Speaker 1: Welcome to episode number one eighty three of the Marine
Speaker 1: Layer Podcast. We welcome on Bailey Freeman, also known as
Speaker 1: Foolish Baseball on YouTube. We chat with him about the
Speaker 1: Mariners off season, the usefulness of advanced numbers, which he
Speaker 1: uses so much on his channel, and we also talk
Speaker 1: to him about the success of Foolish Baseball and baseball bits.
Speaker 2: Here's your guys reminder, do us a huge favor. If
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Speaker 2: then on social media. We're on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and
Speaker 2: YouTube shorts at marine Layer Pod.
Speaker 1: Let's get it rolling and we welcome you to this
Speaker 1: episode of the Marine Layer Podcast, part of the Just
Speaker 1: Baseball podcast network. Recording on Monday evening, November eighteenth. The
Speaker 1: hot stove is right now the opposite of hots. So
Speaker 1: I'm going to make a comparison of how the hot
Speaker 1: stove is right now. The hot stove is like if
Speaker 1: we've lost electricity and we needed to use a match
Speaker 1: to light the stove, but we can't find any matches.
Speaker 1: We're out.
Speaker 2: Only the angels can find matches, and they only kept
Speaker 2: it lit for a minute or two with some weird
Speaker 2: trades over the last couple of weeks. That's it.
Speaker 1: They went to the dollar tree for their matches.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's about right. Oh, you know what we should
Speaker 2: talk about here for a minute. The hot stove's not
Speaker 2: back yet. You know who is though? Us? The two
Speaker 2: of us? What you know what I'm talking about?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're back. Now what do we mean by that?
Speaker 2: I'll let TJ explain.
Speaker 1: So we have in this offseason expanded our range a
Speaker 1: little bit. So we've created a new channel, a new
Speaker 1: brand on Instagram, TikTok YouTube or we're going to branch
Speaker 1: out and do some national stuff, a lot of short form,
Speaker 1: a lot of trivia. We're going to fire off some
Speaker 1: takes on there as well. It's also going to be
Speaker 1: fan focused too, when we get back out into some
Speaker 1: more public baseball settings, like we'll be at the Winter
Speaker 1: Meetings coming up here in December, and then once the
Speaker 1: season gets underway as well, a chance for us to
Speaker 1: get out into the masses and instead of just the
Speaker 1: Mariners fan base will now hopefully be connected to all
Speaker 1: thirty So one step at a time. We got it
Speaker 1: started here on Monday, post our first video here on Monday,
Speaker 1: So if you want to go check that out on TikTok,
Speaker 1: Instagram YouTube look for Bullpen Banter Baseball, Bullpen Banner Baseball.
Speaker 1: We put it on our store here on Monday, and
Speaker 1: I'm sure you'll see it over the course of this week.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's our at The brand name is going
Speaker 2: to be Bullpen Banter, So bullpen b A N T
Speaker 2: er And like TJ said, just to add a couple
Speaker 2: pieces of context to all this, we love the Mariners.
Speaker 2: The Mariners are our biggest passion. The Marine Layer podcast
Speaker 2: is not going anywhere far from it. We just also
Speaker 2: want to try to do some stuff nationally too and
Speaker 2: build up a page on the national scale as well,
Speaker 2: so we're gonna be tackling both. We've got some really
Speaker 2: fun ideas for it. We're hoping to not just do
Speaker 2: some stuff with fans, So let me add the context.
Speaker 2: The two of us, a lot of the time we'll
Speaker 2: just be sitting and we're and pumping out content, short
Speaker 2: form content based on takes. The two of us have
Speaker 2: the two of us quizzing one another doing trivia. But
Speaker 2: when we're out in the public, whenever we have the
Speaker 2: chance and we have our mic, we're gonna try to
Speaker 2: get as many people on the mic as possible. And
Speaker 2: the nice thing about doing a national brand is whatever
Speaker 2: team somebody's a fan of, we can center something around them,
Speaker 2: and not just fans. We're hoping to do it with
Speaker 2: a bunch of people. If a bunch of if we
Speaker 2: find celebrities that want to do it, great, If we
Speaker 2: find baseball media members that want to do it awesome,
Speaker 2: If players are into the idea, couldn't be more on
Speaker 2: board with it. So we just started it. When I
Speaker 2: say brand new, it is brand new, and we're hoping
Speaker 2: to see where it goes. We're hoping it has a
Speaker 2: little bit of success. And if you guys are interested
Speaker 2: to check that out too, it would mean a ton
Speaker 2: to us. It would mean the world us if you
Speaker 2: check it.
Speaker 1: Out also on X and Blue Sky as well. We
Speaker 1: have a link tree that I can't remember that we'll
Speaker 1: put the well, let's put the link tree in the
Speaker 1: description of this episode, so in case you're curious, you
Speaker 1: can go check out all of our social media platforms
Speaker 1: for that new channel. And now you have multiple ways
Speaker 1: to consume the both of us, which is nice. Mariner's
Speaker 1: stuff here, national stuff there on the Bullpen banner pages,
Speaker 1: so stay tuned to that. It should be a lot
Speaker 1: of fun.
Speaker 2: One last thing, it's not a podcast, so if you're
Speaker 2: looking for long form podcasts, we're not doing that with this.
Speaker 2: It is going to be all centered around short So
Speaker 2: it's gonna be short form. It won't take up that
Speaker 2: much of your time if you want to watch sixty
Speaker 2: seconds a day or however many times we post a day. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it'll be all centered around that.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about before we get to Foolish Baseball. Fantastic
Speaker 1: interview with Bailey Freeman, a conversation I'd been looking forward
Speaker 1: to having for a while now and we're finally able
Speaker 1: to get it. But we'll talk about that a little
Speaker 1: bit more after a couple of points here about the
Speaker 1: lack there of the hot stove. There has been a
Speaker 1: couple of really interesting storylines that kind of tie to
Speaker 1: the Mariners, kind of don't, but we can still talk
Speaker 1: about it. Should we kick it off with the Wan
Speaker 1: Soto conversation? Again?
Speaker 2: Lyle Yes, Yes, and it ties back to the Dodgers.
Speaker 2: The Dodgers in the spotlight for the second off season
Speaker 2: in a row and with a piece of writing that
Speaker 2: ties back to the Mariners. Incredible stuff. I gotta say,
Speaker 2: there's sarcasm in my voice.
Speaker 1: So let me read this tweet from Alden Gonzalez VESPN.
Speaker 1: So he says, sources tweeted out here on Monday, Dodgers
Speaker 1: are meeting with Juan Soda tomorrow on Tuesday, as Mark
Speaker 1: Finesad first reported. Then he adds some context underneath in
Speaker 1: a paragraph and says, yes, it would be absurd of
Speaker 1: them to follow a billion dollar off season with Shoeeyo
Speaker 1: Tani and Yoshinoba Yamamoto with a six hundred million dollar contract,
Speaker 1: which many people anticipate want Soda, we'll get. But sho
Speaker 1: Hao Tani's first year in La blew away all of
Speaker 1: their financial projections, and they need an outfielder. The key
Speaker 1: sentence there is that sho Hayo Tani's first year in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles blew away all of their financial projections for
Speaker 1: this upcoming season and what kind of budget they have
Speaker 1: available to them. I can almost remember a similar pitch
Speaker 1: coming from a podcast last off season about the financial
Speaker 1: impact of Sho Hao Tani and a certain team. Who's
Speaker 1: saying that I'm trying to remember.
Speaker 2: Oh right, hmmm, this right here, this right here is
Speaker 2: what pisses me off right here? How is it that fans, podcasters,
Speaker 2: et cetera have figured out more than owners of Major
Speaker 2: League Baseball teams? That's spending money nets you money, especially
Speaker 2: spending money on a guy like that. How we're a
Speaker 2: couple of dumb ass podcasters and we figured it out.
Speaker 2: The whole fan base figured it out. Twenty nine other
Speaker 2: fan base has figured it out. How are these owners
Speaker 2: not seeing the light? This idea that owners are more
Speaker 2: baseball savvy than fans. I don't buy that for one second.
Speaker 2: Maybe the Dodgers are. Actually I know the Dodgers are
Speaker 2: because they do it. Oh, there's a lot of owners
Speaker 2: across baseball that don't.
Speaker 1: Let me make a couple points on this first off
Speaker 1: I don't think any team in baseball would have made
Speaker 1: more money off of Shoho Tani than the LA Dodgers.
Speaker 1: Is that a fair statement?
Speaker 2: Yes, but other teams still would have made a ton eh.
Speaker 1: Yes or no?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: Okay, thank you did the In the hindsight. LA also
Speaker 1: has the biggest marketing poll on the country of Japan,
Speaker 1: which I think is also correct. It's not Seattle, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: that would be Los Angeles, so I think that is
Speaker 1: also correct. However, despite both of these facts, actually one
Speaker 1: last fact, my dad.
Speaker 2: I need to respond to something. I need to respond
Speaker 2: to something. Seattle did used to have the biggest poll
Speaker 2: for players from Japan. Whose fault is that that they're
Speaker 2: not anymore.
Speaker 1: There's probably a lot of mediocre baseball and twelve years
Speaker 1: without each hero on the right or along that thirteen
Speaker 1: years without prime each year on the roster. So that helped.
Speaker 1: And it is an absolutely it is a fact. This
Speaker 1: is a last fact before I before I get back
Speaker 1: to spinning it this our way. The Dodgers do have
Speaker 1: more money to spend than the Mariners. That is an
Speaker 1: objective fact. Can't get around on that, right, There are
Speaker 1: a sin deal makes a ton more money. They need
Speaker 1: more money on ticket sales, more money on jersey sales, everything,
Speaker 1: more money than the Mariners. That's absolutely true. That does
Speaker 1: not mean the Mariners would not have been way more
Speaker 1: in the green with Sho Heo Tani than they would
Speaker 1: without all those facts. You still would have made significantly
Speaker 1: more money signing him than if you didn't, because while
Speaker 1: you wouldn't have been able, it sounds like the Dodgers
Speaker 1: got about one hundred percent of what they were asking
Speaker 1: for marketing wise and revenue generating wise, out of show
Speaker 1: Heo Tani. I'm saying, I'm gonna say the Mariners would
Speaker 1: not have gotten one hundred percent of what the Dodgers
Speaker 1: were able to generate of show Heyo Tani revenue wise,
Speaker 1: but the Mariners really didn't need to. They needed to
Speaker 1: just get what sixty to seventy percent of that, which
Speaker 1: is essentially like the percent of valuation the Mariners are
Speaker 1: of the LA Dodgers. Fine, so once you get past
Speaker 1: the current day value of show Hayes contract at what
Speaker 1: four eighty whatever however much it was in current dollars
Speaker 1: somewhere in the four forties to four eighties. At on
Speaker 1: top of that, whatever you are in the Green and
Speaker 1: would have worked out, and now because of that they
Speaker 1: can go sign Wan Soto, which is crazy. If there
Speaker 1: ever was incentive to spend money, that would be it.
Speaker 1: The Dodgers are showing you.
Speaker 2: Then why have other teams not picked up on it? Again,
Speaker 2: this goes back to what I was originally saying, how
Speaker 2: are fans outsmarting owners at this point? It's crazy? How much?
Speaker 1: Well know why? We know why because you can make
Speaker 1: money while not spending money too.
Speaker 2: I really hope to get an owner of a team
Speaker 2: on this podcast at some point. Maybe at some point
Speaker 2: we will, because there's so many questions I have, including
Speaker 2: why owners choose to own a baseball team once their
Speaker 2: career is setting done. And I know what somebody you
Speaker 2: are gonna say, money, They make a bunch of money. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I know that. I know that's why they get into it.
Speaker 2: But guess what, there's still a lot of things you
Speaker 2: could do post career when you're already a billionaire to
Speaker 2: keep making you more money. That isn't owning a team.
Speaker 2: Aka is something that's supposed to be a public service. Anyway,
Speaker 2: the A's could have netted significant money on sho Heo Tani.
Speaker 2: Everybody could have everybody, but the Dodgers are one of
Speaker 2: the few organizations out there smart enough to put that
Speaker 2: into action.
Speaker 1: Shout out to them. Yeah, setting a great example for
Speaker 1: everyone else, and everyone should fallo in Heye. If Juan
Speaker 1: Soto ends up deciding on the Dodgers, good for them.
Speaker 1: I won't have a problem with it. I see a
Speaker 1: lot of people that would have a problem with it.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't they deserve it.
Speaker 2: I would laugh. It would be completely the fault of
Speaker 2: the other owners across the league that refuse to comply
Speaker 2: with this idea that spending money makes you money. Spending
Speaker 2: money equates to winning. You don't have to spend like
Speaker 2: Steve Cohen, but spend smartly. Sad, Let's get.
Speaker 1: To this other note from that ed's been circling around baseball.
Speaker 1: I saw this today too. I couldn't I really couldn't
Speaker 1: believe this when I read it. This relates a little
Speaker 1: bit more to the Mariners since this player, I think
Speaker 1: we assumed, would instead of being almost zero percent with
Speaker 1: one so to be closer to one percent. And that
Speaker 1: was Alex Bregman. Because, as we've both highlighted here on
Speaker 1: this podcast, the available third baseman around the league right
Speaker 1: now is slim. It's Alex Bregman and Alec Bohm. Bregman's
Speaker 1: the free agent, the one that you only need money
Speaker 1: to sign. It came out today. Ken Rosenthal reported that
Speaker 1: he was suspecting Alex Bregman and Scott Boris were aiming
Speaker 1: higher than most of the projections. How much was Alex
Speaker 1: Bregman asking for? Lyle? Do you think? How much do
Speaker 1: you think Alex Bregman and Scott Boris were asking for?
Speaker 1: In Ken Rosenthal's report.
Speaker 2: Do you want me to play dumb to this?
Speaker 1: Oh, you could tell the people.
Speaker 2: Okay, Alex Bregman and his buddy slash agent Scott Boris
Speaker 2: are asking for eleven years and three hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: million dollars.
Speaker 1: Mariners will never give out that contract. Just to start,
Speaker 1: I don't even think that's a good contract for Alex Bregman.
Speaker 1: He's not that good of an offensive player to give
Speaker 1: that kind of deal too. So the comp for that
Speaker 1: deal was Many Machado's deal after he opted out, which
Speaker 1: was eleven for three point fifty last off season. Alex
Speaker 1: Bregman's not Maney Machado. I hope, I hope him and
Speaker 1: Scott Boris realized that, now, can I let me spin
Speaker 1: this into a positive for the Mariners. Scott Boris was
Speaker 1: puffing his chest last offseason trying to get his guys
Speaker 1: these insane deals, and little did they know that nobody
Speaker 1: was willing to pay that absurd price for those free
Speaker 1: agents going into this past season. So what happened. Matt
Speaker 1: Chapman had to sign a small deal, so did Blake Snell,
Speaker 1: so did Jordan Montgomery, And what do you know? Those
Speaker 1: players were available at the end of the off season.
Speaker 1: The Mariners could have chose to sign up they wanted to,
Speaker 1: decided ultimately not to. Now what if the same happens
Speaker 1: for Alex Bregman this offseason and he has to sign
Speaker 1: a short contract.
Speaker 2: Hmmm, I'd be interested sign him for it.
Speaker 1: It's like the same storyline as last off season. It
Speaker 1: was the Mariners had Rojas and Luis Arius on the roster,
Speaker 1: Matt Chapman was still available, and they said, no, we're good.
Speaker 1: But at this point, if they have Josh Rojas and
Speaker 1: I don't know Dylan Moore on the roster looking at
Speaker 1: third and Alex Bregman is available for a two year contract,
Speaker 1: I would it not you can't make the same mistake twice.
Speaker 1: At this point, it doesn't.
Speaker 2: Even have to be a two year deal. It could
Speaker 2: be a one deal that might be enough to bridge
Speaker 2: the gap to Colt Emerson if he's going to play third. Eventually.
Speaker 2: You got Alex Bregman in Seattle in twenty twenty five. Yes,
Speaker 2: and guess what. You know what Matt Chapman did signed
Speaker 2: a big extension because he played so well in San Francisco.
Speaker 2: They gave him the money and then he actually signed
Speaker 2: as a Scott Boris client and extension before free agency. Now,
Speaker 2: I will say that is probably where Chapman wanted to
Speaker 2: play and probably why he was incentivized to sign that
Speaker 2: extension early. But I'll tell you what, Scott Boris fumbles
Speaker 2: the bag again on all of his clients. He may
Speaker 2: lose half his client tell this offseason, we saw how
Speaker 2: bad it got. Last winner. Jordan Montgomery literally came out
Speaker 2: to the public this year and he's like, yeah, I mean,
Speaker 2: Morris messed up my negotiations pretty bad, right out to
Speaker 2: the entire media just thrown him under the bus. And
Speaker 2: obviously Jordan Montgomery no longer has Scott Boris as his agent.
Speaker 2: But Scott Boris is just one of those people that
Speaker 2: is so closed minded and so sure that he's right
Speaker 2: all the time that he probably thinks last offseason with
Speaker 2: some blip on the radar that will never happen again.
Speaker 2: Where If he does this twice, people aren't gonna trust
Speaker 2: him anymore. Fool me one, Shame on you. Fool me twice,
Speaker 2: Shame on me. People are not gonna trust Scott Boris
Speaker 2: anymore if he blows this again.
Speaker 1: Oh what is this? I think I have a text
Speaker 1: from Scott Boris giving us some more information on this subject.
Speaker 1: I was curious, so I reached out to him. Spekel.
Speaker 1: If I don't actually have Scott Boris's number, one would
Speaker 1: be pretty cool, he says. Alex Bregman is now asking
Speaker 1: for fifteen for four fifty so teams. That's what he's
Speaker 1: asking for. And when you're not gonna give him that contract,
Speaker 1: he can come to Seattle on a one year. We'll
Speaker 1: give him the av let's say forty five million dollars
Speaker 1: for one year.
Speaker 2: Sure you know what you know what we can do.
Speaker 2: We can ask Scott Boris as a bullpen banner question
Speaker 2: at the winter meetings. Drop your baseball take Scott Boris.
Speaker 2: See what he's got to say. See if he's so
Speaker 2: sure he's right this winner.
Speaker 1: What do you think you'd say.
Speaker 2: Use some stupid play on a words about Alex Bragman
Speaker 2: or somebody about Uh, what's he gonna say? My A
Speaker 2: B doesn't run ct ESPN and he deserves the money.
Speaker 1: I don't know. That's good. That was a good coming up.
Speaker 1: That was a good, uh good epiphany there on the fly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Scott Boris is always filled with these stupid quotes.
Speaker 2: I went on a ran about it last offseason. He's
Speaker 2: already put some out this winter about some of these
Speaker 2: different free agents. Like what did you say last year
Speaker 2: about about Jung Hoolee Is it's like there's there's some
Speaker 2: real K pop coming to coming to America about Jung
Speaker 2: Hoolee and the.
Speaker 1: Dolls one, it's like cool, I need something to fill
Speaker 1: my belly.
Speaker 2: So stupid, Like if we do run.
Speaker 1: Into him at winter meetings, we're getting him on the mic.
Speaker 1: I don't know for which channel yet. Well, actually you
Speaker 1: know we'll come up with both. See uh, well you
Speaker 1: know what we're gonna ask him, say, scale of one
Speaker 1: to ten? How's the cal Rally extension?
Speaker 2: Coming. Yes, I'm sure Scott Boris would love to get
Speaker 2: on the mic and just be as transparent as humanly possible.
Speaker 1: It's like, okay, just tell me, tell me over on. No,
Speaker 1: we're gonna do. Here's what we're gonna do. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: I'm gonna give him a number. I'm gonna say, okay,
Speaker 1: over under the total amount the Mirrors have offered on
Speaker 1: a on a cow Raley extension, uh thirty two million dollars.
Speaker 2: So let us say this. We will ask Scott bors
Speaker 2: if we run into him, will he say yes, well,
Speaker 2: I put the odds lower. We will ask if we
Speaker 2: run into.
Speaker 1: Him, Yeah, he's usually got a posse around him. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it's right. It's a it's a little tricky, but there's
Speaker 1: never any harm in trying.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, let's take a minute before we talk
Speaker 2: to foolish baseball. We're gonna talk to you guys about
Speaker 2: our friends over at Pagatcha's Pub. Eighty five. Football season
Speaker 2: in full swing. You guys know that that's getting to
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Speaker 2: playoff fields getting interesting games are getting real important in
Speaker 2: the NFL. College basketball started, there's hockey going on cracking.
Speaker 2: We're just on a winning streak till the other night.
Speaker 2: There's a ton of sports going on. You want to
Speaker 2: watch the games, your friends head over there. There's awesome food,
Speaker 2: there's games, and if you go during happy hour, there
Speaker 2: are deals from two to six pm on Monday through
Speaker 2: Friday with drinks that feature three and four dollars options.
Speaker 2: Those are amazing deals and all of that again, sports games, food,
Speaker 2: time with your friends, awesome drinks, all of that over
Speaker 2: at Pigatcha's Pub eighty five in Kirkland.
Speaker 1: I had really been looking forward to this Foolish Baseball
Speaker 1: interview for a while. I'm really glad he's able to
Speaker 1: have some time to jump on here with us. I
Speaker 1: recommend everybody, if you're not familiar with his YouTube channel
Speaker 1: and you even think of yourself as five percent of
Speaker 1: a baseball geek, I would go check out his channel,
Speaker 1: Foolish Baseball and go watch some of his baseball YouTube videos.
Speaker 1: They are, you know, these fifteen minute baseball video essays
Speaker 1: on some of the more niche and random baseball topics
Speaker 1: out there. They're masterfully done. His goal essentially is to
Speaker 1: make more advanced stats. They'll usually jostle around with what
Speaker 1: he uses, but he will make some of these more
Speaker 1: advanced stats digestible for just the casual viewer who was
Speaker 1: not as familiar with those. You could have no idea
Speaker 1: what some of these things mean, but you could understand
Speaker 1: baseball and you listen to him explain it in these videos.
Speaker 1: He does a really good job explaining it, and I
Speaker 1: think it makes it a lot more digestible for people
Speaker 1: very smart baseball mind. He's branched out into a number
Speaker 1: of different things. He now has a second channel that
Speaker 1: he runs as well, where he does some other topics.
Speaker 1: But YouTube's this whole time thing, and he does a
Speaker 1: fantastic job on it, and he really does know baseball.
Speaker 2: He's one of the biggest baseball YouTubers on the planet.
Speaker 2: That's just a fact, and we won't sugarcoat it. We
Speaker 2: nerded out in this interview with them, and it was
Speaker 2: really fun because Bailey, TJ and I think we're baseball nerds,
Speaker 2: and you guys probably think we're baseball nerds. I don't
Speaker 2: know if we hold a candle to Bailey. Unfortunately, this dude,
Speaker 2: this dude goes all out and it's a big part
Speaker 2: of the reason we really wanted to have him on.
Speaker 2: He loves the Mariner's rotation, so we talked plenty with
Speaker 2: plenty about that with him, and yeah, super cool interview.
Speaker 2: I hope you guys enjoy it because this is one
Speaker 2: that we've been looking forward to for a long time.
Speaker 1: Let's get you now to that interview with Foolish Baseball.
Speaker 1: All right, we got Bailey Freeman on with us. You
Speaker 1: might know him better as Foolish Baseball. The creator of
Speaker 1: Baseball Bits on YouTube also has a secondary channel, Foolish
Speaker 1: Bailey provide some of really the best baseball content in
Speaker 1: the YouTube space. Bailey, thanks so much for taking some
Speaker 1: time to join us. And I wanted to start in
Speaker 1: an area that I know you don't take suggestions on
Speaker 1: your Baseball Bits YouTube video. So instead of giving you
Speaker 1: a suggestion, I'm gonna plan a thought in your head
Speaker 1: that might come back to you in six months, ten years, whenever,
Speaker 1: whenever it comes around, because I think a story like
Speaker 1: this could be told for your videos are pretty timeless.
Speaker 1: So think of this like hypothetical team that played in
Speaker 1: this really weird run environment for an entire season. It
Speaker 1: was just like outlier bad. They in turn then had
Speaker 1: this insane starting rotation, that it was one of, if
Speaker 1: not the best, in baseball, their offense somehow finished the
Speaker 1: league top twelve across all of baseball and WRC plus,
Speaker 1: and somehow still miss the playoffs. I mean, I feel
Speaker 1: like that would be a pretty fun story to tell.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and again, this is a hypothetical situation, right, this
Speaker 3: is something that actually happened. I mean that sounds impossible.
Speaker 3: That'd be Oh if I were a fan of such
Speaker 3: a team that is such a thing, Oh, I would
Speaker 3: be going crazy. But yeah, I mean, if such a
Speaker 3: thing were to eventually happen one major League baseball season,
Speaker 3: it might be worth taking the statistical deep dive into.
Speaker 1: Because you've done videos on teams that are you know,
Speaker 1: they're they're weird teams. The one that comes to mind
Speaker 1: if for our listeners who aren't totally familiar with your
Speaker 1: YouTube channel, just to like the sort of specific nature
Speaker 1: you go into with some of the these baseball bits
Speaker 1: YouTube video baseball essays about literally anything major League Baseball related.
Speaker 1: You talked about a season like the twenty twenty Mets, like,
Speaker 1: would the standard fan know who the twenty twenty Mets are?
Speaker 1: Probably not? But then you point out all these things.
Speaker 1: It's like, huh, well, the Merrors are kind of similar
Speaker 1: this year in a different way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I wonder if there's maybe a team like
Speaker 3: that just about every year, because last year is definitely
Speaker 3: the Padres, you know, similar issues with regards to having
Speaker 3: some like good individual performances, but it's just not adding
Speaker 3: up to team wins in a necessary way. You know.
Speaker 3: Sequencing with the offense is such a big issue. That's
Speaker 3: kind of the funny thing about baseball, right is imagine
Speaker 3: you had this projection system right that could predict the
Speaker 3: average on base and slug for every single player on
Speaker 3: a team. It still wouldn't be able to predict how
Speaker 3: many runs they would score because of how that offense
Speaker 3: is sequenced or not. You know, so just that's just ball.
Speaker 3: And I was looking at George Kirby speaking of the
Speaker 3: run environment. Was just looking at George Kirby three five,
Speaker 3: three e er what oh four e R a plus
Speaker 3: like that, Like that's kind of crazy, you know, like
Speaker 3: era looks great. E R plus makes them look a
Speaker 3: little above average.
Speaker 1: You know, the disparity of some of these guys at
Speaker 1: home on the road is something I don't think I've
Speaker 1: ever seen before. I low and I've been spending a
Speaker 1: lot of time this year trying to understand why T
Speaker 1: Mobile Park is the way it is. It's always been
Speaker 1: a good pitchers park, but this year, for some reason,
Speaker 1: took this insane step towards like being the opposite of
Speaker 1: course field people people teams can't score. Opposing pitchers pitch
Speaker 1: in that park. Maritor's pitchers pitch in that park. H Like,
Speaker 1: how do you look at that? Like when you try
Speaker 1: and evaluate players that you know pitch on the Mariners.
Speaker 3: When you see that, it's really hard. There's kind of
Speaker 3: an analogous situation around the league that's interesting this year.
Speaker 3: I think in in Cleveland they removed some stands or
Speaker 3: something like that, and then they thought it created maybe
Speaker 3: like some sort of jet stream out to right field.
Speaker 3: And so obviously the team hit really well this year,
Speaker 3: and so it's it's interesting how like subtle tweaks even
Speaker 3: to a ballpark. I don't know if there were any
Speaker 3: at T Mobile this year like that, but even subtle
Speaker 3: tweaks to a ballpark can really affect that run environment
Speaker 3: in meaningful ways. You know. I think it's there's not
Speaker 3: really a one size fits all approach I think to
Speaker 3: assessing a player based on park factors. I think some
Speaker 3: players are naturally gonna find, you know, some ballparks advantageous
Speaker 3: and some aren't. So I just think the best advice
Speaker 3: I could give is to try to come up with
Speaker 3: more of a bespoke type analysis if someone is playing
Speaker 3: in a ballpark that deviates far enough from the normal
Speaker 3: run environment and that goes, you know, with heavy offense
Speaker 3: and not a lot of offense.
Speaker 2: Taoscar Hernandez talked about this this year, and maybe you've
Speaker 2: followed this story. I wouldn't should certainly wouldn't be shocked
Speaker 2: if you have. But he said the reason he felt
Speaker 2: like he struggled in c Now, this is not something
Speaker 2: they changed this year. It's been this way forever. He
Speaker 2: just brought it to light during All Star Week this year.
Speaker 2: He said, bat it does I slanted. I could not
Speaker 2: hit the ball inside that ballpark because it was I
Speaker 2: felt like the mound was slanted. I felt like everything
Speaker 2: was coming at me from an angle. It just I
Speaker 2: just couldn't hit. Do you think all it would be
Speaker 2: weird that all of a sudden, that comes to light
Speaker 2: so much this year that now all of a sudden
Speaker 2: guys can't hit. But maybe again, maybe I'm throwing a
Speaker 2: curveball at you. But if I am, do you think
Speaker 2: it played a factor?
Speaker 3: No, I definitely think it can. I do agree with
Speaker 3: your assessment, which is, you know, like that batter's eye
Speaker 3: has been there, right, so you know, I think maybe
Speaker 3: if you have a year like the Mariners just had
Speaker 3: where you you know, couldn't score enough runs, then maybe
Speaker 3: you do start to blame those things around you. You know,
Speaker 3: you say, hey, these are some pretty good players on
Speaker 3: the roster right here. You know, we've made the playoffs,
Speaker 3: you know a couple of years ago. Why isn't it
Speaker 3: happening for us now? But yeah, I mean I remember
Speaker 3: batters I discussions where a thing with Willia Damas in Tampa.
Speaker 3: You know, he had crazy home roads splits all his
Speaker 3: time in Tampa, and then he gets traded to Milwaukee
Speaker 3: and all of a sudden, he's this really consistent hitter.
Speaker 3: And of course now he's coming off this great contract
Speaker 3: here and hitting free agency. So you know, depending on
Speaker 3: who you are, like, yeah, you can find batter's eye
Speaker 3: that works for you and batter's eye that doesn't, and
Speaker 3: that can affect your your offensive output for sure. Like
Speaker 3: at that I believe is a thesis.
Speaker 2: You know, the way TJ started this question or started
Speaker 2: this conversation, I wanted to get your thoughts on something, Bailey,
Speaker 2: because I'm having some trust issues all of a sudden
Speaker 2: with Team WRC plus. And you can tell me how
Speaker 2: off I am on this or not. Because we've sat
Speaker 2: here the last two years. Mariner's offense in twenty three
Speaker 2: ranked sixth by WRC plus and twenty twenty four they
Speaker 2: ranked twelve, And like TJ said, they have this great rotation,
Speaker 2: top half offense, awful hitting environment, it's still missed the playoffs.
Speaker 2: Am I crazy for thinking there's something a little bit
Speaker 2: flawed about Team WRC plus because we've we sit here
Speaker 2: and watched this team every night, and I sit here
Speaker 2: and say, there's no way this was a top twelve
Speaker 2: offense in twenty four. How were they top twelve?
Speaker 3: Well, that's the thing. WRC plus is park adjusted, right, So,
Speaker 3: and we've talked about this already. It was a low
Speaker 3: offensive environment, and so theoretically the Mariners wouldn't need to
Speaker 3: actually hit all that well to theoretically have an above
Speaker 3: average team WRC plus. If that makes sense. So here's
Speaker 3: the way I put it. You know, WRC plus, the
Speaker 3: basis of that is wOBA. wOBA is you know, scaled
Speaker 3: on base percentage. Usually, you know, the league average is
Speaker 3: going to be about whatever the league average on base
Speaker 3: percentage is. Let's say it's three fifteen or something like that.
Speaker 3: This year, well, the Mariners wOBA this year was three
Speaker 3: h three. They were twenty first in wOBA, which is
Speaker 3: the basis for this WRC plus. So I think it's
Speaker 3: just a matter of you know, acknowledging, Hey, when the
Speaker 3: run environment is down, you know, you could have an
Speaker 3: above average WRC plus and still not score a lot
Speaker 3: of runs because of the ballpark situation, because they were
Speaker 3: guess what, twenty first and runs scored this year. So
Speaker 3: that in that sense it makes perfect sense.
Speaker 1: Is is the re So the reasoning like that you
Speaker 1: just gave there, and we're we talk about the the
Speaker 1: flaws of some of these advanced stats. How do you
Speaker 1: how do you sort of explain to people who are
Speaker 1: are skeptical of these advanced stats that listen, like these
Speaker 1: stats are like these stats have their role, but they're
Speaker 1: also like they're also imperfect. They're not going to give
Speaker 1: you the total answer. When I think when the idea
Speaker 1: of w RC plus was first broached to me, like
Speaker 1: it's the concept of it sounds great, but here we
Speaker 1: are sitting it's like, like the problem with this stat is, yes,
Speaker 1: it will park adjust like the runs created that you
Speaker 1: can get, but the mariners on the scoreboard don't get
Speaker 1: park adjusted runs. They get real runs. And that's where
Speaker 1: that's sort of like the sort of this this chasm
Speaker 1: is so like does that does that like explanation there?
Speaker 1: Like that I that I just rambled off makes sense?
Speaker 3: No, it does make sense. And I think, you know,
Speaker 3: the number one thing, And I say, this is someone
Speaker 3: who creates sabermetric type content for an audience that might
Speaker 3: not otherwise encounter it. You know, it's not like I'm
Speaker 3: a fan Grafts writer or something like that. Like I
Speaker 3: brought kind of that attitude to YouTube, and so a
Speaker 3: lot of people when they're learning about various sabermetric type
Speaker 3: stats are learning it. For me, they're learning it for
Speaker 3: the first time. And I do think when that's the case,
Speaker 3: you have a responsibility to talk about the shortcomings of
Speaker 3: certain stats. You know, I don't don't I don't speak
Speaker 3: you know, too declaratively about some stats. I try to
Speaker 3: address their their weaknesses and their strengths. For example, if
Speaker 3: I were discussing FIP, right fielding, independent pitching, I would say, hey,
Speaker 3: you know, an individual picture doesn't have as much contact
Speaker 3: or as much excuse me, control over what happens to
Speaker 3: their batted balls as a hitter does, but they still
Speaker 3: have some control. There are ground ball pitchers for a reason.
Speaker 3: For example, there are pictures who consistently allow low average
Speaker 3: exit velocities for a reason. So maybe you know, just
Speaker 3: viewing everything through the lens of the three true outcomes
Speaker 3: isn't always great if you're you know, an outlier with
Speaker 3: regards to what happens to your balls in play. So
Speaker 3: I think that's that is probably the number one responsibility
Speaker 3: of someone who has to talk about these stats on
Speaker 3: a daily basis is you have to acknowledge their shortcomings.
Speaker 3: And you can't say that these are you know, irrefutable truths,
Speaker 3: These are just you know that it's just information. That's
Speaker 3: one piece of vocabulary I always say is that you know,
Speaker 3: you can complain about analytics, but if you replace the
Speaker 3: word analytics with information, you know, where does that get you? Right?
Speaker 2: I've always said that about analytics. If the people that
Speaker 2: don't understand it, I feel like, use it as such
Speaker 2: a crutch word. It's their way of trying to get
Speaker 2: out of having to understand it because they don't want
Speaker 2: to understand it, and they use it as a crutch word.
Speaker 2: You hear it on football broadcasts all the time. Oh well,
Speaker 2: the analytics said to go for it here as if
Speaker 2: they're using it in a negative connotation. But exactly to
Speaker 2: your point, it just paints a further picture of who
Speaker 2: somebody is. There are still people out there, believe it
Speaker 2: or not, that complain about cal Rowley's batting average when
Speaker 2: you factor in everything else he does, Like is it is?
Speaker 2: It kind of crazy We're still in twenty twenty four
Speaker 2: and people complain about analytics.
Speaker 3: It is, But I don't blame him to some extent.
Speaker 3: It's it's because the battle for analytics is already won,
Speaker 3: you know, Like that's those are the that's the basis
Speaker 3: of how front offices and teams conduct themselves these days.
Speaker 3: So maybe to the average fan watching at home, and
Speaker 3: you know, they don't like it when the manager yangst
Speaker 3: their favorite pitcher too early in the game, or you
Speaker 3: know they don't like it when you know, a lefty
Speaker 3: masher gets pinch hit against a lefty you know, I think,
Speaker 3: I think though, that the battle is ultimately won. So
Speaker 3: it's almost it's almost futile, right. You have to embrace it.
Speaker 3: You have to learn about it, else you're probably just
Speaker 3: gonna be frustrated as a fan.
Speaker 1: Why if you were to make your pitch to someone
Speaker 1: who's not already in on sort of the content you
Speaker 1: make and you know the message and the stats you
Speaker 1: try to bring out to people, like, what is your
Speaker 1: pitch of why these things are important?
Speaker 3: Because again, your your favorite team has ran on those concepts.
Speaker 3: You know, It's it's not about loving it necessarily, it's
Speaker 3: about understanding it. And I think a big thing and
Speaker 3: a big reason why the videos connect with people is
Speaker 3: because even though I maybe have my own sense of
Speaker 3: humor there, it's not that smarty you know, it's not
Speaker 3: like that holier than now approach to sabermetric type stats.
Speaker 3: That the name of the channel is Foolish Baseball and
Speaker 3: it's actually I don't talk about this a lot. It's
Speaker 3: a play on the Keith Law book Smart Baseball and
Speaker 3: I and I just wanted to do a brand of
Speaker 3: talking about these baseball, say sabermetric concepts that aren't necessarily
Speaker 3: like patting myself on the bag about how smart I
Speaker 3: am and how smart I'm doing baseball. So you know,
Speaker 3: if one thing I would pitched it is is you
Speaker 3: don't even have to love it. It's just probably enhances
Speaker 3: the fan experience to have some degree of understanding as
Speaker 3: to why you're manager is making this decision in this moment.
Speaker 1: I want to get to a couple of Mariners specific
Speaker 1: things with you before we talk a little bit more
Speaker 1: about your channel, just as a general overview. When you
Speaker 1: see this Mariner's team, the past Marrior team, let's say,
Speaker 1: like the past three because I think that's been the
Speaker 1: real core of what this current Mariners regime is. What
Speaker 1: do you see when you look at him?
Speaker 3: The I think it starts at the top with the ownership.
Speaker 3: You know, the was it the vice president or whoever
Speaker 3: who got in trouble when he was on the zoom
Speaker 3: with the Rojerty club. Yeah, he kind of he did
Speaker 3: what you're not supposed to do when you're when you're
Speaker 3: in an ownership group. And that's you said the quiet
Speaker 3: part out loud, right, Uh, he was bragging to his buddies,
Speaker 3: but uh what what he was ultimately saying is not
Speaker 3: that different to how a lot of people in the
Speaker 3: administration of these clubs feel about you know, player payroll,
Speaker 3: for example. And the problem is, I think when they've
Speaker 3: gone out and spent or gone out and tried to
Speaker 3: get you know, bats, it hasn't always worked. Yeah, we've
Speaker 3: talked about ta Oscar Mitch Garver was a big signing
Speaker 3: for them that didn't really seem to work out this year.
Speaker 3: And you know, a couple of years ago, maybe two
Speaker 3: three years ago, felt really good about this rebuild. And
Speaker 3: actually one reason why I felt like it was good
Speaker 3: is because a lot of rebuilds and they're probably all
Speaker 3: like this to be realistic, but you need to bring
Speaker 3: in supplementary talent. You may have a stacked farm system,
Speaker 3: but that stack farm system isn't going to get you there.
Speaker 3: You need to acquire the right mix of veteran type
Speaker 3: players and you know, in order to push yourself over
Speaker 3: the top and to become a consistent playoff team. Right,
Speaker 3: Cubs did it by signing a bunch of pitching John
Speaker 3: Lester guys like that. You know, the Orioles this year
Speaker 3: went out grabbed Corbyn Burns, you know, my braves of
Speaker 3: you know, a lot of veteran pitching, you know, pushed
Speaker 3: them over in the top in like twenty twenty one. So,
Speaker 3: you know, the Mariners haven't necessarily succeeded in that. They've
Speaker 3: succeeded with regards to the player development side of things.
Speaker 3: I mean, Julio is the star. The rotation is almost
Speaker 3: entirely homegrown, with the exception of Castillo. So yeah, I
Speaker 3: just think you're looking for those supplementary pieces right now,
Speaker 3: and they're able to develop it. On the pitching side,
Speaker 3: I think they've done so well with a lot of
Speaker 3: like waiver claims and guys that were defade like in
Speaker 3: their bullpen year after year. It feels like, I think,
Speaker 3: maybe even earlier in the Depoto administration, that success with
Speaker 3: guys like you know, like Austin Nola, Dylan Moore, like
Speaker 3: those kind of guys almost but it's like, you know
Speaker 3: that that seems to be the difficulty at the moment.
Speaker 3: That's at least my assessment of the situation.
Speaker 2: So on that note, if it were up to you,
Speaker 2: who's some of that supplementary talent the Mariners could bring
Speaker 2: in this winner that would be a perfect fit that
Speaker 2: could help get this team over the top.
Speaker 3: I love Willia Damas. You know, Crawford is there. I
Speaker 3: understand that he is expressed that he would be willing
Speaker 3: to play other positions in the infield. I don't necessarily
Speaker 3: feel like he should have to do that. He's a
Speaker 3: very good defensive shortstop. Maybe they could find a better
Speaker 3: fit for Crawford somewhere else in the infield. But yeah,
Speaker 3: that's the guy that I look at, you know, I
Speaker 3: I yeah, they just need that. And it's it's I
Speaker 3: wish it could be as simple as saying, oh, they
Speaker 3: need to sign the right bats, they need to sign
Speaker 3: you know, a guy is gonna, you know, be a
Speaker 3: good offensive force for them. Well, you know, they they
Speaker 3: try that year after year. But I mean, I think
Speaker 3: they've just got to keep plugging away at it, to
Speaker 3: be honest with you, because they're they're on the cusp
Speaker 3: of being a pretty consistent playoff team and yet they
Speaker 3: just haven't been able to make it over that hump.
Speaker 3: And and one thing is you can really see teams
Speaker 3: stagnate at this point in the competitive cycle. I think
Speaker 3: the Blue Jays right now, are a very good example
Speaker 3: of a team that has stagnated despite having what was
Speaker 3: ostensibly a pretty impressive young corps with guys like Guerrero
Speaker 3: and Baschett and then even some really good pitching as well.
Speaker 3: You know, a team that is on the cusp of
Speaker 3: being that perennial playoff team and yet isn't.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you brought up Willia Damas because a I
Speaker 1: think he's he is a fit for what the Mariners need. Costwise,
Speaker 1: he's not. But in terms of the age, in terms
Speaker 1: of the position, in terms of what the Mariners need,
Speaker 1: he absolutely is. But I had a question when when
Speaker 1: we're analyzing Willia Damas last week and we're trying to
Speaker 1: historically is a good defender a shortstop, but this year
Speaker 1: he had an abnormally bad season by defensive run saved
Speaker 1: even though the outs above average stayed steady for the
Speaker 1: most part. Why are there sometimes such a variance in
Speaker 1: stats like especially defensive stats.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: One thing I really looked at this year on my
Speaker 3: channel is is I did a study of Adam Dunn's
Speaker 3: defense just to look at an outlier defensively in the
Speaker 3: negative sense, and defensive run saved was the metric that
Speaker 3: had him at like negative forty three in a season,
Speaker 3: which is one of those stats that seems so bad
Speaker 3: it's impossible. And I remember going back and watching game film.
Speaker 3: Defensive run saved. I think, at this point in the
Speaker 3: process is a stat I don't really look at that much.
Speaker 3: I think stat cast is probably giving you the most
Speaker 3: accurate look. There is at least some attempt at transparency
Speaker 3: in the stat cast fielding metric land, because at the
Speaker 3: very least you can look up like the catch probability
Speaker 3: of an individual play, and even if you disagree with it,
Speaker 3: it's still there. There's so much of this info, especially
Speaker 3: with regards to the defensive metrics, it's just like it's
Speaker 3: like a black box. You know. Baseball Info Solutions will
Speaker 3: will sell you a DRS info if you work for
Speaker 3: a team or a publication maybe, but otherwise it's just
Speaker 3: like a leaderboard that you go look at and there's
Speaker 3: just no context to it at all. And I think
Speaker 3: one thing that causes a difference between defensive run saved
Speaker 3: and maybe a stat like stat cast outs above average
Speaker 3: is a context neutral versus context dependent stats. So, for example,
Speaker 3: in defensive run saved, Bland if you make a really
Speaker 3: bad mistake that directly, you know, affects the run probability
Speaker 3: or you know, allows two runs to score, maybe because
Speaker 3: you let a ball go through your legs in the
Speaker 3: infield or something like that, Like that affects you more
Speaker 3: negatively than it would in terms of stat cast outs
Speaker 3: above average, because what stat cast outs above average does
Speaker 3: is it just looks at each play and it just
Speaker 3: looks at basically the zone where you're at. So for example,
Speaker 3: if you're a shortstop right, it just says, Okay, a
Speaker 3: ball that's misplayed in the shortstop zone on average leads
Speaker 3: to this that's probably more predictive for the future if
Speaker 3: you you know, unless you totally buy into the idea
Speaker 3: that clutch defense is exists as a concept. I'm not
Speaker 3: sure if I do. I just think you know, you
Speaker 3: play good defense or you don't. You're good defender or
Speaker 3: you aren't. So yeah, I mean, I I think you know. Again,
Speaker 3: this is this goes back to my previous point, which
Speaker 3: is that you know, as a someone who explains these statistics,
Speaker 3: you have an obligation to explain their shortcomings. I mean,
Speaker 3: the fact of the matter is the defensive metrics are
Speaker 3: lagging far behind the offensive metrics in general. You know,
Speaker 3: you can get a pretty good idea of what a
Speaker 3: player is going to do for you offensively if you
Speaker 3: look at their average on basins or they're WRC plus
Speaker 3: or whatever, but defensively year to year, there's a lot
Speaker 3: of inconsistency. It's because these metrics, you know, defense hasn't
Speaker 3: been solved yet, and I think that's kind of a
Speaker 3: good thing. I think it's a good thing that there
Speaker 3: are elements of baseball that are really imprecise measurements for
Speaker 3: Is that due to.
Speaker 1: Lack of volume of just defensive opportunities as opposed to
Speaker 1: the seven hundred at bats you'll get in a season.
Speaker 3: It could be. I mean, there are some positions that
Speaker 3: you know, you might on average have two or three
Speaker 3: batted balls hit at you per game, you know, and
Speaker 3: you might take three or four at bats. So yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean, I think that's definitely an element of it,
Speaker 3: for sure. And a lot of a lot of defensive
Speaker 3: plays are routine and a lot of defensive plays are impossible,
Speaker 3: and there's not that many defensive plays that are in between,
Speaker 3: even though that's where you can really tell who's a
Speaker 3: valuable defender, and who's not.
Speaker 2: One of many reasons we're excited to have you on
Speaker 2: Bailey and Me in particular, is we've got somebody on
Speaker 2: the podcast that is as big of, if not a
Speaker 2: bigger fan of Brian Lou than I am. So you
Speaker 2: don't need to tell me or sorry, you don't need
Speaker 2: me to tell you why he's so good. You tweet
Speaker 2: out your memes every time he takes the mound, and
Speaker 2: you watch a ton of his starts. But I'll just
Speaker 2: throw the question to you and let you go, why
Speaker 2: do you love him so much?
Speaker 3: Because I think it's just he's a testament to player development,
Speaker 3: and I think specifically pitch modeling being a successful thing.
Speaker 3: Because what's so fascinating about Brian who was He was
Speaker 3: bad in college? He was legitimately bad in college. You
Speaker 3: look up his college stats. It's not like he was
Speaker 3: playing like a big power five conference either. I can't
Speaker 3: remember what school it was, but it's not you know,
Speaker 3: cal Poly. There you go. And so what's so fascinating
Speaker 3: about is you know, he gets drafted by the Mariners, right,
Speaker 3: and it's like he's like, what like a fifth rounder
Speaker 3: or something like that sixth rounder? And I was reading
Speaker 3: the article, maybe just a couple of months ago. Someone
Speaker 3: in the front office was like, if we did, you know,
Speaker 3: if I had my say, I would have drafted him
Speaker 3: first overall. Like that's crazy, right.
Speaker 2: That was the director of pitching, So he's on the
Speaker 2: big league stap. His name's Trent. That story was told
Speaker 2: on the broadcast a while back. Once he said, yeah,
Speaker 2: but it was up to me I draft Brian won
Speaker 2: number one overall. And it's funny. I'm not saying he's
Speaker 2: one hundred percent right, but you do look back at
Speaker 2: some of those pictures that were drafted in twenty twenty one,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of guys that win that first round
Speaker 2: where I'd say, yeah, I'd take Brian Wu over him,
Speaker 2: over him, over him, et cetera.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and and and again it's it's it was mostly
Speaker 3: just based on the pitch modeling. Like for him, what
Speaker 3: makes them special is the release point. You know, it's
Speaker 3: a very low release point. It is like Castillo. Castillo
Speaker 3: also is is a writing with a lower release point.
Speaker 3: But what's what's interesting is and stat cast has just
Speaker 3: released some data on this is the is the arm
Speaker 3: angle data. So you can talk about release point, but
Speaker 3: The thing about you know, Castillo is it's hard to
Speaker 3: show podcasting on video, but his elbow, if I can explain, it,
Speaker 3: is more like horizontal to the ground. And so that's
Speaker 3: why he's throwing, you know, like a really nasty sinker,
Speaker 3: you know gyro, you know Giray type breaking balls too.
Speaker 3: Wu he gets his elbow so low that his hand
Speaker 3: is like above his elbow, and that you know, can
Speaker 3: give him some like maybe more induced vertical break or
Speaker 3: something like that. And so it's just it really messes
Speaker 3: with hitters when you have a guy coming at you
Speaker 3: from a lower release point who can really elevate that fastball.
Speaker 3: And that's really the basis for what he does. Both
Speaker 3: his fastballs, the four seamer and the sinker are just
Speaker 3: downright nasty and some of the best that any starting
Speaker 3: pitcher in the Leak throws.
Speaker 2: What's crazy about him, too, I would say, is look
Speaker 2: his rookie year. You saw the stuff, and you saw
Speaker 2: how special it could be. But he had a pretty
Speaker 2: typical year for a rookie where he had his ups
Speaker 2: and his downs and it was the most innings he'd
Speaker 2: ever thrown. All of a sudden, the guy comes back
Speaker 2: in year two he doesn't walk anybody like you walk
Speaker 2: less guys than George Kirby. So I'll throw it back
Speaker 2: to you again, what is his ceiling? Am I crazy
Speaker 2: to say this guy can win a cy Young?
Speaker 3: No, I don't think you're crazy at all. I mean
Speaker 3: he's gonna have to show a Kirby like dedication to
Speaker 3: that efficiency and to that not walking people, because I
Speaker 3: think that's how you get the volume necessary to win
Speaker 3: a cy Young Award. You probably need to throw one
Speaker 3: hundred eighty hundred and ninety innings to do that. Today's
Speaker 3: MLB woo, of course, you know, was a little off
Speaker 3: and on with some of the injury scares this year,
Speaker 3: and so that might be the thing that they would
Speaker 3: prevent him from doing so. But no, I mean I
Speaker 3: think the ceiling is insanely high on him. It's there
Speaker 3: in the pitch modeling. It's just about Kenny Harrison and
Speaker 3: Kenny put together like that one Monster season.
Speaker 1: Everyone does love Kirby's control, and Kirby has been just
Speaker 1: wildly productive since debuting a couple of seasons ago. But
Speaker 1: I'm interested to hear what you think when you say
Speaker 1: you want to hear that see that full season dedicated
Speaker 1: to just overly pounding the strike zone. From Brian Wu,
Speaker 1: I feel like Kirby ran into a problem this year
Speaker 1: where yeah, you know, he didn't walk guys, but he
Speaker 1: almost threw the ball in the zone too much. And
Speaker 1: it hadn't really caught up to him until this year
Speaker 1: where he had the worst month of his career in
Speaker 1: August and he actually give up the most hits of
Speaker 1: any pitcher in the American League. So like, where's the
Speaker 1: balance there for for what Kirby and Wu you know,
Speaker 1: should be doing. Does that mean bringing the walk up
Speaker 1: from walk right from up from three percent to five
Speaker 1: percent and throwing x amount more out of the out
Speaker 1: of the strike zone.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, it's interesting. It may be there are ways,
Speaker 3: if you get your stuff right, you can throw the
Speaker 3: ball out of the strike zone and still not walk anybody.
Speaker 3: And I think one of the best examples of this,
Speaker 3: at least in a smaller sample, was what Bieber did
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty. And I think Bieber is someone who,
Speaker 3: at least at least prime Bieber is compares a lot
Speaker 3: to Kirby with that they have that same dedication right. Well,
Speaker 3: Bieber in twenty twenty, you know, this was his you know,
Speaker 3: short season, Cy young year. He threw the ball in
Speaker 3: the zone like a third of the time and he
Speaker 3: only walked. Let's see, I've got the numbers right here,
Speaker 3: twenty one batters in seventy seven innings, and it was
Speaker 3: just because if he threw the he was throwing the
Speaker 3: breaking ball in the right spot and getting the chase.
Speaker 3: I think maybe, you know, as much as I love
Speaker 3: the efficiency, maybe you know, maybe a two waist pitch
Speaker 3: isn't such a bad thing if if you've got a
Speaker 3: breaking ball that can be respected. But yeah, I mean,
Speaker 3: I generally am a proponent of pounding the zone. To
Speaker 3: be honest with you, if you look at pictures that
Speaker 3: pound the zone, maybe there's a survivor ship bias to
Speaker 3: that where if you pound the zone, you probably have
Speaker 3: an above average fastball to begin with, and so you're
Speaker 3: gonna succeed in the zone relative to other pictures. But yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean, I think it generally, if you just look
Speaker 3: across the league pictures that pound the zone, they tend
Speaker 3: to do well. They tend to get through a lot
Speaker 3: of innings, and I think there's a lot of value
Speaker 3: in that. Now, this might be a video idea for
Speaker 3: your for your second channel. I would imagine at some
Speaker 3: point you'll do something about some of the like the
Speaker 3: wonkiest pitches in baseball. Uh have you seen Bryce Miller
Speaker 3: splitter and like what it does? Yes, a brand news
Speaker 3: splitter by the way, that he worked on this year,
Speaker 3: And I guess that's sort of the new trendy pitch,
Speaker 3: like maybe sweeper was a year or two.
Speaker 1: Ago, mm hmm, and it it has the the unique
Speaker 1: action where it's essentially acts as like a mix between
Speaker 1: us split in a knuckleball. And even though even though
Speaker 1: it was his first year throwing it, I think he
Speaker 1: had the best run value in all of in all
Speaker 1: of baseball in that pitch. So there there's to plant
Speaker 1: that in for you. I mean, it's just incredible what
Speaker 1: these guys can develop in this Mariner's rotation. Like seriously,
Speaker 1: everyone in that rotation is so unique and so different
Speaker 1: in each their own way from like Brian Will and
Speaker 1: Logan Gilbert are so different, but it doesn't matter because
Speaker 1: the results are just so so so drastically uh so
Speaker 1: drastically similar in terms of what they do. Are there
Speaker 1: any other teams that can match the uniqueness and and
Speaker 1: the development of of different types of pitchers, like we've
Speaker 1: seen the Mariners do the last two years.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think, you know, the Rays have had some
Speaker 3: pretty impressive runs in that regard. You know, it's it's
Speaker 3: apples and oranges. But of course the Dodgers have, you know,
Speaker 3: had plenty of pitching development successes of their own. But yeah,
Speaker 3: I think the Mariner would of course rank pretty highly
Speaker 3: in that. I was singing the praises of their pitching development.
Speaker 3: I remember, you know, last year in particular. What's funny
Speaker 3: is you know you allude to, you know, the there
Speaker 3: are some pretty unique profiles in their starring rotation. You know,
Speaker 3: Logan Gilbert and Luis Castillo are two very different pitchers.
Speaker 3: I will say that there is an emphasis with them
Speaker 3: on the vertical approach angle outlier guys. That is something
Speaker 3: that we see across the board, whether it's you know,
Speaker 3: really steep one or really flat one. I think that's
Speaker 3: something they focus on. I don't know if you feel
Speaker 3: like they've gotten away from it, but it felt like
Speaker 3: there were a lot of like sweeper guys in the bullpen,
Speaker 3: especially last couple of years, where they've had some success
Speaker 3: with that, maybe upping their rate of that, so there
Speaker 3: can still be some sameness with them. But yeah, I mean,
Speaker 3: I think they're one of the top organizations in terms
Speaker 3: of pitching development, and the fact that they have guys like
Speaker 3: Wu and Miller who they also drafted or you know,
Speaker 3: breaking into the rotation becoming legit pieces really speaks to
Speaker 3: the organizations excess as a whole.
Speaker 1: Just to follow up on the vertical proach angle part,
Speaker 1: just for our listeners who might not be totally tuned
Speaker 1: in on what that is. It's essentially the example you
Speaker 1: would use for that, as Brian will write, just throwing
Speaker 1: it so low, but the the the batter thinks it's
Speaker 1: it's just sort of exploding up. Well, it's really just
Speaker 1: kind of staying on plane. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3: So in that sense, that's called a flat approach angle
Speaker 3: because you know, your pitcher, you're a tall man, you're
Speaker 3: standing on a hill, so you're releasing the ball generally
Speaker 3: higher than where it ends up going. In Wu's case,
Speaker 3: he releases it low and it ends up high. And
Speaker 3: because you know, for hitter, a slight uppercut is actually
Speaker 3: more of a contact swing because that keeps you on
Speaker 3: plane with the ball more. The fact that the approach
Speaker 3: angle is flat in this case does lead to more
Speaker 3: swing in this.
Speaker 2: Which is crazy, the drastic difference between the two, Like
Speaker 2: TJ was saying, just to contextualize it for people listening,
Speaker 2: one more time here Logan Gilbert gets right on top
Speaker 2: of you. His extension's crazy. He doesn't have that is
Speaker 2: a low release angle, but fastball rise it was a
Speaker 2: little smaller. He releases it from the crazy angle, but
Speaker 2: he does have the crazy fastball rise, which is just
Speaker 2: another way that makes them very different. Bailey, I want
Speaker 2: to ask a little bit more about you for people
Speaker 2: that either are getting to know you for the first
Speaker 2: time or have watched you for years and just want
Speaker 2: to get to know more about you and the awesome
Speaker 2: channel that you've created over the years. When did you
Speaker 2: start to feel like your content was really resonating with people?
Speaker 2: Because you win zero to one hundred pretty fast in
Speaker 2: terms of your rise through YouTube and baseball YouTube, When
Speaker 2: did you really start to see it resonate with people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, zero to one hundred really fast. I mean, and
Speaker 3: I don't think that's necessarily typical. I think a lot
Speaker 3: of people plug away for years and they don't necessarily
Speaker 3: have this instant aha moment. It just may be something
Speaker 3: that progresses as they you know, improve their craft. But
Speaker 3: you know, when I started it was making videos for
Speaker 3: the video game Out of the Park Baseball, which is
Speaker 3: what I would describe as a baseball GM spreadshe sheet
Speaker 3: simulator type game. And I still love OTP. I played
Speaker 3: some of it this year on my second channel, Foolish
Speaker 3: Bailey in Fact, and so I started doing that, and
Speaker 3: you know, it kind of ran its course and I decided, Okay, well,
Speaker 3: you know, let's let's try something different. And you know,
Speaker 3: I made the first episode of Baseball Bits, probably two
Speaker 3: or three hundred people watched it. I made another one,
Speaker 3: probably two or three hundred people watched it, and then
Speaker 3: I made the one about Verlander, which I think is
Speaker 3: still to this day one of the videos that I'm
Speaker 3: probably most identified with. And I you know a lot
Speaker 3: of people tell me, hey, I've been watching since the
Speaker 3: the Justin Verlander video, because within a week that video
Speaker 3: had like one hundred thousand plus views, and Justin Verlander
Speaker 3: himself tweeted about it, which was very kind of him
Speaker 3: to do. And I was getting, you know, attention from
Speaker 3: even like people in the industry, and I really just
Speaker 3: you know, from that point forward, took it seriously and
Speaker 3: I didn't have like much of a career in the
Speaker 3: in the real world. So I think, what a lot
Speaker 3: of people when they have this breakthrough, they have to
Speaker 3: weigh that, right, they say, oh, I was I was
Speaker 3: going to be a successful accountant, but now I have
Speaker 3: this YouTube video that's doing really well. I didn't really
Speaker 3: have to necessarily make a lot of those tough decisions,
Speaker 3: so I mean, I was basically a full time YouTuber,
Speaker 3: you know, three or four months after that happened, and
Speaker 3: then comfortably doing it maybe a year after that happened,
Speaker 3: so that there was definitely a before and after moment
Speaker 3: for me. It would be that Verlander video. I got
Speaker 3: the feedback and the attention, and I didn't necessarily plan
Speaker 3: on making YouTube book career. It was just something I
Speaker 3: was doing as a hobby, something because I love baseball.
Speaker 3: But here I am, and I've been doing this, you know,
Speaker 3: over five years now, and that's something I'm very proud
Speaker 3: of because I do think online creators, especially independent ones,
Speaker 3: tend to have a relatively short shelf life. So I
Speaker 3: think the fact that I'm you know, still able to
Speaker 3: do this five six years later a testament to what
Speaker 3: a great fan base I've cultivated, and hopefully a testament
Speaker 3: all the hard work I've put into this thing.
Speaker 1: In case any of you haven't watched it, go over
Speaker 1: to the Foolish Baseball YouTube channel and it's it's down
Speaker 1: there at the beginning of all the baseball bits, but
Speaker 1: it is. It's a really good video highlighting and inning
Speaker 1: of Justin Verlander's MVP campaign in twenty eleven. I believe
Speaker 1: why like why that inning, like of all things, like,
Speaker 1: of all things to land on, why was it that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I I definitely felt like I wanted
Speaker 3: to focus on, you know, aspects of baseball that had
Speaker 3: maybe for been forgotten to some extent. And I think
Speaker 3: for me, there's always an interest in outliers. You know,
Speaker 3: no matter what I do, you could almost sum it
Speaker 3: up as you know, pull up a leaderboard for a
Speaker 3: stat who's the best at it, who's the worst? Why?
Speaker 3: You know that that's Jeff Mathis, that's Tim Lecastro, that's
Speaker 3: Rob Bras like those are like those are the type
Speaker 3: of videos I'm ultimately identified with for Verlander. The outlier
Speaker 3: is the you know, the the velocity at the end
Speaker 3: of the game that that willingness to just completely empty
Speaker 3: the tank and energy allocation, which I think is such
Speaker 3: an impressive ability for any pitcher to have, and I
Speaker 3: think it's going to probably continue to be relevant in
Speaker 3: this in this era where pitching injuries are up, and
Speaker 3: so yeah, I mean it. You know, I'd seen the video.
Speaker 3: I don't think I watched the game live or anything,
Speaker 3: but I'd seen the video over the years, and it's
Speaker 3: just one of those things that's stuck with me. And
Speaker 3: you know, one of the fun things about becoming a
Speaker 3: YouTuber or a content creator and having a platform is
Speaker 3: sometimes you discover that your brain worms, that your things
Speaker 3: that stick in the back of your head. You know,
Speaker 3: you can share those with other people, you know, and
Speaker 3: you can you know, the same memories that you have
Speaker 3: and the same things that you obsess over, those can
Speaker 3: be someone else's new obsession. And I think that's what
Speaker 3: happened when I put out that video.
Speaker 1: So you look at like leaderboards and stuff, which is
Speaker 1: which is great and I'm sure leads to a lot
Speaker 1: of the ideas you have for videos, but you put
Speaker 1: one out. I think those two baseball bits ago where
Speaker 1: you were you ta talked about baseball on hgtvs. Like,
Speaker 1: that's not on a leaderboard, right, So how did you
Speaker 1: come up with something like that?
Speaker 3: You know, I think maybe being in the in the
Speaker 3: video space, the YouTube creation space, helped me in that one.
Speaker 3: I just maybe have a unique view of baseball where
Speaker 3: I just like can almost remove myself from the mechanics
Speaker 3: of the batter and the pitcher and the bases and
Speaker 3: just sort of view it almost as like an alien
Speaker 3: would view a baseball broadcast, Like if you were watching
Speaker 3: baseball on TV, what would you think if you had
Speaker 3: no idea what was going on? And of course, you know,
Speaker 3: how I present things matters to me. How I have to,
Speaker 3: you know, manipulate footage that could have been from a
Speaker 3: sixteen x nine era or a four x three era,
Speaker 3: and how I you know, I'm conscientious of that whenever
Speaker 3: I'm going through, you know, decades and decades of baseball footage. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean, it's just one of those things where, because
Speaker 3: I've spent the last four or five six years working
Speaker 3: with a lot of baseball footage, it's kind of always
Speaker 3: been in the back of my head like, huh, if
Speaker 3: the four to three looks pretty good, you're not gaining
Speaker 3: much by you know, expanding it to a sixteen by
Speaker 3: nine and now here we are in an era of
Speaker 3: you know, YouTube shorts and tiktoks where everything is uh,
Speaker 3: you know, in portrait mode now, and yeah, you just
Speaker 3: think about the mechanics of a baseball broadcast more when
Speaker 3: you're make baseball YouTube videos.
Speaker 1: When you started making videos, your goal was to in
Speaker 1: your words, I think, was to fill a void in
Speaker 1: the in the content community from more of the general
Speaker 1: baseball stuff on YouTube versus like the fangrafts articles. Do
Speaker 1: you think there still is a void?
Speaker 3: No, I actually don't. I think it's been filled. I
Speaker 3: look at the the YouTube baseball landscape. It's really strong,
Speaker 3: you know, and I'm honored if if in any way,
Speaker 3: you know, people were maybe inspired by my creations to
Speaker 3: try their own. But it just seems like every day now,
Speaker 3: you know, I'll come across an interesting from a smaller
Speaker 3: creator that I hadn't previously heard of or you know,
Speaker 3: and so the landscape right now, yeah, I think that
Speaker 3: gap has definitely shrunk a fair amount. There's some really
Speaker 3: great stuff on baseball YouTube. It's not just the saber
Speaker 3: metric stuff either. It's just a lot of you know,
Speaker 3: like a lot of you know, baseball player like kind
Speaker 3: of lifestyle type stuff I really admire, Like the Baseball
Speaker 3: bat Bros. What they've built is really impressive.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: Eric sim is someone who I've been a fan of
Speaker 3: for years and he's seen a ton of success. So yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean we really benefited from for me at least personally,
Speaker 3: like entering the scene around the time when MLB was
Speaker 3: starting to get a little more lax with the copyright stuff,
Speaker 3: and so I think that definitely made a big difference.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I mean I think I think the gap
Speaker 3: has shrunk. I think there's there's great stuff on baseball
Speaker 3: YouTube and it's a really strong scene and there are
Speaker 3: a lot more people participating it than you know, five
Speaker 3: years ago when I was getting started.
Speaker 2: Last one I've got for you, Bailey, and I'm gonna
Speaker 2: get give you a tough one to end it. But
Speaker 2: I want to see where you go with this. Of
Speaker 2: all the videos you've created, baseball bets you've created, do
Speaker 2: you have a top three? Have you ever thought about
Speaker 2: this at all? Like, can you rank one for us?
Speaker 2: Like I don't want to plant ideas into your head,
Speaker 2: but as somebody who loves the Joey Botto video. That
Speaker 2: one's up there for me. But I'm curious if you
Speaker 2: have a top three in your own head.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess my favorite is probably the Rod Burrojas one.
Speaker 3: I think it it kind of encapsulates pretty much everything
Speaker 3: I would want to do with this series.
Speaker 2: I liked it.
Speaker 3: There's a twist essentially. I like the idea of having
Speaker 3: a twist, you know, a third act to the video.
Speaker 3: I'm actually quite fond of one I did recently at
Speaker 3: the beginning of this year that is called the Only
Speaker 3: Thing that Matters in Baseball, and it's about the count.
Speaker 3: It's about you know, as in the O two pitch,
Speaker 3: as in full count, as in the first pitch of
Speaker 3: the bet. I think that is probably the most stats
Speaker 3: heavy video I've done in some ways. I think it's
Speaker 3: some of the most labor I've ever done on a
Speaker 3: video in some ways, and I think it just really
Speaker 3: came together well. And I think with those two vds
Speaker 3: in particular, those are ones that I make and I hope,
Speaker 3: you know, this will fundamentally change the way some person
Speaker 3: who watches this will watch a baseball game from here
Speaker 3: on out. There's a third I could throw in there
Speaker 3: that might be a tough one for me. I might
Speaker 3: go Tim Lacastro because people seem to really like that.
Speaker 3: One one I am really partial to is one that
Speaker 3: I did about the Yankees Twins game, those from twenty nineteen,
Speaker 3: the one that ended with the Aaron Hicks catch, because
Speaker 3: I felt like, you know, we've talked about some of
Speaker 3: the stat heavy ones, I feel like that one is
Speaker 3: a good one in a sense that I would want
Speaker 3: to show it to someone who's never watched a baseball
Speaker 3: game before, because what it fundamentally is is a story
Speaker 3: about a really fun baseball game in the regular season.
Speaker 3: And so that is one that stands out to me
Speaker 3: as still one of my favorites to this day.
Speaker 1: Last thing for me baileying ending on an open ended question,
Speaker 1: open ended not is there a stat that you really
Speaker 1: like that you don't think is getting enough attention, and
Speaker 1: that into next season, into the twenty twenty five season,
Speaker 1: people should pay attention to more.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've for me, the hitting stats, the hitting peripheral
Speaker 3: type stats. I'll shout out three. They're very basic, but
Speaker 3: I think if you look at these three stats, you
Speaker 3: can get a pretty complete picture of what type of
Speaker 3: hitter someone is, and that's going to be their barrel rate.
Speaker 3: Barrels are so important. It's crazy how much barrels correlate
Speaker 3: with home runs, how much they correlate with runs scoring.
Speaker 3: In general. Barrels are awesome. That's, by the way, a
Speaker 3: stat cast metric that assigns a barrel quality if you
Speaker 3: reach a certain threshold in exit velocity and launch angle.
Speaker 3: I think you tell a lot from someone's barrel rate.
Speaker 3: They're with rate, so you know how often they swing
Speaker 3: and misper swing and their chase rate, how often they
Speaker 3: swing at pitches outside the zone. I think a lot
Speaker 3: of times, if you're looking at a hitter, you can
Speaker 3: kind of distill what they do just by looking at
Speaker 3: those three stats.
Speaker 1: Bailey, this has been awesome to all the listeners and
Speaker 1: all the watchers. Go check out as YouTube channels if
Speaker 1: you're not familiar already, Foolish Baseball and Foolish Bailey. The
Speaker 1: Baseball bits are really fantastic. Go watch one, I promise
Speaker 1: you then you'll probably want to watch the rest of
Speaker 1: them as well. Bailey, this has been awesome. Thanks so
Speaker 1: much for taking some time to join us.
Speaker 3: All right, Thank you, TJ, thank you Lyle.
Speaker 2: We really thoroughly enjoyed that conversation with Bailey. Hopefully you
Speaker 2: guys did too. Again, if you want to go check
Speaker 2: out all of his content, which you absolutely should, you
Speaker 2: can find him everywhere. We would most recommend on YouTube
Speaker 2: at Foolish Baseball. With that, that'll just about wrap up
Speaker 2: this edition of the Marine Layer Podcast. You guys know
Speaker 2: the drill. You want to listen to the full form pods,
Speaker 2: you can do so wherever you get your audio podcasts.
Speaker 2: If you're listening, do us a big favor. Download the episodes,
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Speaker 2: One more reminder, if you want to follow our new
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Speaker 2: at Bullpen, Banter Baseball. That's TJ. I'm Lyle as always been.
Speaker 2: Thank you guys for tuning in. We'll talk to you soon.