*Gary Gillette, Baseball Historian

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Jack keambling here with my good friend Matt Sloan a
graph of Okamist big summer here, Matt.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
That's right, Jack. We got the summer savings going on
right now at Graf Nissan and Graft Chevy of Okamists.
Great deals. We're offering zero percent financing and select vehicles
up to sixty months. If you're a Casto member. We
got extra rebates for that. We're getting fresh inventory every day.
It's been a great summer. We got great deals for you.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
Zero percent. Can't get much lower than that. That's exactly right, Papacy,
Matt in the gang here on West Grand River, Omiz.
They're making friends. Bobby Bias holl Murder earlier, first one
he there tape.

Speaker 3 (00:38):
Of field again.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
Yes, Tigers.

Speaker 3 (00:43):
Hobby is look stoppable. Go get them Tiger, Oh, welcome back.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
It is the Drive with Jack Spotlight Radio Network coupling
here with my producer Boston Rob and Rob. I don't
know if Hobby is unstoppable, but he is unhobbylike. We
hadn't seen anything quite like this explosion the last couple
of weeks, not even when he was the worst All
Star starter in All Star game history. In the outfield.

(01:22):
All right, let's go out to our guest line. Very
happy to welcome in. Baseball historian sabermetrician, author researcher Gary
Gillette joins us, Gary, what are we going to see
tonight in Seattle? Jack?

Speaker 4 (01:42):
I think you forgot one of my other titles, all
around good guy?

Speaker 1 (01:45):
Oh yeah, I thought everyone knew that, so I didn't
want to just be labor them with the obvious.

Speaker 4 (01:52):
Yeah, you know, Jack, I have almost nothing to say.
I know, I was hoping you'd ask me on the
show this week, but everything I say about the Tiger
proves be wrong, other than I predicted they would you
know well, I actually preakad they would win the division
and they didn't, So I mean, what do you do
with this kid? I decided to say, they need to
do a nickname? So how about the Cardiac Kitties K

(02:13):
A R D A C K I T T I
E S. How about the cardiac k because I like that.
That's the way I feel about these guys. Every time
you think they're dead, they rise up like a money
pipeline schedule. I'm not good do it? And every time
you think they're going well, they decide to oh well,
let's just throwing a towel for a while and ten
scare the Jews on everybody.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
Yes, I don't know, and at a time in this
country when up is down and day is night, it's
only appropriate, I think, you know, Rob. One of the things,
one of the things that makes Gary Jolette such a
good guest for us is that when he has an
opinion and it proves to not be right, he faces

(02:56):
up to it. In fact, he announces it. And we
have a lot of guests who, you know, I'll try
to pretend it didn't happen, or fudget change it some way.
But you're not alone because a lot of people, when
the Tigers were twenty five games over five hundred, figured
that this was going to be a cakewalk. Of course

(03:17):
it was not. Then falling behind. It was midway through
the game, after four and a half innings on Wednesday,
and there were audible booze at Comerica Park. People were
contemplating the future of Scott Harris, saying that this team
had just mortgaged a lot of its potential for a

(03:38):
window by not being more aggressive at the deadline, and
suddenly all is right with the world with Trek scooble
on the mound for Game five and Tigers are one
went away from being in the ALCS.

Speaker 4 (03:51):
Well, I have to say I listened to the local
sports talk station a lot in the last two weeks,
and they need to take there with them every day,
I'll tell you, because they are up and down and
they are cursing this team like they were the two
thousand and three Tigers, and then they're pumping it up

(04:12):
like they're the eighty four Tigers. Yeah, oh my god.
They just can't seem to settle on it, by the
way I have you may you know that was a
nice compliment that I admit I'm wrong. I try to
because I know so many people who won't, but I am.
Thirty years ago, after some goof up where I was wrong,
I actually created a recipe for roast crow, roast raven

(04:34):
and blueberry chipotle sauce and send it out to somebody then.
And of course I have a customized crow bid so
when I eat crow, I'm not going to get the
feathers and all that crap on my suit.

Speaker 1 (04:47):
Comes in handy very good good idea.

Speaker 4 (04:49):
Yeah, yeah, better than a lobster. Good.

Speaker 1 (04:53):
So the other day I guess it was appropriate that
Riley Green, who'd been striking out half his trips to
the plate sometimes it seemed like way more than that
hit one of the longest. It does. Yeah, hit one
of the longest home runs of the year. And from
that point on, once the Tigers took a four to

(05:14):
three lead, they scored nine unanswered runs. One of the
amazing things about baseball gear, and you know this better
than anyone, is there's very little carryover. They used to
say that it all depended on the next day's starting pitcher.
I don't know if it's that or the hitting or
everything else that goes into it, but what happened in

(05:34):
Game three had nothing to do with Game four, and
I'm not sure Game four is going to have anything
to do with Game five, right.

Speaker 4 (05:43):
Jim Leland, for one, was not a fleever momentum. I
think momentum is a tiny, tiny, tiny thing, and it
is dependent on who got injured, who comes off the
injured list, who you're starting next starting pitcher. Is you
know that kind of uh? I have to say, I
love watching Riley Green play. I think is a trific star.

(06:05):
I think he's on the custom superstardom, But I am
a paull to the strikeouts this year. I mean, it
seemed like he got you know, he made some mistakes
handling the media by saying, well, it is what it
is too often because the fans don't want to hear that. Now.
He still had a terrific year. He had a terrific year,
and the Tigers dependent on him. They needed him. But

(06:26):
he needs to step up one more level. When Scott
Harris came to Detroit, one of the things I thought
was especially smart about him is like, we want to
control the strike zone on both sides of the plate.
You know, we want our hitters that control strikes out
and we want our fishes. I think the pitchers do
a pretty good job, although the problem is they have
too many four A pictures that they managed to get

(06:46):
to be productive in the majors by fooling other people
and by changing their piss selection and because they hired
Chris Feeder, the Albert Einstein of pitching coaches. But in
the hitters, they're not controlling the strike zone. They're not
controlling the strike zone, and they're not making enough contract
I'm not a guy who says, you know, who tells

(07:07):
these less of guys who had more home runs when
they struck out. That's seventy five years ago. Who cares,
But they struck out way too much. This year they
struck out way too much. They need to put the
ball in play more. I'm hoping that the Tigers give
hitters like Riley Green and Frankly a bunch of other
hitters of theirs some tough love in the off season,
like they gave the Tech school of left and text school.

(07:28):
Excuse me, the Spencer Toorkosen last year and said, hey,
you need to do better. You can't just go on
your draft status, your previous year. You know where your
peak year. You need to do better. And that's true
of pretty much every Tigers hitter, including especially Green.

Speaker 1 (07:47):
Gary. You can speak to this because I've had these
discussions now with new age baseball fans who say strikeouts
don't matter. You'd rather have a strikeout than hitting into
a double play. All that matters is driving the ball,
pulling the ball with power, and lofting the ball and
getting home runs. Can you speak to the advantages of

(08:09):
contact in baseball twenty twenty five.

Speaker 4 (08:13):
Well, there is true. The strikeouts don't matter when they're
when at the end of the year, you look at
them a striking or just another out. And it is
true in a certain circumstance that if you strike out
rather than hit a weak ground or to short for
a six four to three double play, a strikeo is better.
But the point is you don't want to accept strikeout
because every time Riley Green makes contact, there's a chance

(08:35):
for a base hit. Even if it's a ruptured duck
dying quail over the infield, there's a chance for the
other team to boot the ball because errors happen, you know,
and a lot of what when we were young, check,
they weren't call a lot of things that their base hits.
Now they would have called the mirrors. Yeah, and a
lot of things, you know. Right now, it's gotten to

(08:55):
the point where if you want to call an ear
on an infielder in a ground ball, the ball pretty
much they hit him in the cup. He has to
drop it, he has to kick it, he has to
pick it up, look at the ball for five seconds,
and then throw it over the first base AND's head
for it to be an error. Even then they might
get him a base hit and a throwing error. Yeah,
you know, a lot of bad things could happen you

(09:15):
put the ball in play, especially with like guys like
Riley Green who hit the ball hard. I mean, they
hit that damn ball hard. And so I'm not saying
Riley should strike up fifty times a year, No, but
cutting that down to one hundred and fifty I think
would push him one more step up the ladder towards
true superstardom.

Speaker 1 (09:35):
Yeah, Aaron Judge strikes out a lot. Shoyo Tani strikes
out a lot. Kyle Schwarber, Yeah, strikes out a lot.

Speaker 4 (09:41):
So pretty dad hitters, I think.

Speaker 1 (09:44):
Yes, yes, exactly. But when did you No, No, that's fine.
When did this trend with errors? Because I've been complaining
about this all season and I noticed it more this
year than ever before. When did this start? And why
did it start?

Speaker 4 (10:03):
Okay, so where you complain about the airs, where you're
yelling it did get off your lawn, because that's about
what people think when you complain about errors anymore. And
I'm guilty of it too. Back when I was, you know,
a young whipper snapper, they had errors. You know, if
a guy didn't make the play, he stood up and
he took the medicine with that big flashing E on
the scoreboard. Yeah, you know, it started thirty plus years ago.

(10:26):
It's been gradual, but it's gotten ridiculous now. I've seen
official scores and press boxes, not just in Detroit, around
the country. I've seen them walk around the press box
after a play, waiting for the replay so they can
find any excuse to not call something an error. And
you know, the way it is is because if you
call it an error, the fielder's unhappy, the batter's unhappy,

(10:50):
but the only pitchers happy. Who is happy is that
picture's happy. But the pitcher isn't going to show up
his fielder. He's not going to show up his third
basement or his left fielder. And so if you call
it a hit, you have fewer people to complain, and
players do complain, and more importantly that the TEAMPR officials
will complain or front office person will complain to the

(11:10):
official scorer. And I know they're not supposed to try
to influence it, but I've seen it a dozen times.
They sort of say out loud in the press box
when it's quiet, Boy, that fall was hard hit, wasn't it.
I don't think many people could have made that play
or the most ridiculous one is he had to run
a long way to get to have that ball clank
off his glove, hit him in the nose and then

(11:33):
dribble down his shirt. You know. I mean, they just
make too many excuses. Just there's no ignominy in making
an air. Everyone does it. And we're not talking about
the routine ground ball, the short where somebody throws it
into the stands. That's easy. We're talking about hard plays.
These are major leaguers. They make the hard plays most
of the time. And if they don't, and he is

(11:53):
not the end of the world, the same way a
strikeout isn't the end of the world. Guess what, you
strike out, It's not the end of the world.

Speaker 1 (12:00):
Yeah. I think what we're doing here is we're condoning
and we're pardoning or not holding players accountable for mistakes
that major leaguers should not make. And I think it
it is distorting some statistics. Not that people are winning
batting championships because of it, because it's all across the league,

(12:21):
but I also think that as a pitcher and maybe
earn run averages would be a tick lower than they are,
and maybe that's just again, get off my lawn. But
what about the other jack?

Speaker 4 (12:36):
Let me put you on hold. I gotta go yell
at those kids out there. But I'm completely agree with
I completely agree with you.

Speaker 1 (12:43):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's talk about the other three series,
the divisional series, and we have another game five. Brewers
won the first two in Milwaukee, Cubs answered with a
pair of wins Wrigley Field. Now we go back for
a Game five in Milwaukee. Is that any more predictable

(13:07):
than Tiger's Mariners?

Speaker 3 (13:11):
No?

Speaker 4 (13:11):
And you know, my heart is with the Brewers. I'd
love to see the Brewers win. And I also think
if the Brewers go to the World Series, it helps
defeat the argument for a salary cap is if the
owners try to enforce a salary cap on the players
in twenty seven, we're going to have We're gonna lose
partner all the season. A lot of people think we'll

(13:32):
lose the whole season. And so people have pointed out
the Mets spent more money than FDR did on national
defense in World War Two, and the Dodgers spent more
money than King Crosis. You know, if the Dodgers don't
win the World Series, the Mets don't make the World Series,
the Cubs are defeated by the Brewers. All of that
sort of undercuts the argument that you have to have

(13:54):
a salary cap and that the you know, the underdog
team not I shouldn't even call them underdog. The underclass
teams like the Pirates, the Marlins, the Rockies, that they're
just not trying to compete, you know, they just don't
want to pay to hire smart people in the front office.
They don't want to pay to retain their talent. I mean,
that's certainly true of the Pirates. The Rockies are a
basket case. They need new ownership. Nothing else will save them.

(14:17):
The Marlins are the most cynical team in sports, where
they just keep churning their roster, turning their talent and
collecting revenue sharing checks. It's shameful, It's absolutely shameful what
they do. So I am worried about losing a twenty
seven season. Baseball doesn't have the robust base of popularity
it did fifty years ago, and people think People say

(14:40):
erroneously that baseball always comes back after a strike or
a lockout, but it never comes back as strong. It
never comes back as strong. Attendants might come back three
or five years later. But you look at the TV
rating and you just look at the number of people
who say baseball is my favorite sport or I'm following baseball.
Baseball has never come back as strong from the major
labor disruption. And I know it worked for the NHL.

(15:04):
I know it worked, But the NHLPA with nowhere near
as strong as the MLBPA is. And if they force
a war and both sides go to the mats, they'll
be blood all over baseball. And while the owners might win,
they might very well win, it's going to It's not
just shooting something on the foot. They've aimed the gun
farther up, like between their crotch.

Speaker 1 (15:26):
Yeah. I think when players say that you don't have
to spend all this money you could win if you're
the Brewers, they're being disingenuous because if that's the case,
and why should teams spend that much money and they
don't want them to stop doing it. I always point
to the National Football League Gerry and they have a
hard cap and everything is split. They are now America's

(15:50):
national pastime. They are the league everyone who want to
be and why because they have parody and we're three
weeks to go into season. They have eighty percent of
the teams that still think they have something to play for,
and I think that that otherwise, there's absolutely no way
that the Dallas Cowboys wouldn't be able to get a

(16:12):
corner on the best talent. There's only so many positions
they can spend at that level for it. That doesn't
seem to stop the Dodgers and the Mets and the Yankees.
So I don't care what the number is. And the
way it's done in some sports is it's a percentage.
You figure it out. Maybe it's forty eight percent, maybe
it's fifty, maybe it's fifty two. I don't care. If

(16:33):
it's fifty five percent of the money going to the players,
there's enough there for everyone to be extremely wealthy, so
they can fudge the number. But what I'm looking for
is everyone playing with the same weapons, and that is
not the case.

Speaker 4 (16:49):
Now, Yeah it is. It is true that spending money
doesn't guarantee success. That's partly because some people spend money
stupidly because but it does increase your chance of success. Sure,
the number of high spending teams who get to the
postseason is much much greater. A percentage of the high
spending teams than the teams that don't spend money. It's

(17:12):
also true that the postseason in baseball is set up
to make it if you're Cleveland and you squeak into
the playoffs or Kansas City, or that you have a
chance of winning in these short series that's completely disproportionate
to your regular season record. I was just telling my
sister today called me about the Tigers and the Phillies series,

(17:36):
that in baseball it's not quite a coin to a
people say postseason series that coin. To us, that's not true.
Most of the time the better team win, but it's
not seventy percent of the time or eighty percent of
the time like it is in other leagues. It's like
fifty five percent of the time. In a short series,
it's sixty forty. As a massacre, that's one hundred and
five win team or one hundred and three win team versus.

Speaker 1 (17:58):
An eighty eight win team.

Speaker 4 (18:00):
If you have a ninety seven win team versus an
eighty nine win team in a three game series with
the coin. In a five game series, check the home
field advantage with the coin and give a tiny edge
to the home field advantage team on a seven game
series a little bit better. You have more time for
a stronger team to prevail even if they lose two
of the first three games. But the system is set

(18:23):
up so that if you spend three hundred million, you
can still get bumped off in the first round of
the second round by losing three kame. The first round,
you lose two games, you're done. Second round, you lose
three games, You're done. Oh check the Yankees. I would
check the Yankees lately. See where they are. They're at
home crying, you know, and and part of.

Speaker 1 (18:39):
That is tibidity you alluded to with the roster formulation.
You know, you winked up with three left hand hitting
catchers and you wind up with the same player over
and over on the roster. But they never seem to
address the fundamental problem, the reason they haven't won a
championship since two thousand and nine. It's the second longest
drought in France history. I'm just curious to see where

(19:03):
this all winds up. And income inequality is a problem
in our society to begin with, but baseball doesn't seem
to recognize that. Gary. Before we let you go go ahead, I.

Speaker 4 (19:16):
Will say that the baseball has a soft cap. People
don't recognize it is a soft cap, and anyone but
someone like Steve Cohen has to pay attention and the
Dodgers have to pay attention to those penalties. They're really severe.
I wouldn't mind to see the soft cap tightened up
in the next negotiation. What I don't want to see
is losing a whole season. I just don't want to
see that. That is just baseball will not come back

(19:38):
from that.

Speaker 1 (19:38):
Well, if you demonstrate to the players that rising tide
floats all boats. The owners aren't trying to lose money.
That's not the way they're wired. And if more money
is made, then everyone is going to benefit and the
players are going to get whatever percentage is negotiated of that,
and then it's up to the teams to decide how
to split it up. They're all going to have a

(20:01):
certain amount to spend and the competition is going to
be based on how they want to apportion that money.
But I wanted to ask you before we let you go,
gare about where we're headed now in the series. We
have Toronto in, we have the Dodgers in. There are
six teams alive. There will be four after tomorrow. Which

(20:25):
two would you guess are most likely to be in
the AL and NL Championship Series?

Speaker 4 (20:35):
Oh, the Championship. I thought you were going to say
the World Series.

Speaker 1 (20:39):
Let's say the World Series. Let's say the World Series.
We know they're going to be four in the ALCS
and NLCS. Which two of those four advanced of the
World Series.

Speaker 4 (20:47):
I really think the Blue Jays and the Dodgers look
like the best teams that are still standing. Yeah, now
anything can happen. The Tigers and the Mariners have real strengths.
I think the Tigers are going to win tonight. I'm
still worried about it. I want to tell you one
stat I checked up today. The maren has have five
players with twenty seven and more home runs this year.

(21:08):
All of them are right handed hitters, are switch hitters.
Guess we are Tiger of starting a lefty now care
school is not your ordinary lefty, and that still concerns me.
The other thing is I worry about Will vest He's
had a terrific postseason, but he had a really rough
second half and a really bad September. I just worry
that you know that either his his arm is tired
or somebody's figured stuff out, and I don't have a

(21:31):
lot of confidence in the bullpen beyond vest, So that's
my concerns. I think the Tigers are mariners, are worthy opponents,
and they could take the blue Jays. But I think
the blue Jays are a stronger team and they're going
to have more time to rest. And the Dodgers are
They should be a super team. They haven't shown it yet.
But my heart's with the Brewers. I think the Brewers

(21:55):
have a better chance of taking the Dodgers than the
Cubs do. But you know, the coves of in there,
they're short of, like to Tigris.

Speaker 1 (22:02):
Yeah, Garret, thanks so much for joining us. I really
appreciate it and enjoy the rest of the postseason.

Speaker 4 (22:09):
Yeah, let me know. Let me know if you get
in the hospital at Cardiac arresh where I can come late.

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Jack Kevlin here with my good friend Matt Sloan at
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You, zero for THK. Can't get much flower than that.
That's exactly right, Papathy, Matt in the gang here on
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