Goodbye, Football
First, a Thank You
I don’t know that I had any specific expectations in terms of people signing up to read this silliness, but whatever they were, they were exceeded. By a lot. So thank you all and I truly hope you continue to enjoy.
As I wrote initially, I don’t want this to be super news-y. There are some excellent reporters who cover this team and they take care of all of that and then some. Because of that, a lot of what I write is going to be sort of first person and from my own perspective. For those of you who know me in real life, you know this is not my favorite thing.
That said, there are enough of you who are interested, so we’ll push on and if I ever get too obnoxious/self-aggrandizing, just lemme know.
The Unofficial Start of Baseball Season
I know it’s become something of a cliché that as soon as the Super Bowl ends we all run to tweet about Spring Training…but, like…I don’t care. It really does feel like a page-turning moment when the clock ticks down in The Big Game™️ and so I am not going to shy away from the fun of it all. Let’s baseball!
The Darvish Deal
A pleasant surprise last Thursday as the Padres announced a new six-year contract extension with RHP Yu Darvish.
It’s pretty wild to think that if Darvish finishes out the deal here in SD he will have spent eight seasons with the Pads. As in more than with any other team. As in three more than he spent with the Rangers, for whom he debuted in 2012. As in one more than for his old NPB team, the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters.
I asked him about this at the Friday press conference and it sure seemed like the thought had crossed his mind. He said it’s hard to believe…and a moment later would add that all *gestures broadly* of this seemed hard to believe. Like a dream or a prank. If you’re a longtime Padre fan, I’m guessing you’ve had a similar sensation at some point the last couple years. It is, of course, all quite real.
Darvish, as we know, is one of the most significant talents of his generation. From his time as a LeBron-like phenom in Japan, to Texas, through his brief stopover in LA, to the Cubs and now the Padres, he has always been an upper-echelon performer.
He may also be getting better. 2022 was probably the second best season of his entire MLB career. The fact that he turned 36 last summer seemed to be more of a normal human milestone than any indication of where he’s at in his baseball journey. And when you consider his work ethic and commitment to fitness and then start looking at the Verlander (40 this month), Scherzer (39 this July) type guys, you can more than understand why the Padres are comfortable with this.
On a personal level, I am thrilled to get to watch this guy pitch every five (or six!) days for the next few years. He fascinates me maybe more than anyone else in baseball. Every time he pitches, Tony and I geek out on the air as we try and decipher in real time how he is attacking that lineup that night and how it compares to how he threw in his previous starts. Oh, and he’s really, really good. Congrats to Yu and the Pads for getting this done. What a time in Padre Land.
This Week: Peoria
I fly out to Phoenix for Spring Training on Wednesday. As in two days from now.
I generally like to get to Spring Training 7-10 days before the games begin. For one, it’s maybe the best time of year to catch up with players and get answers on random (read: annoying) questions I have (Boomstick!). There are also the daily media availabilities with Bob Melvin, which I enjoy and value. On top of alllll of that, there’s quite a bit of work to do to get ready for these broadcasts.
While most of my team and player notes are started over the winter, I really nail them down during this time and so I figured I would share a little look at what we’ve got going on. If you tune in regularly throughout the Spring, you’ll no doubt hear much of this regurgitated on the air.
First, a look at a player. Let’s go with one of the new guys…
I will obviously add and subtract to that as time goes on, but this is the foundation for a year’s worth of nuggets about a fascinating guy.
In addition to player notes, I also have a bunch of different boxes filled with random info about random things. For instance, some nuggets on this year’s World Baseball Classic:
The idea with all of this, of course, is that it’s an easy and quick reference when we’re on the air. If Tony and I find our way into a conversation about the WBC, boom, I have some details available just like that.
This might be sad, but I probably enjoy the prep almost as much as I do the games themselves.
Good Readings
For those of you who follow the Padres in a pretty serious way, you are no doubt familiar with the name Tim Hagerty. Tim is the voice of the Padres’ top farm club, the El Paso Chihuahuas (fun aside: former Padres PR staffer Patrick Kurish, who is now a big-shot with the Pirates, came up with a great way to remember how to properly spell “Chihuahuas,” which I still use to this day. In your head, just say “chi-hua-huas.” I digress. And apologize.)
In addition to being a very talented broadcaster (and a wonderfully kind guy), Tim is also a stellar writer and storyteller.
Those two passions have collided in his newest endeavor…
Tim was nice enough to send me an advance copy of the book and it is filled with wonderful stories that could only come from the world of Minor League Baseball. I would imagine there will be many references to it over the course of the season on Padres radio.
The book officially comes out on March 28th and is available for pre-order now.
Speaking of the Written Word…
Few articles I want to pass along:
First, typically great stuff from AJ Cassavel of MLB dot com that dives into where the Padres are in terms of who the heck is gonna play where the heck. If you're still trying to figure it out, well, you’re not alone. Spring Training will provide some answers and this is a good primer. Bonus: did you know “AJ” stands for “Adbert Jacobowitz?”
Secondly, a must-read Q&A with Bob Melvin from Kevin Acee of the U-T. There are understandably more “Q’s” than “A’s” at the moment, but good to read what the manager thinks about all manner of unknowns as we start Spring Training.
Lastly, a really fascinating think-piece from Russell Carleton in Baseball Prospectus. Couple of things I want to unpack from this. Before I do, though, I feel I should warn you: This newsletter is not going to be all fun and games. I read a lot of articles and books about baseball. Many of them are not for the casual fan who just wants to crack a beer and cheer for their team. This would be an example of that. If numbers make your head spin, this might be the time to scroll down. I won’t be offended.
If you’re still here, hello! You are a nerd like me. Embrace it.
OK, two things from the piece.
First, Russell does a really nice job of summing up some (very) early baseball history in regards to batting average and why it was a perfectly fine way to judge a hitter wayyyy back in the day.
The bigger problem that batting average has is that it pretends that walks never happened. In the 1870s, that actually made sense. The game had some very different rules at the time. For one, the walk rule required either 8 or 9, depending on the league, “unfair balls” before you got first base for free. The act of pitching was also very different. “Pitching” is an under-handed motion. It’s the one you use when you play cornhole. We now associate the word with throwing, but the pitcher was mostly there to serve the ball up for the batter to hit so that the “bases” part of baseball could begin. If the pitcher missed 8 or 9 times, it was clearly the pitcher’s fault and you probably didn’t deserve credit.
The primary reason I want to highlight this is that it’s a very good reminder of how different the game was then…and how it is forever evolving. We sometimes get bogged down by history and tradition when discussing baseball—not always a bad thing—but like…it’s always been ever-changing. We’ll be OK with giant bases.
Anyway, that’s just the appetizer. The core of the article is about WAR and Russell makes a compelling argument about how that particular stat is probably not built to handle some of the ways in which modern rosters are deployed. This is of particular interest to us from the Padres perspective, of course. With the positional flexibility that we expect to see, keep in mind that WAR may not do a great job capturing some the value that these guys will have. Just something to keep tucked into the back of your head as the season rolls along.
Questions!
Thanks to everyone who sent in questions. Let’s start slow with an easy one.
Kevin wrote in:
Q: How often are broadcasters hitting the cough button to make not-ready-for-radio asides? And any stories of someone's mic not being muted when they thought it was?
A: For those who don’t know: on TV and radio we have a little “cough” button that mutes our microphones when pressed in. To answer Kevin’s question, it depends on the person. Some people are constantly using it, others rarely. In terms of off-air commentary, I usually save that for the commercial breaks. One announcer I used to work with—many years ago, before I got to San Diego—was an absolute master of those asides, though. Like mid-sentence, he would flip the switch, make some pithy remark, then turn his mic back on and continue his commentary. This was constant. Amazing he never slipped up. Wildly entertaining for me, though.
As a reminder, you can submit your questions here. And if anyone knows how to make a “Submit Question” box or form on here, please lemme know.
Dept. of Crossovers
These days I follow the NBA very casually. So it’s kind of fun every year at the trade deadline when it seems like half the GM’s in the league turn into AJ Preller. Because I’m so out of the loop on the day-to-day of the NBA, it’s mind-blowing to me the amount of action that occurs.
One of the major moves last week sent Kevin Durant from the Nets to the Suns. As part of that trade, Mikal Bridges went from Phoenix to Brooklyn. Bridges is a Philly native and is apparently not only into baseball, but also into an All-Star third baseman of interest and a particular celebration that we saw a lot of in 2022:
This is really cool stuff. Will the Night at the Roxbury-inspired celebration continue for the Pads in 2023? If I had to guess: no. But still, neat to see it being used in a totally different arena.
One Last Football Thing
If you watched the game on FOX yesterday, you were treated to the play-by-play of Kevin Burkhardt, who was calling his first Super Bowl on television. I first met Kevin back in 2007, when he was in the first year of a wonderful run as the Mets’ roving reporter on TV and I was in my second year as the pre/post guy on radio for the Marlins.
The first time we met, I could tell he was an uncommonly nice human being and he has continued to prove it over the last 16 or so years. We have kept in very good touch and I really can’t explain the pride I felt watching and listening to him last night. Talk about good things/good people, etc. Congratulations to my friend on a job beautifully done. First of many.
Thanks again for reading and feel free to tell your friends, etc. The next newsletter will likely go out on Wednesday as I head to Peoria (!!).