The Book of Joe podcast is a production of iHeartRadio. Hey you're in the right spot. Welcome back to another edition of the Book of Joe podcasts. It's me Tom Verducci with Joe Madden and Joe. We just got back from a wonderful weekend in Savannah, Georgia at the Savannah Book Fair, to sell some of our book, The Book of Joe, and to meet a bunch of really cool, very nice people. What you think of that trip to Savannah, Joe, Yeah, that's that's really interesting. I had a blush us like you did. Didn't know what to expect going into it. First of all, the city Savannah, Oh beautiful, totally smitten man. I mean we did. We did a presentation and the I think was the Ascension Lutheran Church, an old church in the middle of Savannah. So Tommy and I like two priests or on the altar facing the congregation, and we did a nice job watching your language. By the way, I appreciate that. That's it. I really backed off a couple of times. But the first thing I brought up I was asking if there are there any realtors in the audience. I mean, that place is super, super cool, and I can't wait to go back with a little more time golfing. Golfed up in Hilton Head with my buddy mic Life for a couple of days his wife Janey, and just had an absolute blast. So anyway, Yeah, it was a great experience, well organized, met a ton of really cool people. So if we get a chance to do it again, absolutely do it again. Yeah, I highly recommended. That was my first trip there as well, just kind of blown away by the vibe and the atmosphere there. It's almost like you're on an old Hollywood movie set and you walk everywhere. I found out that they call everything a square, like we're asking for directions, and it was always well you go through two squares or it's three squares away. And apparently I guess as the city was growing Joe and people were dying, they would buy bury them in graveyards in squares, and as the city kept getting bigger, than to keep pushing the limits at the square. City grew. So there's all kinds of ghost tours there and it's like kind of like going back in time. But if you're thirsty, there's plenty of places to get a cold beverage. We found that out, you will not go thirsty or hungry. It's Avannah, Georgia. We saw so many little private tours, like even after you had left, I went to a private reception that night and coming back, I mean like it's cold, it's late, and there's little tours going on in front of cemeteries or buildings or churches. Really an incredibly a unique and very interesting experience. Yeah, and Southern hospitality, for sure, they live up to that reputation. So that brings us to our topic this week, talking about kind of a blend of the old and the new. Baseball has been in a precarious position where it's it's losing some appeal, especially two younger fans. So this year the game is going to look more different than it has since. Well, I think you have to go back to at least the start of the DH in nineteen seventy three to find last time baseball went through kind of massive changes that they are this year. Three big rule changes in brief, no more shifts, no more defensive shifts. The bases are bigger, three inches wider across, which means the distance between first and second, for instance, is four and a half inches shorter, and there is now officially a clock in baseball. Baseball prefers you call it a pitch timer, but players are literally on the clock now, like the play clock in the NFL, the shot clock in basketball, to move the game along. I am a huge proponent of these changes, and we'll get into why. And Joe, my gut feeling is you're a guy who he's not a big fan of regulations, right, like being told what to do. I'm putting boundaries on people and ideas and this maybe I'm speaking for you, and I'll let you speak for yourself. Of course, maybe this strikes you as something that reaches a little too far. How about that? Well, yeah, I mean you're right, that's who I am. I grew up in the sixties and the seventies. It's in the book of Joe. But yeah, but I will say this, I do like the pitch timer. I think that was for me, that was the one rule that could have been the first rule or change that it came down the pike a couple of years ago. As opposed to like pretty batter minimum, you know, the ghost running all this other kind of stuff. I think this one makes the most sense to me. Actually, I played with the clock. Way back in the day, when I was in Wichita, Kansas in nineteen it was eighty there was a clock in the National Baseball Congress World Series in Wichita, and it didn't bother anybody at that time. But when I but the Cubs not making the plaoffs that the first time came home watching a playoff game on TV. Wow took forever. Interminable was the word that I that brought to came to my mind. So yeah, I like the idea of getting the ball, throwing the ball. Talk about Baba Doo, my mentor in the Book of Joe. I mean, Babaho used to gets so upset when a pitch would take too longer. A guy would not get into batter's box. He would just start yelling out from the side. I mean in an instructional league game in Arizona with nobody around. So I like that. I like the guy getting the ball, getting on the rubber batter in the box. I think it's going to create there's not all that necessary time for strategy, strategy, and it's actually a point of overthinking. So get the ball, throw the ball here to get in a box ready to swing the bat. I like all of that, and I think there's going to be a positive reaction with the pace of the game. And I've never been concerned about the length of the game. That's a great point. I'm glad you pointed that out. It really is about the pace of the game. It's not the time of the game now. When they put the pitch clock in the minor leagues last year, the average minor league game was reduced by about twenty five minutes. You're not going to see the same kind of cut in the major leagues. The clock is actually a second longer with runners and without runners, and there's more commercial time built into a major league game, especially at national broadcast. But you may be talking out as much as twenty minutes being cut off a game that makes a big difference more than that. Is exactly what you said, Joe. The pace of action the ball in play, I call it a state of readiness. If you as a fan in the ballpark or especially at home, when there are other distractions to pull you away from the game, see everybody's body language completely go inert. They just stop right, They walk off the back of the mound, they walk out of the batter's box, the head goes down. They're staring in the space. What are you doing? You're changing the channel, You're looking at your screen, an iPad, whatever it might be. You lose interest when the game is played in a heightened state of readiness, like the way soccer is, like the way basketball in the NFL is, then you are more engaged as a fan. So I love the fact that the game will be played at a faster pace, And I actually think I agree with your mentor Bablue. If I'm a pitcher man, I think this helps me. I want to dictate pace if I'm on the mount. The more I control pace and almost force a hitter to think quickly rather than slowly, that to me, Joe seems to advantage the picture. What do you think, Well, yeah, I mean part of this slowness that evolved was like in the early eighties to the mid eighties when mental skills started to come on board, And a lot of what you see with this this time in between is possibly routines that have been developed through the utilization of mental skills coaches. You know your breath when things aren't going right to have a happy spot on an outfield. Fancer like Evan Longoria. We look at the top of the left field foul poll. That was all from Kenny Vizza hitters. I mean pictures again, guards that don't get under rubber unless you're ready to. Long ago get out of the box until you're ready to. So all that stuff conspired to add time to the pitch or to the yet bat. So part of it's our own fault. I'm regarding all of that with the mental skill. So now mental skills has got to develop another method, a quicker method. And again that's counterintuitive to what we've been teaching to this point, because you do want to take your time, never be in a hurry, get your breath, you control the action, you control the pace. So that's I really believe that that's been part of the problem or the issue in a sense. But although I'm a really big proponent of mental skills, so I'm curious to see how this an acts as we move it forward. I like the idea of a picture not overthinking it. I like the idea of a hit or not overthinking it. But I agree. I mean from a pitcher's perspective, I think, get it and throw it. It's just like on a golf tea see it and hit it. I mean, we get to this point where we have too much time in between football you don't as a football player, as a quarterback. After that first hit, it was almost like we're just talking right now. You didn't think about anything. Basketball, if you want to argue with the referee, he gives you the ball, you have to put it in play. In baseball, we have all these pauses that you have a chance to overthink it. So I'm curious with all of that not chanced over thinking now with the pitcher, and obviously the same with the hitter. But I do there's a lot to like about this. But again, these guys are still gonna want to have a routine that they're gonna have to expedite a bit, and I'm curious to see how that evolves. Yeah, it's interesting. If you remember when we had Anthony Rizzo on the podcast, he talked about when he's facing guys in September who just came up from the minor leagues who've been pitching with the clock, he felt rushed at the plate. His own kind of routine to get himself ready had to be quickened and made him a little bit uncomfortable. Now, spring training games are starting this weekend. The games will be played under the new set of rules. You have teams right now practicing and taking batting practice with clocks on the field. Everybody is getting their routines readjusted. Will it happen in the course of spring training. No, it's still always going to bleed into the regular season. You're gonna have a lot of veteran players in April, especially complaining about it. You'll have guys maybe even punched out by an umpire because the hitter took too long to get in the box that the penalty is a strike on the batter or a ball on the pitcher. It's going to happen, folks and guys are going to complain, but you know what, it's just part of the adjustment period. After about two, three, four weeks, they'll be good. They'll move on. It will not be an issue. But I'm telling you, just be prepared for a lot of complaining. Yes, no different than when they brought in the instant replace stuff, and the result would come back and I would look at the board and you would see the board and you know, okay, absolutely they have to go in this direction. Then they come back in another direction based on against what you have thought, based on the scrutiny from New York. And I you're not supposed to argue right there because these unparts on the field that have nothing to do with this call. But I knew that. I knew that. But I'm still gonna argue, and I'm still gonna get kicked out because you still have to make a point. So I think, like, just like you're talking about, even though everybody knows these are the rules, there's still a lot of purists that are not going to like it. Eventually it will be will get to the point where everybody does kind of morph into it and understands it and does it more seamlessly. But in the beginning, if somebody gets punched out man on a time clock, God, I don't even know what I would do in the dugout, I swear to God. And then again, you have to you have to understand, I mean, you was it was the clock? Ride was the guy too quick? I mean you're gonna try to, you know, parcel list down to like really some minute moments or situations. It's gonna be tough. And so you're right, it's gonna it's gonna happen. It'll take some time, but they're still gonna be arguments and are still going to be It's like anything else, unintended consequences. As you move this further along, some of the things that seem really obvious and good to us right now are going to be challenged. Yes, let me give our listeners a quick summation of how we got here and why it's necessary. If you go back to the highest attended season in baseball history, that's two thousand and seven, that's the apex of attendance. Since then, major League Baseball games on average have gotten twelve minutes longer with six fewer balls put into play. What does that mean? That means baseball lost fifteen million fans in those fifteen years as they gave people less action over more time. That is the absolute worst kind of formula that any entertainment industry could have, especially in this day, as the options are just exponentially greater in terms of where you can get your fun from, right, So you have to give people more action over less time. That's what this is designed to do. Now people have said, why don't you just leave the game alone? The game self corrects over time, and generally that has been true. It wasn't going to change, folks. Players were getting slower and slower. And Joe, you're right about the mental skills part of it. I will throw in also the information. There is more information that's processed in real time during a game than there ever has been. That is not going back to nineteen fifties or nineteen sixties baseball, which was basically your version of what you call amor con league in baseball. Joe, just show up and play right, and we're getting closer, not getting ever get back there, but we're getting closer to that kind of baseball, the game decided by the players and their athleticism and not algorithms. Yeah, I mean, there's still going to be this blood of information that's going to be thrown out there prior to the game. And I'll argue, even though it's been that way, when the game begins, man, it's hard to really utilize all that. I mean, I had that little sheet in my back pocket. I knew what I wanted to do before the game began. It was you had to, like I would have to possibly check in a couple times during a game of something that really wasn't certain of but for the most part, by the time that game begin, you should know exactly what you want to do catcher to picture, picture to catcher hitting before you got into the batter's box, manager before the ending, you got to know what you're going to do before the inning begins, several hitters in advance. So I mean, I think a little bit of this has been overblown with the information being so impactful during the game. It's really impactful in regards to how you set up the game before it occurs, and then it's going to be organizationally contingent. It's the group that really wants their manager to serve more as a middle manager is going to have to really be there with almost like a cheat sheet there in the course of the game to make sure you'd stay with script. And there's others that are gonna like I would like to believe I was this guy that I would get all this information, I would want it, But then by the time the game began, it's more read and react kind of a situation because nothing rare that anything goes according to script or theory, because during reality most of the time are two different things. So the information overload is there it's not going to go away as long as it stays before the game. I don't think it'll be it's going to really be oppressive during any game. But like you're saying, I agree with that, less time to really process all this stuff is actually a good thing, and maybe they're gonna have to reduce reduced, reduce even more prior to the game less cheat sheets. Durre any game. Let's go play some baseball. I think everybody would love that. Hey, speaking of pitch timers, I'm up against one right here, so we're gonna take a quick break, and when we come back, I want to ask one of the early adopters who with the shift, what he thinks of the shift now being banned. Hey, welcome back to the Book of Joe podcast. Joe Madden was listen. He wasn't there with the Boudreau shift Lou Boudreau on Ted Williams or back in the nineteen twenties with Sy Williams and the Phillies. But in the modern shift era, he was right there at the beginning, first with the Angels, then with the Rays. You're talking about shifting on Ken Griffe Junior. You're talking before man outfields those days are over. That sort of ingenuity now has been legislated out of the game, and I could see why someone like Joe would be against it. I'm for it, But again, Joe, I want to hear your perspective on someone who was right there at the beginning of this and now you're being told you can't do it. Yeah. I again, it's just it's the game of baseball, and it should be like wide open to do whatever you want to do based on strategical advantages that you see, and you have to have kind of like the balls to do it. I mean, some people, especially in the beginning, we were made fun of with the race, the fact that we did all these weird things on defense, and you had to answer a lot of questions and a lot of people's you're trying to reinvent the wheel, all this different kind of stuff that was being said in six seven, eight, whenever those cut first couple of years were and now all of a sudden, they then it becomes mainstream and now you have to actually legislate against it. It's become it's gone so far to the other side. My take has always been this, and I'm a believer in this, and that you're right. I don't like legislation. I don't think that you really to change anything always requires somebody having to sit down and think that I have a better way of doing this. I prefer that I would have preferred that the players handled it themselves, and even organizations. Meaning when I get it, we're going to get young Tom Barducci in my minor league system, strong left handed hitter out of Seaton Hall Prep in New Jersey. This guy as a pull hitter. He's got some pop, but I know that if I don't give him other weapons in the minor leagues, that eventually he's going to be subject to this method of play where there's gonna be an extra guy on this side of the endfield. I need to teach him how to stay inside the ball, drive the ball to the other side, or just bunt for a hit when a situation presents itself based on the defense in front of him. I don't think enough time was not nearly enough time was spent on that. I know that for a fact. So that's that's what it comes down to for me, is that I don't think the industry has spent enough time nurturing opposite field bunning you try to get it done after the fact. I mean, Scherberg try to do it. Anthony's kind of done it in a good way, and there's others that have not been successful doing it. So I just from my perspective, I like to see those things done, and from a teaching perspective, teach him out at the ball the other way, how to stay inside the ball, how to bunt prevent this team from putting the other guy on the other side of the endfield. So you still have an advantage in that moment. But then again it comes down to compensation and what organizations want. They want home runs, so if you want There's Tommy Verducci and he's yeah, he's got all this power, and if we teach him this, then he's going to subtract from his home runs. I don't really care if he strikes out. I just he's got a decent I was going to accept the walk. So there's all this different kind of input being instilled and installed into the game and into tom and into this this method of thinking. Convoluted answer, but that I really would prefer would have preferred that we had done a better job of teaching Minor League Lieutenant hitters to utilize the whole field. And actually, to the point, if you if you really wanted to get that done, compensate I mean exactly. I mean, if you get so many extra bassits on that side versus the shift, or if you get a butt for a hit, you know, different things like that. It's always going to come down to how you com say for it, and the players will evolve and react. Well, I agree with that. You know, the carrot was not out there for the guys to play that kind of offensive baseball you're talking about, because they knew they could hit thirteen and hit forty six home runs like a Kyle Schwerber and you will get paid very well. So that was part of the problem. But I actually think you have to give pitchers more credit show. I mean, what happened I saw was teams now began to pitch into the shifts. For instance, in the last five years, cut fastballs from right handers to left handers went up fifty percent. Now, if you're a left handed hitter and that balls cutting in on your hands at ninety three miles an hour, you are not carving that pitch to left field. I'm sorry, it's not happening. You've got to get the barrel out front. You have to pull that pitch. The only place you can land that ball in the shift is basically on the grass next to the foul line and right field. That's it. So now you can be rewarded for hitting a groundball through the hole between first and second, the way it was for a hundred years. I like the fact that that is going to come back. That you don't now have to have hitters trained to hit the ball in the air because there's just no grass out there to get a line drive or a ground ball through the right side if you're a left handed hitter. I love that, and I think you'll see hitters respond to that. It's like, whoa, I just got a base hit. I didn't actually square it up, but it got through the infield. I'm feeling good about myself. Joe, you know what it's like when you're on base, even if a blue pland's there. You know that does wonders for your mental capacity and not to mention your batting average. So I think the incentive here we'll start showing up as a season goes on that, hey, you don't have to launch everything. Guys, well, I do believe. I mean, your logic is outstanding. The point, though, is also that a good cutter on a left handed hitter is still going to be defended against, even with only one guy on that side of the field, because if the pitcher's got good enough command in and he's going to listit that soft of a contact, if you have a decent first and second baseman, you're still going to cover the area the majority of the time. The ball is going to be hit, which would be more to the pull side, more soft from where straight up second base to the first hole to the first baseman, and it's still not going to be hit hard. And that's the thing about defenses. Defenses get bigger through lack of hard contact. Defenses get smaller when the ball is hit hard. So I can't disagree with your logic. It is true the cutter is hard to carve the other way, no question, But I just can't conceive the fact that because there's one list gut on that side of the field and the cutter is still going to be thrown. I'm curious, and well, you know this will be born out over the course of the year, but I don't necessarily believe that there's gonna be that dramatic of an increase in knocks versus the cutter in based on how defenses are played, just because that's where the ball is going to be hit, and it's gonna be hit softly. And could I just jump into another point right here, because what you're talking about, see this is this is where the defensive second basement is going to become even more prominent. I don't even know if it's going to get to the point just say you have a right handed starting pitcher with a good cutter against the predominantly left handed lineup right, is that when you play your better defensive second basement, because there's gonna be more lefties, the ball's gonna be on their hands. I want the guy with the range of specially two is left and I could set things and to the point, I mean, I don't even know if it's going to get to the point where you want a left handed first baseman just to cover that homework stringently. So these are the kind of things that I'm curious about. Then you play your offensive right handed second basement when you have a left handed starter, you know these are the is this going to become part of the nuance of moving it forward. I agree with that. I think there's a premium on range at second base now, like never before, you're out there on island. Now at second base, you can't, as the Reds did sign Mike moose Stock as a third baseman, say go play second base. You can't do that. Those guys will not have a place in the game. Let me give you two stars in this game, sure, as an example of how the game has changed. I'm gonna start with Corey Seeger, huge star in the game. Right when he was a rookie in twenty sixteen, they shifted against him only eleven percent of the time. That was probably when he was playing against your team, because they didn't shift a whole lot back then. It wasn't that long ago twenty sixteen, but eleven percent at a time, when he pulled the ball put the ball in play, he hit three thirty three. Now, let's fast forward to last year. Corey Seeger saw a shift ninety three percent of the time, and when he pulled the ball in play he hit two thirty nine. He lost basically one hundred points the same player hitting the ball the same way, and the total number of hits to the pul side basically the same, and he lost almost one hundred points on his batting average. The other one you know very well, Show Hey Otani. Right, you saw people routinely shift on Showhey Otani. Now, his power is great the other way, but when he hits the ball to the pulse side, when he hits it one hundred miles an hour or more, and that smoked folks. Hitting a ball more than one hundred miles an hour, you squared it up, he was more likely to be out than safe. He made more than thirty our two infielders in a shift hitting the ball one hundred miles an hour plus. What other sport would tell Lebron James, We're gonna defend you with some funky kind of defense and let it happen. Or with Tom Brady, we're gonna make sure the defensive backs can basically tackle the receivers five yards from the lion scrim They wouldn't. Why is baseball putting governors, which is what these shifts do on the stars of the game. We want these guys to shine. I want to see Shoheio Tani hit a bullet to right field and be a base hit and not have a second baseman two hundred feet from a home plate thrown him out at first base? How about that? So I could argue, I mean I could accept the fact the triangle because I started the triangle with Benji Gilt with the Angels back in two thou and two. We were up in Toronto and we just I just wanted to put that out there. And I had him out in right field in Toronto on that turf because of Delgado, and I'm hitting the bullets from I think I was on the first base side during batting practice. I just want to get out there Benji. I wanted Benji because he had the better arm, the stronger arm. You want out there, the guy that's more reliable. So that is that's what you're talking about. I would probably I could be talked into making sure that the guy can't get out deep in the triangle because I think that's a lot of where the outs are at number one, number two, I'll argue plate discipline. Corey Seeger once I figured him out last year before I left, don't throw him a strike. I mean, the biggest thing this guy's got to do for me is recreate his plate discipline. Because what I saw a lot, and that was after that. I walked him that time with the bases load. We walked him. After that I figured it out. It say no, no no, no, no more of that. We're just not going to throw him a strike. So you challenge guys like that to swing at anything, and if you do, you know they're going to grab you once because you can't always put the ball exactly where you want to. But a guy like Seeger, just don't throw him a strike. Just challenge his plate discipline, challenge him outside the zone. You're going to elicit a lot of weak contact. He's going to grab one once in a while, but for the most part, you have a picture that has great command. You could control that at bat. So that's secret. That's what I saw last your show. How you're right, And I would I would concede that you'd have to stay on the dirt for the reasons you just talked about, But I still would not legislate against the shift. Oh you haven't convinced me yet. But it was a good argument, pretty good things. We're going to take a break here and come right back and dive a little bit more into the rules and is the stolen base. Actually coming back to baseball, stick around, Welcome back to the Book of Joe Podcast Joe. Sometimes. I've said this for years. I look at a baseball game in the last few years, and it looks like the library, the Firestone Library at Princeton. Everybody's reading. The catcher's got scouting report on his wrist band, he's reading. The guys in the dugout looking at iPads and they're looking at video. The pitcher's got a scouting report in his back pocket and there used to be signed sequences before PitchCom he's reading, and the fielders are out there pulling a card out of their back pocket and they're reading. Come on, guys, let's play like we're back in the schoolyard. Let's let a less take over A quick story for you. I love telling this story. Nineteen seventy eight, Game one sixty three, Loo Pinella robs Freddy Lynn and a great tiebreaker game at Fenway Park. Gidri is pitching and Panella is shaded towards the ray field line against Freddy Linn. He makes a game saving catch. He's probably a two run double if he's not where he was. Fred Lynn was astounded by it, called it the biggest play in the game, and after the game he said that guy was lucky to make that catch. Well, they asked Panella about it. He said, you know what, Gidrey was pitching on short rest for the first time. I saw early in the game he didn't have his A plus fastball. Guys were starting to turn on it a little bit, so I shaded him towards the right field line. That's a ball player. That's a ballplayer reacting to what he's seeing. We have removed that kind of thought from players because now they have a laminated card in their back pocket that tells them where to play, and the specifications that go into the positioning is amazing. I worry, actually a little bit about the Dodgers because they're better than anybody. And you know this Joe from Tampa, Andrew Friedman is a whiz when it comes to defensive positioning. Whatever systems he uses works. They were the best in Tampa, they're the best in LA. The Dodgers lose that competitive edge this year. I mean, they'll still be a very good team, don't get me wrong, but I like the fact now it's more about players deciding the game than the analytics department. Anytime you tell people what to do, you're gonna lose their imagination, You're going to lose their ability to think on their own. And I think that's a lot of what we're talking about right now. As the ball players today are not encouraged to think on their own, coaches today are not encouraged to think on their own. Analytics provides a safety net for decision making. So if you continually follow the data and numbers and it doesn't work, everybody's okay with that. It's no different than going for a first down and fourth down all the time in the NFL, And it's no different than the three point shot that's really taken over the NBA. So if the analytics provides a safety net for decision making, so if it doesn't work, it's okay because the large sample sides told us to do it. But I'm here to tell you as a coach manager, I really if you're if you're my hitting coach or pitching coach, whatever, I'm staying out of your way because the moment I keep telling you what to do, or I keep interfering with your process with your players, I'm really losing you, I'm losing everything that I hired you for, all the inner intelligence that you might have, your experience, your wisdom, because I don't want it. I don't want it. So anytime you were constantly telling people what to do, you're definitely losing their imagination. And I said, the years of experience and wisdom, etc. So that's that's what I see has been going on, and that's what really concerns me about all this, And that's it. Yeah, it's interesting because I give theo Epstein a ton of credit here because he has really been one of the driving forces at Major League Baseball as an advisor to the Commissioner's office on these rule changes that do put the game more back into the hands of the players themselves or at least the people in uniform. And he is flat out admitted, listen, we went basically too far with analytics when it comes to the aesthetics of the game. And of course we wrote about this a lot in the Book of Joe that analytics, a great evaluation tool, became a way to decide how the game should be played, the style of the game, the script of a game that dictate dictation of the game. For instance, analytics don't really love stolen basis. If you think everybody's going to hit a home run, there's no real reward for stealing a bag and moving up ninety feet right, And the worst thing is you get thrown out. You take a runner off the basis when you think everybody's hitting a home run. That's the way analytics works. Right Now that we have these bigger bases and the distance now four and a half inches shorter, there's a limit on pickoff throws. You can only pick twice over to first base now, so we should see an increase in both the percentage of the success rate and the attempts of stolen bases. And if that's the case, it went up a little bit in the minors. I gotta tell you it wasn't a huge jump, but hopefully there is a noticeable jump. And there's this we've returned to the days when the guys on first base and the thought that he might run puts energy into the ballpark. How about that Joe blessing of the front offices. That's what it comes down to. If the front office is on board with that and they give it the blessing to the manager, to the coaches that the player go ahead and run, it'll happen. If they don't, it won't because what happens is when guys get thrown out and the out is given up on the bases. That's you know, there's vinual sins and mortal sins in the Catholic Church. I think that's considered a mortal sin when you get thrown out on the basis because you get that kind of reaction after the game. So there's gonna have to be like a tempered method among front officers there. There's got to be a buying from them that truly this is like a more of an altruistic moment where we're trying to make the game better and if this happens to us or our team, so bit, we're gonna We're just we're just trying to make this game more enjoyable. But I also think it's discounted and it's not thought about enough when you do that, when you have action on the basis. Listen, I'm a base running free I was always the base running coach and all the teams that played on or a coach with. But if you permit all this to occur, the splitting of concentration is not given enough credit. I'm talking about from the pitching perspective when he has to split his concentration to holding a runner and at the same time trying to get out a good hitter in a hot moment. Hey, you're going to run into some mistakes because of that. But nobody you can't evaluate that that there's no there's no equation out there that's going to evaluate them. And I'll tell you what, talk to some really good pictures when he gets in the situation and say they're really not proficient that holding the runners onto, they're really sold to the plate. That really can absolutely split their concentration to the point where your hitter is going to benefit or you're gonna you're gonna get a rush throw from the catcher and all of a sudden, runners could be on third base. There's these are the kind of factors that aren't even talked about that always have bothered me. So it's the it's the unspoken part of this, it's the subtlety of it's the layered effect of all this that's not spoken about that can really conclude and and help your team become successful. Last point, I was just at a gig in Joliet, Illinois, Cardinal Country and Cubs Country, and Eddie Spiezio was there. Scotty's dad. He played on the sixty four World Series Cardinals. Lou Brockets traded there from the Cubs and Lou Brockets to the Cardinals. And he's not running that much because he was told not to do that much running when he's with the Cubbies. But he gets there and I don't know it was Johnny Keene whoever calls him and say listen, or might have been those of the players. I don't even know what Shannon whoever, Hey, Lou, you came here for a reason. Get out there and start running and create havoc. And that became a hallmark of him and of that team for years with White he did in the eighties. So you just can't You just can't reduce it to the point that you get thrown out. And it's a bad move. You go, you go into team meetings prior to a series, man, and you've got a team that's going to apply pressure. I promise you. It causes confusion and chaos on the defense and among the pitchers. When I was with the Rays in two thousand and eight, we go to the World Series, ask people what they felt about that team between the action on the basis we even stole home play a couple of times with Karl and in BJ and about the safety squeeze. All these things are conspired to help you to make you a more difficult team to defend. And I'll argue that point with anybody. Yeah, I love that. It's a great point. It's one of the subtle things that maybe a fan wouldn't recognize, but I guarantee spring training camps there's pitchers that really having to learn relearn how to defend the running game, especially if at the limit on pickoffs. And what happened in the minor leagues with the p timer is that pitchers learn that you better come set quickly. You don't want to wait to come set when that pitch timer is starting to run down, because then it's like that third down rusher defensive end in the NFL, who can see the play clock going down to one. You just take off. You don't have to wait for a snap counter to see the ball move. And that's for a base runner. You know, you almost have to keep an eye on the clock. If the guy's gonna hold it that long, but you better come set early, and you better hold those that second pickoff throw in your pocket just so you have the threat of that. So there's a lot of strategy that goes on with this. But the bottom line, Joe is I think it's going to be more exciting. The threat of the stolen base will come back, and hopefully that means we're talking about defensive second baseman with range and guys you can run. Hopefully it also means we're going get better athletes in the game. That's be a premium now on drafting and developing guys. You can do more than just you know, swing upward to try to lift the ball up in the air to hit the ball out of the park. And I never thought about you just said about the quicker coming set times. That's really interesting. That's a part of the unintended consequences. I also believe you may see more pitchouts all of a sudden because of this. Pitchouts may take the place of the throw over under these circumstances. And I think if I'm running, I say a four game series, right, I'm going to make sure I do that in the first game of a four game series, I want to make sure the other team sees me do that. When I'm manage in the Texas League, they'll be five and six game series. So if we're going to work against a team that's going to run a lot, I want to make sure that they knew I'm willing to pitch out and that first game of the series, so it could impact them not going later in the series. And furthermore, if you've got a guy with good command like Kyle Hendricks, I used to tell Kyle this all the time, Brother, if I want to pitch out on a two one count, was that going to bump you out? Is that going to bother you? So if you could start pitching out on counts that are typically protected counts where runners feel very safe, and you do that a couple of times, that also a planned for seeded doubts. So these are the kind of things you're gonna have to you're gonna probably see or should see this year. And again last point, either you're going to see better deliveries. I like quicker quick step to the plate. I think quick step to the plate, arm is up and out, sooner you're going to see a better delivery. Without loss of stuff. A good point. And I'll add one more thing, re emphasis on catcher's throwing ability. But Kettrick can pick anytime as many times as he wants on those back picks. But with more stolen base attempts, I think he will get those stolen base attempts. You're gonna need somebody who can throw the ball accurately and strongly. So add it up for me, Joe. And as I've said on the air, I haven't looked forward to a baseball season this much since they invented nachos and those plastic helmets you can take home. I mean, this is I really think this is getting this a little closer back to probably the best baseball it was played in the nineteen eighties. I would say it was the most diverse game when it comes to styles of play, the most athletic game. We didn't have strikeouts over a twenty percent rate back then, so I think you may see more balls in play. And hey, if you're going to a game on a school night, early in the season or late in the season, you can take your kids knowing you'll be out of there at a decent hour. How about that, Well, you just you just brought up the decade that I earned my craft, the eighties. I'm definitely kind of a millennial baseball mind because it was the eighties that I really was formed as a coach and a manager and a scout. And I cannot disagree. Maybe that's where my influence not maybe that's where my influence comes from. I do believe that that was really, and I know is of extremely entertaining period within the game of Basebine. It felt very fortunate to be part of it. Yeah, the World Series ratings were, you know, they were just really out of control. I know the world is different than in terms of options, but Hollywood is cranking out a baseball movie. It seemed like every month that was a real heyday for the game. Speaking of which a producer, Vince wanted to know, Like, we haven't talked about rock and roll for a while, Oh, so what do you got planned these days? If you discovered rediscovering anything from your beautiful decade of the eighties or prior musically speaking, Wow, Um, I can't say rediscovered. I mean, I um, you know what I like. I was talking about my terrific experience flying home from Savannah the other day. Oh, yes, it's a beautiful trip you had. Yeah, what I needed was some solace on the airplane and the interlude there to settle down, deep breathing, reassign big dude in front of me pushing back on his seat. But literally, I don't know three or four inches room to spare, So I went right by you need it, like Anya on your mind. I bought the next best thing, next best thing, Linda ron Stat. I'm such a Linda ron Stat freak, and so I just sat there and I kept listening to Linda ron Stats. She settled me down. This is a lady I've been wanting to meet, but of course she's been ill and I, uh, you know, could not happen. I thought this might be the time when I got out back with the angels. But Linda ron Stat, to me, is one of the best voices ever. And there's nothing that she did that I can't listen to. Whether it's her Spanish music and of course even some of her opera, radic music, and of course all this stuff back from the Stone Ponies and stuff. Uh, this girl gets me in the right mood all the time. So more recently, when you're when you're a little bit stressed out for me. Just pop some Lynda on on whatever and some good it's got to be some good sound too. One of the best voices ever, I believe. Yeah, a good call. And when you mentioned Linda ron Stat, I immediately thought of Tim McCarver, the late great Tim McCarver. Yeah, you know, he was a master of wordplay. Sometime cornball humor, I get it, but it would put a smile on your face anyway. And he always had this line if a guy was laid on a fastball, he's that was a Linda Ronstat fastball blew by you. That was a big part of the nineteen seventies in the minor league. A catcher. Absolutely, well, it's this was fun. We're gonna revisit these role changes, Joe. I mean, going in, like you said, we think we know what we like and what we don't like, and then there was always unintended consequences. So we will revisit that once baseball gets underway. But I'm pumped about it, and hopefully you've got something to take us out here, Joe, I do. First of all, it's too bad Joe West isn't around to interpret all this stuff, and number two. You know, I was going through a couple of different things and I've settled down one of my favorites, Mark Twain, and I think this is It's kind of applies to my overarching philosophy of life, and it comes down to whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. Amen. Oh, I love that. I love that, and he's one of my favorites. That's a great call. Look forward to the next time. Joe. Thanks, Thanks brother, nice job. Appreciate it. The Book of Joe podcast is a production of iHeartRadio. 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