July 3, 2024 • 52 mins
In this episode of 'The Book of Joe' Podcast, we're halfway through the MLB season and Joe Maddon and Tom Verducci discuss the surprising number of teams still in playoff contention. Tom highlights the leadership role Aaron Judge has taken on the field and in the clubhouse. Joe explains how he handled pitching around someone like Judge or Bonds or when it was time to go at them. Also, Joe likes power hitters...but how does he feel about electric powered cars?
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
The Book of Joe podcast is a production of iHeartRadio.
Hey there and welcome back. You have found once again
the Book of Joe podcast. That's the most interesting podcast
about baseball and other things. I'm Tom Berducci. I'm here
(00:25):
again with Joe Madden and Joe. It's amazing. While you blinked,
half the baseball season is gone. We've just completed thirteen
weeks half the major league season.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
It's amazing how fast it goes.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
And twenty two of the thirty teams are within five
games of a playoff spot. I mean, that is just amazing.
Doesn't take much. You got teams under five hundred who
still look at themselves as contenders. And by the way,
that does not include the World champions Texas eight games
out of.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
A playoff spot.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Three teams in the American League Central right now now
are holding a playoffs spot. Three teams in the AL Central. Joe,
it's been a crazy year so far. What's your take?
Halfway through? It stands out for you.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Well, you just brought up every spring, I thought the
same thing, to get the camp, and everything goes slowly.
It's slow time. It's slow time. And then the season
begins and it's slow time. A lot of day games
days off slow time, and then it turns into fast time.
And once it does that, wow, it just unravels so quickly.
It's like a roll of toilet paper. Closer to the
(01:36):
end the faster it gets. So it's phenomenon that you
experience as a member when you're actually working the season. Now,
all these records you're talking about, I don't know. I'm
asking to myself, I have I've noticed all that obviously?
Is it good? Is it good to be so mediocre?
Is it good that mediocrity permits you then to become
part of the dance. I know, going back, even as
(01:58):
my first time manager, Gig with the Rays came up
with nine equals eight, nine players playing nine and hard
permit you to be one of the eight teams in
the playoffs. So nine equals eight and it was such
a big thing. It was not easy to do the
American League East at that time. You know, it was
Boston and New York and then we're trying to ascend
as the Rays and yet to win ninety games, ninety
some games and wouldn't even be considered. And I'm not
(02:21):
disputing I like the extra wild card team. I've said
that from the beginning because I like fan bases being engaged.
But as it then permit the more of a mediocre
approach to the season, whereas we don't have to go
five games over, then ten games over, then fifteen games
over five hundred, and then twenty games over five hundred.
That's how I always viewed the season. I used to
(02:41):
look for the team to get to those levels, and
then you knew you were cooking. When you got to
twenty over, you know you're cooking. That's like right around
ninety wins and then here we go. So it's good
for fan bases. I guess there's an engagement process, But
then teams get to the point where like should we
even be buyer? Should we stay in this thing because
there we might get to the playoffs, but our chances
(03:02):
of winning it all are minimals. So there's so many
different thoughts that are generated with this methodology. Like I said,
I'm looking at the records. Wow, I mean sub five
hundred teams are still engaged. Five hundred is almost like
become a benchmark for being good. And those are the
kind of things used to drive me nuts. It's sending
with the Raisin and ascending with the Cubs, to be
(03:24):
considered five hundred was a good thing, and I always
have always questioned that method of thinking. So when I
look at all this stuff, that's what I'm saying, it's
becomes an acceptable form of behavior. From that perspective, I
don't like it. You're right, though, the Central has become
more of a beast right now, and for a variety
of different reasons. I don't watch them closely enough to
know what I think specifically as to why I know
(03:46):
there's better young players. I get that, but these are
my thoughts. It's that's a little random stuff, but that's
that's how I view all this and those are the
kind of thoughts it conjures up within me based on
my experiences.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Joe, there's one story to me that's the biggest storyline
of this season and we need to talk about it,
and that is Aaron Judge. I almost get the sense
that people are just so used to this guy hitting
home runs that oh, well, it's Aaron.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Judge, He's supposed to do that.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
We really have to stop and take account of what
Aaron Judge is doing. He's basically breaking baseball. It's mind
bending what's going on here? Five of his last ten
fly balls have been home runs, twenty five homers in
his last forty nine games, sixty two in his last
one to sixty two. Aaron Judge is coming off a
(04:40):
fifty game stretch. This is heading into Tuesday Night, fifty
games in which is OPS was fourteen thirty. There's only
four players in the history of this game who have
had an OPS that high in a fifty game stretch. Babe,
Ruth lou gerrig Ted, Williams Barry, and now you've got
(05:05):
Aaron Judge.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
That's it.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
And if you notice, Aaron Judge is the only right
handed hitter ever to be this good for this long.
It's just remarkable to me, Joe, what's going on? And
he's actually better than ever. We're talking about a six
time All Star, obviously the American League home run record
holder for a single season MVP, and he's better than ever.
(05:30):
And I'm gonna give you some numbers as we get
into this that will just blow you away. And I
just get the sense, Joe, that he's not getting his
proper due for some reason.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
We're looking at something truly historic.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
Agreed, And I listen, he I'm just thinking about this.
First of all, when you talk about his offensive numbers.
I love his swing. We all love his swing. I mean,
of course he gets in the moments of chasing pitches.
We all did all do. But damn, I love his swing.
I love the way that he's compact. He's quick, he's
got that little bit of a tilt that gets the
ball in the ear, which he's trying to do. But
(06:02):
it's almost being that tall. The bats almost has to
work in that matter. It's being possible from the swing
completely down from that, from that being that tall. I
think it starts with that. Mechanically, he's really really good. Mentally,
he's very, very tough. And you're right, I mean, you're
seeing all of this. There's no reason for it to
stop abruptly. It's going to continue for a bit. Early
(06:24):
in the year, he was struggling. Everybody's you know, saying
different things. That's the ebb and flow of a major
league baseball season. You can't be perfect all year. But
all of that, Okay, that's the one thing. But the
thing I love about him is he is the captain.
He is the captain of that team. The way he
handles himself and the way the players follow him when
he speaks. It's so well thought out but so effortless.
(06:48):
It comes to him naturally, and I don't know, you know,
what has youth looked like and as a midsure of
football or Little League baseball or at Fresno State, whatever
it was, but he does it in an effortless manner
that he is a leader and the players follow when
he speaks. In his demeanor, it screams at me. The
other day that incident with the Yankees in Toronto, and
(07:08):
Stroman got all upset when tourists didn't turn the double play,
which still he had no reason toy. I kind of
seen the videos that's there was nothing really disdainful about
the turn, but the way he handled it in the
dugout when they showed Scroman sneaking up behind him, probably
looking for validation from judge or what did he think
about it? And I thought he handled it beautifully. He's
(07:30):
just like, you know, looking over his shoulder talking to him.
There's no animation and pretty much I think he was
telling him, we don't do that here. And that's the
line I love. When you have a leader in your
clubhouse and you get somebody new in the situation, veteran
or not. And if they get outside of the room
and you're a really successful group and use somebody that
judge you handles himself so well the line we don't
(07:51):
do that here. I love that line, and that line
screams at your culture and what it's about. Just fall
in line, and this is how we became successful. It's
going to be successful. So everything's being said about on
the field physically, and I get it. It's absolutely deserve it.
But I love the way hands being a captain of
the New York Yankees. You know, Derek was really good
(08:12):
at it, obviously, and there was others before him, but
I don't know that anybody's handled it better than he has.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
Yeah, I mean to borrow your terminology. He's a complete
level five player. All he cares about is winning, yeah, right,
And he is definitively Aaron Boone's lead. Bull Boone goes
to him all the time now to talk about things
within the team, clubhouse, lineups, you name it. If there's
something Aaron Boone wants to know about or run by
the group, he goes straight to Aaron Judge. So he
(08:41):
is truly a captain I talked about the numbers, Joe.
We're in a situation now or a time period here
where the batting average of Major League Baseball is the
worst it's been since the mound was lowered in nineteen
sixty nine. So what he's doing offensively is just shouldn't
be happening in this state of high velocity and pitchers
going into the pitch labs to create different shapes on
(09:02):
their pitches. And it's incredible the numbers that he can
put up when it's literally harder to get a hit
in the game today that it's been in the last
fifty five years. That being said, this blows me away,
and this is totally counterintuitive.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Aaron Judge.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
This year, we just talked about how great he's been.
He's getting more pitches to hit than ever before in
his career. More pitches in the strike zone to Aaron Judge,
are being thrown now than at any point in his career.
He is up to basically forty nine percent in the
strike zone, and when you throw him a pitch into
(09:39):
the strike zone, he's slugging eight twenty eight. Now, why
is this going on. It's the Wan Soto effect. It's
as simple as that Wan Soto is on base more
than anybody in the league, and he bats in front
of Aaron Judge. So Aaron Judge this year is taking
fifty point five percent of his bats with somebody on base.
(10:01):
Last year it was forty percent. And if you look
at pitches in the zone, when pitchers have to pitch
to Aaron Judge with somebody on base, they're throwing him
more strikes. So, as counterintuitive as it is, Joe, pitchers
actually are throwing Aaron Judge. We just talked about how
he's on the greatest, one of the greatest fifty game
(10:23):
runs in baseball history, and pitchers are throwing him more
in the zone than ever before.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
I wouldn't.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
I wouldn't either, Hey, listen.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
I talked to Carlos Mendoza after, you know, he was
up by six, let's see it, with six runs, holding
a six run leave, with four outs to go, bases loaded.
He thought about walking Aaron Judge with the bases loaded
up six and of course Judge did.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Hit a grand Slam and made it a two run game.
So I'm with you.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
I'd much rather pitch to Aaron Judge and walk him
then challenge him.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
I don't care who's on base.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
Josh Hamilton did it with him with the bases loaded,
because he could have tied the game in Texas. I
remember the exact year. There's different times it is prudent.
I mean to really pitch them under those circumstances. And
why are they pitched to him at all? And why
would you be so afraid with one guy on base,
now multiple or even with multiple runners because post Judge
in the lineup. I know Verdugo has been doing a
(11:18):
decent job, but there's nobody scary after Judge. I don't
Stanton can be, but still I prefer taking my chances
there over Judge or Soto any day of the week.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Well, let me let me stop you right there, because
Verdugo is not doing a decent job. He should not
be hitting four. Okay, he doesn't hit left handed pitching
at all. He's an average major league hitter. This again
speaks to how amazing Aaron Judges. Yeah, Yankee cleanup hitters
get this. They're hitting two oh eight, the two sixty
(11:48):
three on base percentage and a five ninety ops. Those
are the lowest numbers in Yankee's history in the live
ball era. So Aaron Judge has the worst number four
hitters behind him in the history the Yankees franchise and
he's still going off. And by the way, going back
to every team, it's the fourth lowest ops of any
(12:13):
team in the last one hundred and five seasons. That's
the number four spot behind Aaron Judge. And he's seeing
more pitches well.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
And the analytically speaking, and that's just you talk about
red flags. I know that analytics and analysts do not
like intentional walks. And I'm not saying you're an intentional
walk them all the time, but there's a big thing
about that. I mean, they don't want to walk people,
they don't want to put people on base because I
know it's discouraged from intentionally walking people. As the long
(12:40):
read was involved as a manager, and to me that
was you know again, okay, we go back to Bryce
Harper situation with the Cubs. We walked them. I don't
know how many times in that four game series, nobody
said anything because we're very successful with it, right, But
as it got later and it become more prominent anything,
anytime something becomes a hot topic in the analytical world,
(13:02):
everybody shares that and everybody starts Tott drinking from that
same pool. And so anyway to walk him, I don't
know that they even talk about it or they pursue
that enough because oh, you're putting another guy on base.
We don't like to do that kind of a conversation.
So I'm betting I didn't know all this stuff specifically,
but I'm betting the second half of the season you're
(13:23):
going to see a different method. He's going to be
walked more often. It's like pitching the Barry Bonds. I mean,
why so if we're playing him, I mean that'd be
the first thing I would talk about going into this series.
I get my pitching coach, my bullpen coach, and the office,
and we're not going to pitch this guy if we
don't have to. And I don't even know when you
have to. It's just you know, game situation, maybe game
on line late, and there's no other options. If you
(13:45):
walk him, they win. I mean, you stay away from him,
and I know that's you know, what the baseball world
wants to see. They want to see Aaron Judge hit,
but I want to win. So to me, you take
the bat out of his hand. It's pretty simple.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Yeah, I agree, especially when he's this hot. And again
he's been hot for two months. Remember he had that
slow start to the season, basically didn't get enough reps
in spring training. He was hurt in spring training, and
it was and I remember looking at Aaron early.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
In the season. The swing was the same, the setup
was the same, timing was just off. That was all
it was.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
You know, three weeks later, it's a bullet home run
the right field in those seats in Yankee Stadium, and
I'm like, this dude's back.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
He really does get back with one swing like that.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
By the way, Joe I got to point out talking
about the worst cleanup spots in the live ball era
going back to nineteen twenty, the lowest ops belongs to
the nineteen ninety two Angels.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
CAP Hugh B.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Brooks was their most used cleanup hitter in nineteen ninety two.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
I thought he'd enjoy that one.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
Such a good guy. Hube was such a good guy.
I wasn't there yet. I mean I threw to Hugbe
a lot in batting practice in spring training. I was
Doug Rader yet, right, Doug was the manager I think
at that time. But yeah, the Angels at that time
we had Von Hayes I think was a part of
that group. If I remember correctly. It wasn't the best
team on the field. But that is interesting. But I'll
(15:07):
defend Huby Brooks. He's a wonderful human.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Being, great guy. Loved him.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
Yeah, so your worst cleanup spot since nineteen twenty the
ninety two Angels, the twenty twenty two Marlins with Hazy
sagui Lar, the nineteen eighty one Cleveland team with Andre Thornton,
and now the twenty twenty four Yankees wow with Alex
Verdugo providing quote unquote protection for Aaron Judge. It just
goes to show Joe and I've always thought this protection
(15:36):
is about who's in front of you.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
It's not behind you.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
I mean, you have to pitch to guys when they're
in situations with runners on base, no matter who's behind you.
If the bases are empty, you can take your time
with somebody and not challenge them.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
I still wouldn't pitch to him. I mean again, that's like,
you know, I left the beauties in the eyes of
the beholder. How do I want to approach this or
get beat I regardless, I'm all about protection. Because as
a manager, if he's not protected, he's not getting pitched too,
regardless of who's in front of him. For me, but
you're right, getting on base, there's some interesting thoughts that
(16:10):
enter your mind because there's somebody in front of him there. However,
if the Yankees had him more formidable behind him, yeah,
you gotta go with it, you gotta do it. You
know the Red Sox when they were really good, when
Manny and David were in that middle. Yeah, I mean
there was there was still some protection after that. But
if there's not man you just don't throw to these guys.
(16:31):
I did in the National League. I would identify before
the game the slot I did not like or the
guy did not like, and that guy got treated differently,
And that was simple as that.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
I think you're right. I think that's what we're going
to start seeing here.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
As hot as he's been, it makes no sense to
be throwing Aaron Judge more pitches in the zone than
he's ever seen before when he's got nothing behind him.
We are going to take a quick break here, Joe,
but when we get back, there's more I want to
explore with Aaron Judge, because you mentioned the possibility now
of pitching around him more. What happens when you try
to get Aaron Judge to chase. We'll talk about that.
(17:04):
And I also wanted to bring up something I have
never seen before on a pitcher's mound in Major League Baseball,
and I'm curious if Joe has. We'll talk about that
right after this. Welcome back to the Book of Joe podcast.
(17:28):
It's I guess it's our Aaron Judge edition. I mean,
he's good enough and big enough where he does deserve
his own edition at this podcast. Here I mentioned and
you mentioned Joe that you know, you really should start
pitching around Aaron Judge. Moore, you know, here's part of
the problem. You can't get this guy to chase. Aaron
Judge's chase rate is nineteen and a half percent, and
that ties his career low, which.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Was last year. Major league average hitter chases.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
About twenty eight percent of the time, so he's not
going outside of the zone. So you just have to
sign up for the fact that if you try to
pitch him out of the zone to get him a chase,
you're not going to get him out. So just sign
up for the fact that, yeah, okay, pitch carefully to him,
but you're probably going to walk him. This guy is
going to take his walks. I've never seen him Joe
(18:13):
as hot as he is in full time swing mode,
you know, like you said, he'll he'll swing and miss
like everybody else.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Once in a while. You see him on off speed stuff,
the top hand comes off the bat. It happens. But
I've never seen him what I would classify as swing mode.
Speaker 3 (18:28):
Yeah, I agree. I mean that's the it's Barry Bonds,
like I'm saying. I mean, Bonds would do the same thing.
I mean his on base percentage of slugs and all
that stuff were ridiculous. Two thousand and two World Series.
We going to that thing. Well, he hasn't seen us yet,
he hasn't seen our pictures yet. We got our own
plan designed for him. You know, he hasn't seen any
of this yet. And then after one game we figured
(18:48):
out no yet, Yeah he has, and then you have
to make an adjustment at that point where you're going
to lose. I'm okay with that. I'm okay with us walking,
pitching around him, whatever you want to call it. The
thing I always attempted to do is to test his
patience you know, after a while, if he stay there,
does he just make himself swing because he's just kind
of fed up with not getting pitches to hit. Nobody
(19:08):
on base different Again, you could be a little bit
more challenging. It's just to me, it's just the opposite.
Nobody on base, I challenge him, Guys on base, I'm
gonna be less apt to do that, regardless of somebody
on base. And again it comes down to his hitting
behind him. It's simple equation for me. It's not gonna
work the other way. He's gonna stay as hot, he's
gonna beat you up. Last point, Contending teams really have
(19:30):
to be considered of that. If you're not contending team,
it's different. Of course you want to win, but nevertheless,
you can be a little bit more assertive going after him,
just because the game's not as meaningful to you. But
if I'm Baltimore and those other teams that are really,
you know, right there with them, I got to be
really careful with this. Although they're gonna think that their
pitchers are going to be different and then they're able
that they're gonna be able to handle them, they're going
(19:52):
to find out that's not true. Especially like you said,
to be this torrid, it ain't gonna happen. So for me,
like I said, I there's always I've always wanted us
to adapt to the other team's best hit and what
you do, it's a mental component. And when you do that, truthfully,
the guy behind him that knows that this guy's getting
picture on her walk to face me, there's a certain
(20:14):
amount of mental discomfort with that. It bothers you and
it's hard to focus and I really got to come through,
and there's more pressure involved. So there's all those little
mind games that can be incorporated. I like the mind games.
I like to plant the seed of doubt. I like
to make guys think and get outside of their own
regular methods because when you get outside of the comfort
zone and create doubt, it can work in your benefit.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
Yeah, and that's why Jeff Kent was so good behind
Barry Bonds. He actually was better with runners on base
than he was a base as empty.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
He took it as a challenge.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
If you know Jeff Kent, you can you can definitely
understand that mental point of view where it didn't bother him.
It probably you know, raised his game. And it reminded
me Joe what you did with Bryce Harper with you know,
Ryan Zimmerman and ground ball hitter behind him. And to me,
Harper was a guy who's in swing mode a lot,
so you can disrupt him by not throwing him strikes.
(21:06):
I just think with Aaron Judge, and I'm agree with you, Joe,
don't throw him somebody strikes and just walk him. But
I don't think you're going to put him into a
funk the way you did with Bryce Harper, because Bryce
Harper is like a shooter in basketball, he needs to
swing the bat. Aaron Judge is not that way. I mean,
he's so economical with damage to swing ratio.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
Well, Harper was younger at that time too. I mean,
Judge is pretty mature as a baseball player and where
he's at in his life and his own skin. So
I think there was a difference with that. And you're
right that was based on Zimmerman hitting behind him, and
they had Anthony Rendone who was swinging the bat well
at that time, and Daniel Murphy and Murph didn't care
if you were a left handed or right handed pitcher
(21:47):
at all. So the fact that they didn't manipulate their
lineup if they had, I would definitely would have done
something differently. I would not have just walked him if
Murph was behind him, or for sure Anthony was behind him,
would not have done it. But the fact that Zimmerman
was and Zimmerman was not going good at that time.
So again, these are all the Every game is different,
every set of fingerprints are different, and you got to
(22:08):
just read what's going on right now. That's where I'm
into trends and not necessarily the big picture. There's times
when the big picture fits defense. It always fits. How
I'm going to pitch the tom Berducci it always fits.
But in the line of construction I'm going to pitch
to whatever. Who am I going to pitch out of
the bullpen? Changes based on trends, and you got to
pay attention to them.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
How about this.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
The two hitters who have seen the most pitches when
they're ahead of the count are Juan Soto and Aaron Judge.
I mean they just control counts because you know, pitchers
tend to fall behind they nibble.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
But here's the issue.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Do not try to challenge Aaron Judge once you fall
behind him when pitchers throw him a fastball in the zone.
When they're behind the count, he slugs nine to thirty.
I mean he hits four nineteen and slugs nine to thirty.
So well, when I see two three to one counts
and someone thinks they're going to get back into the
(23:07):
count with a fastball to Aaron Judge, just sign up
for the walk, dude, don't challenge him with a fastball.
But it's amazing that back to back you're watching Soto
and Judge, who control the count more than any other
two hitters in baseball, and they're hitting back to back
in the lineup.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
Again, the American League is used to be wrought with
those kind of players, and at that time with the
Rays Andrew, the big thought there was you need to
find pitchers that can get these kind of hitters out
within the strike zone. Not easy to do. You know,
UCLSS Kevin was really good at controlling this. You could
go up and down the lineups. So these different teams
(23:45):
really good at controlling they're at bats in regards to
their strike zones. So you have to find pitchers that
can get hitters out within the strike zone. That's that's
the whole thing. Now, I don't even know who those
guys are. These days. You know the fact that there's
so much just time spent on velocity as opposed to pitching,
and and how that plays out and what that means.
I can't break that down this quickly right now, but
(24:08):
I do know philosophically, in order to win with in
the American Leagueese, the big part of our ascension was
getting pictures that can get hitters out within the strike zone.
Matt Garza getting him Guards had a real good sinker,
nice slider through ninety three to ninety four downhill, okay,
and then of course James Shill's a devastating changeups. David
Price came in with his stuff. Alex Cobb one of
(24:30):
the best splitters I've ever seen in person. Getting him
out in the strike zone, it'd be a strike ball
with two strikes. We had a bunch of those guys.
Way Davis was the starter, then became a bullpen guy,
but he was a starter with us, Jake McGee, we
had some really good arms. These guys had to get
these hitters out in the strike zone. That's what you
need in order to beat the Yankees. That would be
(24:51):
the ultimate way to do that. So if you don't
want to have to pitch around these guys or worry
about protection and on protection, you have to develop a
cadre of starting pitchers that are able to get hitters
out within the strikeland. That's got to be your model.
That's got to be the proving round for why they're
in your organization, on your team, on your major league team,
(25:12):
that you believe these guys can do that. And that's
what we had to do with the race.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
I'm glad you brought that up, Joe, because you understand
that in today's game, it's a lot about matchups, especially
when you get to the postseason. You know, going into
a game, who you want on the other team's best
hitters in a big spot in the seventh, eighth, or
ninth inning. That's pretty much driving the game today, especially
in the postseason for me. And you better have someone
(25:38):
who can get that pocket. Now. Of course, obviously he
has to pitch to at least three betters, Aaron Judge,
if you go back just a couple of years ago,
you could bring in guys who had good, hard two
seemers that run in on his hands and then flip
a slider down on a way.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
That's the way you got him out and.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Teams would do that in the postseason, run the ball
in on his hands with some velocity, especially above his hands,
maybe even off the plate, but certainly on the inside corner.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
Don't do that anymore. I think Aaron.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
Judge has closed that hole and he's an absolute nightmare
matchup for an opposing manager. His slugging percentage against right
handed pitchers is seven oh nine. Against lefties it's seven
oh three. I mean, he is destroying right handed sinkers,
which used to give him a little bit of a
problem career best three seventy two average against it. So
(26:29):
that's the problem for me with Aaron Judge. Yeah, you
can walk them, but there's going to be times late
in the game where you're gonna have to pitch the
Soto and Judge with the game on the line. And
if I'm a manager at this point, Joe, I don't
know what type of picture I want to face Aaron
Judge because he's covering just about everything.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
And that to me was the same case with David Ortiz.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
You know, when he first came up with the Red
Sox and he was banging the ball everywhere, he still
had a hole above his hands on velocity in he
closed that and there was no way to get him
out in the postseason. So for me as an opposing manager,
Aaron Judge, I really I don't know where you go.
Speaker 3 (27:09):
Again, I haven't You're right, and I haven't had a
chance to study it more closely in a couple of years.
But those are the things I would look at, and
like you just mentioned, the latter part of the game
and learning the latter part of the game. If you
have a lead, these are your better guys in the
latter part of the game. If you are behind, he's
going to see some cookies. They're going to be the
less stand They're not going to be the even or
(27:30):
ahead bullpen. I always want it minimum for even ahead
relief pitchers. Minimum, whereas you can bring them in a
game when the scores even or you're ahead, and you
feel good that they're going to maintain that or the
either the tie or the fact that you're ahead. Certain
guys pitch better in deficits, and other guys are just
they're there because you don't want to use them in
(27:52):
these higher leverage situations. They're there to suck up some
innings and hopefully get lucky. Although I do love the
concept of the middle inning reliever that holds a small
lead or even a small deficit if you have a
good offense. JP Out and Grant Balfour where those guys.
Those guys taught me that in two thousand and eight.
So there's just so much to think about here. And again,
(28:12):
when it comes down to construction of these bullpens, it's
pretty much based on velocity, and i'd have to again,
I haven't looked at it in a while, watch games
a little bit on TV. I do, but to break
it down and look at what these guys because I
got to see stuff in person. For me to really
tell you exactly what I think, it's got to go
beyond a video, a television performance or something i've read.
I got to see this stuff with my own eyeballs,
(28:33):
and that's where I really draw my conclusions. And then
I kind of morphed together the written information, the data,
the video whatever with what I'm seeing. The competitive value
of this guy, how the ball comes out of his hand,
what does he look like in a hot moment. All
these things matter. So to really achieve and get guys
like this out, it's not easy, and sometimes it's almost impossible.
(28:55):
But It's all about that, to nurture pictures that can
get guys out within a strike zone because they don't shack.
And god, is that fun. It is so fun when
we ascend it with the Rays to what we did
in the late two thousands there of two thousand and eight, nine, ten, whatever,
we had a bunch of guys we were really we
(29:16):
could catch the ball, and we got pictures that could
get guys out in the strike zone, and that's what
started the ascension of the race.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
One last note of context here.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Hitting by outfielders in the Major leagues this year stinks,
absolutely stinks.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
Right.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
Batting average is two thirty nine, the OPS is seven
oh five. Those are the worst numbers since nineteen sixty nine,
since the mound was lowered. Jose Siri of the Rays,
who's not a good offensive player, has an average OPS.
He is your average hitting outfielder right now. So let's
put this in the context. We're talking about it's harder
(29:52):
to get a hit in the major league season this
year than anytime in the last fifty five years. Outfield
production is the worst it's been in fifty five years.
The Yanke Keys have the worst cleanup hitters in the
history of the franchise, and Aaron Judge is halfway to
sixty two home runs halfway through the season. It's just incredible.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
What's going on.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
Well, part of my philosophy, my theories on that is
that a lot of the outfielders are playing shortstop guys
like the short Daily Cruise and Cruise with the Pirates.
These are guys that normally would be in outfielders, and
I don't know why we're force feeding them into the infield.
They're really tall, it's difficult for them to make certain
kind of plays. So I think you're seeing shorts trying
(30:39):
to make shortstop more of an offensive position, and you're
getting guys that normally would have been outfielders on the infield.
That's my perspective, and again I'm not seeing them in person.
This is things that just I'm looking at, and I
think that's part of why we're seeing less production in
the infield that hire a greater production and shortstop. I'd
be curious that even you know, I've talked about Boba shit,
(30:59):
all these guys to me belong in the outfield. From
what I can see, Lookie Betts is moving back to
the outfield or apparently, so there's been like walking away
from there, the smaller shortstop, more defense over offense kind
of a thing. But to me, we talked about this,
Anthony Bolpi, to me is the perfect shortstop. He hits
plenty enough, but the guy can pick it at shortstop.
(31:20):
If you walk away from defense up the middle, you're
definitely going to be injured at some point. And I
don't know how if you get enough offense to mitigate
what you're not getting on defense with offense. So look
at that too. I think there's been a push. Again.
I have to see there in person, but it appears
to me that more outfielders are playing in the infield now,
and with that, you're seeing less production in the outfield,
(31:43):
and then I'm seeing less really good actions are throwing ability,
consistent accuracy from the infielders.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
Well, you're not wrong.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
I mean, listen, the general population is getting much bigger.
You just look at other sports height in the NBA,
size in the NFL.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
It's the same case in Major League Baseball.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
I mean, we've got guys more than two hundred pounds
playing shortstop. Twenty three, twenty four years old Gunner Henderson,
Ellie de la Cruz, Bobby Witch, Junior, cj Abrams, O'Neill, Cruz.
It's it's amazing this generation of shortstops who are six
to two hundred and twenty pounds, who can still run
like the wind and play the position.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
I think they're all shortstops.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
I just think we have to recalibrate our minds at
what a shortstop looks like. And let's face it, there
are a fewer ground balls in the game today. They
are more strikeouts, So you're not the shortstop is not
being asked to field as many ground balls as Ozzie
Smith did. I get that, but for some reason, we're
not developing, especially center fielders. Besides the shortstops who could
play the outfield. We're just not seeing those great hitters
(32:44):
in the outfield. Joe I had mentioned. I saw something
in Colorado. It involves our buddy, Buddy Black. There was
a situation tenth thenning where the Brewers had I think
it was nine people on the mound if I counted correctly,
you know they've walked two guys to load the bases
in a tie game with one out, set up a
(33:05):
forced play all around, and the pitching coach and Ricky Weeks,
the bench manager came out to the mound and they
brought in one of the outfielders to make a five
man infield.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
So you have a five infielders, the pitcher to catch.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Her, and a pitching coach and the bench coach and
Bud Black came out and I'm assuming his argument was
is that even legal? How do you have two guys
from the dugout at a mound meeting and should account
as a double visit and now you have to make
a move.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
I mean they let it go the next pitch.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
Actually, the Rockies won the game on the very next
pitch on a single by Jake Cave.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
But I've never seen two guys from the dugout come
out to the mound. Now.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
Ricky Weeks was carrying an infield glove because one of
the outfielders, I think was South Freelick, wanted to use
the infielders glove to play the infield. I get that,
but they actually were having conversations with players, both the
pitching coach and the bench coach on the mound in
that situation. I don't even know if that's legal, but
it certainly odd out of got nuts.
Speaker 3 (34:06):
I don't think it's legal. I think you could bring
an interpreter out there if one of these guys needed
an interpreter, that would be somebody separate from a coach. Yeah,
I don't think that's legal. I'm really curious to hear
what the result is, but I think I'd have been
really upset had I seen that. My original intentions back
in the day when I started doing that. You're talking
about a defensive situation. My original intent was to have
(34:27):
a defensive coach go out to the mound, like fully
Tom Foley and Tampa Bay if we had something going
on defense as a five man if you would ever
bunt defense latter part of the game, let them go
out there as opposed to me or the pitching coach,
and more talk to the infielders than the pitcher about,
you know, the situation it had. I've always thought that
might be an interesting way to do it. Although part
(34:48):
of it was I felt really comfortable with those moments
because actually it was a big part of all the
defensive setups. But I always thought that might be an
interesting thing to do, is to send a other than
coach through out there based on the situation, but to
have two guys go out there if once not an interpreter,
I don't think that's right. I'm with you.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
Obviously, Buddy Black was.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
I mean, he didn't get any kind of resolution for
the umpires, but he was I don't want to say
he was livid. He was more puzzled than anything else,
saying what the heck is going on here? By the way,
that anting started, Remember it's extra innings. You get the
runner on second base, it's a tie game. You're the
home team. To me, Joe, you have to bunt that
(35:27):
runner to third base, right, I mean, get the guy
to third base.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
You win the game with any.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
Kind of an out. Essentially, the batter is Michaeltolia. He's
hitting one eighty five and he's swinging away. But get this,
he's swinging away because he has had more than two
thousand played appearances as a professional baseball player and has
zero sacrifice bunts. So Buddy Black can't ask him the
(35:53):
bunt because he literally has never done it as a professional.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
Now, he did move the runner. He had a long
fly ball, so the result was fine.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
But man, that chaps me when I got into the
big leagues and it's an obvious bunt situation and you
can't do it because the guy doesn't know.
Speaker 3 (36:09):
How brother it is. It's really difficult, and that goes
that speaks to I know, this goes to the minor
leagues I've had. I've had players that Carl Crawford was
very had a very difficult time bunning. Although you didn't
really want CC to bump, but there was the bun
for him. But Carl tried in the minor leagues but
really had very stiff technique and wasn't able to do it.
For me. When you're warning a minor league organization, you're
(36:32):
the guy on the boots on the ground, you're the
guy the coordinator. Regardless of where a guy hits in
the lineup, except if it's like a Timmy. There's certain
guys that you know you're not going to ask the
butt in a situation, although you still give them some technique.
You never know, You just ever know, but you don't.
But the guys that really are going to be called
on for it, they have to bunt in the minor
leagues have to. If a guy hasn't and you try
(36:54):
to make him or have him understand how to do it,
on a major league level, it's hard to teach them.
It's very difficult. It's difficult to give them technique. And then,
like you're saying, if a guy's not adept at it,
you don't put the play on because he's going to
be O two before you know, there's gonna be two
strikes on him, and then all of a sudden, he's
gonna have one pitch to swing at. That's our own fault.
When I first got to the Angels in twenty twenty, right, yeah,
(37:15):
twenty twenty, I found out that the bunding was not
taught at all in the minor league for like the
previous two or three years, not at all. That was
not part of the landscape. It was it was not
what we do here at that time. That's my favorite phrase.
But in that regard, so, how do you get young guys,
how do you ask them to do something that they've
never done before? The people, Oh, you just square around,
you do this. It's difficult, man. When you square around,
(37:37):
you don't even know how to square around, and the
ball's coming at you inside, retch your head a little bit,
you know how to get out of the way. Very uncomfortable,
just to put that bat and even it out and
put the ball butt down on the ground first or
third base whatever, like we've done for years with the
safety squeeze to the right side. They can't have they
can't even come close to doing that anything you want
in your major league team. And again you're talking about
(37:59):
guys that may have been acquired and came from somewhere else,
and then you're really kind of screwed. You got to
get everything done in the minor leagues that you want
to happen on the major league level. Have to have
to no excuses. There's plenty of time. You're not giving
up at bats. These kids could get four hundred at
bass five hundred played appearances during the course of a
minor league season if you had it by twenty times
(38:20):
with put percentage of all those number of played appearances.
Are those twenty times to do something that may be
very useful down the road. I listen, I'm that hitting
the opposite way left handed hitter is bunny against the shift.
All that stuff needs to be done on the minor
league level and is not because it's not perceived as
being important till it's not unimportant till.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
It is amen to that.
Speaker 1 (38:43):
Hey, one of the things we like talking about here
on this show is cars and Joe. I know you're
a guy you love literally the roar of an engineer.
So I have a hard time picturing you behind the
wheel of an EV. And apparently you're not alone. What
is going on with cars and electric vehicles? We're going
to talk about that next on the Book of Joe.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
Welcome back to the Book of Joe podcast.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
Joe, Am I right, do I have the hard time
picturing you behind the wheel of a very quiet EV?
Speaker 3 (39:27):
You know me so well. I mean, I got to
hear my vehicles. I was driving my van around yesterday.
It's got the side pipes on it. It's glorious. And
I know there's a lot of folks who are going
to talk about, you know, the fossil fuels and the
emissions and whatever. Tell me, on an average street here
in Hazleton, if everybody's required me and these are narrow streets,
you know, the electrical outlets are not there. If everybody
(39:50):
had to own an EV and they're supposed to like
charge them up at the end of the night, end
of the day, what is that going to look like.
We're gonna have extension cords going across the street at night.
What happens when it snows you have to pull the
cords in and don't charge the cars. There's a lot
of the issues here that need to be worked out
that are not even spoken about. And how do you
even generate or create the power to charge these up?
And how about the weight of these things beating up
(40:12):
our roads? No, I'm not into it. I'm not into
it at all, quite frankly, and know you will not see.
I might drive one just for the heck of it,
but I like the roar of the engine. I do.
My Hellcat is seven hundred and some horsepower and I
love it. I got a three point fifty Chevelle with
the six speed Trimmix that I love, and that that
van sitting outside has got a three sixty in it,
(40:34):
you know, at a four barrel and it runs so well.
It's fun. I love to hear what I'm driving.
Speaker 2 (40:39):
Well, we can get you an EV that has virtuals.
Speaker 3 (40:42):
Instead of doing that. Yeah, right, that's stinks. That's things.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
But apparently, as I said, you're not alone. Listen.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
But that was over in London for the Mets Phillies games.
Virtually every uber I took and the brides I had
to and from the airport were evs. I mean, they
had many more evs than what I've seen here in
the States, and the numbers show it. In the last
quarter of last year, the UK was at an EV
rate of seventeen point six percent. The US is half
(41:09):
of that at eight point one percent. We have not
adapted to the ev especially when it comes to the
European countries. How about in Norway eighty percent of their
vehicles are evs. I mean, China is up to twenty
four percent, and that's going up because they've found a
way now to build evs that are extremely cheap, and
(41:32):
they're taking off. But the US is not taking off
because of what you mentioned, Joe. People have range anxiety.
They think they're going to run out of power. It
doesn't go far enough. We want cars, and we've talked
about this before. US auto manufacturers are not making sedanza anymore.
It's a race to build things that are bigger and
bigger because someone else is driving an SUV and you
(41:54):
don't want to get smashed by one of those, so
you have to get something big yourself.
Speaker 2 (41:59):
So we're going to change. We have to change.
Speaker 1 (42:03):
But the auto industry and they're working on this joe.
Speaker 2 (42:07):
They're working on the range.
Speaker 1 (42:08):
Apparently GMC is coming out with the Sierra truck that
supposedly is going to have four hundred and fifty miles
of range. You know, we've gotten over the three hundred
range barrier, although in real life when people are actually
using their air conditioner and if you've got a pickup
truck you're pulling something, you're not getting those kind of
range miles.
Speaker 2 (42:26):
That's basically in a lab.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
So until they fix these batteries and until the power
infrastructure to recharge is more available, right, it is not
going to scale up. And we are so far behind
the rest of the world in terms of scaling up.
It's going to come, but I'm shocked that it hasn't
come more quickly, especially in terms of whatever the next
(42:50):
generation of batteries are.
Speaker 2 (42:52):
But we have to get there. We will get there.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
I'm just surprised because you would think the economic incentive
is there.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
There's still a lot of room, a lot of room
for growth.
Speaker 3 (43:01):
It's going to take a while, like you said, and
if even when it does occur, and I think the
bigger problem, like you're talking about, is how do we
charge these things up? If you live in an apartment
complex building with this huge garage downstairs, how does everybody get,
say shiated on a nightly basis recharging their vehicles? And
I just think for a reality, the United States is
(43:22):
so vast and for us to do what we want
to do independently, even if it's going to work or
vacation whatever, how do we do that. These other countries
are describing are very small. They're not big to go
from one end of the island to the other, nor
a we whatever is where you're actually have population and
you want to be on a daily basis is different.
So they're more able to navigate in a country like that,
(43:46):
because it's like the size of a state. If you
noted to say that Pennsylvania could only have it has
to have electric vehicles by whatever twenty to say, twenty forty,
much more reasonable to think that it can occur as
opposed to the United States with all the different so
vast and all the different items to be over come
in order for that to occur. So smaller the country,
(44:07):
the more finite England, same way easier to get done.
I think when you're talking about something as vast as
the United States, that probably becomes exponentially more difficult, and
I think that's part of the issue too.
Speaker 1 (44:17):
Yeah, first quarter of this year, new vehicle sales were
up five point one percent, but EV sales were up
only three point three percent, so they're actually lagging behind
the internal combustion engine, old school fossil fuel vehicles. By
the way, I get your point about smaller countries. And
you know, we like to think we're all going to
be driving thousands of miles on trips just because we can.
(44:42):
But Germany, which loves their cars, I mean, you know
at the Autobahn, right, Yeah, they're up to twenty percent
EV sales.
Speaker 3 (44:50):
But evs are fast. They're fast, I'm telling you, I know,
that's why they like it.
Speaker 2 (44:56):
We just I mean, we're all about convenience here in
the States.
Speaker 1 (45:00):
But our friends in Italy, Joe, have not gone crazy
for the EV quite yet.
Speaker 3 (45:04):
There you go, That's that's all you do there.
Speaker 2 (45:07):
It's an option of the EV.
Speaker 1 (45:09):
They're at five point four percent, so they still want
their Ferraris and Italian sports cars and the roar of
the engines.
Speaker 3 (45:18):
The ancestors of Da Vinci and Michelangelo have spoken. They
they know, they know what's what's important. They know it's necessary,
they know what's what's a fat it's gonna go away,
and one that has longevity. I'm you know we I
shouldn't say I we are into whatever the Italians think.
I'm into it.
Speaker 2 (45:37):
Well, it's coming.
Speaker 1 (45:38):
Like I said, there's a next generation of batteries coming out.
Speaker 2 (45:42):
It's called the ULTM battery.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
And if we get that number up to four fifty
for an suv and pickup truck, maybe we're going to
get more people on board. But until we get there,
the sales have lagged, There's no question about it. I
thought it would be like color TVs. When color TVs
came out, they were super expensive. People were kind of
freaked out by it, and then all of a sudden,
the price came down and people would adopted very very
(46:05):
quickly to it. I think the adoption of the EV
in the States has been a lot slower than it
should be.
Speaker 3 (46:10):
Yeah, listen, I'm with you. I've never been interested. I
mean the styling with some of the new that you
talk about, the German cars and even some of the
Japanese cars now they're they're a little bit more stylish.
Although the Tesla to me is like one of the
most utilitarian, boring looking vehicles I've ever seen. So I
part of part of you know, cars, is the style
(46:31):
of the car. We've talked about this something that's identifiable differently, colors,
all that kind of stuff. So I don't even know.
Is that nostalgia speaking, Is that the fact that I'm
over forty speaking right now? I don't know. But there's
a part about cars that if you're really into them,
it goes well beyond what's under the hood. Although we
do like power under the hood, but there's a certain
(46:54):
art form about them too that are different. So I
hope that if they do continue this method moving forward,
that they consider that and if it guess at the
point where style doesn't matter anymore, that really bothers me.
Speaker 1 (47:05):
Even also, no style always matters, you know, vehicles, as
utilitarian as they are and can be, there are emotional investments.
I mean, you buy it because you like the look
of it, and you figure out ways to kind of
reinforce that gut feeling you have about the way a
car looks. And I'm with you on Tesla. They came out,
(47:25):
they look great, but they haven't changed the style at all.
They haven't updated it. Now they need to work on
it because their sales are lagging. You see a twenty
twenty four TESTLA, you can't tell the difference between the
twenty twenty one or a twenty twenty, so they are
definitely due for a style upgrade.
Speaker 3 (47:40):
Volkswagen nailed that down though. The old bug Yes, look
the same back in whatever till they remodeled. Even the
remodel they did was a pretty good one. But that's
been the same. I'll tell you again, I'm referencing my Challenger,
my Hellcat. I thought that Dodge did a great job
with taking the nineteen seventies Challenger and recreating it in
(48:02):
a way that it's kind of tasty, gives that kind
of appearance. I'm I'm more surprised that, and I guess
maybe it's not important to the generation today, but the
old muscle cars, the looks of the past, whether the
old Mustangs, Challengers, the old Cheves. They made they try
to do something with the Camaro. I thought that was
a little bit short. I didn't like the Camaro, but
(48:22):
I would see too to take one of these older
vehicles and make it a new vehicle with that the
kind of style that we had back then and just
maybe round out the edges a little bit, whatever you
want to do. More creative paint jobs. My challenger, my
HEALTHCAD is plumb crazy that the purple card that was
back in the day with the that have black carbon.
It has black carbon fiber scripes on it, and the
(48:44):
anterior is fantastic as a black leather with red seat
belts deep red. And that car is not just fast,
it's a really good cars, best braking system I've ever driven. So,
I mean, those are the kind of things. But again
it's generationally speaking. The guys today, kids today, and they're
not gonna They're not into it. They're not into all
that that goody stuff. They need something that just gets
(49:05):
them from A to B. And how boring is it
to just go from A to B without any kind
of horsepower.
Speaker 1 (49:11):
Oh, I can't wait till I see you tooling down
the streets of Hazeleton in your Ford mock e Mustang EV.
Speaker 2 (49:21):
Down the road.
Speaker 3 (49:23):
Happen, I'll have some kind of stereo system. I mean, listen,
I I can't even imagine that. Never, I'll never say never,
But I don't even know why I would like. I mean,
i'd like to go down to my local gas station,
stay there for like about three minutes, fill it up,
and leave. As opposed to this charging system that you need.
I know it's gonna be an overnight thing. But again,
(49:44):
I'm just curious, how are you going to set up
all the stations necessary if you want all these everybody
to have one of those things? Where is the power
coming from? Where the rolling black just to charge these
suckers up. These batteries are gonna have to be pretty
spectacular regarding their length and and how quickly they can
be recharged, and the weight necessarily the weight so that
(50:08):
you're not just beating up our highways.
Speaker 1 (50:10):
Norway eighty percent evs. They're getting it done. That's our model.
Speaker 3 (50:15):
I got to go to Norway for five minutes.
Speaker 1 (50:19):
Well, I think we talked a lot about Aaron Judge
is sort of the hellcat of Major League Baseball right now, Joe,
So we covered a lot of ground here. So, as
you always do, you bring us home with something apropos
So good luck on this one today.
Speaker 3 (50:32):
Well, you know, I was if it actually works. I
think it does work because you're talking about growth, and
you're talking about change, adaptability, You're talking about vehicles, electric vehicles.
I'm talking about the growth or adaptability of not pitching
the judge in hot situations and taking a chance with
that and finding out if you like it or not.
My old T shirts, you've seen it in the past.
(50:52):
I want to be comfortable being uncomfortable. But this came
from Martin Denischewski who said, the moment you're comfortable, you're
no longer growing. And that's the thing I'm always worried
about me because I've always been and want to want
to try new things. I want to grow. You want
to stay out front. You want to be that avant
garde kind of a situation. You want to be there.
(51:13):
But there's there's there's parts of me that sometimes that
we've talked about this progress change, whatever you want to
call it, it's not necessarily good, it's not necessarily better.
I understand, you know, the the pollution component of all this.
I get all of that, But then again, they got
to come up. We got to come up with a
way to charge these things. You got to come up
with a power source that charges these things that also
(51:33):
does not require fossil There's there's so many interconnected things
with this that I'm just not hearing enough of Maybe
I'm not reading the right periodicals or the right propaganda.
But anyway, the moment you're comfortable, you're no longer growing.
And that's always been a concern with me. I love
being uncomfortable, because when I am, I know that there's
something good that can occur on the other side.
Speaker 1 (51:55):
I love it, and I can't wait till you're uncomfortable
plugging in your ev Oh my god, Oh I want.
Speaker 2 (52:01):
To picture that.
Speaker 3 (52:02):
God. That'd be awful. But I'll send you a photograph.
Speaker 2 (52:05):
Great job. We'll see you next time on the Book
of Joe.
Speaker 3 (52:07):
All right, Buddy be well.
Speaker 2 (52:20):
The Book of.
Speaker 1 (52:20):
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 and welcome back. You have found once again
the Book of Joe podcast. That's the most interesting podcast
about baseball and other things. I'm Tom Berducci. I'm here
(00:25):
again with Joe Madden and Joe. It's amazing. While you blinked,
half the baseball season is gone. We've just completed thirteen
weeks half the major league season.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
It's amazing how fast it goes.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
And twenty two of the thirty teams are within five
games of a playoff spot. I mean, that is just amazing.
Doesn't take much. You got teams under five hundred who
still look at themselves as contenders. And by the way,
that does not include the World champions Texas eight games
out of.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
A playoff spot.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Three teams in the American League Central right now now
are holding a playoffs spot. Three teams in the AL Central. Joe,
it's been a crazy year so far. What's your take?
Halfway through? It stands out for you.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Well, you just brought up every spring, I thought the
same thing, to get the camp, and everything goes slowly.
It's slow time. It's slow time. And then the season
begins and it's slow time. A lot of day games
days off slow time, and then it turns into fast time.
And once it does that, wow, it just unravels so quickly.
It's like a roll of toilet paper. Closer to the
(01:36):
end the faster it gets. So it's phenomenon that you
experience as a member when you're actually working the season. Now,
all these records you're talking about, I don't know. I'm
asking to myself, I have I've noticed all that obviously?
Is it good? Is it good to be so mediocre?
Is it good that mediocrity permits you then to become
part of the dance. I know, going back, even as
(01:58):
my first time manager, Gig with the Rays came up
with nine equals eight, nine players playing nine and hard
permit you to be one of the eight teams in
the playoffs. So nine equals eight and it was such
a big thing. It was not easy to do the
American League East at that time. You know, it was
Boston and New York and then we're trying to ascend
as the Rays and yet to win ninety games, ninety
some games and wouldn't even be considered. And I'm not
(02:21):
disputing I like the extra wild card team. I've said
that from the beginning because I like fan bases being engaged.
But as it then permit the more of a mediocre
approach to the season, whereas we don't have to go
five games over, then ten games over, then fifteen games
over five hundred, and then twenty games over five hundred.
That's how I always viewed the season. I used to
(02:41):
look for the team to get to those levels, and
then you knew you were cooking. When you got to
twenty over, you know you're cooking. That's like right around
ninety wins and then here we go. So it's good
for fan bases. I guess there's an engagement process, But
then teams get to the point where like should we
even be buyer? Should we stay in this thing because
there we might get to the playoffs, but our chances
(03:02):
of winning it all are minimals. So there's so many
different thoughts that are generated with this methodology. Like I said,
I'm looking at the records. Wow, I mean sub five
hundred teams are still engaged. Five hundred is almost like
become a benchmark for being good. And those are the
kind of things used to drive me nuts. It's sending
with the Raisin and ascending with the Cubs, to be
(03:24):
considered five hundred was a good thing, and I always
have always questioned that method of thinking. So when I
look at all this stuff, that's what I'm saying, it's
becomes an acceptable form of behavior. From that perspective, I
don't like it. You're right, though, the Central has become
more of a beast right now, and for a variety
of different reasons. I don't watch them closely enough to
know what I think specifically as to why I know
(03:46):
there's better young players. I get that, but these are
my thoughts. It's that's a little random stuff, but that's
that's how I view all this and those are the
kind of thoughts it conjures up within me based on
my experiences.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Joe, there's one story to me that's the biggest storyline
of this season and we need to talk about it,
and that is Aaron Judge. I almost get the sense
that people are just so used to this guy hitting
home runs that oh, well, it's Aaron.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Judge, He's supposed to do that.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
We really have to stop and take account of what
Aaron Judge is doing. He's basically breaking baseball. It's mind
bending what's going on here? Five of his last ten
fly balls have been home runs, twenty five homers in
his last forty nine games, sixty two in his last
one to sixty two. Aaron Judge is coming off a
(04:40):
fifty game stretch. This is heading into Tuesday Night, fifty
games in which is OPS was fourteen thirty. There's only
four players in the history of this game who have
had an OPS that high in a fifty game stretch. Babe,
Ruth lou gerrig Ted, Williams Barry, and now you've got
(05:05):
Aaron Judge.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
That's it.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
And if you notice, Aaron Judge is the only right
handed hitter ever to be this good for this long.
It's just remarkable to me, Joe, what's going on? And
he's actually better than ever. We're talking about a six
time All Star, obviously the American League home run record
holder for a single season MVP, and he's better than ever.
(05:30):
And I'm gonna give you some numbers as we get
into this that will just blow you away. And I
just get the sense, Joe, that he's not getting his
proper due for some reason.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
We're looking at something truly historic.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
Agreed, And I listen, he I'm just thinking about this.
First of all, when you talk about his offensive numbers.
I love his swing. We all love his swing. I mean,
of course he gets in the moments of chasing pitches.
We all did all do. But damn, I love his swing.
I love the way that he's compact. He's quick, he's
got that little bit of a tilt that gets the
ball in the ear, which he's trying to do. But
(06:02):
it's almost being that tall. The bats almost has to
work in that matter. It's being possible from the swing
completely down from that, from that being that tall. I
think it starts with that. Mechanically, he's really really good. Mentally,
he's very, very tough. And you're right, I mean, you're
seeing all of this. There's no reason for it to
stop abruptly. It's going to continue for a bit. Early
(06:24):
in the year, he was struggling. Everybody's you know, saying
different things. That's the ebb and flow of a major
league baseball season. You can't be perfect all year. But
all of that, Okay, that's the one thing. But the
thing I love about him is he is the captain.
He is the captain of that team. The way he
handles himself and the way the players follow him when
he speaks. It's so well thought out but so effortless.
(06:48):
It comes to him naturally, and I don't know, you know,
what has youth looked like and as a midsure of
football or Little League baseball or at Fresno State, whatever
it was, but he does it in an effortless manner
that he is a leader and the players follow when
he speaks. In his demeanor, it screams at me. The
other day that incident with the Yankees in Toronto, and
(07:08):
Stroman got all upset when tourists didn't turn the double play,
which still he had no reason toy. I kind of
seen the videos that's there was nothing really disdainful about
the turn, but the way he handled it in the
dugout when they showed Scroman sneaking up behind him, probably
looking for validation from judge or what did he think
about it? And I thought he handled it beautifully. He's
(07:30):
just like, you know, looking over his shoulder talking to him.
There's no animation and pretty much I think he was
telling him, we don't do that here. And that's the
line I love. When you have a leader in your
clubhouse and you get somebody new in the situation, veteran
or not. And if they get outside of the room
and you're a really successful group and use somebody that
judge you handles himself so well the line we don't
(07:51):
do that here. I love that line, and that line
screams at your culture and what it's about. Just fall
in line, and this is how we became successful. It's
going to be successful. So everything's being said about on
the field physically, and I get it. It's absolutely deserve it.
But I love the way hands being a captain of
the New York Yankees. You know, Derek was really good
(08:12):
at it, obviously, and there was others before him, but
I don't know that anybody's handled it better than he has.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
Yeah, I mean to borrow your terminology. He's a complete
level five player. All he cares about is winning, yeah, right,
And he is definitively Aaron Boone's lead. Bull Boone goes
to him all the time now to talk about things
within the team, clubhouse, lineups, you name it. If there's
something Aaron Boone wants to know about or run by
the group, he goes straight to Aaron Judge. So he
(08:41):
is truly a captain I talked about the numbers, Joe.
We're in a situation now or a time period here
where the batting average of Major League Baseball is the
worst it's been since the mound was lowered in nineteen
sixty nine. So what he's doing offensively is just shouldn't
be happening in this state of high velocity and pitchers
going into the pitch labs to create different shapes on
(09:02):
their pitches. And it's incredible the numbers that he can
put up when it's literally harder to get a hit
in the game today that it's been in the last
fifty five years. That being said, this blows me away,
and this is totally counterintuitive.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Aaron Judge.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
This year, we just talked about how great he's been.
He's getting more pitches to hit than ever before in
his career. More pitches in the strike zone to Aaron Judge,
are being thrown now than at any point in his career.
He is up to basically forty nine percent in the
strike zone, and when you throw him a pitch into
(09:39):
the strike zone, he's slugging eight twenty eight. Now, why
is this going on. It's the Wan Soto effect. It's
as simple as that Wan Soto is on base more
than anybody in the league, and he bats in front
of Aaron Judge. So Aaron Judge this year is taking
fifty point five percent of his bats with somebody on base.
(10:01):
Last year it was forty percent. And if you look
at pitches in the zone, when pitchers have to pitch
to Aaron Judge with somebody on base, they're throwing him
more strikes. So, as counterintuitive as it is, Joe, pitchers
actually are throwing Aaron Judge. We just talked about how
he's on the greatest, one of the greatest fifty game
(10:23):
runs in baseball history, and pitchers are throwing him more
in the zone than ever before.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
I wouldn't.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
I wouldn't either, Hey, listen.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
I talked to Carlos Mendoza after, you know, he was
up by six, let's see it, with six runs, holding
a six run leave, with four outs to go, bases loaded.
He thought about walking Aaron Judge with the bases loaded
up six and of course Judge did.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Hit a grand Slam and made it a two run game.
So I'm with you.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
I'd much rather pitch to Aaron Judge and walk him
then challenge him.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
I don't care who's on base.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
Josh Hamilton did it with him with the bases loaded,
because he could have tied the game in Texas. I
remember the exact year. There's different times it is prudent.
I mean to really pitch them under those circumstances. And
why are they pitched to him at all? And why
would you be so afraid with one guy on base,
now multiple or even with multiple runners because post Judge
in the lineup. I know Verdugo has been doing a
(11:18):
decent job, but there's nobody scary after Judge. I don't
Stanton can be, but still I prefer taking my chances
there over Judge or Soto any day of the week.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Well, let me let me stop you right there, because
Verdugo is not doing a decent job. He should not
be hitting four. Okay, he doesn't hit left handed pitching
at all. He's an average major league hitter. This again
speaks to how amazing Aaron Judges. Yeah, Yankee cleanup hitters
get this. They're hitting two oh eight, the two sixty
(11:48):
three on base percentage and a five ninety ops. Those
are the lowest numbers in Yankee's history in the live
ball era. So Aaron Judge has the worst number four
hitters behind him in the history the Yankees franchise and
he's still going off. And by the way, going back
to every team, it's the fourth lowest ops of any
(12:13):
team in the last one hundred and five seasons. That's
the number four spot behind Aaron Judge. And he's seeing
more pitches well.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
And the analytically speaking, and that's just you talk about
red flags. I know that analytics and analysts do not
like intentional walks. And I'm not saying you're an intentional
walk them all the time, but there's a big thing
about that. I mean, they don't want to walk people,
they don't want to put people on base because I
know it's discouraged from intentionally walking people. As the long
(12:40):
read was involved as a manager, and to me that
was you know again, okay, we go back to Bryce
Harper situation with the Cubs. We walked them. I don't
know how many times in that four game series, nobody
said anything because we're very successful with it, right, But
as it got later and it become more prominent anything,
anytime something becomes a hot topic in the analytical world,
(13:02):
everybody shares that and everybody starts Tott drinking from that
same pool. And so anyway to walk him, I don't
know that they even talk about it or they pursue
that enough because oh, you're putting another guy on base.
We don't like to do that kind of a conversation.
So I'm betting I didn't know all this stuff specifically,
but I'm betting the second half of the season you're
(13:23):
going to see a different method. He's going to be
walked more often. It's like pitching the Barry Bonds. I mean,
why so if we're playing him, I mean that'd be
the first thing I would talk about going into this series.
I get my pitching coach, my bullpen coach, and the office,
and we're not going to pitch this guy if we
don't have to. And I don't even know when you
have to. It's just you know, game situation, maybe game
on line late, and there's no other options. If you
(13:45):
walk him, they win. I mean, you stay away from him,
and I know that's you know, what the baseball world
wants to see. They want to see Aaron Judge hit,
but I want to win. So to me, you take
the bat out of his hand. It's pretty simple.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Yeah, I agree, especially when he's this hot. And again
he's been hot for two months. Remember he had that
slow start to the season, basically didn't get enough reps
in spring training. He was hurt in spring training, and
it was and I remember looking at Aaron early.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
In the season. The swing was the same, the setup
was the same, timing was just off. That was all
it was.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
You know, three weeks later, it's a bullet home run
the right field in those seats in Yankee Stadium, and
I'm like, this dude's back.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
He really does get back with one swing like that.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
By the way, Joe I got to point out talking
about the worst cleanup spots in the live ball era
going back to nineteen twenty, the lowest ops belongs to
the nineteen ninety two Angels.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
CAP Hugh B.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Brooks was their most used cleanup hitter in nineteen ninety two.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
I thought he'd enjoy that one.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
Such a good guy. Hube was such a good guy.
I wasn't there yet. I mean I threw to Hugbe
a lot in batting practice in spring training. I was
Doug Rader yet, right, Doug was the manager I think
at that time. But yeah, the Angels at that time
we had Von Hayes I think was a part of
that group. If I remember correctly. It wasn't the best
team on the field. But that is interesting. But I'll
(15:07):
defend Huby Brooks. He's a wonderful human.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Being, great guy. Loved him.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
Yeah, so your worst cleanup spot since nineteen twenty the
ninety two Angels, the twenty twenty two Marlins with Hazy
sagui Lar, the nineteen eighty one Cleveland team with Andre Thornton,
and now the twenty twenty four Yankees wow with Alex
Verdugo providing quote unquote protection for Aaron Judge. It just
goes to show Joe and I've always thought this protection
(15:36):
is about who's in front of you.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
It's not behind you.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
I mean, you have to pitch to guys when they're
in situations with runners on base, no matter who's behind you.
If the bases are empty, you can take your time
with somebody and not challenge them.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
I still wouldn't pitch to him. I mean again, that's like,
you know, I left the beauties in the eyes of
the beholder. How do I want to approach this or
get beat I regardless, I'm all about protection. Because as
a manager, if he's not protected, he's not getting pitched too,
regardless of who's in front of him. For me, but
you're right, getting on base, there's some interesting thoughts that
(16:10):
enter your mind because there's somebody in front of him there. However,
if the Yankees had him more formidable behind him, yeah,
you gotta go with it, you gotta do it. You
know the Red Sox when they were really good, when
Manny and David were in that middle. Yeah, I mean
there was there was still some protection after that. But
if there's not man you just don't throw to these guys.
(16:31):
I did in the National League. I would identify before
the game the slot I did not like or the
guy did not like, and that guy got treated differently,
And that was simple as that.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
I think you're right. I think that's what we're going
to start seeing here.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
As hot as he's been, it makes no sense to
be throwing Aaron Judge more pitches in the zone than
he's ever seen before when he's got nothing behind him.
We are going to take a quick break here, Joe,
but when we get back, there's more I want to
explore with Aaron Judge, because you mentioned the possibility now
of pitching around him more. What happens when you try
to get Aaron Judge to chase. We'll talk about that.
(17:04):
And I also wanted to bring up something I have
never seen before on a pitcher's mound in Major League Baseball,
and I'm curious if Joe has. We'll talk about that
right after this. Welcome back to the Book of Joe podcast.
(17:28):
It's I guess it's our Aaron Judge edition. I mean,
he's good enough and big enough where he does deserve
his own edition at this podcast. Here I mentioned and
you mentioned Joe that you know, you really should start
pitching around Aaron Judge. Moore, you know, here's part of
the problem. You can't get this guy to chase. Aaron
Judge's chase rate is nineteen and a half percent, and
that ties his career low, which.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Was last year. Major league average hitter chases.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
About twenty eight percent of the time, so he's not
going outside of the zone. So you just have to
sign up for the fact that if you try to
pitch him out of the zone to get him a chase,
you're not going to get him out. So just sign
up for the fact that, yeah, okay, pitch carefully to him,
but you're probably going to walk him. This guy is
going to take his walks. I've never seen him Joe
(18:13):
as hot as he is in full time swing mode,
you know, like you said, he'll he'll swing and miss
like everybody else.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Once in a while. You see him on off speed stuff,
the top hand comes off the bat. It happens. But
I've never seen him what I would classify as swing mode.
Speaker 3 (18:28):
Yeah, I agree. I mean that's the it's Barry Bonds,
like I'm saying. I mean, Bonds would do the same thing.
I mean his on base percentage of slugs and all
that stuff were ridiculous. Two thousand and two World Series.
We going to that thing. Well, he hasn't seen us yet,
he hasn't seen our pictures yet. We got our own
plan designed for him. You know, he hasn't seen any
of this yet. And then after one game we figured
(18:48):
out no yet, Yeah he has, and then you have
to make an adjustment at that point where you're going
to lose. I'm okay with that. I'm okay with us walking,
pitching around him, whatever you want to call it. The
thing I always attempted to do is to test his
patience you know, after a while, if he stay there,
does he just make himself swing because he's just kind
of fed up with not getting pitches to hit. Nobody
(19:08):
on base different Again, you could be a little bit
more challenging. It's just to me, it's just the opposite.
Nobody on base, I challenge him, Guys on base, I'm
gonna be less apt to do that, regardless of somebody
on base. And again it comes down to his hitting
behind him. It's simple equation for me. It's not gonna
work the other way. He's gonna stay as hot, he's
gonna beat you up. Last point, Contending teams really have
(19:30):
to be considered of that. If you're not contending team,
it's different. Of course you want to win, but nevertheless,
you can be a little bit more assertive going after him,
just because the game's not as meaningful to you. But
if I'm Baltimore and those other teams that are really,
you know, right there with them, I got to be
really careful with this. Although they're gonna think that their
pitchers are going to be different and then they're able
that they're gonna be able to handle them, they're going
(19:52):
to find out that's not true. Especially like you said,
to be this torrid, it ain't gonna happen. So for me,
like I said, I there's always I've always wanted us
to adapt to the other team's best hit and what
you do, it's a mental component. And when you do that, truthfully,
the guy behind him that knows that this guy's getting
picture on her walk to face me, there's a certain
(20:14):
amount of mental discomfort with that. It bothers you and
it's hard to focus and I really got to come through,
and there's more pressure involved. So there's all those little
mind games that can be incorporated. I like the mind games.
I like to plant the seed of doubt. I like
to make guys think and get outside of their own
regular methods because when you get outside of the comfort
zone and create doubt, it can work in your benefit.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
Yeah, and that's why Jeff Kent was so good behind
Barry Bonds. He actually was better with runners on base
than he was a base as empty.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
He took it as a challenge.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
If you know Jeff Kent, you can you can definitely
understand that mental point of view where it didn't bother him.
It probably you know, raised his game. And it reminded
me Joe what you did with Bryce Harper with you know,
Ryan Zimmerman and ground ball hitter behind him. And to me,
Harper was a guy who's in swing mode a lot,
so you can disrupt him by not throwing him strikes.
(21:06):
I just think with Aaron Judge, and I'm agree with you, Joe,
don't throw him somebody strikes and just walk him. But
I don't think you're going to put him into a
funk the way you did with Bryce Harper, because Bryce
Harper is like a shooter in basketball, he needs to
swing the bat. Aaron Judge is not that way. I mean,
he's so economical with damage to swing ratio.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
Well, Harper was younger at that time too. I mean,
Judge is pretty mature as a baseball player and where
he's at in his life and his own skin. So
I think there was a difference with that. And you're
right that was based on Zimmerman hitting behind him, and
they had Anthony Rendone who was swinging the bat well
at that time, and Daniel Murphy and Murph didn't care
if you were a left handed or right handed pitcher
(21:47):
at all. So the fact that they didn't manipulate their
lineup if they had, I would definitely would have done
something differently. I would not have just walked him if
Murph was behind him, or for sure Anthony was behind him,
would not have done it. But the fact that Zimmerman
was and Zimmerman was not going good at that time.
So again, these are all the Every game is different,
every set of fingerprints are different, and you got to
(22:08):
just read what's going on right now. That's where I'm
into trends and not necessarily the big picture. There's times
when the big picture fits defense. It always fits. How
I'm going to pitch the tom Berducci it always fits.
But in the line of construction I'm going to pitch
to whatever. Who am I going to pitch out of
the bullpen? Changes based on trends, and you got to
pay attention to them.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
How about this.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
The two hitters who have seen the most pitches when
they're ahead of the count are Juan Soto and Aaron Judge.
I mean they just control counts because you know, pitchers
tend to fall behind they nibble.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
But here's the issue.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Do not try to challenge Aaron Judge once you fall
behind him when pitchers throw him a fastball in the zone.
When they're behind the count, he slugs nine to thirty.
I mean he hits four nineteen and slugs nine to thirty.
So well, when I see two three to one counts
and someone thinks they're going to get back into the
(23:07):
count with a fastball to Aaron Judge, just sign up
for the walk, dude, don't challenge him with a fastball.
But it's amazing that back to back you're watching Soto
and Judge, who control the count more than any other
two hitters in baseball, and they're hitting back to back
in the lineup.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
Again, the American League is used to be wrought with
those kind of players, and at that time with the
Rays Andrew, the big thought there was you need to
find pitchers that can get these kind of hitters out
within the strike zone. Not easy to do. You know,
UCLSS Kevin was really good at controlling this. You could
go up and down the lineups. So these different teams
(23:45):
really good at controlling they're at bats in regards to
their strike zones. So you have to find pitchers that
can get hitters out within the strike zone. That's that's
the whole thing. Now, I don't even know who those
guys are. These days. You know the fact that there's
so much just time spent on velocity as opposed to pitching,
and and how that plays out and what that means.
I can't break that down this quickly right now, but
(24:08):
I do know philosophically, in order to win with in
the American Leagueese, the big part of our ascension was
getting pictures that can get hitters out within the strike zone.
Matt Garza getting him Guards had a real good sinker,
nice slider through ninety three to ninety four downhill, okay,
and then of course James Shill's a devastating changeups. David
Price came in with his stuff. Alex Cobb one of
(24:30):
the best splitters I've ever seen in person. Getting him
out in the strike zone, it'd be a strike ball
with two strikes. We had a bunch of those guys.
Way Davis was the starter, then became a bullpen guy,
but he was a starter with us, Jake McGee, we
had some really good arms. These guys had to get
these hitters out in the strike zone. That's what you
need in order to beat the Yankees. That would be
(24:51):
the ultimate way to do that. So if you don't
want to have to pitch around these guys or worry
about protection and on protection, you have to develop a
cadre of starting pitchers that are able to get hitters
out within the strikeland. That's got to be your model.
That's got to be the proving round for why they're
in your organization, on your team, on your major league team,
(25:12):
that you believe these guys can do that. And that's
what we had to do with the race.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
I'm glad you brought that up, Joe, because you understand
that in today's game, it's a lot about matchups, especially
when you get to the postseason. You know, going into
a game, who you want on the other team's best
hitters in a big spot in the seventh, eighth, or
ninth inning. That's pretty much driving the game today, especially
in the postseason for me. And you better have someone
(25:38):
who can get that pocket. Now. Of course, obviously he
has to pitch to at least three betters, Aaron Judge,
if you go back just a couple of years ago,
you could bring in guys who had good, hard two
seemers that run in on his hands and then flip
a slider down on a way.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
That's the way you got him out and.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Teams would do that in the postseason, run the ball
in on his hands with some velocity, especially above his hands,
maybe even off the plate, but certainly on the inside corner.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
Don't do that anymore. I think Aaron.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
Judge has closed that hole and he's an absolute nightmare
matchup for an opposing manager. His slugging percentage against right
handed pitchers is seven oh nine. Against lefties it's seven
oh three. I mean, he is destroying right handed sinkers,
which used to give him a little bit of a
problem career best three seventy two average against it. So
(26:29):
that's the problem for me with Aaron Judge. Yeah, you
can walk them, but there's going to be times late
in the game where you're gonna have to pitch the
Soto and Judge with the game on the line. And
if I'm a manager at this point, Joe, I don't
know what type of picture I want to face Aaron
Judge because he's covering just about everything.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
And that to me was the same case with David Ortiz.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
You know, when he first came up with the Red
Sox and he was banging the ball everywhere, he still
had a hole above his hands on velocity in he
closed that and there was no way to get him
out in the postseason. So for me as an opposing manager,
Aaron Judge, I really I don't know where you go.
Speaker 3 (27:09):
Again, I haven't You're right, and I haven't had a
chance to study it more closely in a couple of years.
But those are the things I would look at, and
like you just mentioned, the latter part of the game
and learning the latter part of the game. If you
have a lead, these are your better guys in the
latter part of the game. If you are behind, he's
going to see some cookies. They're going to be the
less stand They're not going to be the even or
(27:30):
ahead bullpen. I always want it minimum for even ahead
relief pitchers. Minimum, whereas you can bring them in a
game when the scores even or you're ahead, and you
feel good that they're going to maintain that or the
either the tie or the fact that you're ahead. Certain
guys pitch better in deficits, and other guys are just
they're there because you don't want to use them in
(27:52):
these higher leverage situations. They're there to suck up some
innings and hopefully get lucky. Although I do love the
concept of the middle inning reliever that holds a small
lead or even a small deficit if you have a
good offense. JP Out and Grant Balfour where those guys.
Those guys taught me that in two thousand and eight.
So there's just so much to think about here. And again,
(28:12):
when it comes down to construction of these bullpens, it's
pretty much based on velocity, and i'd have to again,
I haven't looked at it in a while, watch games
a little bit on TV. I do, but to break
it down and look at what these guys because I
got to see stuff in person. For me to really
tell you exactly what I think, it's got to go
beyond a video, a television performance or something i've read.
I got to see this stuff with my own eyeballs,
(28:33):
and that's where I really draw my conclusions. And then
I kind of morphed together the written information, the data,
the video whatever with what I'm seeing. The competitive value
of this guy, how the ball comes out of his hand,
what does he look like in a hot moment. All
these things matter. So to really achieve and get guys
like this out, it's not easy, and sometimes it's almost impossible.
(28:55):
But It's all about that, to nurture pictures that can
get guys out within a strike zone because they don't shack.
And god, is that fun. It is so fun when
we ascend it with the Rays to what we did
in the late two thousands there of two thousand and eight, nine, ten, whatever,
we had a bunch of guys we were really we
(29:16):
could catch the ball, and we got pictures that could
get guys out in the strike zone, and that's what
started the ascension of the race.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
One last note of context here.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Hitting by outfielders in the Major leagues this year stinks,
absolutely stinks.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
Right.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
Batting average is two thirty nine, the OPS is seven
oh five. Those are the worst numbers since nineteen sixty nine,
since the mound was lowered. Jose Siri of the Rays,
who's not a good offensive player, has an average OPS.
He is your average hitting outfielder right now. So let's
put this in the context. We're talking about it's harder
(29:52):
to get a hit in the major league season this
year than anytime in the last fifty five years. Outfield
production is the worst it's been in fifty five years.
The Yanke Keys have the worst cleanup hitters in the
history of the franchise, and Aaron Judge is halfway to
sixty two home runs halfway through the season. It's just incredible.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
What's going on.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
Well, part of my philosophy, my theories on that is
that a lot of the outfielders are playing shortstop guys
like the short Daily Cruise and Cruise with the Pirates.
These are guys that normally would be in outfielders, and
I don't know why we're force feeding them into the infield.
They're really tall, it's difficult for them to make certain
kind of plays. So I think you're seeing shorts trying
(30:39):
to make shortstop more of an offensive position, and you're
getting guys that normally would have been outfielders on the infield.
That's my perspective, and again I'm not seeing them in person.
This is things that just I'm looking at, and I
think that's part of why we're seeing less production in
the infield that hire a greater production and shortstop. I'd
be curious that even you know, I've talked about Boba shit,
(30:59):
all these guys to me belong in the outfield. From
what I can see, Lookie Betts is moving back to
the outfield or apparently, so there's been like walking away
from there, the smaller shortstop, more defense over offense kind
of a thing. But to me, we talked about this,
Anthony Bolpi, to me is the perfect shortstop. He hits
plenty enough, but the guy can pick it at shortstop.
(31:20):
If you walk away from defense up the middle, you're
definitely going to be injured at some point. And I
don't know how if you get enough offense to mitigate
what you're not getting on defense with offense. So look
at that too. I think there's been a push. Again.
I have to see there in person, but it appears
to me that more outfielders are playing in the infield now,
and with that, you're seeing less production in the outfield,
(31:43):
and then I'm seeing less really good actions are throwing ability,
consistent accuracy from the infielders.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
Well, you're not wrong.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
I mean, listen, the general population is getting much bigger.
You just look at other sports height in the NBA,
size in the NFL.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
It's the same case in Major League Baseball.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
I mean, we've got guys more than two hundred pounds
playing shortstop. Twenty three, twenty four years old Gunner Henderson,
Ellie de la Cruz, Bobby Witch, Junior, cj Abrams, O'Neill, Cruz.
It's it's amazing this generation of shortstops who are six
to two hundred and twenty pounds, who can still run
like the wind and play the position.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
I think they're all shortstops.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
I just think we have to recalibrate our minds at
what a shortstop looks like. And let's face it, there
are a fewer ground balls in the game today. They
are more strikeouts, So you're not the shortstop is not
being asked to field as many ground balls as Ozzie
Smith did. I get that, but for some reason, we're
not developing, especially center fielders. Besides the shortstops who could
play the outfield. We're just not seeing those great hitters
(32:44):
in the outfield. Joe I had mentioned. I saw something
in Colorado. It involves our buddy, Buddy Black. There was
a situation tenth thenning where the Brewers had I think
it was nine people on the mound if I counted correctly,
you know they've walked two guys to load the bases
in a tie game with one out, set up a
(33:05):
forced play all around, and the pitching coach and Ricky Weeks,
the bench manager came out to the mound and they
brought in one of the outfielders to make a five
man infield.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
So you have a five infielders, the pitcher to catch.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Her, and a pitching coach and the bench coach and
Bud Black came out and I'm assuming his argument was
is that even legal? How do you have two guys
from the dugout at a mound meeting and should account
as a double visit and now you have to make
a move.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
I mean they let it go the next pitch.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
Actually, the Rockies won the game on the very next
pitch on a single by Jake Cave.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
But I've never seen two guys from the dugout come
out to the mound. Now.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
Ricky Weeks was carrying an infield glove because one of
the outfielders, I think was South Freelick, wanted to use
the infielders glove to play the infield. I get that,
but they actually were having conversations with players, both the
pitching coach and the bench coach on the mound in
that situation. I don't even know if that's legal, but
it certainly odd out of got nuts.
Speaker 3 (34:06):
I don't think it's legal. I think you could bring
an interpreter out there if one of these guys needed
an interpreter, that would be somebody separate from a coach. Yeah,
I don't think that's legal. I'm really curious to hear
what the result is, but I think I'd have been
really upset had I seen that. My original intentions back
in the day when I started doing that. You're talking
about a defensive situation. My original intent was to have
(34:27):
a defensive coach go out to the mound, like fully
Tom Foley and Tampa Bay if we had something going
on defense as a five man if you would ever
bunt defense latter part of the game, let them go
out there as opposed to me or the pitching coach,
and more talk to the infielders than the pitcher about,
you know, the situation it had. I've always thought that
might be an interesting way to do it. Although part
(34:48):
of it was I felt really comfortable with those moments
because actually it was a big part of all the
defensive setups. But I always thought that might be an
interesting thing to do, is to send a other than
coach through out there based on the situation, but to
have two guys go out there if once not an interpreter,
I don't think that's right. I'm with you.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
Obviously, Buddy Black was.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
I mean, he didn't get any kind of resolution for
the umpires, but he was I don't want to say
he was livid. He was more puzzled than anything else,
saying what the heck is going on here? By the way,
that anting started, Remember it's extra innings. You get the
runner on second base, it's a tie game. You're the
home team. To me, Joe, you have to bunt that
(35:27):
runner to third base, right, I mean, get the guy
to third base.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
You win the game with any.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
Kind of an out. Essentially, the batter is Michaeltolia. He's
hitting one eighty five and he's swinging away. But get this,
he's swinging away because he has had more than two
thousand played appearances as a professional baseball player and has
zero sacrifice bunts. So Buddy Black can't ask him the
(35:53):
bunt because he literally has never done it as a professional.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
Now, he did move the runner. He had a long
fly ball, so the result was fine.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
But man, that chaps me when I got into the
big leagues and it's an obvious bunt situation and you
can't do it because the guy doesn't know.
Speaker 3 (36:09):
How brother it is. It's really difficult, and that goes
that speaks to I know, this goes to the minor
leagues I've had. I've had players that Carl Crawford was
very had a very difficult time bunning. Although you didn't
really want CC to bump, but there was the bun
for him. But Carl tried in the minor leagues but
really had very stiff technique and wasn't able to do it.
For me. When you're warning a minor league organization, you're
(36:32):
the guy on the boots on the ground, you're the
guy the coordinator. Regardless of where a guy hits in
the lineup, except if it's like a Timmy. There's certain
guys that you know you're not going to ask the
butt in a situation, although you still give them some technique.
You never know, You just ever know, but you don't.
But the guys that really are going to be called
on for it, they have to bunt in the minor
leagues have to. If a guy hasn't and you try
(36:54):
to make him or have him understand how to do it,
on a major league level, it's hard to teach them.
It's very difficult. It's difficult to give them technique. And then,
like you're saying, if a guy's not adept at it,
you don't put the play on because he's going to
be O two before you know, there's gonna be two
strikes on him, and then all of a sudden, he's
gonna have one pitch to swing at. That's our own fault.
When I first got to the Angels in twenty twenty, right, yeah,
(37:15):
twenty twenty, I found out that the bunding was not
taught at all in the minor league for like the
previous two or three years, not at all. That was
not part of the landscape. It was it was not
what we do here at that time. That's my favorite phrase.
But in that regard, so, how do you get young guys,
how do you ask them to do something that they've
never done before? The people, Oh, you just square around,
you do this. It's difficult, man. When you square around,
(37:37):
you don't even know how to square around, and the
ball's coming at you inside, retch your head a little bit,
you know how to get out of the way. Very uncomfortable,
just to put that bat and even it out and
put the ball butt down on the ground first or
third base whatever, like we've done for years with the
safety squeeze to the right side. They can't have they
can't even come close to doing that anything you want
in your major league team. And again you're talking about
(37:59):
guys that may have been acquired and came from somewhere else,
and then you're really kind of screwed. You got to
get everything done in the minor leagues that you want
to happen on the major league level. Have to have
to no excuses. There's plenty of time. You're not giving
up at bats. These kids could get four hundred at
bass five hundred played appearances during the course of a
minor league season if you had it by twenty times
(38:20):
with put percentage of all those number of played appearances.
Are those twenty times to do something that may be
very useful down the road. I listen, I'm that hitting
the opposite way left handed hitter is bunny against the shift.
All that stuff needs to be done on the minor
league level and is not because it's not perceived as
being important till it's not unimportant till.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
It is amen to that.
Speaker 1 (38:43):
Hey, one of the things we like talking about here
on this show is cars and Joe. I know you're
a guy you love literally the roar of an engineer.
So I have a hard time picturing you behind the
wheel of an EV. And apparently you're not alone. What
is going on with cars and electric vehicles? We're going
to talk about that next on the Book of Joe.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
Welcome back to the Book of Joe podcast.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
Joe, Am I right, do I have the hard time
picturing you behind the wheel of a very quiet EV?
Speaker 3 (39:27):
You know me so well. I mean, I got to
hear my vehicles. I was driving my van around yesterday.
It's got the side pipes on it. It's glorious. And
I know there's a lot of folks who are going
to talk about, you know, the fossil fuels and the
emissions and whatever. Tell me, on an average street here
in Hazleton, if everybody's required me and these are narrow streets,
you know, the electrical outlets are not there. If everybody
(39:50):
had to own an EV and they're supposed to like
charge them up at the end of the night, end
of the day, what is that going to look like.
We're gonna have extension cords going across the street at night.
What happens when it snows you have to pull the
cords in and don't charge the cars. There's a lot
of the issues here that need to be worked out
that are not even spoken about. And how do you
even generate or create the power to charge these up?
And how about the weight of these things beating up
(40:12):
our roads? No, I'm not into it. I'm not into
it at all, quite frankly, and know you will not see.
I might drive one just for the heck of it,
but I like the roar of the engine. I do.
My Hellcat is seven hundred and some horsepower and I
love it. I got a three point fifty Chevelle with
the six speed Trimmix that I love, and that that
van sitting outside has got a three sixty in it,
(40:34):
you know, at a four barrel and it runs so well.
It's fun. I love to hear what I'm driving.
Speaker 2 (40:39):
Well, we can get you an EV that has virtuals.
Speaker 3 (40:42):
Instead of doing that. Yeah, right, that's stinks. That's things.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
But apparently, as I said, you're not alone. Listen.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
But that was over in London for the Mets Phillies games.
Virtually every uber I took and the brides I had
to and from the airport were evs. I mean, they
had many more evs than what I've seen here in
the States, and the numbers show it. In the last
quarter of last year, the UK was at an EV
rate of seventeen point six percent. The US is half
(41:09):
of that at eight point one percent. We have not
adapted to the ev especially when it comes to the
European countries. How about in Norway eighty percent of their
vehicles are evs. I mean, China is up to twenty
four percent, and that's going up because they've found a
way now to build evs that are extremely cheap, and
(41:32):
they're taking off. But the US is not taking off
because of what you mentioned, Joe. People have range anxiety.
They think they're going to run out of power. It
doesn't go far enough. We want cars, and we've talked
about this before. US auto manufacturers are not making sedanza anymore.
It's a race to build things that are bigger and
bigger because someone else is driving an SUV and you
(41:54):
don't want to get smashed by one of those, so
you have to get something big yourself.
Speaker 2 (41:59):
So we're going to change. We have to change.
Speaker 1 (42:03):
But the auto industry and they're working on this joe.
Speaker 2 (42:07):
They're working on the range.
Speaker 1 (42:08):
Apparently GMC is coming out with the Sierra truck that
supposedly is going to have four hundred and fifty miles
of range. You know, we've gotten over the three hundred
range barrier, although in real life when people are actually
using their air conditioner and if you've got a pickup
truck you're pulling something, you're not getting those kind of
range miles.
Speaker 2 (42:26):
That's basically in a lab.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
So until they fix these batteries and until the power
infrastructure to recharge is more available, right, it is not
going to scale up. And we are so far behind
the rest of the world in terms of scaling up.
It's going to come, but I'm shocked that it hasn't
come more quickly, especially in terms of whatever the next
(42:50):
generation of batteries are.
Speaker 2 (42:52):
But we have to get there. We will get there.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
I'm just surprised because you would think the economic incentive
is there.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
There's still a lot of room, a lot of room
for growth.
Speaker 3 (43:01):
It's going to take a while, like you said, and
if even when it does occur, and I think the
bigger problem, like you're talking about, is how do we
charge these things up? If you live in an apartment
complex building with this huge garage downstairs, how does everybody get,
say shiated on a nightly basis recharging their vehicles? And
I just think for a reality, the United States is
(43:22):
so vast and for us to do what we want
to do independently, even if it's going to work or
vacation whatever, how do we do that. These other countries
are describing are very small. They're not big to go
from one end of the island to the other, nor
a we whatever is where you're actually have population and
you want to be on a daily basis is different.
So they're more able to navigate in a country like that,
(43:46):
because it's like the size of a state. If you
noted to say that Pennsylvania could only have it has
to have electric vehicles by whatever twenty to say, twenty forty,
much more reasonable to think that it can occur as
opposed to the United States with all the different so
vast and all the different items to be over come
in order for that to occur. So smaller the country,
(44:07):
the more finite England, same way easier to get done.
I think when you're talking about something as vast as
the United States, that probably becomes exponentially more difficult, and
I think that's part of the issue too.
Speaker 1 (44:17):
Yeah, first quarter of this year, new vehicle sales were
up five point one percent, but EV sales were up
only three point three percent, so they're actually lagging behind
the internal combustion engine, old school fossil fuel vehicles. By
the way, I get your point about smaller countries. And
you know, we like to think we're all going to
be driving thousands of miles on trips just because we can.
(44:42):
But Germany, which loves their cars, I mean, you know
at the Autobahn, right, Yeah, they're up to twenty percent
EV sales.
Speaker 3 (44:50):
But evs are fast. They're fast, I'm telling you, I know,
that's why they like it.
Speaker 2 (44:56):
We just I mean, we're all about convenience here in
the States.
Speaker 1 (45:00):
But our friends in Italy, Joe, have not gone crazy
for the EV quite yet.
Speaker 3 (45:04):
There you go, That's that's all you do there.
Speaker 2 (45:07):
It's an option of the EV.
Speaker 1 (45:09):
They're at five point four percent, so they still want
their Ferraris and Italian sports cars and the roar of
the engines.
Speaker 3 (45:18):
The ancestors of Da Vinci and Michelangelo have spoken. They
they know, they know what's what's important. They know it's necessary,
they know what's what's a fat it's gonna go away,
and one that has longevity. I'm you know we I
shouldn't say I we are into whatever the Italians think.
I'm into it.
Speaker 2 (45:37):
Well, it's coming.
Speaker 1 (45:38):
Like I said, there's a next generation of batteries coming out.
Speaker 2 (45:42):
It's called the ULTM battery.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
And if we get that number up to four fifty
for an suv and pickup truck, maybe we're going to
get more people on board. But until we get there,
the sales have lagged, There's no question about it. I
thought it would be like color TVs. When color TVs
came out, they were super expensive. People were kind of
freaked out by it, and then all of a sudden,
the price came down and people would adopted very very
(46:05):
quickly to it. I think the adoption of the EV
in the States has been a lot slower than it
should be.
Speaker 3 (46:10):
Yeah, listen, I'm with you. I've never been interested. I
mean the styling with some of the new that you
talk about, the German cars and even some of the
Japanese cars now they're they're a little bit more stylish.
Although the Tesla to me is like one of the
most utilitarian, boring looking vehicles I've ever seen. So I
part of part of you know, cars, is the style
(46:31):
of the car. We've talked about this something that's identifiable differently, colors,
all that kind of stuff. So I don't even know.
Is that nostalgia speaking, Is that the fact that I'm
over forty speaking right now? I don't know. But there's
a part about cars that if you're really into them,
it goes well beyond what's under the hood. Although we
do like power under the hood, but there's a certain
(46:54):
art form about them too that are different. So I
hope that if they do continue this method moving forward,
that they consider that and if it guess at the
point where style doesn't matter anymore, that really bothers me.
Speaker 1 (47:05):
Even also, no style always matters, you know, vehicles, as
utilitarian as they are and can be, there are emotional investments.
I mean, you buy it because you like the look
of it, and you figure out ways to kind of
reinforce that gut feeling you have about the way a
car looks. And I'm with you on Tesla. They came out,
(47:25):
they look great, but they haven't changed the style at all.
They haven't updated it. Now they need to work on
it because their sales are lagging. You see a twenty
twenty four TESTLA, you can't tell the difference between the
twenty twenty one or a twenty twenty, so they are
definitely due for a style upgrade.
Speaker 3 (47:40):
Volkswagen nailed that down though. The old bug Yes, look
the same back in whatever till they remodeled. Even the
remodel they did was a pretty good one. But that's
been the same. I'll tell you again, I'm referencing my Challenger,
my Hellcat. I thought that Dodge did a great job
with taking the nineteen seventies Challenger and recreating it in
(48:02):
a way that it's kind of tasty, gives that kind
of appearance. I'm I'm more surprised that, and I guess
maybe it's not important to the generation today, but the
old muscle cars, the looks of the past, whether the
old Mustangs, Challengers, the old Cheves. They made they try
to do something with the Camaro. I thought that was
a little bit short. I didn't like the Camaro, but
(48:22):
I would see too to take one of these older
vehicles and make it a new vehicle with that the
kind of style that we had back then and just
maybe round out the edges a little bit, whatever you
want to do. More creative paint jobs. My challenger, my
HEALTHCAD is plumb crazy that the purple card that was
back in the day with the that have black carbon.
It has black carbon fiber scripes on it, and the
(48:44):
anterior is fantastic as a black leather with red seat
belts deep red. And that car is not just fast,
it's a really good cars, best braking system I've ever driven. So,
I mean, those are the kind of things. But again
it's generationally speaking. The guys today, kids today, and they're
not gonna They're not into it. They're not into all
that that goody stuff. They need something that just gets
(49:05):
them from A to B. And how boring is it
to just go from A to B without any kind
of horsepower.
Speaker 1 (49:11):
Oh, I can't wait till I see you tooling down
the streets of Hazeleton in your Ford mock e Mustang EV.
Speaker 2 (49:21):
Down the road.
Speaker 3 (49:23):
Happen, I'll have some kind of stereo system. I mean, listen,
I I can't even imagine that. Never, I'll never say never,
But I don't even know why I would like. I mean,
i'd like to go down to my local gas station,
stay there for like about three minutes, fill it up,
and leave. As opposed to this charging system that you need.
I know it's gonna be an overnight thing. But again,
(49:44):
I'm just curious, how are you going to set up
all the stations necessary if you want all these everybody
to have one of those things? Where is the power
coming from? Where the rolling black just to charge these
suckers up. These batteries are gonna have to be pretty
spectacular regarding their length and and how quickly they can
be recharged, and the weight necessarily the weight so that
(50:08):
you're not just beating up our highways.
Speaker 1 (50:10):
Norway eighty percent evs. They're getting it done. That's our model.
Speaker 3 (50:15):
I got to go to Norway for five minutes.
Speaker 1 (50:19):
Well, I think we talked a lot about Aaron Judge
is sort of the hellcat of Major League Baseball right now, Joe,
So we covered a lot of ground here. So, as
you always do, you bring us home with something apropos
So good luck on this one today.
Speaker 3 (50:32):
Well, you know, I was if it actually works. I
think it does work because you're talking about growth, and
you're talking about change, adaptability, You're talking about vehicles, electric vehicles.
I'm talking about the growth or adaptability of not pitching
the judge in hot situations and taking a chance with
that and finding out if you like it or not.
My old T shirts, you've seen it in the past.
(50:52):
I want to be comfortable being uncomfortable. But this came
from Martin Denischewski who said, the moment you're comfortable, you're
no longer growing. And that's the thing I'm always worried
about me because I've always been and want to want
to try new things. I want to grow. You want
to stay out front. You want to be that avant
garde kind of a situation. You want to be there.
(51:13):
But there's there's there's parts of me that sometimes that
we've talked about this progress change, whatever you want to
call it, it's not necessarily good, it's not necessarily better.
I understand, you know, the the pollution component of all this.
I get all of that, But then again, they got
to come up. We got to come up with a
way to charge these things. You got to come up
with a power source that charges these things that also
(51:33):
does not require fossil There's there's so many interconnected things
with this that I'm just not hearing enough of Maybe
I'm not reading the right periodicals or the right propaganda.
But anyway, the moment you're comfortable, you're no longer growing.
And that's always been a concern with me. I love
being uncomfortable, because when I am, I know that there's
something good that can occur on the other side.
Speaker 1 (51:55):
I love it, and I can't wait till you're uncomfortable
plugging in your ev Oh my god, Oh I want.
Speaker 2 (52:01):
To picture that.
Speaker 3 (52:02):
God. That'd be awful. But I'll send you a photograph.
Speaker 2 (52:05):
Great job. We'll see you next time on the Book
of Joe.
Speaker 3 (52:07):
All right, Buddy be well.
Speaker 2 (52:20):
The Book of.
Speaker 1 (52:20):
Joe podcast is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts
from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts.
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