Latest / The Layback Podcast / Jake Mintz, Yahoo Sports, Cespedes Family BBQ / Baseball Bar-B-Cast (Ep. 102)

Transcript

Jake Mintz, Yahoo Sports, Cespedes Family BBQ / Baseball Bar-B-Cast (Ep. 102) · The Layback Podcast

0:00
Hey everyone, welcome back to the Layback Podcast, joining us
0:03
today. His words the I think the more
0:07
hated half of this Espedez family BBQ.
0:10
Less likable. Less.
0:12
Likable. Sorry, more hateable is too
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harsh. Less likable.
0:15
Half of this Espedez family BBQ, the baseball barbecast and a
0:21
bunch of other BBQ based puns. But nonetheless it's Jake Mintz,
0:26
his better half as I think he would say.
0:29
Jordan Schusterman I believe is already out in Arizona with the
0:32
pitchers and catchers. He reports with them and we are
0:35
lucky enough to, I guess, dive into the cultural side of
0:40
baseball for possibly the first time on the Lay Back podcast.
0:44
As all you listeners out there know, we're very development
0:48
focused, very rehab focused, giving players an opportunity to
0:51
tell their stories. But today, we have someone who
0:54
is often telling the stories of players helping to kind of write
0:59
the current history of the game. It's cool to say that you are
1:03
one of the authors of the way that all of us baseball fans
1:06
actually consume the game today. So, Jake, thank you so much for
1:10
joining us. And with that, and before I say
1:14
anything else too dumb, I'm going to hand it over to you for
1:17
the rest of the bio. Great.
1:19
Yeah, thanks for having me. Dude, This is this is rad.
1:22
So I work for Yahoo Sports. They pay the bills.
1:25
I'm the senior writer over there, do podcasts there three
1:28
days a week. I've worked at a number of
1:30
different places over the baseball media. journeymlb.com
1:34
did a podcast with the Ringer, SiriusXM, Fox Sports for a while
1:38
now. Been at Yahoo for a while and
1:40
it's been the been the best job I've ever had get to cover this
1:43
sport. I mean, it's a blessing.
1:45
Been at the World Series every year since 2019, which is
1:49
preposterous to me. And I feel humbled and lucky
1:55
that I do get to play a role in telling the story of the sport
1:58
which I love very dearly. As you know, Adam, I I played
2:02
poorly in college at Wash U in Saint Louis.
2:05
Go Bears. Except.
2:06
For one year. Except for one year where I
2:08
played quite well, the cauldron that birthed 1.
2:13
Mr. Durbin, the starting third or second baseman for the Boston
2:17
Red Sox, recently traded go Bears.
2:19
But yeah, and, and we met a couple years ago because I was
2:22
invited to host a conference, a seminar at Wake Forest
2:26
University, where you were presenting.
2:28
They needed someone with media experience and media chops to
2:31
hop in and kick it to the next presenter.
2:34
It was a tough crowd. I mean, if you've ever done
2:37
stand up doing Saturday and Sunday morning early for a bunch
2:45
of hungover front office and player dev and coaching dudes, I
2:50
mean that that was tough scene, tough scene.
2:54
I mean, we, we made our way through it.
2:56
We, we, we, we left it all out there.
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But I let's just say I've been in front of easier crowds.
3:01
That's the bio. I would say.
3:03
That's the overview. I'm excited to have a
3:05
conversation about just how how to translate some of these more
3:10
complicated concepts that I would imagine you spend your
3:13
time thinking and talking about to a wider audience is in a way,
3:17
what I do for a living. Wonderful.
3:20
And I'm kicking myself a little bit now because I even thought
3:24
about in the intro what I should have done is say the reason
3:28
we're having you on is not to talk about anything you do on
3:31
the cultural side of baseball or telling the story of baseball,
3:33
but just to tell your story of your own elbow injury, much like
3:37
every other player we have on to interview.
3:39
Because I know that's that's ultimately where your expertise
3:43
lies, is your own elbow injury. Oh yeah.
3:45
I'm, I, I think I'm the only dues paying member of the
3:49
Baseball Writers Association of America to have received Tommy
3:54
John surgery. I feel pretty confident about
3:57
that, but my Tommy John surgery is not particularly interesting.
4:01
I think, you know, in a lot of ways, solving uncovering the
4:04
elbow epidemic in our sport is like the next frontier.
4:07
Why do players get injured? How can we prevent it?
4:10
In my case, it was very straightforward.
4:13
Was a college reliever at AD 3 school that was pitching a ton.
4:17
I graduated. I continued to pitch in a men's
4:20
league and stopped doing any arm care whatsoever.
4:24
Increased the beer intake, decreased the amount of
4:28
stretching I was doing, and continued ripping sliders off as
4:33
hard as I could from a low slot and kablooey went to UCL.
4:36
We do not need Flex Pro Grip or Sherlock Holmes on the case in
4:41
my instance, that is for sure. But I'm also going to assume the
4:45
other thing you didn't mention in there is not only did you
4:47
transition from reliever that's appearing in damn near every
4:51
game to pitching and throwing for that matter only on Sundays
4:56
and trying to go CG every time you picked up the ball.
4:59
Yeah, I was. I was without any sort of like
5:02
change in my work, like build up or training.
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I went from probably throwing about four innings a weekend,
5:10
you know, maybe 2 on a Friday, 2 on a Sunday to like 9 once a
5:15
week. With no throwing in between, of
5:19
course. Yeah, we're like not throwing
5:21
during the week because I was working, you know, like I was a
5:24
an adult. It was almost like if you said
5:27
to me, hey, great college career, your challenge is to
5:31
speed run, tearing your elbow ligament, you need to do this as
5:35
quickly as you possibly can. And your market said go.
5:39
I think that the way I went about it is not very different
5:43
than the ideal path to tearing your ligament, and that I take a
5:48
lot of pride in that. In a weird way, it probably
5:51
brings you a little bit closer to the game as you hear some of
5:55
the old heads around the game now talk about I don't know why
5:59
these guys are throwing these weighted balls or doing all this
6:02
crazy stuff. They're all gonna get hurt and
6:04
you're probably out here like, no, actually, to an extent,
6:09
guys, that's what's keeping them healthy.
6:11
That's what keeps guys healthy. Yeah.
6:12
I, I mean, there is certainly something to, you know, velocity
6:16
playing a role in that and in in injuries.
6:18
And, you know, for me, I was 80 to 83.
6:22
So that wasn't why I always tell guys that I'm interviewing big
6:25
leaguers. Like think about how garbage my
6:29
mechanics must have been for me to tear my UCL for me 80 like
6:35
that's. Hard to do?
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Like that's hard to do. The science would show you
6:40
probably need to throw in the mid 80s to Eclipse.
6:44
Yeah, what the body can handle from a torque perspective, but.
6:48
Scientific. I'm a scientific maven.
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I'm a hero. I'm breaking the barriers of
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what you know bio mechanics deemed possible.
6:56
Look, I can get hurt. Anybody can get hurt, even you
7:01
kids. I do get a lot of Flack from
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fellow writer pals of mine for having had Tommy John.
7:09
They'll always say like, yeah, when Jake's interviewing a
7:11
pitcher, like, he always makes sure to put his elbow up to his
7:16
head and stretch and be like, yeah, this whole thing.
7:20
I have a very tiny scar which Bryce Harper, who received Tommy
7:24
John, once gave me crap for and compared it to his much larger
7:29
scar. That was very humbling and
7:32
certainly not a moment I ever anticipated having in my life.
7:36
And yet, here we are, living in this wonderful, wild, weird
7:40
world of baseball. But also, if you told 14 year
7:45
old you that you'd be getting Big Dog by Bryce Harper, that's
7:49
probably be a little bit of a somebody.
7:52
Group in the DC moment group in the DC area.
7:54
That was a win, absolutely. So let's let's even use this
7:59
opportunity to kind of walk things back.
8:01
I know you guys have a pretty good little minute and a half
8:04
video on the group Twitter account that showcases who you
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are, where you've gone, what you do.
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But I'd love now if you could kind of introduce that to the
8:14
lay back audience of how you guys ultimately got started in
8:18
the industry. Yeah, So myself and Jordan
8:20
Schusterman, we went to middle school together in the DC area
8:24
where I now live, and we were the only people in our high
8:28
school friend group that was problematically obsessed with
8:32
baseball. So we got closer started, you
8:35
know, playing catch all the time, sort of driving the minor
8:37
league games out in Maryland just for fun or free time.
8:40
And kind of got sucked into the baseball Internet space by a
8:44
podcast called Up and In, which used to exist on Baseball
8:47
Prospectus hosted by Kevin Goldstein, who's now in the
8:51
Minnesota front office, and Jason Parks, who's now in the
8:54
Arizona front office. And those two guys kind of spoke
8:57
a language that we had never heard about the sport before
8:59
where it was accessible, but it was authoritative.
9:02
It was it was inside the sport. So that made us want to do it
9:07
too. So our senior year of high
9:09
school, we started a blog and then a podcast who were 17 and
9:15
we just started screwing around in college doing the show and
9:19
picked up some steam and it just kind of snowballed from there.
9:23
We would do these Rd. trips every summer where we would get
9:25
in the car and just go see a minor league ball and interview
9:28
players and put it online. And this was like 2013, 2014,
9:31
2015, kind of before the ubiquitous, the, the omnipresent
9:36
era of what's up, dude? You know, like the the small
9:40
Mike interviews where we were not to say we invented the idea
9:43
of interviewing a baseball player, but like online at the
9:46
time that wasn't around, like it wasn't all over our fees in the
9:51
same way. And we did a lot of that.
9:52
And that helped us kind of get credence within the industry and
9:55
build enough connections with players, following them up
9:58
through their minor league journeys that when they became
10:00
big leaders, we were able to carry that along with usmlb.com.
10:04
Asked us to do a road trip for them going into our superior of
10:08
college where we did DC to Maine, to San Diego for the
10:13
Futures Game. 32 days in the car, minor league game almost
10:18
every night, seeing the country, talking to people.
10:20
And that was kind of our first real taste of it.
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Started working for m&b.com right out of school in New York
10:25
City and then fell asleep on a keyboard.
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And now I somehow am 30 years old and still do this for a
10:32
living. What I always say is there are
10:34
people that are more entertaining than us.
10:37
There are people that have more access and insight than us.
10:40
But I think what we do is kind of thread the needle and hit the
10:44
sweet spot between those two things.
10:45
I think we bring a unique perspective for people that are
10:48
credentialed to be around all the time that are in clubhouses,
10:52
that are talking to players, that are having these
10:53
conversations. But yet I think we're able to
10:56
report on the game in a traditional way if we need to.
10:59
We're able to report on the game in a modern way if we need to,
11:02
depending on what the circumstance necessitates.
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Like I said before, like I just feel lucky that I get to do this
11:07
right, that I feel lucky that I've had these experiences.
11:09
And so, yeah, that's kind of the spiel.
11:11
That's the run through of what it is, what we do.
11:13
The name Suspended Family BBQ is derived from Joanna Cespedes,
11:17
obviously, who, when he was putting together a highlight
11:20
reel that he sent to teams when he was leaving Cuba, featured a
11:25
32nd clip of him smoking a pig over an open spit.
11:30
And Billy Bean saw. That was like, yeah, four years,
11:32
$36 million. I need that.
11:34
We just thought it was like the most absurd thing we'd ever seen
11:36
and never thought we'd have to explain it to anybody.
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And here we are. Besides basing your entire
11:43
original platform off of Cespedes roasting a pig, was
11:47
there any kind of sliding door moment where you guys were able
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to step through or look back and be like it was that interview or
11:57
that moment where we crossed over from just a couple of
12:00
college pals or high school buddies having fun to people
12:04
with a true platform? Yeah.
12:08
I mean, I would say that there are a couple different
12:10
transitions in a way. The first one was we went to the
12:12
Baseball Prospectus event like they used to do these, they
12:16
might still do them. They like they would have the
12:19
writers and a couple front office people with a team like
12:22
show up and do a panel on AQ and A at a stadium.
12:25
And we went to the one in Nats Park and we met Jason Parks, who
12:30
was still on the public side of the time and he thought we were
12:33
funny and tweeted about us. And we went from, I mean, again,
12:37
this is going into our freshman year of college.
12:39
We probably went from like 200 followers to 1100 in a week
12:43
because of that. And like, that was really the
12:45
first foot in the door moment. And then we, you know, did in
12:49
college, we were just being total goofballs, like being
12:51
idiots, doing whatever we wanted.
12:53
And like, because we didn't know that it was going to be our
12:56
lives. So we were kind of living freely
12:59
in a way. My dad knew it was going to be
13:03
my life. And so he was, I owe him a lot
13:06
for like keeping the rails, keeping us on the rails a little
13:09
bit from time to time when we needed that.
13:11
And then like, I don't know if there was really another moment.
13:16
There was no aha. I mean, there are these moments
13:19
where you like, look up and you're interviewing you Darvish
13:22
in the supply closet of a minor league stadium during a rehab
13:26
start or you're you're in the Cubs clubhouse after winning, if
13:30
they win the NLCS in 2016. Look, there are all these
13:33
moments where you're like, I can't believe I'm here, but I
13:36
don't really have a moment where it was like, now I'm in it.
13:42
Like now I'm this. I would say over the last four
13:45
years since the pandemic, like not purposefully kind of pivoted
13:49
again to focus more, to do more writing and do more reporting
13:53
because you can't be 22 forever. And if you want to survive in
13:57
this industry, you have to be willing to adapt.
13:59
And I think embracing that side of our skill set has been one of
14:03
the joys of my professional life and has kind of allowed me to,
14:07
hey, you're going to watch game seven of the World Series
14:09
between the Dodgers and the Blue Jays, and you need to throw
14:12
together 1000 concise words about one of the most memorable
14:15
games of all time. Like that is super fun, super
14:19
difficult, and makes going to work enjoyable having those
14:23
moments. Speaking of adapting skill sets
14:26
over time and can't be 22 forever, one of the, I think
14:31
wildest things for me to see in our kind of very infantile
14:37
relationship is me meeting you at Wake Forest knowing that you
14:43
had a social media platform. But that was also at the time
14:46
where I wasn't deep into consuming the world of baseball.
14:50
So deep on the flex pro grip elbow side, not into the grand
14:54
baseball sphere. And then me seeing you this past
14:58
year at winter meetings in just trying to talk to you for 10
15:03
minutes and every single person that walked by, you knew.
15:08
And that included agents, front office marketing writers.
15:13
It didn't matter if so. Guy walked by high school.
15:18
Team which ended up being a pretty good connection and I
15:21
ended up talking to him for a good 30 minutes after.
15:24
You left great guy. Yeah, awesome.
15:26
And I appreciate that connection.
15:28
But the reason I bring this up is the skill of relationship
15:32
building. And there's no way you and
15:34
Jordan would be in this position that you guys are in now if you
15:37
couldn't kind of foster that relationship in getting to know
15:43
people. Because there's one thing to
15:44
talk to someone. There's one thing to write about
15:47
someone or host them for an interview.
15:49
But you guys wouldn't be where you are now if you didn't bridge
15:54
that gap to not necessarily friendship, but I'm sure it is
15:57
friendship in some cases. People rely on you guys and you
16:00
are welcome in all these spaces and that that has afforded you
16:04
so many opportunities. And I know this is the really
16:07
weird part of the question after I talk you up and talk about how
16:10
good you are around people, but how have you gotten to the point
16:14
where you guys just kind of know how to exist with the right
16:19
decorum in these rooms that you're in?
16:22
You have to care about the people and I think that's true
16:26
with anything about whether it's coaching or any relationship.
16:30
If you care, people will tell that you care and then you'll
16:34
have meaningful interactions that will benefit both parties
16:37
down the road. It really is like anything else.
16:39
I think part of it is we, I'm only 30, but we've been doing
16:42
this now for 12 years, since I was 18.
16:44
So we've just, we've lived a lot of different lives in the
16:47
industry that gives us a lot of different connections.
16:50
We've grown up with and alongside people.
16:53
I think of my good buddy Zach Mortimer, who is now in charge
16:57
of amateur scouting with the Cardinals, who was the 3rd guest
17:01
we ever had on our podcast in 2013, right when he was on the
17:05
public side. And like those relationships,
17:08
you can't, you can't fake it. People will tell if you are
17:15
phony. Even dumb people will be able to
17:17
tell. And there's a lot of dumb people
17:19
in baseball, but like they'll be, there's a lot of smart
17:22
people too, but they'll be able to tell if you're phony.
17:24
I think that's a big part of it is, is just care.
17:29
Like I know that sounds stupid and that sounds silly, but like
17:31
used to meet people where they're at.
17:33
And I, when I think about this with players, if I, if I can all
17:37
at all help it, I always want the first conversation I have
17:41
with the player to be off the record with no recording going
17:43
on, right? Because if you don't build a
17:47
relationship, it's going to make the storytelling worse later on,
17:53
right? And I think now there are
17:54
circumstances where like, that's not possible.
17:56
If it's game seven of the World Series, I had talked to Miguel
18:00
Rojas before, but it's game seven of the World Series and
18:03
I've never talked to Miguel Rojas.
18:04
Like, I gotta go talk to Miguel Rojas who just won the World
18:06
Series, right? There are circumstances where
18:08
you don't get to dictate it. But I think having those
18:11
relationships with players is so important.
18:13
And I think it does enhance the storytelling because there's
18:15
just an added level of trust there.
18:18
I mean, that does go alongside like growing up with these
18:19
people. And like I, I've known Carlos
18:23
Rodin since he was in high a, since he was in college, even.
18:28
Same thing with a guy like Lucas Giolito.
18:30
So when you grow up with these people, they become your, you
18:33
know, more than just your contacts, right?
18:35
You meet their families. You know what they do in the
18:38
offseason. You, you care about their lives.
18:41
And that is, that's the whole thing, man.
18:44
It's just care. There's one thing of course to
18:47
care, but then you will also need to be good at what you do
18:51
as well for other people to care, right?
18:53
Because then the players, the front office members, they can
18:56
kind of bring you along for the ride and trust that you're going
18:59
to put the right story out there or that you're always going to
19:01
have their best interest. But then the weird part about
19:05
media is not only do you need to stay in the good graces of the
19:09
people that you are communicating with, but you need
19:11
to stay in the good graces of the people that you are sharing
19:14
information to. And what I find so interesting
19:20
about this specific piece, I was even on the phone yesterday with
19:25
one of my buddies who's one of the biggest stat head seam heads
19:28
that I know, really obsessed with baseball and follows the
19:33
game, still keeps his score book when he goes to games, that kind
19:35
of thing. So I know that he follows what
19:38
you guys do. I get on the line with him and I
19:41
just want to say to him like, hey, I know you consume what
19:45
Jake and Jordan do. You consume what I do on my end.
19:49
I want to talk through interview questions with you.
19:51
And then I brought up a point to him where I said, you tell me if
19:56
this sounds offensive, but I kind of feel.
20:00
As though Jordan and Jake have done what ESPN is now trying to
20:06
do across the board. They're putting people at the
20:09
front desk that don't just know the game but are relatable to
20:13
the fan. You see that it's a little bit
20:16
different because he played the sport, but you see Pat McAfee is
20:20
posted on every single thing that ESPN does.
20:24
And that's not just because he's knowledgeable, but it's because
20:26
the every man, the every fan looks at Pat McAfee and he's
20:30
like beer party football. That's awesome.
20:35
And then people in the baseball world can look at what you and
20:38
Jordan do and be like, that's how much I care.
20:41
That's how nerdy I am. That's how much I love it in at
20:44
the end of the day, these guys are people that I see myself
20:49
being friends with. So then I understand that that's
20:52
probably you still just being yourself, like you're not trying
20:57
to cater to anyone. But have you, have you had to
21:01
wrestle with how you are perceived by your audience at
21:05
all on this journey? Yeah, always.
21:08
I mean, you don't want to to a point because you don't want it
21:11
to like eat you up and change you.
21:14
But yeah, absolutely. I mean, I don't think it's ever
21:18
conscious to be like, oh, you know what I should do?
21:20
I should be louder and have more hot takes.
21:24
You know? Straddling the line in a
21:28
responsible way between entertainment and insight is
21:33
very difficult and is very important where I think there
21:37
are times like McAfee is embracing entertainment as the
21:44
priority. And I think what has happened in
21:46
a lot of sports media is that entertainment is superseding
21:52
insight, truth, whatever you want to call it, right?
21:55
And I think that is just a reflection of what the audience
21:57
wants or what the audience maybe even thinks it wants, whatever
22:01
that means. And I think that that is the
22:04
most difficult part is where do I draw the line?
22:09
I was thinking we were doing offseason grades the other day.
22:13
Good episode, by the way. And I was thank you.
22:15
And I was like the Dodgers, I was like A or F because they got
22:19
Kyle Tucker, They're ruining the sport.
22:22
And like, I don't think the Dodgers are ruining the sport.
22:25
And I'm saying it partially as a joke, but like, I went on a show
22:28
yesterday and like you said, the Dodgers are ruining the sport,
22:31
right? And so it is it, it can be a
22:33
difficult line to straddle, but I think especially when you have
22:36
audience there, there's really two different audiences that
22:40
you're always dealing with. The audience who knows you in
22:42
the audience who doesn't, and the audience that knows you, the
22:46
audience that we've had for years that listens to the shows
22:48
and whatever they understand us. And so if I go on the show and
22:53
I'm like, you know, who's a bum? Ronald Acuna Junior, those
22:58
people know that I'm kidding and obviously know that I'm kidding,
23:02
right? That I don't think one of the
23:04
best players in the world is bum.
23:05
Whereas then you have the the people who for whatever reason,
23:08
just like aren't familiar with the work and they can take it
23:10
out of context and whatever. And you're not like worried
23:12
about that all the time. But it is certainly something
23:14
you think about and you just have to be cognizant of what
23:18
you're saying and why. But I do think that you are kind
23:21
of honest, something about just sports media in general, insight
23:24
versus entertainment. And I think that that has LED
23:28
some people astray over the years and has watered down what
23:33
the consumer gets when you go too far in either of those
23:37
directions. And that will provide the
23:39
perfect segue for us to go into the information side of this
23:44
podcast because yes, I definitely wanted to bring you
23:48
on to tell the story of you and the development of what you guys
23:51
do because we are about telling the story of the human side of
23:55
things. But also, this is an opportunity
23:58
for me and my side of the aisle to get educated of what actually
24:03
is going on in the world of professional baseball.
24:06
So I don't think there's a better way to kick things off
24:09
than to ask about the trends that we potentially expect to
24:13
see this year, specifically on the pitching side.
24:16
So maybe that'll challenge you a little bit to think here, But
24:19
we've seen the year of the splitter happen.
24:22
We've seen the year of the shift on the defensive side happen.
24:27
If you had to make a prediction for what the year of is going to
24:31
be for 2026, what are we going to call it?
24:34
ABS this year, it is the biggest story in the sport and it's not
24:38
close. Even bigger than all of the
24:40
labor brouhaha that will resolve itself at the end of the year
24:44
into next offseason. Very little will happen during
24:47
this upcoming season on the field, in my opinion, that will
24:51
impact the future of the sport from like a structural
24:55
perspective. Either the Dodgers will win and
24:58
people will be more mad or they won't and people will be as mad,
25:01
right? Like those are the options.
25:04
ABS will dramatically reshape the way that we watch the sport
25:11
and the way that the sport is played and strategized and
25:15
discussed in a way that I I think for the better.
25:19
But I think it's been under talked about just like how
25:23
traumatic of a shift this is going to be.
25:26
Does it alter the way that pitchers use their mix, right?
25:31
You would never purposefully throw a curveball up in the
25:34
zone, right Our guys? This is where my side of the
25:39
aisle might argue a little bit more, but yes, in the general,
25:42
in the. General traditional sense with
25:45
you. I'm with you.
25:45
I'm with you. That is considered to not be a
25:48
an optimal. I will entertain the take,
25:51
right? Like our guys going to try and
25:53
clip the top of the zone now with curveballs.
25:56
Are they going to try and clip like the bottom of the zone?
25:58
Are we going to we're going to have pitches.
26:00
We're going to have someone's going to throw a curveball that
26:02
bounces before it's caught and is called a strike.
26:05
And people are going to lose their craniums.
26:09
Like who is allowed to challenge from teams?
26:12
Who is not allowed to challenge? Data in the minor leagues shows
26:16
that pitchers are the worst at this by a pretty significant
26:20
amount that they think they're better than the reality.
26:23
Now, part of that is understandable because how many
26:26
pitchers are actually looking at the strike zone when the ball
26:28
crosses the strike zone? 0.
26:31
I mean, very few like Greg, Greg Maddox, maybe like a guy like
26:37
Stroman. 1982. Right, who's like finishing in a
26:41
second fielding? Position.
26:42
Stare at home plate. Yeah.
26:44
That doesn't exist anymore really.
26:46
And so these guys aren't seeing or like they don't have the
26:49
right perspective. Catchers are the best, then
26:51
hitters and pitchers. What types of pitchers are
26:53
allowed to challenge? Do teams say, hey, on our team,
26:56
pitchers don't challenge, just that there's a rule.
26:58
How does it impact pitch mixes? How does it impact you?
27:01
There's just, it's a Pandora's box.
27:03
We've seen data from the results at the minor league level.
27:07
The big leagues are a completely different thing.
27:09
Guys are throwing harder with nastier stuff.
27:12
It is going to be even more difficult, I think, to
27:14
challenge. Like I think players as a whole
27:17
will be worse at it because frankly, there's just less time
27:20
to know how you're doing and the UMPS are better than they are at
27:24
the minor league level. So yeah, it's to me that's the
27:27
whole thing, just because of the multitude of different outcomes
27:32
that will spring from that one specific edition.
27:36
I am hopping to another screen real quick to do a rapid Google.
27:41
I want to know if this is still his picture on MLB.com, but for
27:46
anyone who wants to push back on Jake and I''s little
27:51
conversation there about our pitchers looking at home plate
27:54
when the ball is crossing through the strike zone, this is
27:57
perfect. Please toss in a Google or
28:01
preferred search engine of choice.
28:03
Ian Seymour, left-handed pitcher.
28:06
Tampa Bay. Rays one of one of my flex pro
28:09
grips, personal favorite players in lay back Podcast alum.
28:13
So definitely go check out his episode.
28:14
Quick little plug there, personal plug, but just look at
28:17
that first picture that pops up for Ian Seymour.
28:20
He is looking at the third base dugout and Ian Seymour is going
28:25
to be a starter. Here's the take.
28:27
He's going to be a legitimate starter in this game for a long
28:30
time. It does not matter where you are
28:32
looking, so if anyone wants to argue that, just go look at that
28:35
picture of Ian Seymour. Now, Jake, here's the
28:38
potentially tougher question for you to answer based on your
28:41
knowledge of the game. Are there any specific pictures
28:45
that you think can better take advantage of this ABS era that
28:50
we are in now? It's a really good question.
28:54
I would imagine it's there's two different ways to think about
28:56
it, right? Like I'm thinking about the guys
28:58
with with elite command. Are the guys with elite command
29:02
going to suffer or benefit? On one hand they could benefit
29:05
because if they just clip the edge, it's a strike.
29:07
But you would imagine in the past that those guys are
29:10
probably getting a little bit more off the edge of the plate.
29:13
Are they going to lose that? I think it will continue to
29:17
benefit the guys with the best stuff because if it's hard to
29:23
hit, it's hard to track. And I think that trying to
29:28
challenge someone like Joan Duran or Tarek Skubal is harder
29:35
than challenging someone whose stuff is maybe more pedestrian,
29:41
right. And so I do think it could, I'm
29:45
thinking this through in real time.
29:46
I think it could broaden continue to broaden the gap
29:51
between the have stuffs and the have nots.
29:55
That is my initial hypothesis. I think that's a pretty solid
29:59
take, because I'm also asking you to hypothesize on something
30:03
that is so far down on the list of things that makes pitchers
30:09
good. How are we going to ask?
30:12
How are you going to ask anyone with true knowledge of the game
30:15
to rank a pitcher based on their ability to take advantage of one
30:20
true strike zone? Of a thing that we have never
30:22
had like that too. Some guys have pitched with this
30:25
in the minor leagues and I'm sure that there is data about
30:27
who is benefiting from this and who is not and how it's
30:30
impacting the game. But also, I mean, pitchers
30:32
aren't off pitch to ABS, they're going to pitch to the hitter
30:35
that's at the plate. Absolutely, yeah.
30:37
No one's pitching to ABSI really think that the the biggest
30:42
impact will be for the catchers. I think you can roll out a worse
30:46
catcher from a receiving perspective.
30:49
From a receiving perspective. Now, how does that impact the
30:53
pitcher? Like, like if you're throwing to
30:55
someone with cement hands, that's less optimal, even if
31:00
it's not a ball strike thing. Like you just feel worse.
31:03
We've all done that, right? We've all thrown to that
31:06
catcher. It doesn't feel nice, but yeah,
31:09
I, I am, I, I just think it's just going to be such a big
31:12
deal. And I, I have, I have not spent
31:14
enough time thinking about it. I think that the industry has
31:16
not spent enough time thinking about it and I am super
31:19
intrigued with how it plays out. I am too, and I guess I really
31:22
haven't come to the official conclusion in my own mind yet of
31:26
how big of a deal this is actually going to be.
31:29
I don't consume enough minor league ball for for me to form a
31:34
true opinion either way. I just see little clips of it
31:38
and be like, that's cool that we actually know what is a strike
31:41
and what is a ball now. But there is some subjectivity
31:45
to baseball that is a little bit fun knowing that you can game
31:49
plan for a specific umpire. Now we're game planning for a
31:52
computer. We lose kind of like what you
31:55
said, the edge of having an unbelievable defensive or I
32:00
guess not even defensive catcher, but truly receiving
32:03
focus catcher or a catcher that understands how to set up and
32:07
get angles and game plan the umpire and develop those
32:10
relationships over time. It is weird to say that we might
32:13
be losing one of those kind of like 6th tool components.
32:18
Sure. Sets catchers apart and enables
32:21
pitching Staffs to go from really good to great.
32:24
I am for a while. And I feel this way about the
32:27
pitch clock, too. For a while I was like, you're
32:31
ruining the sport I love. Like, why are we trying to
32:34
change this thing? It ain't for me and it ain't for
32:36
you, OK? We're so fucking close to the
32:40
screen. You know, the idea that we won't
32:44
or we might not have a situation where fans are whining about bad
32:49
calls in an important playoff game is so much more important
32:53
and impactful and good for the sport than you and I being like,
32:57
But like, I want to watch Austin Hedges like I love Austin.
33:00
We want to watch Austin Hedges like, you know, dig a slider out
33:04
of the dirt and show it to, you know, Dan IA, Sonia, like we're
33:09
watching anyway. No one's like, this ruins
33:13
everything. I'm turning this off.
33:15
No, this is for the masses. And I think that that's a good
33:18
thing. Will we lose parts of the sport
33:20
as it modernizes itself? Certainly.
33:24
But I think part of the reason I was OK with ABS and against part
33:28
of the reason I was OK with the ABS challenge system and against
33:33
full ROBO strike zone is because I don't think this will
33:36
completely fundamentally alter the sport to an unrecognizable
33:42
degree, right? Whereas I think Robo all the
33:47
time would have done that. We'll put a bow on that topic
33:50
and move into the next kind of timely piece as we get the
33:53
season or pitchers and catchers reporting underway.
33:56
What do you think is kind of the next wave of player and or
34:02
pitching development either from what you're seeing, what you're
34:05
hearing? I guess that's the beauty of you
34:08
kind of having your ear to the ground.
34:09
I don't know how much of these types of conversations you're
34:12
really having. So even if you just need to pull
34:15
something out of thin air and present it like you've been
34:19
mulling over this for ages, please take it away well.
34:23
It's not necessarily like I feel like everyone's trying to find
34:26
the next thing. Of course, that's how we.
34:29
Use all the time. That's how we operate. 1 trend
34:32
that I'm very interested in is the new generation of pitchers
34:37
matriculating to the big leagues grew up with this language.
34:44
They grew up in a modern developmental landscape, and so
34:51
much of the narrative of the dynamic over the last decade has
34:59
been how do we teach old dogs new tricks?
35:04
How do we take these major leaguers and show them that we
35:10
can make them better by using modern methods?
35:13
And I don't think, and every year that becomes less and less
35:18
of the question, right? Because, you know, I think about
35:21
me. I did not have weighted balls in
35:23
college because I graduated in 2017.
35:26
They were around. It wasn't even 1.
35:30
Kid on the roster had. That yeah, at the D3 level, guys
35:33
weren't doing weighted balls. Like, come on now.
35:36
It's like every single person and every single kid that the
35:39
high school level that wants to play at the college level is
35:43
probably at least picking up a weighted ball.
35:45
Like what percentage of D1 pitchers have ever picked up a
35:49
weighted ball now versus 10 years ago?
35:51
I mean, it's a dramatic difference.
35:54
And so I think what that does from a developmental standpoint
35:57
is it changes slightly the type of person that you want to have
36:03
around a bit because it's not net like you're, you're not
36:07
teaching the 100 level or 200 level class anymore, right?
36:12
You're teaching the 400 level class because the guy that
36:15
you're bringing in 30% chance they know that they're a
36:18
supinator, which is nuts compared to where we used to be.
36:23
And so that to me is a very dramatic shift in how the game
36:28
gets taught. Players have never been more
36:30
educated than they are today. And I think that that's a
36:34
benefit and it will like there was just, there's been so much
36:38
low hanging fruit that the pro level even still in terms of
36:42
getting better at developing, particularly developing
36:45
pitching. And I think that there are very
36:47
few orgs left that are doing this wrong.
36:51
Like the Washington Nationals were doing this wrong for a long
36:55
time and they modernized over the winter.
36:58
The Colorado Rockies were doing this wrong for a long time.
37:02
They made some really good hires over the winter.
37:05
And so it's like you can't just buy a trajector, a track man or
37:14
a rap Soto and put it into your facility and think that that's
37:19
going to mean you win games. Whereas 8 years ago, 10-15 years
37:24
ago, the, the, the Astros were like, wow, Colin Mchugh's
37:27
curveballs got a wild spin rate, let's get him in here, right?
37:31
The game has changed again. And so I think that that is just
37:35
a general dynamic that I think it's worth thinking about every
37:38
year as it changes a little bit. I haven't put too much thought
37:41
to that, but you do bring up a great point how there are.
37:47
There are. Fewer people that grew up in our
37:50
era. And it is kind of hilarious to
37:53
think about because I'm, I'm guessing you grew up in a house
37:56
that had dial up Internet at least for a little bit, maybe,
38:00
maybe for a couple years. I know a little bit, just a
38:02
couple years older than you. I was born in 93, so I'm 32
38:08
right now. But that meant for some of my
38:12
formative years, I needed to yell around the house to make
38:16
sure nobody was getting on a phone call if I wanted to get on
38:19
AOL for then that to take 15 minutes for the computer to even
38:24
fire it up. And that that meant that I also
38:28
didn't throw on a radar gun because of those two things kind
38:31
of went together for a long time.
38:33
I didn't throw on a radar gun. I don't.
38:35
Know the baseball. Yep.
38:37
The one that had the radar, The one that had the radar screen on
38:40
the ball. I mean, talk about freaking junk
38:43
science. But like, that was the closest
38:46
we got. I think the first time I threw
38:49
in front of a radar gun was probably like high school
38:51
showcase stuff. Like it wasn't.
38:54
And that was a big deal to find out.
38:56
That was a massive deal. And now, much like you were
38:58
saying, whatever percentage of college athletes have thrown
39:03
weighted balls, hell I would probably say of future college
39:08
pitchers, it wouldn't surprise me if 25% of them own a pocket
39:14
radar or have one in within one phone call away.
39:18
Would you like? I have one.
39:21
I don't pitch at all like you. Know but that's just part of the
39:24
game now and to think that years ago you needed to call somebody
39:29
to call somebody to call someone else to get access to maybe find
39:34
out how hard you throw and now every athlete who walks in the
39:38
door of a player development facility knows the both the
39:43
ideal and most likely miss of their fastball, curveball,
39:48
slider change up in everything that goes along with it.
39:51
I really do think it again, like if your students are coming in
39:56
with more information than they used to, you need to change the
39:59
way that you're teaching. And there are benefits to a more
40:02
educated player base, but it can also make.
40:06
You know, coach or developer, their job more difficult.
40:10
And I think it kind of goes back to a little bit what we were
40:12
talking about before, where then it's just interpersonal
40:15
relationships and communication. And that's taking precedent over
40:19
technical knowledge. If everyone's got the technical
40:22
knowledge, OK, how are you separating yourself?
40:24
I think of someone like, you know, Ryan Fuller, who is the
40:29
director of hitting for the White Sox.
40:31
And like, Ryan was a high school teacher.
40:34
You could teach. You could teach if you can
40:36
communicate information, you can communicate information, whether
40:40
that's Mesopotamia or kick change, right, you can teach.
40:47
And I think that we're going to continue to see that type of
40:50
dynamic exist because when the players are coming in with more
40:53
information, you have like a higher baseline from which to
40:58
start. And I think it might lead to
40:59
like a younger groups. You can have players, the
41:01
coaches that relate to your players a little bit more.
41:04
I don't know. I mean, there's a reason I'm not
41:06
running a front office. I'm sitting, I'm in the cold
41:09
weather on February 12th because I don't have the answers.
41:12
I'm not at a complex right now working for your team.
41:15
That is I, I didn't know that history or I guess the makeup of
41:21
Ryan Fuller. But then you think about other
41:23
great coaches in the game or someone that I'm a massive fan
41:27
of personally. So I'm going to call him a great
41:29
coach in the game. Although his track record I, I
41:32
think would say great coach. But Robin Lund.
41:35
Oh yeah, pitching coach. Bullpen coach for the Detroit
41:37
Tigers. He's the best.
41:38
He's a college professor for like 1520 years, right?
41:43
Yeah. You know.
41:45
And then going beyond that, and then you look into some of the
41:48
hires that are being made, something I do find interesting,
41:53
yes, you need people with extreme technical knowledge at
41:56
this point because you need people that can talk the talk.
41:59
When players have this amazing knowledge base, the starting
42:03
knowledge base. So they're you.
42:06
You just can't fake it anymore. You either need to be able to
42:09
talk the talk or you need to be the single greatest facilitator
42:13
of all time to be able to pick up the phone and call whoever
42:17
has the answer and get that answer in a split second.
42:21
I, I hosted a panel discussion this past year at Wake Forest
42:25
player development seminar in Josh Hedge cut friend of our
42:29
program, friend of your program, I know was on the panel.
42:32
And we, we ask kind of the standard question that you hear
42:36
time and time again of if someone doesn't have the, have
42:41
the answer to a question for you as a player, what do you want
42:45
them to do? And you hear so often like it
42:49
being OK for a coach to say like oh I don't know but I'll go find
42:53
out for you Hedge cuz response was now at this point.
42:57
If a coach. Answers twice.
43:00
I don't know. I'll go find out.
43:03
He's moved on at that point. He knows that that coach is not
43:07
well prepared enough or equipped enough to help him in his
43:10
journey. So it isn't enough to say I'll
43:14
find out for you. You need to be so in tune with
43:18
what's going on, even if you don't have the exact answer, but
43:21
to at least be able to speak the language and connect the dots
43:26
along the. Way the bar is higher, the bar
43:29
is higher. With the problem being solved.
43:31
Yeah, the bar is higher, and that's because in part, the
43:34
democratization of information has given different types of
43:40
people access to build the toolkit to become great coaches.
43:46
Whereas in the past you knew about this shit because you
43:50
played right. There was no other way to learn
43:55
how to do this right. Like every pigeon coach at the
43:57
big league level was probably a professional pitcher for a very,
44:01
very, very, very, very long time.
44:03
And that's not the case because you can go read, you can go
44:05
online, you can you can develop yourself in a way that is that
44:10
is different. And I think that that's a good
44:13
thing. But it also does make the field
44:14
more crowded. If I can get a driveline cert,
44:18
so can, you know, 200 other people trying to get the same
44:21
gig as me. And so then it right, it
44:23
becomes, how do you stand out? You stand out because your
44:27
interpersonal skills are elite. You stand out because you're an
44:30
elite communicator, or you stand out because you're more prepared
44:35
than everybody else. You're just freaking smarter,
44:38
right? And that's it.
44:40
That's how you, that's how you succeed.
44:43
That's how you win. I'm thinking of like Eric
44:45
Jaeger's who's running the Mets pitching.
44:47
Does Eric know more facts than other pitching developers?
44:52
Does he communicate better than other pitching developers?
44:55
Is he more organized? Like what is the separator for
44:58
him? It's not necessarily like we all
45:02
have. Eric has the same information, I
45:04
would say 95% of the same information that we can all have
45:08
on our phones, right? About what's good about
45:12
pitching, what makes a good pitcher.
45:13
It's all on here. He's able to keep it up here so
45:16
that when he communicates it to the player, it's coming across
45:20
in a more authentic manner. Whereas like, I'm just thinking,
45:23
if I was coaching and a player's like, hey, my, my change up
45:26
isn't fading the way that it used to.
45:29
Why do you think that's the case?
45:31
I could like, you know, fucking ass ChatGPT or I could go online
45:35
and whatever. But if you're right, like what
45:37
Hedge said, like you got to have that answer ready for you in the
45:40
moment. Something that we probably
45:43
should address on this exact topic is it does open the door
45:47
for outsiders to get in the game.
45:50
I mean. Which is a good thing.
45:52
I I. Agree.
45:53
I mean, look at us. We both played college baseball.
45:56
We love baseball, but I didn't throw in inning in college
46:00
baseball. I was an infielder who happened
46:03
to hit OK, but I stayed in the game and I saw a gap in elbow
46:08
injuries and tried to do something about it.
46:12
You did an incredible job building a platform, building
46:14
relationships, telling the story of the game, and it's given us
46:19
the opportunity to live within the game we love.
46:23
And what I think is so amazing is that isn't just limited to us
46:29
kind of skirting around the outside of the game, being
46:32
support or telling the story. Now you see people, for example,
46:36
as polarizing as he is, and although this is more of a
46:39
pitching discussion as opposed to a hitting discussion, you can
46:42
see people like Richard Shank have a major role in the current
46:48
story of professional baseball being Aaron Johnson's hitting
46:52
coach. And that's a guy that was a
46:54
teacher in a pool shark and now he is the hitting coach, the
46:58
private hitting coach for the best hitter in the game today.
47:02
Absolutely. Those are facts.
47:05
I think it is interesting, right, because because we all
47:08
have access to information, in a way it's like, oh, anybody can
47:11
get in. But the democratization of who's
47:13
coaching, I do think is going to and has already negatively
47:17
impacted who's playing, whereas the technology and the
47:21
information becomes more important.
47:23
That shit's expensive, right? Like having access to these to
47:27
whatever, whether it's, you know, motion tracking, like
47:30
mocap stuff or pitch tracking stuff or whatever, that's
47:34
expensive and not everyone has it.
47:36
And so I'm curious to see how it continues to like stratify
47:42
baseball players from like a financial standpoint where it's
47:45
like, if I have access to force plates when I'm 14, I'm probably
47:52
going to end up better than the kid that is just as good as me,
47:55
but doesn't have that when they're 14.
47:57
And so that then like pushes the game down to slightly
48:00
problematic road. And I'm not I'm not saying that
48:03
like we need to nerf our own technological achievements.
48:07
I mean, this is we are in capitalist America, but like,
48:10
what are we doing as an industry to ensure that the people
48:15
receiving the information like that, we're not just having rich
48:19
kids getting better at a younger age, right?
48:23
And that's even true at the college level now where it's
48:25
like, you want to play D1, man. Like you got to be pretty close
48:29
to a finished project if you want to be at a power for,
48:32
right, Because everybody's starting younger and younger and
48:34
younger. And so I don't know the answer
48:37
to that because if you're a good coach and a good communicator
48:40
with good tech, like you're going to follow the money and
48:42
you're going to follow the opportunities.
48:43
But I do think that like, would a guy like does, is development
48:50
going to be available to everybody?
48:52
No, right. What does that mean for our
48:55
sport? What can we do to make sure that
48:58
it doesn't send us down a truly ugly path?
49:01
I'm in full agreement with you, and probably the best way I
49:04
could even exemplify that agreement is to say my specific
49:10
response to that force plate example that you brought up.
49:14
A 14 year old who has access to force plates versus a 14 year
49:17
old who doesn't. I would even go further in
49:20
arguing that a 14 year old who has access to force plates, the
49:25
force plates are not going to be the piece of technology that
49:29
ultimately is the reason that that 14 year old ends up better
49:33
than the one that doesn't have access.
49:35
I would argue that the fact that one of them is in a socio
49:39
economic position to have access to forest plates likely means
49:43
that he can also showcase more often, go more places to be seen
49:47
more often. And it is unfortunate.
49:50
Sorry for those who don't want to hear us talk about money in
49:53
baseball and youth development, but quite frankly it has become
49:57
a wealthy game. You need money to play.
50:00
You need money to be seen, You need money to get exposed.
50:03
Which also means, unfortunately, we are going to see fewer in
50:07
less often occurring cases of the awesome stories where we
50:12
show up to a field and a scout gets there early only to see
50:16
some 17 year old that nobody knows the name of throwing 95
50:21
miles an hour. Because Lorenzo Kane showing up
50:24
to his high school baseball practice in jeans as trying out
50:27
in the 10th grade. Like, that's what makes like
50:30
those stories to make the game interesting.
50:33
We want as many different types of people to be involved in the
50:37
sport from as many different types of backgrounds because it
50:38
makes the stories better. And at least I that's what I
50:42
selfishly care about. Now, if you're running an
50:44
organization having ideological homogeny, there's certainly some
50:49
sort of value to that, I'd imagine.
50:51
But like, for me, I just want you to be a weirdo.
50:54
I want you to be different. I want you to have some
50:56
uniqueness to your story. What makes you you right?
50:59
And if everybody is respectfully named Kyle from, you know,
51:03
suburban Texas, like, all right, like so.
51:06
It'll be spelled at least 12 different ways.
51:08
Yeah, like though, like, and that's not to take anything away
51:11
from anybody's individual journey or development or the
51:14
effort that you put in. It's just a question of like, I
51:17
think the sport and life is more interesting when it has
51:21
different flavors to it, and I worry that the technological
51:27
advancements of the sport could create something of a monotone
51:32
energy if it goes unchecked. Now let's spin this one last
51:37
time to probably a more positive note on this exact same topic
51:42
that we are discussing. I do think those who are doing
51:46
player development the best can leverage technology to better
51:51
accent and celebrate the things that do make individuals
51:55
individuals. Because you look at a track man
51:57
plot and using that technology and the printouts that come from
52:02
it in 2016 versus 2026 are two entirely different things.
52:07
Because at first we have track man and ball flight data and we
52:10
want to create a 20 inch lift heater on every single pitcher.
52:15
And then we realize, oh, actually there's other things
52:20
that we can do to be successful. So maybe if we can use this
52:25
technology, if we can use these things at younger ages, we can
52:28
better identify what people do naturally and help them lean
52:31
into those things that better help individualize the game as
52:36
we. Move, sure.
52:37
And, and I think that in some ways, you know, when I was I was
52:41
coaching Little League in in New York for a while, having a phone
52:46
in my hand that has slow MO camera in it.
52:49
When you're coaching 8910 year olds, it's a game changer,
52:54
right? Slow MO video.
52:55
Hey, check this out, show it to him.
52:57
Boom, you know, pulling my front side out.
52:59
Great. And I do think that in some ways
53:01
that has made things kind of easier for people.
53:04
So to round things out today, Jake, because I do think we have
53:08
covered a lot and we've probably gotten to the end of what we
53:12
even can talk about today, I will ask you to leave us with a
53:18
few hot takes or predictions for the year.
53:22
I don't know if you guys have even covered this on your
53:24
podcast yet. So I don't know if you are
53:27
allowed, quote UN quote to get into rookies of the year,
53:31
breakout performers, Cy Young World Series picks, all for
53:35
2026. I'll.
53:37
Go hard on one name, and that's Nolan McClain.
53:42
I think Nolan McClain that the Mets is going to just be
53:47
unbelievable. I think his athleticism is
53:50
preposterous. I think he he has all of the
53:53
weapons that someone needs to be elite.
53:56
And I think he is going to just blow us away this year and give
54:01
Paul schemes a run for his money in the end.
54:03
I'll say young. I mean, I would it's so funny,
54:06
right? Like at the beginning of the
54:07
year, if you're if I put a gun to your head and was like, you
54:10
need to pick the Siongs, you'd say Skeens in scuba and you
54:13
would say that every single time.
54:14
And if you said something else, you're being contrarian or
54:18
you're being stupid, Mackenzie. Gore, Mackenzie.
54:20
Gore, Mackenzie Gore. You're not going to go take, you
54:23
know, your own money. Like, with all due respect to
54:25
Mackenzie Gore, like, like that's just not how it works,
54:29
right? I believe what we've already
54:31
seen, of course. But yeah, I I'm just the
54:35
enormous believer in Noel McClain and, and I think that
54:38
he's going to be be really special.
54:41
It's funny, like I really haven't.
54:44
I need to transition my brain from offseason mode to to
54:47
preseason mode. I'm still thinking in the past
54:49
rather than thinking in the future.
54:50
Where are your spring training? Podcasts.
54:53
Yeah, I'm, I liked what the Mets did over the offseason.
54:56
That's just like, I don't know if that's a hot take, but I
54:58
thought what they did was really interesting.
55:00
The Yankees deciding to run it back was the opposite.
55:02
I thought that was really interesting.
55:05
Deciding to just hit copy and paste is a decision in and of
55:08
itself. But I am excited for the season,
55:11
dude. Like, I it's cold here in DC.
55:14
I want to. I want to be sweating through my
55:16
shorts. Only a couple weeks until you
55:18
are. Sweating shorts.
55:20
I know I'll be heading down the spring training.
55:22
I'll be headed down to spring training in two weeks.
55:26
I'll be in Florida. If you see me, if you're
55:27
listening, you see me there. Come say hello.
55:30
Let's be friends. Why not?
55:32
What else you got going on? Well then the final transition.
55:35
Please drop the various ways the listeners can keep in touch or
55:39
follow you. Listen to our podcast Baseball
55:42
Barbicast 2 days a week, three days a week.
55:44
Once the season gets rolling, you can follow me on Twitter.
55:48
Just type my name. Jake Mintz.
55:51
There's another Jake Mintz, but that Jake Mintz.
55:54
MINTZ. He is not a baseball related
55:58
person. He's at Jake Mintz.
56:01
I'm at Jake under score Mintz. So that's the difference.
56:04
But yeah, you know, just enjoy the game and be nice to people.
56:06
That's all I got perfect. Well, thanks for having me.
56:09
Thanks for. Having me.
56:11
Thanks a ton for your time and of course, to all the listeners,
56:15
thanks for laying back with us.