and I
thought he might have to move to the grass in
the outfield, which eventually has but really had some pop, speed,
light body, all that kind of stuff. And now you
got this, and then it really sets a pall over
the entire you know group. However, you know, moving it forward, man,
(36:21):
I the Braves have been able to been able to
overcome a lot of stuff over the last several years.
I anticipate they will again. But this one's different. I mean,
having a tough start right now, and they've played, you know,
a couple of pretty good teams and so what happened
last night for v Dodgers and you know, Glass now
look pretty good obviously.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
So this is going to take a while to sort out.
Speaker 4 (36:41):
But they have the culture set up there to fight
through it.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
It'll be interesting.
Speaker 4 (36:45):
But the division they're in is not going to permit
them to get too far behind too quickly, because it
makes it even more difficult to fight back.
Speaker 3 (36:53):
That's a great point.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
Yeah, I think when you look at New York, you
look at Philadelphia, you know, I think those are ninety
plus win teams. So you can't you can't back in
to a playoff spot. To me, in the National League, especially,
the league is so deep, you're gonna have to go
ninety plus and profar. Listen, I don't want to hear,
as he said in his statement, that you had eight
tests last year and you passed them. That means absolutely nothing.
(37:16):
When I hear guys say that, Joe, I just rolled
my eyes. We're not talking about the times you got
away with tests last year, right, and they you know,
it's not like they're grabbing every single guy who's cheating.
You know, guys are using fact acting stuff, they're micro dosing.
There's ways that you can get around tests. You have
to be very careful and eventually you're going to get caught.
(37:37):
But when you protest that you were clean eight times
last year, that's a red flag to me.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
Come on, yeah, to know.
Speaker 4 (37:45):
You to know that you passed actually eight tests whatever,
that was all researched before he actually spoke to anybody.
This was all you know, he's got a lot of
people trying to help and support him right now. And again,
I don't know the kid. He seems like a bright kids.
It's just it's part of the culture. And then you listen,
you go back, you go back in time. I mean
when Greenies are big and that little red juice and
(38:06):
Dugouts was big, and all the different things that players
have done for years.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
And I said.
Speaker 4 (38:11):
I'm not advocating for it, but and a guy like him,
did he see what he perceived to be his abilities
slipping away a bit? Did he feel as though it
was worth the risk because if I don't do it,
I'm gonna be out of a job anyway. There's all
these different things that go into people's heads. And then
of course it's always about who is advising him. Got
to believe your agent knows something about this. I gotta
believe or somebody you.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
Know that's that's within the group.
Speaker 4 (38:34):
That it's hard to carry that thought alone, Like if
you're a profar to carry the thought alone that you
know you're doing this kind of stuff and without any
kind of support or reassurances and you're not gonna get
caught or you need to do this, because if you
don't you're going to be out of the game anyway.
So there's there's a there's almost like this, this group
a support group around him that I'd be curious about too,
because listen, if you're as an agent, if you're really
(38:55):
doing your job and you have any whiff of this whatsoever,
you really got to get the dude off of it
in order to sustain his career in that in that regard,
because like you said, you eventually going to get caught,
and he did. And it's too bad because I just
from a distance, he looks like a great kid.
Speaker 3 (39:09):
Yeah, it's too bad for the Braves.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
I mean, we're going to talk about this, Joe after
this quick break. I do want to ask you about
when you run. You're managing a team and you get
off to this kind of start, and of course it's early,
but you're trying to get the wheels back on the truck.
Speaker 3 (39:24):
Here and get back on the road. How do you
do that?
Speaker 1 (39:27):
We'll talk about that next on the Book of Joe.
Welcome back to the Book of Joe. We're talking about
Brian Snicker's Atlanta Braves. The worst start imaginable starting pitcher
(39:49):
goes down, you're still waiting on Spencer Stryder and Ronald
the Cuney junior to come back. You're left fielder gets
busted for peds. He's out for ninety games. It's a
rough situation. You can't win a game on the West Coast,
by the way, you know, that's kind of the worst
thing for the Braves. You see the schedule come out
and like, oh, we're opening in California, San Diego, in LA.
Speaker 3 (40:06):
We won't have to deal with.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
Any weather, no cold temperatures. But there's no off days here.
The Braves like to use their pictures on the sixth day,
and they they're using Chris Sale on the fifth day here,
which they didn't do until mid season last year. And
when things go bad, you could use an off day.
But anyway, Joe, my question to you is your Brian
snicker and it listen. It's a veteran team, it's a
(40:29):
veteran staff. I mean, his coaching staff, they've they've been
together really most of them for you know, a good
time that he's been there now ten years.
Speaker 3 (40:36):
How do you handle this situation?
Speaker 1 (40:38):
I mean, everybody knows it's early, we know that, but
as you know, Joe, you can lose a division in April.
Speaker 4 (40:44):
Yes, yeah, I was thinking about it when you when
you posed this question earlier, and you know I've been
through it if you remember. I can't remember exactly the year,
but we started out like two and six, two and seven,
two and eight with the Rays. We go to Chicago
and on the plane ride up, I get in front
of everybody on the plane, I grab the microphone, I
pack up, pass out those little those little cups you
passed medicine with, and I poured a shot.
Speaker 2 (41:05):
Of Shemy not samee.
Speaker 4 (41:07):
Gosh, it was a whiskey from the Napa Valley Sharbey
and I went up and down the aisle, even Zoe
had a shot. I went up there and I got
grabbed the mic and I says, this is a toast
to the best two and seven team in the history
of Major League Baseball. We're going to straighten this out, guys,
stay with it, et cetera, et cetera. Then we took
our shot, went on to get to the playoffs that year. Hey,
(41:28):
I evaluate, what is the problem here? I mean something
you get off to a bat start like this and
all of a sudden, gosh, everything's wrong. Maybe not maybe
everything's not wrong. Maybe there has been a couple of
bad breaks. You talked about a couple injuries, and I
have this distraction with Profar et cetera. So first of all,
evaluate what the problem is and really be specific and
be honest with yourselves, because you're gonna read things, You're
(41:49):
gonna people, you're gonna hear things, and all of a sudden,
things might be manipulated, and all of a sudden, there's
this narrative created that really isn't true, and it's and
if you try to explain it, it sounds like you're
making excuses. So what is the problem here and try
to figure it out. The next part, I would have
a staff meeting just the coaches only love to do
this on the road, and they're actually on the road,
and I would sit down with everybody, would talk about
(42:11):
each guy on the team, each guy specifically, and determine
what can we do to help this.
Speaker 2 (42:16):
Guy individually right here now.
Speaker 4 (42:19):
And then I would permit or have the coaches handle
their department and stay out of the way. If there
was a situation where I felt I needed to be involved,
we would talk about that in this meeting. And furthermore,
like for instance, when I had Ken rivisa. Who needs
Kenny's help right now? Mental skills? Which among these group?
Who needs to speak with Kenny specifically? And we would
(42:39):
make sure that Kenny, if he wasn't with this, would
get in touch via the telephone, etc.
Speaker 2 (42:44):
And make sure that the player knew.
Speaker 4 (42:45):
It, so you wouldn't show any panic whatsoever. You can't
show that and you can't start blowing the whole thing up.
So what is the problem, Be honest about it, and
once you've arrived at the problem, have a group discussion
with your coaches and individualize whatever we're going to do
with each guy to get out of this, and they'll
let the coaches coach out of their way.
Speaker 2 (43:03):
Let the coaches be what they were hired to do.
Speaker 4 (43:06):
And then furthermore, like if there's any tweaks, like I
said with Devers, put him in a leadoff spot whatever.
It's too early to send guys opering guys up that
you just haven't had enough time to evaluate. So really
be just to understand what am I seeing right here?
Speaker 2 (43:20):
And do not just follow the narrative.
Speaker 1 (43:22):
Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that in terms
of not just follow the narrative, the idea of disruption
I mean, listen, I covered Billy Martin. I was there
when he sometimes pulled a lineup out of a hat.
Speaker 3 (43:33):
Literally.
Speaker 1 (43:33):
I was there when he had Rick road In one
of his pitchers in the lineup as the DH.
Speaker 3 (43:39):
The first time up he gets a sack fly.
Speaker 1 (43:41):
I know there's some hitting coaches and people who trained
on hitting who if you're trying to change a swing,
they'll have the player work with, say a thick PVC pipe,
because you put something very different in their hands and
it challenges the brain to think differently rather than thinking
by roots. So if you're Brian snicker and again, I
(44:02):
wouldn't classify this as panic. I hate the use of
that word, and people always ask that in the clubhouse
after game, is it time to panic? No, people do
not panic. Professional athletes do not panic. Folkses don't even
use that word. But do we need a disruption here?
If you're the Atlanta Braves to come to the ballpark
with a different kind of vibe.
Speaker 4 (44:22):
Shot, like I said, shot a whiskey on an airplane,
and then that'suption.
Speaker 2 (44:27):
Yeah. Right.
Speaker 4 (44:28):
Here's the biggest thing too, that I've always felt when
you me as the manager, whenever I walked in the door.
Speaker 2 (44:33):
They could.
Speaker 4 (44:34):
They had to see the same guy walk in the door.
So when I walked in the door, it always had
to look like a five or six game winning streak.
And even if it was a five or six game
losing streak, it still had to look like that five
or six game winning streak.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
They can't see something different.
Speaker 4 (44:47):
If you talk about panic, whatever that word is, it's
not panic, okay. It's like this this cloud, this uneasy feeling,
this concern, trepidation, all this stuff, uneasiness, uncertainty, all creeps
in to the group if in fact the leader shows
different versions of them.
Speaker 2 (45:05):
And that was really important to me.
Speaker 4 (45:06):
So I would actually steal myself before I walked in
sometimes because it could be kind of crappy. And you
walk in and you said to yourself, you know, you
go in there and you act the same way, talk
to everybody the same way that save up beat, positive personality,
bring it, man, because they need it now more than ever.
So these are the kind of thoughts I would have
for me personally as the manager walking into a situation
(45:27):
like that, because too many times, man, you know, the
dude who walk in the manager would walk in bad
moment all of a sudden, you see this this.
Speaker 2 (45:34):
Vile, different person, and everything was great. He was your
best friend. I hated that.
Speaker 4 (45:38):
I hated that from my leaders, I hated that from
my manager. I never reacted well to that as a player.
So those are the kind of things that are really
important to me. We went through some difficult moments.
Speaker 1 (45:48):
Well, if I were Brian Snitker, I'd call up Joe Madden,
I'd invite him out to Dodger Stadium for this series
and I'd say, Joe, you're so good at bringing up
the right line and these Book of Joe podcasts, why
don't you give us the Thought of the Day. So
that's what I would have, Joe Madden, I'd have the
Book of Joe Thought of the Day. So on that note,
(46:09):
what would you tell the braves or at least our
audience you saw this?
Speaker 2 (46:12):
Did you actually saw this somehow?
Speaker 3 (46:15):
Wow?
Speaker 2 (46:15):
This is crazy?
Speaker 4 (46:16):
So I was actually did this last night a little
bit going into this morning. They have a big golf
match going on today. I want to make sure everything
in order. So this was from Aristotle. I like to
dip back into Aristotle, Socrates, all these guys. I mean,
when you read their stuff, I mean, my god, there's
nothing's really changed what people were faced with back then
(46:38):
and with their face what we're faced with today. We
always exaggerate our plight as human beings. We think it's
the worst it's ever been, And you can roll back
the clock fifty years it was just equally as bad,
and thousands of years was equally as difficult.
Speaker 2 (46:51):
With the same kind of thoughts.
Speaker 4 (46:52):
So this is what I came up with today, And
you're right on the money. Is this the question you
just posed to me? And it's from Aristotle? There is
no great genius without a mixture of madness. And when
I read that, all I could think was the time
I talked about it got to be a little bit
crazy to be great. So that's it. Get outside your
normal patterns. You have to you have to get outside
(47:13):
your normal patterns. Whatever created this issue, whatever created this problem,
it's got to be dealt with in a different way
than what created it. I love this so and I
didn't I probably read this several times, but maybe an
influence in my thought about got to be a little
bit crazy to be great. But there's no great genius
without a mixture of madness. Don't be afraid to take
a chance. Don't be afraid to go into some uncomfortable territory,
(47:36):
because that's what's necessary. If you want to just stay
in that comfort zone, brother, it ain't going to happen.
And always know that you got to go out on
the limb to really find the best fruit. So these
are the things that I would be thinking about right now.
Speaker 2 (47:49):
It's really uncomfortable.
Speaker 4 (47:51):
Sometimes when you go out there and you do these
different kind of crazy things, and I think to my said, man,
what's the reaction going to be? Is this actually going
to work? But then I I said, no, let's stay
with it. Let's go with it, and almost one hundred
percent of the time it does. So don't be afraid
to go out on the limb.
Speaker 2 (48:06):
Man.
Speaker 3 (48:07):
That that is like two perfect.
Speaker 1 (48:08):
And I swore, I swear, Joe, I had no idea
you were going there, right, I.
Speaker 4 (48:13):
Had that, dude, Look at all my notes on my
paper from today. It's right, wow, it's right there.
Speaker 3 (48:19):
That is so perfect. Well, we'll see you next time.
Of the Book of Joe.
Speaker 2 (48:22):
Nice job, all right, telling me you two buddy. Thanks.
Speaker 1 (48:32):
The Book of Joe podcast is a production of iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts, from iHeartRadio. Visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
The Book of Joe podcast is a production of iHeartRadio.
Hey there, welcome back. You are back at the Book
of Joe with me, Tom Berducci and Joe Madden. Of
course this is the most interesting baseball podcast on the planet, Joe.
(00:25):
But I want to start with a golf question which
will lead into our baseball discussion.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Here.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
I understand you got a new driver.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
I have got a new driver.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
How do you like it?
Speaker 2 (00:36):
I love it.
Speaker 4 (00:37):
What I did was, I'm going to just be very brief,
but I was very consistent with the regular driver, regular
length of a driver. I just could not control the
ark whatever, so I knocked it down. I was hitting
the tailor burner. But then I figured, let me just
try a regular hitdit club. So I went and got
a titleist TS One had the guys cut it down
(00:57):
to the same exact length of the burner driver, which
is like forty four forty three point seventy five inches,
like forty five and a quarter. I think, and wow,
that made all the difference in the world. And I'm
controlling my driver, I'm staying behind the baseball or the
golf ball going farther, it's going straighter. All the above
speeder shaft, and I really don't understand the difference of
(01:17):
shaft makes in a golf club to kickpoint, et cetera.
So yes, and actually I've had my buddy Frank Ratis
now the pro at BCC Valley Country Club, ordered me
the new iteration of the I think it's a GT
one T the titleist driver with a new speeder shaft
that's been cut down directly from the factory. So let's
(01:37):
see what happens. That should be there one should be
here once there Thursday.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Well, I love all the detail you gave us there, Joe,
because you know this dovetails with what I want to
talk about here. Because you're a good golfer, but you're
not exactly on the Champions Tour. No, that's ther Ga Tour, right,
I mean you're doing this because it's fun. You want
to get better. Imagine though, if you were on the
tour right what you just described in terms of finding
the right driver for you, the right shaft just multiply
(02:02):
that I don't know by how many times to understand
what a professional golfer goes through.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Right.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
We're seeing that now in Major League Baseball with these bats.
I mean we can't do this show without talking about
torpedo bets, right, But there's something bigger going on here,
and that is customization of bets.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Now, it's been going on for a while. This is
nothing new.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
You know, Marucci was one of the first ones I
can remember down in Louisiana that had to a lab
where they.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Go in there they literally fit you for a bet.
This has been going on for a few years.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
I wouldn't say it's gone for a long time, but
it makes complete sense when you use that golf analogy.
Joe and I think that's what we're talking about here
with these torpedo bets because what they did where they
were able to find out where guys are making contact
on the part of the bet. And listen, we all
want it as baseball players, you always want to hit
it on the sweet spot, right on the barrel.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
But there are some guys maybe are just slightly off
the barrel.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
And in this case, a guy like Anthony Volpi, you know,
he was hitting the ball maybe more than he wanted to,
actually a little bit below and I'm talking about below,
being closer to the handle on the normal sweet spot
of a bet. So what they did was they got
them into a bat where that barrel now the thickest
part is a little lower, and that matches up with
(03:18):
where he's been contacting the baseball. And so we have
a lot of people now obviously talking about torpedo bats.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
Are they legal?
Speaker 1 (03:25):
You know, it looks weird, so people think maybe it
shouldn't be allowed. But I think this is a great
innovation in baseball. And I'm saying this, Joe, because it's
like your driver. Maybe I hit your driver. It doesn't
work for me. The same with these torpedo bats. It
probably is not. Well, it definitely is not for everybody.
Just ask Aaron Judge who sticking with his bat. But
(03:45):
there's something going on here larger picture that we're getting
into an age now where you know, we have so
much technology we can get guys into labs literally see
where the ball is coming off their bat and try
to get the beat either through the zone faster and
or get it on the barrel more often.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
What do you think?
Speaker 4 (04:03):
Yeah, I think I came into a letter part of
the discussion yesterday on Baseball Now, and you had spoken
about the ax bat. I did, so I chose not
to mention it. But that's another creation with the handle
and the ax bat for me, was designed in order
to help prevent a hitter from rolling over at contact.
I thought it was a great concept and had all
the I got enough of them in the Angels camp.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
I just wanted guys to try them.
Speaker 4 (04:25):
You don't have to use them, just try them in
spring training and see if, in fact, it makes a difference.
So you could go all the way back when arizona'structurally,
I don't remember exactly, but I'm the hitting coach and
I saw too many bats blowing up. I saw too
many bats splinter ring. So I ordered all the bats
for the guys that you're in camp. And what I
wanted was each bat to be within two ounces of
the length of the bat. So it was a thirty five,
(04:46):
it could be a no lighter than a thirty three.
It was a thirty four, no lighter than a thirty
two ounce, and of it's a thirty three inches no
lighter than a thirty one ounce. I was just trying
to get these guys to understand the length of the bat.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Controlling the length of the.
Speaker 4 (05:01):
Bat, plus a feel within it where the bat actually survived.
I mean, if there were like thirty five thirty one outs.
There were just anything in off the handle was just
absolutely explode, exploding. So I was just looking for a
better piece of wood and just having the guys try
and experiment with these things.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
We could keep going.
Speaker 4 (05:16):
Cup bats got the bat cup at the end, so
you get a little bit more dense wood at the
head of the bat, and you cup it to take
out a little bit of that weight, and then it
was said to be a little bit more aerodynamic.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
I don't know if that's true or not, but that
was the word on the street.
Speaker 4 (05:29):
And sometimes if you hit the ballped end of the bat,
that cup area would actually be indented. Guys would still
use the bat as long as the piece of wood
stayed intact. Thinner handle, thicker handles, thicker and thinner heads
on the bat case seventy five K fifty five. Back
in the day, the Mickey manno bats, or you could
go back to the m Ones, the Jackie Robinson that
almost you could use from either end that the head
(05:51):
of the bat was a stick as the handle of
the bat are forty three.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
He goes the Hank Aaron model on and on.
Speaker 4 (05:56):
Reggie Jackson an RJ forty four at Rondack, which I
used in coming out of college, all different land sizes fields.
I like the heavier back because I wasn't a home
run hitter, but I could. I felt this dope. I
just got the barrel of the ball. It would come
off hotter and I could manipulate and use the ball
with the whole field. So this is my point is
this has been going on forever, and so now with
(06:18):
this new torpedo bat, the bottle bat, whatever you want
to call it, I get it and I understand it.
It's always about, like you're saying with the golf gig.
I didn't realize to what extent these shafts make a
difference until I've started experimenting with different ones. Wow, there's
a tremendous difference in feel and performance. And like you said,
(06:39):
based on my body, my swing, my clubhead speed, how
I'm able to manipulate the clubhead through contact. So there's
even we could go on and on even more than that.
But I'm a big believer in all of this stuff.
Last point, even in the instructional leagues in the late eighties,
I brought ponds of machine. It's a machine that has
like this, these parallel wheels spinning and.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
That they're very accurate.
Speaker 4 (07:02):
And I got them, and I cut the legs down
to make sure that the release point was thirty six
inches off the ground and it was thirty three feet
from home plate, and I would make my hitters. This
is Tim Salmon, This is Damien Easy, This is Jimmy Edmonds,
This is Garrett Anderson, this is Todd Green thirty It
was thirty five thirty six and thirty five thirty six
(07:23):
ounce bats.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
That they were not permitted to choke up.
Speaker 4 (07:25):
And I put duct tape on the end of the
bat in the sweet spot. And the point was I
was trying and this was high velost. He was the
equipment of a ninety five mile hour fastball from thirty
three feet, which was about sixty sixty five miles an hour,
and I was trying to really incorporate or have them
use their hands and keep their body in their arms
out of it. I was trying to incorporate and promote
(07:48):
like getting top half inn half of the baseball, because
if you dipped your back shoulder at all, or today's
try to lift the ball, you would swing underneath it.
Did it in Major League camp Dave Winfield had a
really hard time. Remember the really elongated swing he had,
and remember Wally Joiner, Wallace Keith short and quick to
the ball. So I've been experimenting with these things forever.
So when I heard this long story short, I really
(08:11):
was intrigued, because, again, I believe all this stuff. I
believe the manipulation of the kind of bat, the handle,
the head of it, the weight, the ounces, and all
this stuff matters. So not a surprise to them at all.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Yeah, this is a big innovation. Again, it's not for everybody.
I mean, it got a lot of attention obviously because
the Yankees, you know, went off on the weekend and
people were saying, well, what is that thing?
Speaker 3 (08:37):
Nine of their fifteen home runs.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
In the weekend against Milwaukee were hit with guys using
the torpedo bat. Now that dovetails with about you know,
five guys were using it, so fifty five percent of
their lineup hit sixty percent of their home runs, So
it makes sense. It wasn't like everybody who was using
the bat. But then we had La de la Cruz
go to a torpedo bat on Monday night for the
first time, and he went four to five with two
(09:00):
home runs the distance combined distance of eight one hundred
and fifty four feet. He's now a believer. You know,
we're gonna see more people try this out. If you
want to look at the other side. Francisco Lindor started
the yar O for thirteen using the torpedo bat. So listen,
it's not a miracle bat. I don't want to go
that far, Joe, but I think for some people it
(09:21):
will make a difference.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
And I know that it is spreading like wildfire.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Like the bat companies were putting torpedo bats out there
to buy as soon as Sunday night after because it
was the Yankees, obviously, because they were winning by such
huge margin with somebody home runs.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
Its spread like wildfire.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
So between one hundred ninety nine dollars and two hundred
and forty nine dollars, you can buy your kid a
torpedo bat, and they're taking advantage of that. I spoke
with someone who owns a part of a bat company,
and he said, we have to get this customization out
there in the travel ball industry. Now we're talking about
millions of dollars. You're gonna see this trickle down. There's
no question about it on the travel circuit, getting your
(09:58):
kid into a cage and get analyzed where he hits
the bat and what bat's going to suit him best.
The story I always to tell Joe about how things
have changed so much involves Derek Jeter. He gets drafted
out of high school, good player, obviously a first round pick,
but it always used a medal bat. So the Yankees
sent him to rookie camp in Tampa and he goes
to the minor league complex there.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
He needs a bat.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Back then, you know, high school players were not using
wood bats in the summer.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
It just didn't happen. So he's never used the wood
bat before.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
He goes down to the Tampa facility and there's this
huge rack of bats and bins of bats there, and
he's got to figure out what bad.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Am I going to use?
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Now I'm a pro, I can't use my metal bat.
But he found one shaped sort of like the metal
bat he'd been using in high school. Wait, probably similar. Basically,
he tried to find one most similar to his metal bat.
Do you know that Derek Jeter never used another model
his entire career. All three thousand plus hits were used
with that same bat. Totally by feel. Just pick up
the bat. It feels like the bat.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
I used in high school. I'll use this one.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Is become so scientific now that yes, you will see
more torpedo bats, but no, they're not for everybody.
Speaker 4 (11:05):
I love the word feel. I do love the word
film wanting my sweatshirt right now. Feel is the gift
of experience.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
I love that.
Speaker 4 (11:12):
Now the other side of all of this, with the
torpedo bet et cetera, I'm just curious.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
I'm waiting to see.
Speaker 4 (11:17):
It's going to take a little while here, but will
analytics change.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
On these hitters?
Speaker 4 (11:21):
Will the way they want to pictures want to picture
these hitters change. This is the first time you're hearing
anything that there may be an analytical advantage that's been
born to help the hitter. Because from the beginning we've
been talking about this, and I've been pounding on the
fact that the hitters have not been helped with this
analytical revolution at all. The defenses have the pictures have
(11:42):
all that other kind of stuff has I mean, pitching shape,
you know, episodas, all this Stuffye, just slowing things down,
that's all helped the picture. The hitter has gotten very
little out of this now with the change in the bat,
for instance, like we're talking about Volpe talking about having
the ball hit them up the hands too often want
to get the barrel closer.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
To the hands that was.
Speaker 4 (12:04):
Is analytics going to change because have left He's been
pounding him in with cutters and fastballs because they know
they can have right, He's been running two seamers in
on his hands because they know they can and they're
going to be rewarded. So is this bat going to
somehow cover that pitch now? And all of a sudden,
the analytical concept of this hitter is going to change,
and how they're going to try to get him out
is going to change. So thus do we start going
(12:25):
away to the weaker part of this bats? The weaker
part of the bat has always.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Been a handle.
Speaker 4 (12:30):
Now the handle is going to be the theoretically the
stronger part of the bat. So what does this mean
moving forward? I'm just curious as heck about that. I
think teaching inside the ball is going to be more
prominent now. Like I just talked about with the machine
that I had years ago, I wanted my guys to
focus on the top half, inter half of the ball.
We were always talking about line drives and hard ground
(12:53):
balls actually are not fly balls because flyballs were considered out.
So all I'm curious. It's one of those things that
create a shifting analytics. And again people have to understand
analytics is not pure and it's not this all knowing concept.
There's always there's always biased involved in analytics. So now
that there's there's a change in certain hitters based on
the kind of bath to us and how they're being rewarded,
(13:15):
the way to get them out may change.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Also.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
Yeah, that's a great point. We'll have to see.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
But I do think the game changes more quickly than
it ever has. When you talk about you know, reactions
and reactions back again, based on analytics, these things happen.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
You know, it used to happen on a yearly basis.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
It's almost a daily basis, but certainly weekly or monthly
where they're reacting to the data. I think this is
a big innovation, Joe, because listen, bats have changed over
the years.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
You know that you just mentioned a couple of things.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
The axe handled bat, you know, the cupped end on
the bat probably dates to about the seventies or eighties.
I don't know, but This is one of the first ones.
You also had the counterweight. You see some guys still
using it with that hockey puck style thing and the
huge nom at the at the end. But this is
one of the first ones and forever that actually changed
(14:03):
where the impacts the bat, right, It's not so much
about swinging the bat. It is, obviously because as you said,
it's about feel, and as Cody Bellinger said, the bat
feels better balanced to him. But you're talking about the
area where wood hits the baseball. That's the most important
thing in baseball, and this is a change to that area.
The only time I can remember this really, you know,
(14:25):
being in play, Joe, was you know, back in the
in the eighties and nineties, people went to the maple
bats and then they would like triple lacquer them, right.
They had such a hard finish on them. It eventually
became illegal. I mean, it was just basically too good.
But it's Lacker upon Lacker upon Lacker, these hard maple bats.
That's the only one I can remember this. So this
is to me is a major change. And I know
(14:48):
bats have changed and evolved over the years of shapes,
the weights, and you did a good job hitting on
that Joe. But we need to see how this plays out.
We need more data hear about you know, is this
a huge advantage or not?
Speaker 4 (15:00):
Yeah, the maple bats, listen, I was all over that.
You remember they were exploding. Yeah, they're absolutely exploding.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
Because let me just jump in maple bats. People don't
know that's the most dense kind of wood you can have.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
Most bets. Way back when we're hickory, they was just
way too heavy.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
I mean there were forty n's bets and then ash
became the most popular model, right, the big stick remember those?
Oh yeah, and you know, Northeastern ash was the popular bat.
It's a little bit lighter, and guys wanted bat speed.
But those broke and then they went to maple. As
you mentioned, it's the hardest, densest wood you can have.
It's just a solid hunk of wood. But guys were
(15:36):
having a thick barrel and a very thin handle with
all the way to the end. And yeah, you're right,
they were actually exploding. We don't see them as many.
They made some modifications to the size of a bat
and what's allowable in terms of the difference between handle
and barrel, But we don't see as many of those
shattering go ahead.
Speaker 4 (15:54):
Yeah, they were dangerous, man, I was really, I mean
it was. I remember actually was Derek Jeter at the
Yankee Stadium and he swings and he had a black
bat and he swings like had to be maple and
it's just broke in half. And I, you know, I
always stand, uh stand next to the uh as far
as close as I can't get the home plate on
that side of the dugout, and this thing came whirling back.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
I never saw it. It was a black bat. At night,
you can't see it.
Speaker 4 (16:19):
That's why check swings are very difficult from piers to
check with dark bats. Anyway, this thing comes back at
one hundred miles an hour. It seemed it hits the
wall right there.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
I would have never I never saw that you could
have gotten paled with that so easily. I remember.
Speaker 4 (16:32):
I remember talking to the the cub Is about like
putting up a net I said, why don't we have
more netting? Uh, you know, from around home plate and
then down towards the baselines because they were there, they
were breaking and actually they were there, there were projectiles.
But they eventually did was they put a black dot
on the bat on the maple bat. Apparently that's where
(16:53):
that that was supposed to be facing you. Somehow they
determined I guess the tensel strength wise whatever.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Yeah they see, uh yeah, that and the direction of
the grain exactly.
Speaker 4 (17:02):
And then the other thing about babel bats crazy. I'd
stand behind home plate for batting practice, and let's say
a right handed hitter when he hit it on the
screws up the middle line drive between where the shortstop
stood and second base bag into the outfield, the ball
would knuckleball almost every time. And a left handed hitter,
same thing invp line drive up the middle from the
bag to the second baseman out into that short right
(17:26):
center field area.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Ballwood knuckleball.
Speaker 4 (17:28):
So there wasn't as much spin on some of these
because the ball, like you're saying it was so darn hard,
whereas the ash bat would impart more spin. The the ashbat
also would chip on the top and the top of
the bat. You always look for the thickest grained ash
bat that you could find. If you had like thirteen
grains or less on an ashbat, man, you wanted to
keep that sucker as long as you could. That was
some seriously good wood. If it was really thinly grained wood,
(17:52):
you just knew it was going to disintegrate at some point.
But it was all different characteristics of the ball coming
off these different bats. When I was a kid, I
used to take a blowtorch out of my dad's shop.
I would rub a battery, I'm seriously a deep battery
over the top of my bat, and then I would
flame it myself in order to try to get the
bat harder at the top to prevent it from shipping
so they could use it long.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Right. We didn't buy We used wood back then. It
was no aluminum.
Speaker 4 (18:15):
As a kid, so you have between that and brad
little nails to keep it alive with some glue and tape.
That's what we did. So listen, I've been on the
bat thing for a long time. I think it's interesting.
But like I said, now, my next point of curiosity
is will it now impact the analytical way to get
guys like Bulpy out. I'm curious to see what happens.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up, because you know,
I think this is in some ways response to I
see more same sided two seamers, Joe. I mean you
mentioned offsided cutters working in on left handed hitter is
right to left, but the right on right sinker. You
see a lot of pitchers picking that up.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Now.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
I mean, we went through a stage where the four
steamer top of the zone played and played and played right.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
That was a response to launch angle swings.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
And now the compliment to that high force as guys
start looking out over the plate is the two seamer
that runs in on right handed hitters. And you see
Zach Wheeler is the best in the business at it.
You see guys with great fastballs like Wheeler and Bryce
Miller and Joe Ryan, they're adding sinkers because that'll keep
the right handed hitter honest.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
So I looked at this.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
Joe Volti actually was really good on sinkers last year
hit three twenty one. He's more of a low ball
hitter than a high ball hitter anyway. But here's the
what caught my eye. In twenty nineteen, same sided sinkers
we're talking about, right on right sinkers came in in
an average of ninety two point eight miles an hour.
Well last year that average was up to ninety four
point one right and in twenty nineteen, the average on
(19:44):
right on right sinkers was too eighty eight. Last year
it was down the two forty one. I mean that's
only six years, Joe. Where that right handed to right
handed batter sinker is becoming not just hey, let me
get a ground ball or you know, show him something
inside so I can work away. That's becoming a go
to pitch. That's become a weapon. So I'm with you,
(20:07):
I'm metioned. Does this now open up the outside part
of the plate and we're going to see more guys
trying to guys with torpedo bats. We'll see more pitches
away to see if they can cover that pitch.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
Curious to see.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Let me see if I could describe this right.
Speaker 4 (20:19):
I mean, the fact that it went down is that
because hitters have been trying to adjust hitting the elevated fastball.
In otherwords, they have they changed their swing in this sense,
and now they're where they were more able to get
to this sinker lower down and in I know, there's
a difference in velocity, but now all of a sudden
they're changing their hack and now they've been trying to
catch up with elevated fastball dust, this becomes a more
(20:40):
difficult pitch.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
I'll go back to Darren Nursey.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
It could be, but I'll just go to Vello. I mean, yes,
of course, i'ming in ninety two point eight. Now it's
up to ninety four point one. And with this, as
you mentioned that these labs, the way they can shape
these pitches, I think it's just become a better pitch.
Like everything else these days, it seems.
Speaker 4 (20:57):
I've seen darrener I love, by the way, Darrenurse. That's
one of my favorite players of all time. Ersty if
you remember he had that and thirty nine whatever he
hit season I think was two thirty nine. Yeah, Ersty
was the best backspinner of a baseball I've ever been around.
I mean, as a coach, I made he want up
until present time. He hit the most vicious line drives
back up the middle I've ever seen when he came
(21:19):
out of Nebraska. But what happened was because to do
that you have to have a real flat bat, stay
inside the ball, really get to the top half of
the ball.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
They were killing them underneath.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
They were throwing breaking balls underneath, opposite side, breaking ball underneath,
two seamers underneath. All this stuff started happening underneath, so
he started adjusting to try to pull that ball, which
kind of like I didn't like, only because I thought
it would change this beautiful swing that he had, and
eventually it did because he started protecting against that and
he's better able to handle that pitch. If you look
at the home run he hit in the two thousand
(21:49):
and two World Series. That was a big hit to
right field that I think put us or tied the
game for us. But he lost that ability to drive
the ball back through the middle. So you always have
to be wary of Okay, when you make kind of
adjustments to cover a weakness, at some point, do you
lose your strength. That's always something that's always been in
the back of my mind, and it's a very interesting question.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Last point, Mario Rivera.
Speaker 4 (22:13):
He shows you what a cutter can do to the
opposite side hitter, and they said it was great against
righties too. Don't get me wrong, but this guy was
a buzzsaw against lefties, and you know that was something
that we noticed early on. Obviously, then he played out,
but I would just curiously, if this bat was more
prominent than he still would have been great, no doubt,
But would there have been more success against him left
(22:35):
handed hitter wise, only because now that that really weak
part of the bat became stronger. And that just a
curiosity thought that I would have based on all the
information we're talking about.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Bottom line on torpedo bats, it is a major innovation.
It's not for everybody. I don't think it's going to
change the game. It will enhance some guys hitting, There's
no question about it. It's just a matter of fit
for a lot of guys. And it definitely is going
to be a boom to the bat making business is
just going. It's gonna spread like wildfire, There's no question
(23:07):
about it.
Speaker 4 (23:08):
Last point that back in the day, they made aluminum
bats like that, and I I brought it up yesterday.
Also the old Tennessee thumper and.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
That Yeah, yeah, I used to think that was illegal.
That looked like an enormous barrel.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Dude, Well you caught you as a catcher.
Speaker 4 (23:22):
If somebody came up there and used that bat, the
sound that made was deafening. Anytime somebody made contact, your
ears would ring literally and actually would hurt.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
There was such a different But I'll tell you what
I did. I used it in nineteen eighty and the.
Speaker 4 (23:36):
When I was playing for Boulder after I'd been released professionally,
I was playing in a bolder collegiate in the summer league,
and I picked up one of these things. God did
the ball jump off of those. I was actually a
power hitter, although Boulder, Colorado always helps that, but there
was such a difference. So the bottle bat torpedo bat theory,
it's been a big thing in softball and actually Little
league bats in the past.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Now it's being caught up with wood.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
Well, there was a lot of news for the first
week of the season.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Joe.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
We're going to take a quick break, but there's a
couple of guys who made some news that they'd rather
they're not be making, and that's Rafael Devers and Jerrickson
Profar and.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
We will dive into those headlines.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
Right after this.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Welcome back to the Book of Joe.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
Joe.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
I should have brought this up. We were talking about
the bats.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
I think they should start looking into the size of
the outfielders' gloves. Have you noticed they've gotten biggert. I mean,
come on, there is a limit on the size of
the gloves because it got way out of hand, and
I think we're getting back to the situation where they
got to start pulling out the tape measure.
Speaker 4 (24:44):
Yeah, that's the Willie Mays the basket catch famous. These
guys are all incorporating the basket catch.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
Now it is that large.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
Hey, I mentioned Rafael Devers and it's I'm curious your
take on what's going on here. We know about the
story in spring training, right they signed Alex Bragman to
play third base.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
But announce he was immediately the third baseman.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
Instead, they had Rafael Devers say, Hey, I'm a third baseman.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
I'm not going anywhere.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
It took for me way too long for the Red
Sox to say the obvious that they're a much better
team with Alex pregnant at the third base in Rafael
Devers as the DH. But clearly Joe Rafael Devers in
his mind has not accepted this move. And to me,
these moves don't work unless and until the player buys in.
(25:31):
And the Red Sox have a player who's one of
their franchise players, he's one of the great hitters in
the game, and he clearly has not bought in. He
has started this season worse than really basically anybody in history, Joe.
He is oh for nineteen with fifteen strikeouts. I mean,
no one has struck out in the past more than
(25:53):
thirteen times in the first five games.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
That was a record set by Pat Burrow and match
by Bybran Buxton.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Gary Sanchez once went over for fifteen with ten strikeouts
to start the year, but over nineteen with fifteen strikeouts.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
I mean, this is amazing.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
His whifth rate went swinging at a fastball is seventy
five percent. I mean he swings and misses seventy five
percent of the time he swings at a fastball. I mean, listen,
I can't get inside his head, Joe, but I mean physically,
there's obviously something wrong. I know he had shoulder issues
last year, didn't play a lot in spring training. Lack
(26:31):
of plate appearances maybe has something to do with this.
But he's just not getting to the baseball. He has
no timing whatsoever.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Yeah. I watched a couple at Batch yesterday.
Speaker 4 (26:41):
I was just curious and filed off a couple of
fastballs and then really way out in front of an
offbeat pitch.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (26:49):
And I also read which is just mentioned, which I
found curious. I mean the fact that he had his
shoulders had bothered him so much at the end of
last year, and that apparently began measuring bat speed. His
bat speed was down like four or five miles an
hour as over it would have been in the past.
For me, curiously, would that be all of a sudden
I got to start cheating to get it back up there.
When you start cheating because I can't get to the fastball,
(27:10):
then you get out in front of a breaking ball.
There's all kinds of things that multiply when you have
that kind of an issue.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
I think I learned. I think you know, many years ago,
I read.
Speaker 4 (27:21):
A book about the was it halber Strum the nineteen
sixty four Yankee Cardinals series, And in that Johnny Keene,
once the famous manager of the Cardinals, had question Ray
Sideki's desire, you know, is intensity with playing and did
he care enough? And as it came out, eventually Sideki
(27:43):
walked into his office and said, listen, you could you
could tell me I stink, You could tell me that
I'm not pitching while playing well whatever, but don't never
attack my heart.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
You just don't know. And that really taught me a lesson.
Speaker 4 (27:54):
So in this situation, I'm going to give Devers a
break right here, because I don't know the kid, and
I have to believe, first of all, they did do
the right thing. They should have been They should have
been handled from like you said, the very first day,
it was obvious. There's no there's nothing non obvious about this,
the fact that this Bregman belongs to the third this kid,
either First Space or DH whatever. So yeah, there's gonna
(28:15):
be there's gonna be some you know, settling in, getting
over it kind of a thing. But they've had all
camp to do that, and there had to be a
thousand different conversations with him, to the point that it
might have got annoying to DeBras and whomever.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
But I just think, give it a little time right here.
Speaker 4 (28:30):
I don't know him. I don't know what the Batsby
looks like in person. I even mentioned yesterday I thought
he looked bigger on but you know TV, can you know,
play some tricks. I just thought he looked bigger. You
don't know where his head is. I have to be
there and the dug. I'd have to be able to
talk to the kid eye to eye, and I got
to know this kid before I understand whether or not
I believe he truly is sulking, or if in fact,
(28:52):
there's something else at work right here, easy to point
fingers at the fact that he might be sulking.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
Yeah, I'm with you, Joe.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
I mean, it's a tough place to go to try
to get inside anybody's head. But it's clear if you
look at video between life ye in this year, he's
definitely bigger.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
I mean, that's obvious.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
Whether that has something to do with the hitting, I
don't know, but that's a physical thing that you can see.
Getting inside his head that's a lot more difficult. But
you're right about the bat speed. This is a guy
who was with above average bat speed. Last year he
was in the sixtieth percentile of bat speed, and this
year he's down to the thirty first percentile. That's a
pretty big drop, which you know, typically might tell you
(29:29):
that maybe physically he's not right, maybe the shoulders are barking.
I don't know, But I do know, Joe that you know,
for Alex Korrah was a great manager and that front office.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
This is a problem.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
This, you know, begins to you know, really manifest itself
in how he's playing. If he's uncomfortable with dhing, you know,
because there is something of a learning curve to being
a DH when you've been a position player your whole career.
If he hasn't bought in, that's that's the scariest thing
for me. That might never come if he feels like
this is some sort of demotion or you know, they
(30:01):
think less of him in this regard. He put in
all his work to make himself into you know, it's
hard to even say a decent third basement because he
really was the worst fielding third baseman, but he did
work at it. I'll give him credit for that. So
you've got a problem if your Boston. If this thing lingers,
you know, maybe this is much farther down the road.
You call up a team like Seattle and try to
(30:23):
work out a deal, a team that needs offense and
has a surplus if you will of pitching and get
one of their starting pitchers.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
I just I'm trying to see the end game here, Joe,
and where it starts is getting rock Field Devors to
buy into this is the best thing for his career
is to be the DH on this team.
Speaker 4 (30:41):
I mean, I know, obviously Alex has had conversations with
him and the people there, so they know where he's
at mentally, physically, whatever. They know better than we know. Now,
this is the like epically the one of the worst
starts ever. And this might sound absolutely nuts, but I
would give him a different thought process to work with. If,
in fact, I believe you know this is just wow,
he has lost in bat speed, shoulders, she hasn't gotten
(31:04):
all this strength level back whatever, believe it or not,
I would ask him the lead off. I would ask
him the lead off, and I said, I would then
take the onus off your hitting in a sense and say, listen,
the biggest thing I want you to do is work
on getting on base except your walks. Narrow your strike
zone down a bit, try try easier, use the whole field.
Just try to hit singles for a couple of weeks
and just see if you get yourself going again. I
(31:26):
would go in that direction. When I had good hitters,
like really good hitters, I would go. I would go
in that direction as opposed to knocking them down in
the batting order.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
Again, I don't know everything.
Speaker 4 (31:36):
This is if if I had a conversation with him,
and I all the different points were satiated, and I
felt like, you know, no, he's okay, he's on board.
He's just things are not right coming off his shoulder issue.
Right now, he definitely is into the team. We're going
to try to get this thing rowing. Put him on top.
Singles and walks, That's all I want you to be
concerned with right now. Singles and walks, get on base
(31:58):
as often as you can, and then let's roll from there.
I would go in that direction first before I considered
anything else.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
What's really interesting is you look at his numbers, and
again it's a very small sample size.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
He has cut his chase rate in half.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
Okay, he's the thirty four percent chase rate guy last year,
he's eighteen percent this year. Pitchers are coming right after
him with heaters in the zone.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
But there you go.
Speaker 3 (32:20):
He just not catching up to him.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
But hey, maybe the answer is to try a torpedo bat.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
Well, whatever, listen, this is what you do. It's all
about field, right, It's all about field.
Speaker 4 (32:30):
Do something different, to keep doing the same thing over
and over again expecting a different result.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
We know what that equals.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
Well, speaking in bad weeks, the Atlanta Braves, it couldn't
start much worse, Joe, it couldn't win a game in
San Diego, lose the first game out in Los Angeles.
The Atlanta Braves, they're an interesting offensive team and have
been built this way. They slug, They swing it, man,
They'll chase pitches. They have swing and miss. They sign
up for a few more strikeouts to get the slug up.
Speaker 3 (32:56):
That's how the Atlanta Breves roll.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
They're hitting oh seventy eight against breaking pitches. They've seen
two hundred and four three five breaking pitches and they
have four hits. It's just amazing the way this team
is just cratered offensively.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
To watch it.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
I know they're still waiting on Ronald Lecunia Junior to
get back, but in the meantime, right now, Though Lopez,
their number two starter, is out with an inflamed shoulder.
He didn't look right all spring, didn't look right in
his first start, and sure enough he's hurt. You know,
he's won one of these guys who's transitioned from the
bullpen to the rotation. Had a great year last year,
but there's something not right with his shoulder. And then
(33:32):
on top of that, Jerkson Profar they signed him in
the off season three years forty two million dollars. He
was a bargain last year for the Padres as their
leadoff hitter leftfielder Jerkson Profar.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
Turns out he gets busted out a ped test.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
The test happened in spring training or in the offseason actually,
so he's gone for ninety days. If the Brays make
the playoffs, he was, he's ineligible to be on the
postseason roster because of this, and he was busted for
a substance called sure ionic Gone.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
I'm gonna miss this up basically hCG.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
I was waiting for you to try that. I saw,
I saw it written down. Good try.
Speaker 3 (34:10):
Yeah, it's hCG.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
Basically, it's a fertility drug for females, but a lot
of bodybuilders will use it to offset some of the
side effects of using steroids.
Speaker 3 (34:20):
It helps in the production of testosterone.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
It diminishes some of the side effects of using steroids
such as gonna add shrinkage and infertility. So this is
something it's it's actually in a pregnancy test for women
where it will turn up because in pregnancy that chemical
will go up. But it's manufactured from hamster ovary cells
and it's injected and you got you know, Profar coming
(34:46):
out in the statement saying I would never knowingly do
anything to cheat the game. And you know, listen, we
hear these things all the time, Joe, I mean these guys.
Speaker 3 (34:57):
One thing about this drug is a lot of at least.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
People in competition, not just baseball, might use it because
it doesn't upset the te ratio too much. It is
a banned substance. It has been since the eighties. And
here he is gone for ninety days. Makes a question
the production before, makes a question what his production will
be coming back. That's a major hit for the Atlanta
Braves to lose their leadoff hitter or left fielder. He
(35:22):
just invested three years in this guy and he blows
a test even before the year starts.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
Interesting Hampster research. Yeah, it is tough. My god, I
read that this morning.
Speaker 4 (35:34):
I've liked this kid from my first song with Texas.
I thought, gosh, when he came up with the Rangers
years ago, I was pretty special, I thought. And I
know he kind of disappeared that he kind of resurfaced again.
So I hate reading this kind of stuff. I don't
like it because I don't know anything. Because I'm met
around these people. But this guy, to me is a
good baseball player regardless. He's very athletic, you know, very
(35:58):
quick twitch kind of a thing. His biggest problem was
on the infield, being accurate with his arm. He had
some issues there that I didn't really like, and I
thought he might have to move to the grass in
the outfield, which eventually has but really had some pop, speed,
light body, all that kind of stuff. And now you
got this, and then it really sets a pall over
the entire you know group. However, you know, moving it forward, man,
(36:21):
I the Braves have been able to been able to
overcome a lot of stuff over the last several years.
I anticipate they will again. But this one's different. I mean,
having a tough start right now, and they've played, you know,
a couple of pretty good teams and so what happened
last night for v Dodgers and you know, Glass now
look pretty good obviously.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
So this is going to take a while to sort out.
Speaker 4 (36:41):
But they have the culture set up there to fight
through it.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
It'll be interesting.
Speaker 4 (36:45):
But the division they're in is not going to permit
them to get too far behind too quickly, because it
makes it even more difficult to fight back.
Speaker 3 (36:53):
That's a great point.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
Yeah, I think when you look at New York, you
look at Philadelphia, you know, I think those are ninety
plus win teams. So you can't you can't back in
to a playoff spot. To me, in the National League, especially,
the league is so deep, you're gonna have to go
ninety plus and profar. Listen, I don't want to hear,
as he said in his statement, that you had eight
tests last year and you passed them. That means absolutely nothing.
(37:16):
When I hear guys say that, Joe, I just rolled
my eyes. We're not talking about the times you got
away with tests last year, right, and they you know,
it's not like they're grabbing every single guy who's cheating.
You know, guys are using fact acting stuff, they're micro dosing.
There's ways that you can get around tests. You have
to be very careful and eventually you're going to get caught.
(37:37):
But when you protest that you were clean eight times
last year, that's a red flag to me.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
Come on, yeah, to know.
Speaker 4 (37:45):
You to know that you passed actually eight tests whatever,
that was all researched before he actually spoke to anybody.
This was all you know, he's got a lot of
people trying to help and support him right now. And again,
I don't know the kid. He seems like a bright kids.
It's just it's part of the culture. And then you listen,
you go back, you go back in time. I mean
when Greenies are big and that little red juice and
(38:06):
Dugouts was big, and all the different things that players
have done for years.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
And I said.
Speaker 4 (38:11):
I'm not advocating for it, but and a guy like him,
did he see what he perceived to be his abilities
slipping away a bit? Did he feel as though it
was worth the risk because if I don't do it,
I'm gonna be out of a job anyway. There's all
these different things that go into people's heads. And then
of course it's always about who is advising him. Got
to believe your agent knows something about this. I gotta
believe or somebody you.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
Know that's that's within the group.
Speaker 4 (38:34):
That it's hard to carry that thought alone, Like if
you're a profar to carry the thought alone that you
know you're doing this kind of stuff and without any
kind of support or reassurances and you're not gonna get
caught or you need to do this, because if you
don't you're going to be out of the game anyway.
So there's there's a there's almost like this, this group
a support group around him that I'd be curious about too,
because listen, if you're as an agent, if you're really
(38:55):
doing your job and you have any whiff of this whatsoever,
you really got to get the dude off of it
in order to sustain his career in that in that regard,
because like you said, you eventually going to get caught,
and he did. And it's too bad because I just
from a distance, he looks like a great kid.
Speaker 3 (39:09):
Yeah, it's too bad for the Braves.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
I mean, we're going to talk about this, Joe after
this quick break. I do want to ask you about
when you run. You're managing a team and you get
off to this kind of start, and of course it's early,
but you're trying to get the wheels back on the truck.
Speaker 3 (39:24):
Here and get back on the road. How do you
do that?
Speaker 1 (39:27):
We'll talk about that next on the Book of Joe.
Welcome back to the Book of Joe. We're talking about
Brian Snicker's Atlanta Braves. The worst start imaginable starting pitcher
(39:49):
goes down, you're still waiting on Spencer Stryder and Ronald
the Cuney junior to come back. You're left fielder gets
busted for peds. He's out for ninety games. It's a
rough situation. You can't win a game on the West Coast,
by the way, you know, that's kind of the worst
thing for the Braves. You see the schedule come out
and like, oh, we're opening in California, San Diego, in LA.
Speaker 3 (40:06):
We won't have to deal with.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
Any weather, no cold temperatures. But there's no off days here.
The Braves like to use their pictures on the sixth day,
and they they're using Chris Sale on the fifth day here,
which they didn't do until mid season last year. And
when things go bad, you could use an off day.
But anyway, Joe, my question to you is your Brian
snicker and it listen. It's a veteran team, it's a
(40:29):
veteran staff. I mean, his coaching staff, they've they've been
together really most of them for you know, a good
time that he's been there now ten years.
Speaker 3 (40:36):
How do you handle this situation?
Speaker 1 (40:38):
I mean, everybody knows it's early, we know that, but
as you know, Joe, you can lose a division in April.
Speaker 4 (40:44):
Yes, yeah, I was thinking about it when you when
you posed this question earlier, and you know I've been
through it if you remember. I can't remember exactly the year,
but we started out like two and six, two and seven,
two and eight with the Rays. We go to Chicago
and on the plane ride up, I get in front
of everybody on the plane, I grab the microphone, I
pack up, pass out those little those little cups you
passed medicine with, and I poured a shot.
Speaker 2 (41:05):
Of Shemy not samee.
Speaker 4 (41:07):
Gosh, it was a whiskey from the Napa Valley Sharbey
and I went up and down the aisle, even Zoe
had a shot. I went up there and I got
grabbed the mic and I says, this is a toast
to the best two and seven team in the history
of Major League Baseball. We're going to straighten this out, guys,
stay with it, et cetera, et cetera. Then we took
our shot, went on to get to the playoffs that year. Hey,
(41:28):
I evaluate, what is the problem here? I mean something
you get off to a bat start like this and
all of a sudden, gosh, everything's wrong. Maybe not maybe
everything's not wrong. Maybe there has been a couple of
bad breaks. You talked about a couple injuries, and I
have this distraction with Profar et cetera. So first of all,
evaluate what the problem is and really be specific and
be honest with yourselves, because you're gonna read things, You're
(41:49):
gonna people, you're gonna hear things, and all of a sudden,
things might be manipulated, and all of a sudden, there's
this narrative created that really isn't true, and it's and
if you try to explain it, it sounds like you're
making excuses. So what is the problem here and try
to figure it out. The next part, I would have
a staff meeting just the coaches only love to do
this on the road, and they're actually on the road,
and I would sit down with everybody, would talk about
(42:11):
each guy on the team, each guy specifically, and determine
what can we do to help this.
Speaker 2 (42:16):
Guy individually right here now.
Speaker 4 (42:19):
And then I would permit or have the coaches handle
their department and stay out of the way. If there
was a situation where I felt I needed to be involved,
we would talk about that in this meeting. And furthermore,
like for instance, when I had Ken rivisa. Who needs
Kenny's help right now? Mental skills? Which among these group?
Who needs to speak with Kenny specifically? And we would
(42:39):
make sure that Kenny, if he wasn't with this, would
get in touch via the telephone, etc.
Speaker 2 (42:44):
And make sure that the player knew.
Speaker 4 (42:45):
It, so you wouldn't show any panic whatsoever. You can't
show that and you can't start blowing the whole thing up.
So what is the problem, Be honest about it, and
once you've arrived at the problem, have a group discussion
with your coaches and individualize whatever we're going to do
with each guy to get out of this, and they'll
let the coaches coach out of their way.
Speaker 2 (43:03):
Let the coaches be what they were hired to do.
Speaker 4 (43:06):
And then furthermore, like if there's any tweaks, like I
said with Devers, put him in a leadoff spot whatever.
It's too early to send guys opering guys up that
you just haven't had enough time to evaluate. So really
be just to understand what am I seeing right here?
Speaker 2 (43:20):
And do not just follow the narrative.
Speaker 1 (43:22):
Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that in terms
of not just follow the narrative, the idea of disruption
I mean, listen, I covered Billy Martin. I was there
when he sometimes pulled a lineup out of a hat.
Speaker 3 (43:33):
Literally.
Speaker 1 (43:33):
I was there when he had Rick road In one
of his pitchers in the lineup as the DH.
Speaker 3 (43:39):
The first time up he gets a sack fly.
Speaker 1 (43:41):
I know there's some hitting coaches and people who trained
on hitting who if you're trying to change a swing,
they'll have the player work with, say a thick PVC pipe,
because you put something very different in their hands and
it challenges the brain to think differently rather than thinking
by roots. So if you're Brian snicker and again, I
(44:02):
wouldn't classify this as panic. I hate the use of
that word, and people always ask that in the clubhouse
after game, is it time to panic? No, people do
not panic. Professional athletes do not panic. Folkses don't even
use that word. But do we need a disruption here?
If you're the Atlanta Braves to come to the ballpark
with a different kind of vibe.
Speaker 4 (44:22):
Shot, like I said, shot a whiskey on an airplane,
and then that'suption.
Speaker 2 (44:27):
Yeah. Right.
Speaker 4 (44:28):
Here's the biggest thing too, that I've always felt when
you me as the manager, whenever I walked in the door.
Speaker 2 (44:33):
They could.
Speaker 4 (44:34):
They had to see the same guy walk in the door.
So when I walked in the door, it always had
to look like a five or six game winning streak.
And even if it was a five or six game
losing streak, it still had to look like that five
or six game winning streak.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
They can't see something different.
Speaker 4 (44:47):
If you talk about panic, whatever that word is, it's
not panic, okay. It's like this this cloud, this uneasy feeling,
this concern, trepidation, all this stuff, uneasiness, uncertainty, all creeps
in to the group if in fact the leader shows
different versions of them.
Speaker 2 (45:05):
And that was really important to me.
Speaker 4 (45:06):
So I would actually steal myself before I walked in
sometimes because it could be kind of crappy. And you
walk in and you said to yourself, you know, you
go in there and you act the same way, talk
to everybody the same way that save up beat, positive personality,
bring it, man, because they need it now more than ever.
So these are the kind of thoughts I would have
for me personally as the manager walking into a situation
(45:27):
like that, because too many times, man, you know, the
dude who walk in the manager would walk in bad
moment all of a sudden, you see this this.
Speaker 2 (45:34):
Vile, different person, and everything was great. He was your
best friend. I hated that.
Speaker 4 (45:38):
I hated that from my leaders, I hated that from
my manager. I never reacted well to that as a player.
So those are the kind of things that are really
important to me. We went through some difficult moments.
Speaker 1 (45:48):
Well, if I were Brian Snitker, I'd call up Joe Madden,
I'd invite him out to Dodger Stadium for this series
and I'd say, Joe, you're so good at bringing up
the right line and these Book of Joe podcasts, why
don't you give us the Thought of the Day. So
that's what I would have, Joe Madden, I'd have the
Book of Joe Thought of the Day. So on that note,
(46:09):
what would you tell the braves or at least our
audience you saw this?
Speaker 2 (46:12):
Did you actually saw this somehow?
Speaker 3 (46:15):
Wow?
Speaker 2 (46:15):
This is crazy?
Speaker 4 (46:16):
So I was actually did this last night a little
bit going into this morning. They have a big golf
match going on today. I want to make sure everything
in order. So this was from Aristotle. I like to
dip back into Aristotle, Socrates, all these guys. I mean,
when you read their stuff, I mean, my god, there's
nothing's really changed what people were faced with back then
(46:38):
and with their face what we're faced with today. We
always exaggerate our plight as human beings. We think it's
the worst it's ever been, And you can roll back
the clock fifty years it was just equally as bad,
and thousands of years was equally as difficult.
Speaker 2 (46:51):
With the same kind of thoughts.
Speaker 4 (46:52):
So this is what I came up with today, And
you're right on the money. Is this the question you
just posed to me? And it's from Aristotle? There is
no great genius without a mixture of madness. And when
I read that, all I could think was the time
I talked about it got to be a little bit
crazy to be great. So that's it. Get outside your
normal patterns. You have to you have to get outside
(47:13):
your normal patterns. Whatever created this issue, whatever created this problem,
it's got to be dealt with in a different way
than what created it. I love this so and I
didn't I probably read this several times, but maybe an
influence in my thought about got to be a little
bit crazy to be great. But there's no great genius
without a mixture of madness. Don't be afraid to take
a chance. Don't be afraid to go into some uncomfortable territory,
(47:36):
because that's what's necessary. If you want to just stay
in that comfort zone, brother, it ain't going to happen.
And always know that you got to go out on
the limb to really find the best fruit. So these
are the things that I would be thinking about right now.
Speaker 2 (47:49):
It's really uncomfortable.
Speaker 4 (47:51):
Sometimes when you go out there and you do these
different kind of crazy things, and I think to my said, man,
what's the reaction going to be? Is this actually going
to work? But then I I said, no, let's stay
with it. Let's go with it, and almost one hundred
percent of the time it does. So don't be afraid
to go out on the limb.
Speaker 2 (48:06):
Man.
Speaker 3 (48:07):
That that is like two perfect.
Speaker 1 (48:08):
And I swore, I swear, Joe, I had no idea
you were going there, right, I.
Speaker 4 (48:13):
Had that, dude, Look at all my notes on my
paper from today. It's right, wow, it's right there.
Speaker 3 (48:19):
That is so perfect. Well, we'll see you next time.
Of the Book of Joe.
Speaker 2 (48:22):
Nice job, all right, telling me you two buddy. Thanks.
Speaker 1 (48:32):
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