Latest / Foul Territory / Ken Rosenthal: Will thriving small market teams make BIG trades? + Real root of rising stolen base rate

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Ken Rosenthal: Will thriving small market teams make BIG trades? + Real root of rising stolen base rate · Foul Territory

0:07
Speaker 1: Ken Rosenthal Ken as labor fight looms, success of some
0:11
Speaker 1: MLB division leaders adds intrigue to the trade deadline. That
0:15
Speaker 1: title alone tells you a lot about what you're getting
0:17
Speaker 1: in an article like that, a little labor talk, little
0:19
Speaker 1: trade deadline, a little who's playing well or not?
0:21
Speaker 2: So lay it out for us and then we'll do
0:23
Speaker 2: some follow ups.
0:25
Speaker 3: Well, I just find it really interesting that at a
0:27
Speaker 3: time when the owner's argument, one of their arguments for
0:31
Speaker 3: a salary cap is we need more competitive balance, you
0:34
Speaker 3: have four teams leading the divisions that are revenue sharing recipients.
0:40
Speaker 3: Four out of the six divisions are led by low
0:43
Speaker 3: revenue teams right now. So that's the initial introduction to this,
0:48
Speaker 3: and then come the deadline. You have these teams already
0:52
Speaker 3: kind of foiling the owner's argument. If they add and
0:56
Speaker 3: I use a specific specific example of the Brewers possibly
1:00
Speaker 3: adding RK Scooble. If they add, then it may add
1:05
Speaker 3: further credence to the argument against the owners that no,
1:10
Speaker 3: the competitive balance in the sport is not the driving
1:13
Speaker 3: force or should not be the driving force in this discussion. Now,
1:17
Speaker 3: I want to make this clear because people get all
1:19
Speaker 3: hot and bothered about this understandably so it's a passionate issue.
1:24
Speaker 3: Revenue disparity is a problem in my opinion that does
1:28
Speaker 3: need to be addressed in some fashion, and perhaps in
1:31
Speaker 3: some form of compression between the higher end salary teams
1:35
Speaker 3: and the lower end.
1:37
Speaker 4: I believe that.
1:37
Speaker 3: Can be accomplished without a cap. But to get back
1:40
Speaker 3: to the article, and what I wrote about was just
1:42
Speaker 3: this idea that the owner's argument here is getting kind of,
1:48
Speaker 3: I don't know, quashed by what is happening on the
1:52
Speaker 3: field in the standings, and heaven forbid we had to
1:56
Speaker 3: raise Brewers World Series, for example, or an athletic Brewers
2:01
Speaker 3: World Series or a Guardian's Brewers World Series, well then
2:06
Speaker 3: you'd really have something at a time when this fight
2:08
Speaker 3: will be heating up even more.
2:12
Speaker 5: Certain people would love that world series, Ken.
2:16
Speaker 4: I'm sure they would.
2:17
Speaker 5: TV people wouldn't love that World series.
2:19
Speaker 1: But I.
2:22
Speaker 2: Know.
2:23
Speaker 6: I know, by the way, when you mentioned the Turk
2:26
Speaker 6: schoobl thing on our game on Saturday, I thought you
2:28
Speaker 6: were going to say the Dodgers, and all of a
2:29
Speaker 6: sudden you throw the Brewers in there, and I was like, wait,
2:32
Speaker 6: what did Ken just say? Completely threw me for a loop,
2:35
Speaker 6: but I got where you were going with the c C.
2:37
Speaker 6: Sabbathia the trade in two thousand and eight that they made,
2:40
Speaker 6: which I mean if you throw miss Harrison School would
2:42
Speaker 6: be unbelievable. Do you think that the smaller market teams
2:49
Speaker 6: have gotten better at winning in the margins and also
2:52
Speaker 6: developing players that's why we're seeing more of them at
2:55
Speaker 6: the top, or have the some of the bigger market
2:59
Speaker 6: teams just said, hey, we can spend on anybody and
3:02
Speaker 6: not worrying about getting it right by covering I mean
3:05
Speaker 6: obviously other than LA. What do you think the driving
3:07
Speaker 6: forces behind the small market teams winning so much Rains.
3:12
Speaker 3: And Cleveland, Tampa Bay and Milwaukee. This is not new
3:16
Speaker 3: for them. These teams are good, if not every year,
3:20
Speaker 3: pretty close to every year, and they do it by
3:23
Speaker 3: regenerating themselves, in Milwaukee's case, by building the number one
3:27
Speaker 3: farm system in the sport. The Rays routinely make good trades,
3:31
Speaker 3: and like Milwaukee, get the most out of their pitching.
3:34
Speaker 3: They seem to have a knack for it. And Cleveland,
3:36
Speaker 3: of course is in the same category. They're may be
3:38
Speaker 3: the best team at developing pitching and refining it.
3:42
Speaker 4: So all of these teams do a great job. Now,
3:45
Speaker 4: if I spoke.
3:46
Speaker 3: To the executives and I have spoken to the executives
3:48
Speaker 3: of all three clubs, and ask them, do you need
3:52
Speaker 3: more help from the revenue.
3:53
Speaker 4: Standpoint, they all would say yes.
3:55
Speaker 3: They all would be not entirely enthralled with the current system,
3:59
Speaker 3: though they operate successfully within it. Again, there are ways,
4:04
Speaker 3: in my opinion, to address this. I've written about it before.
4:08
Speaker 3: I don't believe a cap that might take down the
4:10
Speaker 3: sport for any length of time is the way to
4:12
Speaker 3: address it. And it just seems to me that the
4:16
Speaker 3: argument for a cap that the owners are making with
4:19
Speaker 3: regard to competitive balance is a flawed argument. And don't
4:22
Speaker 3: tell me about there hasn't been a small market team
4:25
Speaker 3: winning the World Series since twenty fifteen.
4:27
Speaker 4: Winning the World Series, it's really hard to do. And
4:30
Speaker 4: we had Tampa Bay in one year, we had Arizona
4:33
Speaker 4: in one year.
4:34
Speaker 3: The Dodgers were knocked out a couple of years in
4:36
Speaker 3: the Division Series by smaller market teams San Diego and Arizona.
4:41
Speaker 4: That to me, is a specious argument.
4:42
Speaker 3: The reason the owners want a cap is pretty clear.
4:46
Speaker 3: They want to enhance their franchise values. Evandrelic wrote all
4:49
Speaker 3: about that today. In the athletic so the competitive balance argument,
4:53
Speaker 3: could it be enhanced in baseball?
4:55
Speaker 4: Could the revenue equation be changed to make it better? Yes,
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Speaker 4: I just don't believe a cap is going to be
5:01
Speaker 4: the answer to that.
5:03
Speaker 6: Sure, Ken, but Ken, David Stearns was in Milwaukee, now
5:06
Speaker 6: he's in New York. Shouldn't he if he had this
5:09
Speaker 6: all figured out? Should Maybe Matt Arnold was the guy
5:11
Speaker 6: that was Maybe.
5:13
Speaker 5: I don't know.
5:13
Speaker 6: It's weird, you know, Andrew Friedman is the one guy
5:16
Speaker 6: that's gone from the race to the Dodgers and really
5:19
Speaker 6: put the mite behind the Dodgers that he had in
5:23
Speaker 6: Tampa Bay. A lot of other people have gone from
5:25
Speaker 6: Tampa Bay and some other places and it hasn't worked out.
5:28
Speaker 5: So I don't know.
5:29
Speaker 6: It's an interesting conversation that can be had on looking
5:32
Speaker 6: at it from both sides.
5:34
Speaker 4: AJ.
5:34
Speaker 3: We talked about it on the broadcast, right, all the
5:36
Speaker 3: people the Brewers have lost over the years, not just
5:39
Speaker 3: David Stearns. It's Craig Counsel, It's Josh Hater, It's Corbyn Burns,
5:44
Speaker 3: it's Freddy Peralta, it's Willie Adamis on and on and on,
5:48
Speaker 3: and they keep it going and now, and I mentioned
5:51
Speaker 3: this in the article. They've got a shortstop in a
5:53
Speaker 3: third basement ready to come up and replace who they
5:56
Speaker 3: have there right now, and that's probably going to happen
5:59
Speaker 3: at some point.
6:00
Speaker 4: Pratt at shortstop, Jet Williams at third base.
6:02
Speaker 3: They've got two kids behind them, a little bit ways
6:06
Speaker 3: behind them, Jesus Made and Luis Paianna. They're considered better
6:11
Speaker 3: prospects than Pratt and Williams, so they in this position
6:16
Speaker 3: they're in right now, are doing a tremendous job of
6:19
Speaker 3: developing young players bringing them to the major leagues. And
6:21
Speaker 3: this was actually a reason why I thought a trade
6:25
Speaker 3: for Schooble, while extremely unlikely for them, most likely is
6:31
Speaker 3: something that they at least can entertain because they have
6:33
Speaker 3: the prospects to do it now. Whether they would want
6:36
Speaker 3: to trade the prospects take on.
6:38
Speaker 4: The ten million, if indeed Schooble.
6:40
Speaker 3: Gets traded, that is another question entirely, and frankly I
6:43
Speaker 3: don't believe they would do that, But they are positioned
6:47
Speaker 3: to do the same kind of trade they did with
6:49
Speaker 3: Sabathia in two thousand and eight if they want to.
6:53
Speaker 4: Sabathia was a rental Schooble would be a rental as well.
6:58
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7:58
Speaker 7: Go for Gold one last thing on the CBA and
8:01
Speaker 7: the cap or no cap. If they take the word
8:04
Speaker 7: cap out of it, if they stop saying salary cap
8:07
Speaker 7: and it's becoming revenue sharing problem like you say it is,
8:11
Speaker 7: and I would agree with you, doesn't it just become
8:14
Speaker 7: an owner to owner problem and not a CBA problem?
8:17
Speaker 7: And is that why they keep saying cap in this
8:21
Speaker 7: so that it can be negotiated with the players even
8:23
Speaker 7: though it's really just a owner to owner and a
8:25
Speaker 7: Major League Baseball problem in itself.
8:29
Speaker 3: Well, they want the cap so they have fixed costs
8:33
Speaker 3: and then the franchise values in their minds would go up,
8:36
Speaker 3: and probably would.
8:37
Speaker 4: But there's always.
8:40
Speaker 3: Been in baseball an owner to owner problem because we
8:43
Speaker 3: have an economic structure in the sport that is different
8:47
Speaker 3: than say the NFL.
8:48
Speaker 4: Let's look at the NFL.
8:50
Speaker 3: Their principal revenues are driven by the national television contracts.
8:54
Speaker 3: That's where the most money comes from in the NFL.
8:58
Speaker 3: In baseball, the sports locally driven. So while the national
9:02
Speaker 3: contracts have value the national media contracts, the local markets
9:07
Speaker 3: are where the bulk of the revenue has come from
9:09
Speaker 3: in the past. Now, Rob Manfred's idea is to nationalize
9:14
Speaker 3: the TV revenue and that would be part of this
9:18
Speaker 3: equation somehow. And if they can get to do that
9:21
Speaker 3: and convince the Dodgers and the Yankees and the Mets,
9:23
Speaker 3: the teams with the big local TV deals to somehow
9:27
Speaker 3: share the wealth, that's an interesting idea.
9:30
Speaker 4: I don't know that they can get to that point.
9:31
Speaker 4: And the other thing with the cap, guys, and.
9:34
Speaker 3: We're gonna be talking a lot more about this in
9:37
Speaker 3: the weeks ahead and the months ahead, hopefully not the
9:40
Speaker 3: years ahead, But the other thing would be, you're gonna
9:43
Speaker 3: have a floor too, And in the other sports you
9:47
Speaker 3: have compression between the floor and the cap.
9:49
Speaker 4: They're not that far away from each other. So let's say.
9:52
Speaker 3: You had a two hundred and fifteen million dollars cap, Well,
9:56
Speaker 3: how high would the floor be And could some of
9:58
Speaker 3: these owners even get to that point?
10:01
Speaker 4: I don't know, and I don't know how this would work.
10:03
Speaker 3: So all this will kind of start the bubble in
10:06
Speaker 3: the next few days and a few weeks, and then
10:08
Speaker 3: we'll be.
10:08
Speaker 4: Able to analyze it a little bit deeper.
10:11
Speaker 1: One clarification, and I'm not one hundred percent sureing this
10:15
Speaker 1: as we're talking about this live. I think even for
10:17
Speaker 1: revenue sharing that does get cleared in a CBA when
10:21
Speaker 1: they change how that works.
10:22
Speaker 2: I think that might.
10:23
Speaker 1: Be as I just wanted to clarify because Kratz said, Hey,
10:28
Speaker 1: a cap versus revenue sharing that still does get agreed.
10:31
Speaker 2: It's obviously an easier thing to agree to.
10:33
Speaker 4: But to point, it's still an owner to owner fight.
10:36
Speaker 4: That's what we're talking about here.
10:38
Speaker 6: Can we don't talk about that? We don't talk about that.
10:40
Speaker 6: It's it's owners versus players. It's not an owner verse owner.
10:43
Speaker 6: We don't talk about that. Just the players are bad,
10:46
Speaker 6: the owners are good. Can just remember, okay, we are greedy.
10:51
Speaker 5: The owners are are perfect angels. Let's not forget that.
10:53
Speaker 2: We talked about Whatever you want here one more? Can
10:57
Speaker 2: I want to finish with this?
10:58
Speaker 1: Not on that topic really, just now getting back to
11:00
Speaker 1: the trade scenarios. Just a couple crazy streaks going on.
11:03
Speaker 1: How this is all going to tie in? You know,
11:05
Speaker 1: for example, the Cub streak of losing ten to Row
11:08
Speaker 1: is wild. But it's not like, at least in my mind,
11:11
Speaker 1: they're going to be sellers. They're gonna be looking for pitching. Really,
11:13
Speaker 1: Wis yesterday is a good example of how they need
11:16
Speaker 1: an arm. So now ship that to the teams that
11:18
Speaker 1: I think will be the heavy hitters here at the
11:20
Speaker 1: deadline if the Tigers continue to tumble like this school
11:24
Speaker 1: of course, and then we just mentioned now kind of
11:26
Speaker 1: flying under the radar, maybe not in your mind, but
11:29
Speaker 1: the Mets falling apart kind of again here to me
11:32
Speaker 1: opens up. One of the most short things is that
11:34
Speaker 1: Freddy Peralta is going to be one of the top
11:35
Speaker 1: few names we talk about the next two months.
11:37
Speaker 4: Do you agree, I would agree with that. I would
11:40
Speaker 4: say Freddy Peralta is much more likely to get traded
11:43
Speaker 4: than Trek's Scouoble, at least right now.
11:46
Speaker 3: And the caveat here and I mentioned this the other day.
11:48
Speaker 3: We are more than two months away from the deadline.
11:51
Speaker 3: It's an eternity in baseball. So the Tigers, as poorly
11:55
Speaker 3: as they're playing, and they are playing poorly.
11:58
Speaker 4: If they get Scooble back within the.
12:00
Speaker 3: Next couple of weeks, which certainly is the anticipation right now,
12:03
Speaker 3: if they get it going a little bit again, get
12:06
Speaker 3: some of their other injured players back, it's entirely reasonable
12:10
Speaker 3: to think that they might be back in contention in
12:12
Speaker 3: a weak American league Central in a weak American league.
12:16
Speaker 4: So the talk of School getting.
12:18
Speaker 3: Traded, while it's interesting certainly, and in play certainly fair game, I.
12:24
Speaker 4: Don't know that it's going to happen. In fact, I
12:26
Speaker 4: would probably bet against it happening. Right now.
12:28
Speaker 3: The Tigers have a club record payroll two hundred and
12:31
Speaker 3: seven million. They invested a lot in this season. They're
12:34
Speaker 3: not gonna want to punt this season. So easily you
12:37
Speaker 3: could say the same about the Mets. But the Mets situation.
12:40
Speaker 4: Playing in a stronger National League where they are seemingly months,
12:45
Speaker 4: not months, but a long way away from getting some
12:48
Speaker 4: of their injured players back, that one is harder to
12:51
Speaker 4: see coming around in a good way.
12:56
Speaker 7: Or maybe Scott mentioned it, Freddy p he got traded
12:58
Speaker 7: before the season, be a qualifying offer connected to him
13:02
Speaker 7: in my recent memory, if he gets traded, I haven't
13:05
Speaker 7: seen anybody that gets traded in the off season and
13:08
Speaker 7: then in the season because that qualifying offer is then
13:11
Speaker 7: off the table. Correct, Is there any other combat because
13:14
Speaker 7: he got moved that we're not thinking of, and the
13:17
Speaker 7: value for him goes a little higher.
13:21
Speaker 4: The rule is, if.
13:22
Speaker 3: You are traded in the middle of a season, you
13:24
Speaker 3: cannot receive a qualifying offer, and yes, that would enhance
13:29
Speaker 3: his free agent market. For any player who is a
13:32
Speaker 3: potential free agent who gets traded, qualifying offer goes away,
13:35
Speaker 3: and yeah, it's a good thing for the player.
13:38
Speaker 2: There you go.
13:40
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, I mean, obviously he hopes he pitched better.
13:44
Speaker 6: But is he I mean, secretly, is there a little
13:46
Speaker 6: bit of like, hey, maybe I get traded.
13:48
Speaker 4: I think to me, he wants to play for the Mets.
13:52
Speaker 4: That's what he said before the season started. He might
13:55
Speaker 4: have a different opinion.
13:56
Speaker 6: Now and everyone says that. Everyone says they want to
13:59
Speaker 6: play for the team there on until they're not.
14:02
Speaker 3: Right a j Absolutely, but he does have some New
14:04
Speaker 3: York roots, and it sounded to me a little bit
14:08
Speaker 3: more sincere than most. At least there was some ties there,
14:10
Speaker 3: some roots. So he can get the get traded, not
14:16
Speaker 3: receive a qualifying offer, and go back to the Mets,
14:18
Speaker 3: and it would be easier for the Mets, or more
14:20
Speaker 3: desirable for the Mets to do that without losing a
14:22
Speaker 3: draft pick. So it's not often when a player gets
14:26
Speaker 3: traded that he goes back to the team that traded him.
14:29
Speaker 4: In free agency, that's pretty rare, but it does happen
14:31
Speaker 4: from time to time. A rold As Chapman rolled as
14:35
Speaker 4: Chapman's a great example with the Yanks.
14:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, Freddy has the right demeanor, and I agree with Ken.
14:40
Speaker 1: I think he genuinely wants to or at least as
14:42
Speaker 1: tie on his list to be in New York. It
14:45
Speaker 1: might not be, it's not the only place, but I
14:46
Speaker 1: think it would be meaningful that even if he gets.
14:48
Speaker 2: Traded, they have the best offer. They have the best offer.
14:51
Speaker 1: I don't know if they will because they don't love
14:52
Speaker 1: the long term starting pitching deals. That's part of their mantra,
14:55
Speaker 1: you know, So all right, Ken.
14:58
Speaker 4: The matra might need the still changing pretty soon.
15:02
Speaker 1: Their mantra is not working right now at that high
15:05
Speaker 1: of a payroll. And this goes before Stearns too, right,
15:08
Speaker 1: And I know we're not piling on. This is a mess, right,
15:11
Speaker 1: Like I think, what was it our first year? What
15:12
Speaker 1: was the year that they had the record payroll? Was
15:14
Speaker 1: twenty three, right, and then they missed the playoffs and
15:18
Speaker 1: that was our first year.
15:19
Speaker 2: As a show.
15:19
Speaker 1: It's like, if you look at just during our era
15:21
Speaker 1: as a show, at what's going on here? How much
15:23
Speaker 1: is being spent and not turning into gold. That's the
15:28
Speaker 1: party conversation you're having at the top of the segment
15:31
Speaker 1: here is Hey, the Dodgers haven't figured out great.
15:34
Speaker 2: The Mets don't, and they spend pretty close to as
15:36
Speaker 2: much as the Dodgers do, and other teams don't either.
15:39
Speaker 4: They'd spend a lot of money Red Sox.
15:44
Speaker 2: Yep.
15:45
Speaker 1: I mean the Angels don't spend that much, but they're
15:48
Speaker 1: not in the Brewers category of the Rays category, and
15:50
Speaker 1: that's been messy for a long time. So yeah, it's fascinating.
15:54
Speaker 1: It's not a direct correlation here, Ken, good stuff. We'll
15:57
Speaker 1: catch you later in the week.
15:58
Speaker 4: All right, thanks guys, thank you.
16:00
Speaker 2: After senior insider Ken Rosendolf, you have questions for him.
16:03
Speaker 1: I was lost in the sauce today so I didn't
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16:07
Speaker 2: Then you know what to do.
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17:46
Speaker 1: how he's taken his stolen base game. But even you
17:48
Speaker 1: know Josh Naylor had a lot of attention for what
17:50
Speaker 1: he's done.
17:51
Speaker 2: But it's not just guys like that.
17:52
Speaker 1: I mean, you're just seeing more guys who had maybe three,
17:55
Speaker 1: four or five suddenly turned it into ten, twelve, fifteen.
17:58
Speaker 2: It makes a big difference.
18:00
Speaker 1: This article talks about George Springer never being a big
18:03
Speaker 1: bass dealer and now being able to time everyone out.
18:05
Speaker 2: So here's the key.
18:06
Speaker 1: We had those changes, right aj bigger bases and a
18:10
Speaker 1: limit on how many times you can throw over right
18:13
Speaker 1: with the step off. But the article says that the
18:17
Speaker 1: people they pulled consistently brought up one key as by
18:20
Speaker 1: far the biggest difference, the pitch clock. You can't hold
18:24
Speaker 1: for that long. The clock's gonna tick, and you can
18:26
Speaker 1: time a guy out.
18:28
Speaker 6: Yeah, especially after they've already thrown over twice, then you
18:30
Speaker 6: really put him in. But guys have also become better
18:32
Speaker 6: at the jumping lead, the moving jumping, whatever lead thing
18:36
Speaker 6: you want to however you want to call it. Yeah,
18:38
Speaker 6: they've gotten better at that. And they've also just gotten
18:40
Speaker 6: better at understanding that it's a math equation. And so
18:44
Speaker 6: if you can find the smallest little tick in a guy,
18:46
Speaker 6: it's a math. If he's won four and then you
18:49
Speaker 6: have the best catcher in the world, you're still gonna
18:51
Speaker 6: have a hard time throwing if they have a nice lead.
18:53
Speaker 6: So I think teams have also valued this, excuse me,
18:58
Speaker 6: they've valued this a little bit more than what they
18:59
Speaker 6: used were the a's for years of like we're not
19:01
Speaker 6: going to steal a base because it's gonna take taken
19:03
Speaker 6: out if we get thrown out. Well, guys, I think
19:06
Speaker 6: it's what twenty percent now is the average getting thrown out.
19:08
Speaker 5: It's like way down. It's way down.
19:10
Speaker 6: You used to be in the round thirty now it's
19:12
Speaker 6: down to like twenty percent. That's that's a risk I'm
19:15
Speaker 6: willing to take. If you have a guy with somewhat
19:17
Speaker 6: decent speed.
19:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll give you some excerpts and then Crats will
19:20
Speaker 1: jump in. So in this article, when Advanced Scout noted
19:22
Speaker 1: that despite the clock, pitchers today take a long time
19:26
Speaker 1: to come set, giving them even less time to hold
19:29
Speaker 1: the ball and make runners question their intention. Right, there's
19:31
Speaker 1: the key is by the time they do their thing,
19:34
Speaker 1: there's only a few ticks left on the clock. So
19:36
Speaker 1: you have an idea of how to pull all of
19:39
Speaker 1: this off. There's a little bit of countering. So the
19:43
Speaker 1: stolen base rate decreased in twenty five and remains lower
19:46
Speaker 1: this season than it did in twenty four.
19:48
Speaker 2: Twenty four was nuts.
19:49
Speaker 1: There were more stolen bases in twenty four than any
19:52
Speaker 1: season since nineteen sixteen. And while the cot stealing rate
19:57
Speaker 1: has creeped up a little bit the last few seasons
19:59
Speaker 1: since that started, and still overall the storyline remains true.
20:02
Speaker 1: So take all of that info and give me your
20:05
Speaker 1: best to hear Crats.
20:06
Speaker 7: I think it's if you get one percent from here,
20:08
Speaker 7: one percent from there, like all that stuff. But yeah,
20:11
Speaker 7: when twenty point three percent was a league average called stealing,
20:15
Speaker 7: then in twenty five it was twenty three point two,
20:19
Speaker 7: and now this year the league average is twenty four
20:22
Speaker 7: point seven. It's about what matters. It's about what matters
20:27
Speaker 7: to a team. One hundred percent of the stolen bases
20:30
Speaker 7: that aren't attempted don't make it. I know that's a
20:33
Speaker 7: stupid stat but if you do things to alleviate teams
20:37
Speaker 7: from stealing bases, they will not attempt it. Some of
20:41
Speaker 7: the rules have curtailed that, and you can't step off
20:44
Speaker 7: as often. You can't change your timing as much. So
20:47
Speaker 7: pitchers who are never ever you never go to some
20:51
Speaker 7: drive line tread may even you know, your backyard barn
20:55
Speaker 7: throwing program. They're never like, guys, I know we're gonna
20:59
Speaker 7: try to throw a hundred, but we're also going to
21:01
Speaker 7: try to come set and work fast so it disrupts
21:04
Speaker 7: the hitters timing. They're like, no, we're gonna run and
21:07
Speaker 7: gun and throw it as hard as we can. So
21:09
Speaker 7: there's things that they're never taught. And it really doesn't matter.
21:12
Speaker 7: You're not going up to the big league. You're not
21:14
Speaker 7: not going up to the big leagues because well, you
21:17
Speaker 7: don't hold runners very well. You're a one to five five,
21:21
Speaker 7: Like it's like you need to be below a one
21:24
Speaker 7: two five. Before when the Cardinals used to call guys
21:27
Speaker 7: up there. There was regulations The Cardinals used to say,
21:31
Speaker 7: if you do not throw a second pitch for a strike,
21:34
Speaker 7: you won't make it to triple A. Then you need
21:36
Speaker 7: to work in your third pitch for a strike, and
21:39
Speaker 7: to make it to the big leagues, you need to
21:40
Speaker 7: be below a one, two, five to the plate, and
21:44
Speaker 7: some of that stuff erodes over time. You have to
21:49
Speaker 7: be able to control runners if you don't want. You
21:51
Speaker 7: would never give up a single for something that you're like, well,
21:54
Speaker 7: I can't really do that. But essentially giving up first
21:57
Speaker 7: a second is a single and you're allowing that to
21:59
Speaker 7: have and I think baseball misses that and pitchers need
22:03
Speaker 7: to start to learn that to have the most success
22:05
Speaker 7: for their team.
22:07
Speaker 1: And one other note with the cought stealing rate, which
22:10
Speaker 1: was getting so low and has jumped up a little bit,
22:13
Speaker 1: one exec in this story theorized that teams are doing
22:15
Speaker 1: a better job recognizing and eliminating pitchers. Tells another guess
22:19
Speaker 1: that cought stealing rate will continue to improve as teams
22:22
Speaker 1: focus slightly less on pitch framing because of abs while
22:26
Speaker 1: putting more of a premium on catch and throw skills.
22:30
Speaker 1: And here's the stolen based attempts first caught stealing, because
22:33
Speaker 1: I want people to absorb this for a moment, just
22:35
Speaker 1: to see that. I know that seems small, aj like
22:37
Speaker 1: stolen based attempt percentage per game, But to go from
22:41
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen and twenty twenty one point nine to now
22:44
Speaker 1: in the one point three to one point for a range,
22:46
Speaker 1: that's a big difference. And the cought stealing number, you know,
22:49
Speaker 1: was at times getting in the upper twenties and then
22:52
Speaker 1: dropped to nineteen point eight and twenty three.
22:54
Speaker 2: It's still in the low twenties.
22:56
Speaker 1: Now those numbers over the course of thousands and thousand games,
22:59
Speaker 1: that's a big difference.
23:01
Speaker 6: That's a huge difference. And also it's kind of like
23:03
Speaker 6: what Krad said. I mean, when I came up with
23:05
Speaker 6: the Twins, he had to be under. You had to
23:07
Speaker 6: be one three under. They wouldn't put you on them mount.
23:09
Speaker 5: They're like, you.
23:10
Speaker 6: Can't pitch for us, right, And then I went to
23:12
Speaker 6: the White Sox and we had Bobby Jenks that was
23:14
Speaker 6: too flat to the plate and they're like, we don't
23:16
Speaker 6: care because he's gonna punch everybody out. You got guy
23:18
Speaker 6: gets on first, they can steal second and third, and
23:20
Speaker 6: he'll strike out the next three on nine pitches, so
23:22
Speaker 6: we don't really care, right, But then as a catcher,
23:24
Speaker 6: you go, man, this sucks. These dudes are We had
23:26
Speaker 6: Gavin Floyd, who was the slowest guy in the world
23:29
Speaker 6: to home plate, and they would tell him, hey, don't
23:32
Speaker 6: worry about the runner, just get the focus on the hitter,
23:34
Speaker 6: and I'll, I'll and I'll never forget.
23:37
Speaker 5: We went to play.
23:38
Speaker 6: Anaheim, okay, and Anaheim had just played the Red Sox
23:42
Speaker 6: and they had set the record for stolen bases in
23:45
Speaker 6: a game and Jason Veritek wore it like a champ.
23:47
Speaker 5: At the Red Sox.
23:48
Speaker 6: It was like, I don't know, I mean nine stolen
23:50
Speaker 6: bases in a game or something, and I never forget.
23:52
Speaker 6: I went to Gavin Floyd and I said, listen, you
23:54
Speaker 6: need to slidestep every pitch because if you don't, they're
23:57
Speaker 6: gonna break that record against you, and it's gonna go
23:59
Speaker 6: on on me and I'm not.
24:00
Speaker 5: Gonna have that.
24:01
Speaker 6: And he actually went out and slide step to pitch
24:03
Speaker 6: really well because he was actually better when he slidestepp
24:06
Speaker 6: because he could get it. It made him get everything in
24:08
Speaker 6: line quicker. Then, when a lot of what happens is
24:10
Speaker 6: you see these guys go really slow and they get
24:12
Speaker 6: wild because they have too much almost time to think
24:15
Speaker 6: about it.
24:15
Speaker 5: Sometimes when you.
24:16
Speaker 6: Slide step and you try to go quicker, you're actually
24:18
Speaker 6: better because your body knows you have to line stuff up.
24:21
Speaker 6: But there are teams that just did not trust me
24:23
Speaker 6: Osiegan and Don Cooper when I played for the White
24:25
Speaker 6: Sox and people were like, oh, you couldn't throw. I
24:27
Speaker 6: couldn't throw because they didn't care. They did not care.
24:30
Speaker 6: They would just tell the pictures, just let him steal,
24:33
Speaker 6: just get the hitter out, focus on the hitter. Let's
24:35
Speaker 6: get the hitter out. And you're like, as a catcher's
24:37
Speaker 6: going gosh. And then people would come up with me, man,
24:39
Speaker 6: you can't throw. I can throw, fine, I just know
24:42
Speaker 6: if you don't have a chance, you just don't. You
24:43
Speaker 6: don't care anymore.
24:44
Speaker 2: And I feel like we don't tell that it is
24:46
Speaker 2: what it is.
24:47
Speaker 6: Yeah, now it's changed even more because it's gone more offensive,
24:50
Speaker 6: bigger bases. You know, the limited amount of throws over
24:53
Speaker 6: and stuff like that, and that's fine, but as you
24:55
Speaker 6: see the catchers are starting to get a little bit better.
24:58
Speaker 1: We don't talk about this stat as much now as
25:00
Speaker 1: we did, say when you were experiencing this, when you
25:04
Speaker 1: were catching caught stealing percentage, Like I remember people knew, oh,
25:08
Speaker 1: his caught stealing percentage. I don't feel like I hear
25:10
Speaker 1: as much about it because there's a lot more that
25:12
Speaker 1: gets measured.
25:12
Speaker 2: But back then it would.
25:13
Speaker 1: Be like, oh, this guy's money, he's got a thirty
25:16
Speaker 1: eight percent.
25:17
Speaker 6: If you were over thirty percent, if you were thirty
25:19
Speaker 6: or higher, you were really good.
25:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, but that's not the whole story. And I think
25:23
Speaker 1: we got smart.
25:23
Speaker 6: Three people to throw a runner out. It's a pitcher,
25:26
Speaker 6: a catcher, and a guy to catch it at second base.
25:28
Speaker 6: Three people, because how many times, I mean krats, you
25:30
Speaker 6: know this. So many times you make a good throw,
25:32
Speaker 6: the guy drops it or misses the tag, or they
25:34
Speaker 6: tell you, hey, bounce it because bouncing it's better and high,
25:37
Speaker 6: and you bounce on one hop and they'd clank it
25:39
Speaker 6: and you're like, well you would have been out, but
25:40
Speaker 6: it's not my but it goes on my resume right
25:44
Speaker 6: or the picture. So it's it's really a team thing,
25:46
Speaker 6: and it's organizational thing that they have to focus on.
25:50
Speaker 7: Baseball didn't publicize the receiving numbers. And there were two guys,
25:55
Speaker 7: Yachti and Salvi who just cleaned up gold gloves for
25:59
Speaker 7: a long time. And it was because of this, because
26:03
Speaker 7: they could throw. People were like, well, they did so
26:06
Speaker 7: many other things they blocked. Now, the receiving numbers probably
26:11
Speaker 7: why Patrick Bailey got run out of San Francisco. If
26:16
Speaker 7: Buster doesn't necessarily put as much value on the receiving
26:20
Speaker 7: Patrick Bailey's got platinum on his chest protector because of
26:24
Speaker 7: the receiving numbers.
26:25
Speaker 5: He can throw too. I'm not saying you can't throw.
26:27
Speaker 7: But you're talking about guys Yati and Salvey who just
26:31
Speaker 7: cleaned up gold gloves because everybody was voting and they
26:36
Speaker 7: were like that dude absolutely just guns the ball fifty
26:40
Speaker 7: percent one year, picking dudes off at first, picking dudes
26:43
Speaker 7: off from their knees, all that stuff that makes guys
26:45
Speaker 7: go up.
26:46
Speaker 5: Who am I voting for? Oh? Him?
26:49
Speaker 7: And that's where they got those numbers. And that's why
26:52
Speaker 7: you remember what you remember, Scott.
26:54
Speaker 2: Oh, I remember it.
26:55
Speaker 6: But also I'll say this, I played for Saint Louis. Yeah,
26:58
Speaker 6: they had to be under one three. They had to
27:01
Speaker 6: pay LaRussa, who cared, and then they had METHENI who cared.
27:03
Speaker 6: So those were those are teams and you played for
27:06
Speaker 6: the Royals. They had a bunch of dudes that were
27:08
Speaker 6: James Shields was like a point nine to the plate
27:10
Speaker 6: all those years when he was.
27:12
Speaker 5: I mean he was on the best pickoff moves. Yeah.
27:14
Speaker 6: They were quick as hell. I mean all those guys
27:16
Speaker 6: to the Royals were all fat. Because you know why
27:19
Speaker 6: the Royals were good at defending it, because there was
27:21
Speaker 6: how they got so many extra bases they would steal.
27:23
Speaker 5: So they're like, we better stop this. We don't want
27:25
Speaker 5: teams doing that to us. Rush.
27:28
Speaker 6: Yes, I agree, listen, I agree with you what you're saying,
27:30
Speaker 6: YACHTI Canon, Salve Cannon.
27:32
Speaker 5: Did they deserve gold gloves? Absolutely not.
27:35
Speaker 6: I don't want people to think I'm arguing against that.
27:37
Speaker 6: But they also had help. Yeah, and it was subjective.
27:41
Speaker 6: There was no defensive metrics. It was literally I mean
27:43
Speaker 6: I remember I was like a you know, a finalist
27:46
Speaker 6: for a gold glove and I'm like, well, I know
27:48
Speaker 6: Pudge is gonna win it.
27:49
Speaker 5: He wins it every year, right.
27:51
Speaker 1: That's the famous one was growing up, Pudges caught stealing
27:54
Speaker 1: percentage and you know everyone would say, oh, he's calling pitches,
27:58
Speaker 1: he's calling more heat.
27:59
Speaker 5: Absolutely Hanning. And by the way, Pudge is an awesome dude.
28:02
Speaker 5: I love Pudge. He's awesome.
28:04
Speaker 7: Can But there's a lot of guys that have good arms.
28:07
Speaker 7: Just because you look at a team and you go, oh, man,
28:10
Speaker 7: they're caught stealing, those guys must have just pooh poo arms.
28:13
Speaker 7: I can name like three catchers in the time that
28:16
Speaker 7: I played that actually had poop poo arms. Not everybody
28:19
Speaker 7: had Yon Gohm's arm. Not everybody had peak Pudge arm.
28:24
Speaker 4: I get that.
28:25
Speaker 7: But a lot of guys have really good arms. The
28:28
Speaker 7: difference is what teams actually give you a chance on
28:32
Speaker 7: a consistent one through twelve one through thirteen of the
28:36
Speaker 7: pitchers or how many of them are like well, because
28:39
Speaker 7: there's guys in Triple A that I played with that
28:41
Speaker 7: are like, it's all right, I'll strike out the next
28:44
Speaker 7: two guys. And I'm like, Bro, you're not Greg Maddox,
28:47
Speaker 7: you're not Kenley Janssen, You're not you know all the
28:50
Speaker 7: all the pitchers that had said that, and they would
28:52
Speaker 7: just use that quote. I'm like, you're throwing ninety one
28:55
Speaker 7: like invisible heaters. When you get to the big leagues.
28:57
Speaker 7: You better be able to keep a runner on first
28:59
Speaker 7: or they're gonna be dry and runs in from second
29:01
Speaker 7: all day long.
29:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, some of this was let loose with the closers.
29:08
Speaker 2: And like you said, the swing and miss.
29:09
Speaker 6: From Jensenkemly Genison doesn't hold runners, Kimbro doesn't hold runners.
29:13
Speaker 5: Heck, they used to bought guys the third remember, on purpose.
29:17
Speaker 7: And everybody's taught, you know, everybody's being taught to throw
29:21
Speaker 7: like them, not everybody's being taught to compete and be
29:24
Speaker 7: out there and keep a runner at his base. Change
29:28
Speaker 7: up your looks. You're timing well, I can't because when
29:31
Speaker 7: I come set, I'm here here, here, here, here, here here.
29:36
Speaker 7: Now we're down to three seconds, and then you gotta throw. Well,
29:39
Speaker 7: I can get a running lead in that case.
29:42
Speaker 1: That's the whole name of the game is. You've got
29:44
Speaker 1: these high IQ guys. Springer's been around for a while.
29:47
Speaker 1: I thirty bases last year, yeah, something crazy.
29:52
Speaker 6: And he's like the slowest Sprinsby guy in the league.
29:54
Speaker 6: And he got like the Mosoto got a bunch last year.
29:57
Speaker 1: Jose Ms is on pace for like seventy and his
29:59
Speaker 1: spring speed is I think below average.
30:01
Speaker 5: He's super smart.
30:02
Speaker 2: He's super smart.
30:03
Speaker 5: Sandy over there too, telling him when to go.
30:05
Speaker 2: Yeah for him. He's timing up the pitch clock among
30:08
Speaker 2: other things.
30:09
Speaker 1: And he's always been a base dealer, but this just
30:11
Speaker 1: takes his game to another level. So, but we showed
30:14
Speaker 1: the board there are more double digit stolen base guys
30:17
Speaker 1: the last several years than we've been.
30:19
Speaker 6: Seem to trusted more now. So it's a math equation again,
30:21
Speaker 6: and you have to trust that you can make it.
30:23
Speaker 6: Don't trust you can make it, and it doesn't matter.
30:26
Speaker 2: Yep, I'm with you.