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Speaker 1: Today is June third, and this is Big Fish, Small Pod.

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Speaker 1: I'm Andrew Werdahl, and I'm here with you on Friday,

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Speaker 1: and I touched on it a bit on Wednesday. Today

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Speaker 1: I am going to harp on it that the Marlins

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Speaker 1: have not been approaching baseball from a place of plenty.

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Speaker 1: The Advocates for Minor Leagues released that the Marlins are

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Speaker 1: one of just a few teams that do not pay

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Speaker 1: for extended spring training and also do not provide individual

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Speaker 1: rooms to their players at every minor league affiliate. That

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Speaker 1: does come as something of like an organizational demerit. But

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Speaker 1: I do think we're seeing its impact here on the field.

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Speaker 1: So I want to talk more about that with you

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Speaker 1: today some substance for it. Assistant general manager Dan Greeley

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Speaker 1: spoke on the Swings and Misses this week about the

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Speaker 1: state of the Marlins, and he did offer some insight

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Speaker 1: into the front office. He does represent your more saber

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Speaker 1: oriented guy. He even name dropped Tom Tango's book. Oh

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Speaker 1: he didn't name drop it. He name dropped Tom Tango

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Speaker 1: as having written a book, which he did. The book

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Speaker 1: play in the percentages in baseball. It's hugely influential with

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Speaker 1: regards to your lineup optimization, your like decision making based

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Speaker 1: on the numbers. It's all written out in quote the book.

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Speaker 1: So he talked about that, ever so slightly. Over All,

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Speaker 1: he put forward the feeling that the Marlins team is

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Speaker 1: talented at a major league standard, certainly worth watching, and

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Speaker 1: that they are still in the race because of that talent.

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Speaker 1: Basically the reason being that like things like you're like

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Speaker 1: made in the book, that like you're running in runners

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Speaker 1: and scoring position averages will even out over the course

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Speaker 1: of the year, and your run differential like that does

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Speaker 1: tend to even out. But I find myself that that

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Speaker 1: all reduces it too much to the odds, so to speak.

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Speaker 1: But totally just from the perspective of what Dan Greeley

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Speaker 1: has in his database and what Kim Ang can do

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Speaker 1: with her roster, what has been presented to the Marlins

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Speaker 1: about the team as it is today, there really might

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Speaker 1: not be a sort of player personnel transaction that they

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Speaker 1: could make that would substantially help the team, being like

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Speaker 1: a prospect promotion. There are a few pictures and a

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Speaker 1: few hitters that you could certainly make an argument for,

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Speaker 1: but it's rather unclear whether or not they would actually

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Speaker 1: be an upgrade rookies adjusting to the majors and all

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Speaker 1: of that. And I'm also not quite on board with

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Speaker 1: Tom Tango's assessment of clutch hitting. To my eyes, it

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Speaker 1: seems to be either a matter of high performance or

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Speaker 1: of consistency at the plate, both really contingent on the

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Speaker 1: athlete themselves getting the most out of themselves physically and mentally.

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Speaker 1: In the past, I've talked about how a hitter's swink

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Speaker 1: is a fully involved motion. Ideally, a player is pulling

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Speaker 1: strength from both sides of their body and crossing it

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Speaker 1: over with the bat. It's an intense action and it

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Speaker 1: has to be done with a lot of precision, and

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Speaker 1: your body does pull force up from your lower body

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Speaker 1: and then pull and push the bat. It's really a

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Speaker 1: complete motion and an adjustment made. Daring it like a

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Speaker 1: mistakenly seeing a fastball when it is a changeup or

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Speaker 1: a slider, can put a sort of like violent contortion

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Speaker 1: into that swing, putting different force into your joints or

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Speaker 1: towards your back. Sure, any Major leaguer can adjust and recover,

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Speaker 1: and toughness can even get you through the day to day,

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Speaker 1: and toughness might even get you through that game better

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Speaker 1: at some sort of like heightened clutch moment, like how

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Speaker 1: a fastball up and it might make you more focused

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Speaker 1: and like locked in at the plate, bringing that sort

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Speaker 1: of intensity and focus that really should just be with

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Speaker 1: you at the ballpark every day, or at least really

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Speaker 1: could be with you at the ballpark every time. No

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Speaker 1: one's saying you need a fastball up and end to

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Speaker 1: pay attention to the pitcher. But specifically, what we are

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Speaker 1: talking about is that these Marlins players are athletes. They're

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Speaker 1: bringing that sort of athletic trait of mental intensity and

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Speaker 1: focus and toughness. And as it has been really put

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Speaker 1: forward for the Marlins, it's that they don't quite offer

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Speaker 1: adequate facilities further athletes individual rooms for instance. I can

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Speaker 1: speak anecdotally not with regards to the Marlins organization, but

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Speaker 1: I can certainly say that I've heard of minor leaguers

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Speaker 1: living on air mattresses in living rooms or without kitchens.

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Speaker 1: And the fact that we have a Marlins team and

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Speaker 1: we're talking about their consistency at the plate there like

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Speaker 1: every day performance and ability to like hit with regularity

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Speaker 1: and with productivity and missing out on those like kind

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Speaker 1: of clutch moments that do ask maybe a bit more

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Speaker 1: from you as an athlete and require you to be

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Speaker 1: a bit more there in that moment as a player

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Speaker 1: could come back to those corners cut at the minor

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Speaker 1: league level, it really does stand out to me that

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Speaker 1: Brian Anderson, the one homegrown regular at the plate for Miami,

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Speaker 1: is having backspasms and he's twenty nine. Christian Yelich also

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Speaker 1: had a history of back issues, as told by Andy

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Speaker 1: Haynes on MLB dot Com twenty twenty one. I remember

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Speaker 1: we played those three thirty am games in the minor

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Speaker 1: leagues that I detested as much as you could detest

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Speaker 1: anything in the world. Haines added, he did it in

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Speaker 1: one of those games in the outfield. I said, never again,

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Speaker 1: am I playing this guy in a ten thirty game.

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Speaker 1: I told the minor league people, if we keep playing

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Speaker 1: these ten thirty games, Yelich is never playing again. So

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Speaker 1: it has followed him, and I know Christian is just

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Speaker 1: hungry for answers. It's pretty difficult for him to sit

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Speaker 1: and watch. I know that he'll get some answers here,

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Speaker 1: and if anybody can turn it around and get it

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Speaker 1: going in the right direction, you know he'll do it

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Speaker 1: because he's going to be relentless and how in how

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Speaker 1: he is. But yeah, it goes back. I think it

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Speaker 1: was his second or third year. It wasn't significant. It

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Speaker 1: was more like he had in the past. Here probably

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Speaker 1: a ten day or two week thing. To be a

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Speaker 1: top athlete, you want to be approaching your sport with

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Speaker 1: a thorough rigor that Christian Yelich might not have had

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Speaker 1: at the outset, And it might be because he didn't

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Speaker 1: have the ability to be quite that thorough despite the

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Speaker 1: fact that he was bringing with him a rigor. So

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Speaker 1: even at that early age, he needed exception from his

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Speaker 1: peers because his back was so prohibitive that it couldn't

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Speaker 1: be ready around the clock. And that's tough words when

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Speaker 1: you're attempting to sixteen success like except when ten thirty am.

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Speaker 1: It's not that the Marlins haven't made themselves in a

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Speaker 1: better position than ever since their time with Christian Yelich

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Speaker 1: in the farm system. And there's still a lot of

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Speaker 1: room to do, a lot more than any other team

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Speaker 1: is doing for their minor league players. If anything, in

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Speaker 1: such a competitive league, you'd like to be the one

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Speaker 1: to set the standard rather than lag in meeting it.

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Speaker 1: I'm sure it's never too late to change, but it's

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Speaker 1: definitely too late if you're going to ignore it. So today,

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Speaker 1: as things sit, twenty one and twenty eight, Miami will

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Speaker 1: face San Francisco at six forty. The Marlins will be

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Speaker 1: bringing it behind Eliezer Hernandez as the team faces Alex

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Speaker 1: Cobb in Miami, and I think we all like the

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Speaker 1: feel of where it's at. For the podcast, I've been

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Speaker 1: andrew Ardahll hoping soon for a chiropractic adjustment. Talk to

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Speaker 1: you later next week. Enjoy the series with the Giants