The Book of Joe with Joe Maddon and Tom VerducciJoe Maddon and Tom Verducci discuss the decline of middle-class players in the league and the challenges they face as the sport evolves. How has training in the Spring changed for athletes? We're surprised Anthony Rizzo still isn't on a team, but what does that say about how rosters are being built? Joe stresses the importance of a balanced lineup of youth and experience. Tom reflects on 'baseball-lifers' and the impact they had on the sport that can still be seen today!
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The Book of Joe podcast is a production of iHeartRadio. Hey there, and welcome back to the Book of Joe with me, Tom Berducci and Joe Madden and Joe as I'd like to say, this is the most interesting podcast on the planet because we like to talk about baseball and beyond on I'll say a lot of esoteric or interesting topics. Right, we just don't go to the top of the headlines for the news. And when I want to talk about actually a few things today, I want to talk about how the older player is getting aged out of this game. I want to celebrate a quiet but dedicated baseball life, and I know that's close to your heart, these guys who don't get the recognition and put in all the years in the game. But I want to start with kind of an epidemic with pitching injuries. I know we talk a lot about elbows, Joe, but have you looked around camps and the number of pitchers who are straining their lats and their obliques. I mean, it's unbelievable. Luis Heal of the Yankees, Zach Thompson the Saint Louis Cardinals, Javier a Side of the Cubs, Andy Ashby and DJ Hall, the Brewers. I mean, the list goes on and on, Joe. For people don't know the oblique muscle, and it is a muscle, guys tend to strain it from either sudden movements or overuse. I mean, listen, Joe, you've seen these camps, You've seen those opening day meetings where it's full of a ton of support people, right, nutritionness, sports performance specialists. I mean, you name it, and these guys are breaking down like never before. Give me your take on what you think might be going on here, Joe. Because covering baseball in the eighties, I never heard the word oblique.
Nobody had them. It wasn't a part of the anatomy.
I think it really illustrates the sameness of the game, meaning that it's almost like the entire industry as one team. I think so much information is shared and different methods are incorporated artists of what organization you're with. So if nobody is getting hurt, because it's the same this is being utilized in regards to training, technique, nutrition.
Et cetera.
And if everybody's getting hurt, it's because of the same reason. I really believe that, and that's one of my hang ups is that I've always felt that organizations should be more on their own, don't always just drink everybody else's kool aid all the time.
And I think if you saw a little.
Bit more people out there on their own, you're going to have a couple outliers that are not faced with this. I know not every team has this right at this particular juncture, but it's an epidemic and we're not even gosh, we haven't even hardly been playing games yet, So I think it has something to do with this information that is passed among each other and it's taken as doctrine. And again it's no different than analytics. It's it's always considered almost like this pure information that is infallible, and it comes down to this kind of stuff also where new training techniques are involved, and part of it is just trying to get guys that throw as hard as they possible we can, the drills incorporated, the torque put on the upper body, all that kind of stuff, It just makes sense that they would, so I really am into it.
I don't even know.
There's probably maybe a couple organizations that aren't faced with this, and that's the ones I want to fight.
Okay, what are you guys doing?
But I think for the most part, it's the sameness that infiltrates the entire industry.
Yeah, well, you mentioned velocity. I think there is something to do with that. And it's not just throwing hard, it's the training that it takes to throw hard. You know, if you walk around bullpens these days, they're doing a lot more than just throwing bullpen sessions.
Right.
They got the plyouf balls out.
There, they got the weighted balls, they're you know, they're throwing balls behind them and you know, everything is.
Geared towards throwing the baseball harder.
But at the same time, you know, you're working your let and your obliques over and over again with these short bursts of movement.
And that's what pitching has become. Joe.
You know that back in the day, pitchers used to run a lot, right. It was an endurance test, right, you know, Nolan Ryan, Roger Clemens, you name it. These guys built up their bodies to work longer, right, They didn't work their bodies to work shorter in bursts. But we have a burst game now. It's just different. But that has changed training as well. So for instance, I you know, I was in Mets camp and I saw Sean Manaya. He's one of a million guys who likes to wear those wearable nutrition and fitness trackers. Right, how much effort you're going through in the course of a day, whereas it on the arm you see the golf PGA tour, I get it, you know. And really, Joe, probably when you first started seeing these, there were some players who were against it, right, They thought they were giving up information to the club and the club could use it against them. I think cut teams and players have moved beyond that. I think there was a trust factor now, especially guys like Manaya has signed to long term deals.
He's not going anywhere.
But my point is we're doing such a good job now of tracking every minor detail of how the body is working, you know, hydrated, not hydrated, over extended, under extended, And to me, Joe, it's just not working. I mean, so you have to look at I think training methods more than just tracking your training.
Agreed, the running component of it. I mean, you remember when a picture came out of a game. He'd go out and left field during actually during a game, and he started sprints in the outfield along the warning track or something romantic about that isn't there, But you're right. I mean spring training would begin with a lot of pictures running, just like at the Angels camp over at the buttes in Tempee.
You would see the guys just hitting the trail.
They would run the road up and around the buttes, around the ballpark, come back around.
They would run in mass.
Some guys were running solo, but they would run, always, always running. Then there was a sprint day and maybe the bullpen guys ran more sprints than the endurance of a starting picture. There was different kinds. It was really just about running, and these guys were in you know, great shape, and a lot of them. Some bad bodies were involved back in the day. I get all that too. Maybe the bad bodies never actually broke down like the beautiful bodies do, but there was There was a different method employed. It was primarily based on legs bottom from working from the ground up, making sure your legs were in order before you get your arm in order. And then there wasn't just this incredible We called it maximum effort. Everything being taught today's maximum effort. And like I just read an article today about Jacob de Grom, and.
This guy's gotten hurt.
I don't even know how, but because he looks like he's got no effort at all when he throws the baseball. But you want to really get guys that seemingly do it easily. There their wind up and they throw the baseball and it's almost like they put it on the conveyor belt. The ball just flies toward home play. You always look for those guys as a scout, as opposed to the bumping, grind kind of guys. But everybody's turning into a bump and a grind kind of guy. And then I keep hearing about how wonderful mechanics are.
I don't know.
I'd love to know what that means. I don't even know what that means anymore, because I knew what it meant as a scout watching, I knew what it meant. As a coach standing behind the catcher watching a bullpen, I know what that meant. I knew what the backfoot was supposed to look like on the ground, how the back he was supposed to turn over and face the sky, that that left army either had the front side pulling your backside through your back I pushing your front side through. There was different ways to look about it, talk about it how the front foot landed. You wanted the front foot to land beautifully and not on the outside or on your heel. There was all these like really simple kind of check marks, the length of your stride, all these things were matched up and really astute pitching coach even I wasn't even a pitching coach, but I could recognize all these things. And then of course the pitch shape and what kind of pitches were going to throw, and really what's good for the armor, which I mean, I've always loved this purely. Of course fastball. Fastball command always number one. Off of that, I would teach every kid that came in to organization if they did not have some kind of a change up, the next pitch would be the change up. After that would be a real curveball, and then after that the fake breaking balls, the cutters and sliders and everything else. So if I'm running that monor league system, that's how I would begin.
With these guys.
Now, if you come like a skiens equipped with somebody, of course there's differences, but for the most part, there's like only one percent schemes on the market on an annual basis.
That's where I would go to.
It's like the tried and true stuff is not even considered anymore, and it's all mechanically based, and it's all technologically based without any regard for the human body.
Yeah, that's a good point. You make about the pitches too as well. I'm with you.
I think that the foundation of the game had always been you need to command your fastball right, you need to put your fastball in a place when you need to throw a fastball.
I'm not sure that's well.
I know it's not emphasized as much because we know the fastball rate now has going to be low fifty percent in the last three four years, the first time in baseball history. So that is not literally the foundation of pitching anymore, you know, with technology, And I get it. If I were a pitcher, I do the same thing. You're chasing these movements and pitches to miss bats. That's essentially what's going on. And you mentioned Paul Skeins great stuff. Obviously he's throwing a cutter this year. I mean he's out of the cutter. It's just another pitch to get certain hitters out because not everybody has holes.
Reminds me of Max Schurzer.
He didn't start throwing a cutter until he couldn't get Joe Mauer out.
This is back when both were in the American League Central.
Mauer is taking his inside for seamer and just stand inside it and slicing hits the left field.
So he got a pitch that moved in on his hands.
He invented the cut fastball to get Jill Mauer out and it became a big pitch for him. These guys are always tinkering, always working with technology. They can follow the data and the metrics to really shape those pitches. I think it's kind of cool, and again, I think it takes a lot of work. And we're doing things at high velocity and repeating these movements. I think we need a little more, to use your phrase, Joe, a little more liberal arts and pitching, where these guys are doing other things, you know, whether they're playing a you know, two on two basketball game after workout or running the old school.
Just have the body move in different ways.
Yeah, Necessity is the mother of invention when it comes to different pitches. And I understand that, and you just mentioned sures er as he moved along.
Eventually he added the cutter.
I like that when you start adding new stuff to your repertoire, and especially if you've already been successful and you are successful, when you start adding things in there. I was always my concern, when do you throw it? And when you throw that? What are you not throwing?
What? What pitch of yours?
Is taking a vacation a bit because you want to include this. I ran into that with some of the rays at different times. With cutters, cutters became very popular, and I said, really, with Shields the James, I say, I love James Shield's curveball. He didn't love it as much as I did. I thought it was a great pitch. And you know David Price, really off of Shields. They both developed these cutters and back door cutters became very popular. And while they're doing that, they're not throwing other pitches that I thought might be more Germaine prudent or better utilized, because they were just that good. So when guys start doing these kind of things, I'm always I get it. I mean, part of it is the ability that the way things are done today, there's this this ability, this what's.
Behind that door over there.
Oh, I could go over there and learn how to throw a cut I'm gonna I'm gonna open up that door and check it out because it's there. I always thought that if you're going to get a new pitch would be after you've been it's been proven that you that the other stuff really not working. The hitters will tell you when so I listen to me. A cutter could just be a bad fastball, you know, because it's not thrown as hard normally. The same thing with the slider that's used too often. So it happened to the Red Sox last year and they just threw it to death. So anyway, there's there's probably going to be some kind of upfront, original up tick. I would think something that might seem interesting, but to do it over a period of the year, let's just see how that all shakes out. I was always larry of that, especially with good guys, Especially when good guys when they've not been getting hit around a lot. I was always concerned when they wanted to add something new, because while they're throwing that, they're not throwing something else that they're really good at.
Well, I think at the very least Joe. I think, not to say they're not doing it, but the industry has to really re examine I think training techniques for pitchers and not just you know, sign up for all these oblique injuries and lads that are putting guys out for six to eight weeks as the cost of doing business of training for velocity, that's unacceptable. They have to find out, you know, what is going on here, what can we do differently. I'm sure the industry is doing that. I'm not sure what the answers are, but I would not accept this as just that's the way pitching is these days.
Let me just interrupt real quickly one second. I mean, and I should qualify myself here. I mean, I haven't been out there, you know, more recently over the last year or two to really watch this in person. So I'm just speaking anecdotally about what I've seen in the past, and then combining that what I read and obviously what we talk about here. These are my concepts as of like twenty twenty one, twenty twenty two, when I stop managing at that point, but I'd be curious, I mean, for me to really really give you one hundred percent died and exactly what I believe, and I'd have to see more of what's.
Going on with my own eyes.
I'm with my own eyes kind of a guy, because when you hear things, when you read things, even statistical information like that, I still have to look at that, maybe that info, and then apply my own sensibilities, my own experience to what we're talking about here. So when I talk about this stuff, it's probably two year old vision, three year old vision, but I still believe it's Germaine.
Now let me move on to something real quick. Joe, it's jose Al Tuove the Astros. They're moving him from second base to left field. I think this is really interesting because if you go by defensive metrics, the last couple of years, he has been a really poor defender. I'm not sure what that means anymore, because I don't necessarily trust defensive metrics to be absolutes.
I think maybe as a rule of thumb, they work.
So they want to play Maurice Dumont at second base and move out two Vey out to left field.
It's interesting to me, Joe, that you make a move like this.
Is a franchise player, obviously has been one of the great second basement of the game of his generation for you, Joe, as a manager, when you evaluate players, and obviously you need player like this to buy in and do it, and he has. What do you think would spark your interest or decision in moving a franchise player off his natural position this late in a career.
Eyeballs versus analytics.
I mean, I mean, they could easily back up their decision analytically, but I'm sure they're looking at a first step, some kind of a move is turning a double.
Play and they're overlaying.
Uh the fella's names, was it, Dude, Dubon, Dubon, Yeah, he's he's they're overlaying him over top of this guy and what that would look like. They're probably looking for a better range, more accuracy with the glove, meaning like when he goes to his right, that backhand to his right, that it's caught cleanly.
The foot's plan and the throw is accurate.
There's different things they're looking at that they believe Dubon is better at than this guy is right now, and that's it.
They probably have.
They have an opening and left field. They feel that their infield defense is more solidified up the middle. It's about a'll two of a yes, but it's more about the other guy, because if this Dubon wasn't ready to do this, and if they did not feel that there would be better with him, it would not be happening. So for me, it's like, yeah, you could talk about the metrics and all that other kind of stuff, but I'm with you on that. I've always been a little bit skeptical of all those numbers, but I would say, my eyeballs, I think it would be easy to watch these two guys state ground balls or watch him in the spring training game, and there's going to be certain you're going to look out that the one fella is absolutely better than the other, and then.
You put all two bay and left.
Now, they put him in left field at home, which is a small outfield, which there they like that to throw shorter, but when he goes to different ballparks it could be different, like bigger left fields, more room to cover. That kind of stuff become more concerning. I doubt that they're going to move him from right to left based on the depth of the field, something we did with Schwarber a bit when he first started playing the outfield with the Cubs.
There's certain things.
You can do to mitigate the lack of arm strength, which I don't think he's gonna have like really great arm strength from the outfield, although he's been involved in cutoffs and relays for a bit. But again, last point, I just think it's an overlight what looks better. You don't need a stockpile of information to tell you who was better at second base for us right now. You just got to look at it and watch these two guys play and make that determination.
Yeah, a good point about the arm strength.
I mean, the arm was an issue at second base, and now moving him in the outfield. You know, I'm sure, especially early in the season, you'll see a lot of third base coaches taking chances. Absolutely I OASIL two, they'd being new out there. As you saw with Kyle Schwarber. It's just part of the game. Credit to him for making the adjustment. But you know, Joe, this game now, if you're getting into your mid thirties, the game sometimes retires you rather than you re tying yourself.
I want to talk to you about that. What's happening.
It's a lot of good players don't have a job, but that's something that's been happening year after year recently. We'll talk about that right after this on the Book of Joe. Welcome back to the Book of Joe. Anthony Rizzo still doesn't have a job.
Joe Medden. It's surprising to me.
I thought, you know, obviously has concussion, some injury issues in the last couple of years. But what he can offer a team man, I'd want him in my clubhouse.
Middle class has been forced out. It's either like you know, the babies, or these the star guys. The guy's getting a lot of dough and teams cannot live without. And on the other side of the spectrum, not inflating your salary structure by adding guys that are more mineral. They definitely believe they're going to get this out of young guys, and I think that's part of the reason why we're seeing a dip in fundamentals and how the game is played, because a lot of these guys really have not served enough time into minor leagues. They've not gone through boot camp, they've not seen instructional leagues, they've not seen all that stuff. They're really permissive to understand how to play the game. They don't have instructors in the minor leagues down their throats when these things aren't going right. I'm it's just just fact these things aren't being done. So the game has been deluded a bit only because of the fact that the people playing it, there's so much, so many of them that really don't have the foundation or the base to understand the game entirely. Whereas there's a bunch, like you're saying, sitting on the sidelines that do know how, but they're within that price range that the teams don't want to mess with. Maybe they will mess with them later on they have an injury or as they get closer to possibly a playoffs that if the guys available, whatever, But when you're putting it together in spring training, there's a it seems like a need or desire to just go youth and old. I mean, there's again no I call it a middle class. I've seen it coming on for years, and a lot of it is attached to the amount of money you have.
To pay these guys. That's it, pure and simple.
I mean, there's a lot of teams that would be better service, I believe, as the ability to play the game properly if they were to spend more time permitting these guys to develop into minor leagues and really teach them the game.
And while you're doing that, you sign higher.
Some of this middle class that that really going to augment your team, make your team better, make a better product on a nightly basis.
That's it.
I mean, that's how I see it, pure and simple, and I think that's what's happening.
Well, I'll give you a couple of numbers, Joe. Last year, players who are aged thirty five and older who had enough at bats to qualify for the Batting Championship, there were only four of those players. The year before twenty twenty three, there were only four of those players. That's the lowest ever since we've had thirty teams, and it's the lowest in any season since nineteen sixty five. If you go back to two thousand and seven, remember there's only four players last year who played enough to qualify for the Batting Championship thirty five and older. Go back to two thousand and seven, there were twenty one of them. That's an enormous change in the game. Now, a cynic would suggest, you know, back in the day, we didn't get steroid testing. Until two thousand and three, a lot of guys were writing the benefits of extending their careers.
Unnaturally, there's no question about that.
But you're right, Joe, I think there is a split here in terms of what teams want. I will disagree with you on one thing. I think the young players are getting the big leagues. Maybe not as polished, but their skills are tremendous, and they grow up playing a much higher level of competition, going up against the amount of hard throwers, for instance, and double A and even single A.
They're seeing velocity of young age.
You think about the travel ball circuit, I think the competition they're facing is better, and I think that prepares young players better for the big leagues. They also think the fact that you know, nobody's coming off the field in Iowa anymore, who's never seen a three deck stadium or you know, never been on television and everything is kind of like this odd wonder these guys should get the big leagues at twenty twenty one, and they're mature, They've been in pressure situations and played in big ballparks and showcase events. So I do think the younger player now hits the ground running more than before. Now, if you want to tell me he doesn't know the intricacies of winning baseball as well, I'm not gonna argue that, but I think it's easier for teams now to say, let's just go with the young guy, not necessarily because he's cheaper. I get that that's certainly a driving force. I'm not ignoring that, but that the skills of the young player are so darn good it's easy to dream about some of these guys.
Yeah, I mean, obviously there's some really talented young people, and I'm just banging on the ability to play at the game properly or not. I mean, I think that's what it comes down to as the season's in progress, when that stuff starts breaking down, that's what lead to a lot of discussions, arguments. And after all, there's only a few teams that are really on an annual basis, we'll talk about this year who we think are going to really be legitimate World Series contenders. So there's so many teams that are competing with this concept conceptually the younger player and again not utilizing the fellows that have really done their time and know how to play the game properly.
So yeah, you have a lot of this in the league.
You have a lot of these kind of players, and yeah, listens athletically skillfully. I had like a punt passing kick competition for baseball, they'd be outstanding. Absolutely, they would be. But if you're going to talk about that's it. I mean the game of baseball itself, that these standards have been so lowered in regards to execution of the game. So right now it's more of a skills competition than than the artistry of a planing baseball game properly. And you know what happened with the Yankees last year, and I just heard about it the other day. I mean, everybody's concerned about fundamentally and how they played the game, and they thought the big part of the reason why the Dodgers did it and they didn't was because of that pticular fact fundamentals were not in place. And you look at the Dodgers, I mean, outside of their pictures, they're they're kind of like a veteran Leyden group. I mean, hiring Keicky her nanispack the is a reason for that. So yeah, there's there's all kinds of arguments to be made, and so whatever I think whatever kind of glasses you're wearing, or whatever camp you come from, or what you believe in. That's kind of religion sort of. So I love skillful young players. I've listened. I could name you names of guys that spend a lot of time in the minor leagues when I was doing it, that probably would be on that fast track that you're talking about now had they just been born a little bit later. I mean, if jim Edmonds, Timmy Sam and a bunch of these guys were so skillful coming out of college, but they have just been thrust into the big leagues, and then you would never you know, although Jimmy came with all the bells and whistles, you know, Timothy became a better base runner. I could go up and down a list of a lot of guys, Damien Easley, Gary DiSarcina. You could have made arguments for these guys that they would have been like more big league ready if the philosophically it was different at that time as compared to what it is today. So I know there's a lot of great athletes in the game, but there was then too. Man, when you when you walked around instructional league in the eighties and you walked into the Cubs camp or the Mariners camp, like Al Chambers, Tito Nanny, you know, all the guys with the Cubs, whether it was Sean Dunstan, Tony Woods, all this group. Of course, Davie Martinez was there, Maddox. I mean, there was some prolific players back then. They didn't have a chance to get to the big leagues yet because well we're talking about there's guys in their way, like the middle class was still on their way, and while they were in their way, they developed a better game or better brand of baseball. So I think it's easy to say that these guys are more skillful only because people weren't there to scout these guys back in the day and how good they actually were.
The methods were just different.
The fact that you had to earn the right to get there was different as compared to now.
And a lot of it has to do with.
That information analytics and the fact that they you know, financially speaking, you could spend seven hundred some million on a Sota knowing that I got several guys that are paying nothing to play the game for us right now reasonably well, but not as good.
Yeah.
Some of the guys we mentioned, Anthony Brizzo not signed, Adam Duvald, j D Martinez, Drew Smiley, Jose Iglesias, Lance Lynn Patrick Corban, Kyle Gibson. These are established, in some cases, former All Stars who are out there, and I know in some cases it's a matter of money. I think Adam duval has said he doesn't want to play for less than three million dollars. These guys don't want to come in on a minor league contract, and at this point of the year, man forty man spots are golden to major league teams, right, It's everybody's locked in and you don't want to lose it. You know, a prospect because you're signing a guy at a flyer that he still has something left in the tank. And what made me think about this, Joe, was the news that Mike Mustakis officially retired.
Right, Mike Mustakis, I love him, I love him.
Exactly right, And I remember when he was in Milwaukee late in his career, they absolutely loved him. Now, he played well for them, but it was what he gave that team, just the energy, just a really great teammate. An example of these guys that we're talking about that maybe there's not a lot of baseball left, but the other qualities are actually enhanced as they get deeper in their career. So Mike Mustakis, you know, I had a great eight year run with Kansas City. Of course, you know, won World championship there thirteen year career. Was not a very good hitter the last four or five years of his career. In fact, his war his last four years was negative one point seven. But you know what, he bounced from the Royals to the Brewers, to the Reds, to the Rockies, to the Angels and actually went to camp with White Sox last year. That's when Baseball retired him. He didn't show enough in camp on a minor league deal to make the team. So he's actually been retired, just made it official. So this was a case where the game retired him. He did go to camp on a minor league deal and just wasn't good enough, didn't make the team. But my point, Joe, is that teams kept picking him up, either trading for him or picking him up after he'd been released, because of some of the tangibles that he could offer teams that we're trying to win. You know, I don't think that need for that kind of player ever goes away, but it is getting That path is getting more and more narrow.
One hundred percent. Okay, So what is our motivation? I don't know.
I'm I'm a second division team for the last five years. What is our motivation coming into this season? We've talked about I think we mentioned it last week.
I don't know that.
What are we what is our goal for this year? What are we trying to do here? What are we trying to do over the next five years? Do we ever even talk about winning the World Series?
What is our goal? Those are the kind of things.
So when you're constantly you know, you're spinning your wheels in five hundred land, I mean, that's what a lot of these teams are just trying to do.
So whenever you put your team together coming fall.
Into the season, there's gonna be some glaring holes and then you're going to fill them with lower end regarding salary structure, like nice looking guys, skillful players. Yes, but he plugged him in with some of these guys like you're talking about, and there's a lot of platoon potential with all the guys you mentioned there guys that are varieties that hit left these better and lefties that hit righties better.
That kind of stuff.
There's different ways to ying and yanget as you're putting together. So, but what is the motivation of the organization going into this year? I mean, do people really talk about winning the World Series? And do they have a five year plan to win the World Series? Or do they just have a five year plan to compete? That's what it really looks like. It's almost like you succumb to the big spenders and say there's no way we could keep up. I mean, you just all you hear about is the money spent and the acquiescence of those groups as being the only groups that have a chance to play in at the end of the season, the last game of the year and win it. So that's where I get hung up. Even with the two thousand and seven Rays. I can't say the six because we were really bad, But at the end of the two thousand and seven Rays, I started seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. And you know, it was at the end of the tunne where the Yankees and the Red Sox and look at those rosters. That was some good stuff going on back then really good stuff, and there wasn't a whole lot of babies on those teams. It was really pretty much a formidable group of established major league players augmented by others that might not have been superstars but were really good. So when they did a platoon on you man, it was it was a formidable platoon. So I don't know, we've moved so far away from that. I know it's just a different it's different methods, it's different philosophically, and it's all driven by math. But what is our motivation going into the season, and what is our next motivation over the next five years, and how we're going to get there?
I just question that sometimes.
Yeah, you're not wrong, but I can tell you it actually goes on with teams trying to win the World Series as well. I'll give you an example. The New York Mets. They found gold last year in Jose Iglesias. Right started the year in triple A, and my goodness, he developed into one of their best clutch hitters. No question, his influence on the team in the clubhouse was huge. But you know what, the more he played as we got deeper into the off season, you know, the clock kind of struck midnight on him. And you know, the Mets looked at this guy and he saw declining skills. He always known for his hands in glove, first step quickness not great, range not great, and teams began to handle him offensively later in the year. So do you bring him back? Well, they signed Nick Madrigal instead to basically be their Jose Iglesias kind of do everything infielder. Madrigald gets hurt in spring training, I'm sorry, broke his shoulder out for the year, So you think, well, maybe they bring him in now. No, now they have Luis on Hail Acunya to be that guy in the infield, young player. I don't know how you feel about young players being utility guys, but you know that's what the role is. And if you line them up for a tryout, you would pick Acuna over Iglesias ten times out of ten, right, So I think even in this case, the confidence in the younger player after you've had the older player. And I know the Mets fan is just loving Iglesias and why not for the OMG and everything he gave the team, But it's a cold business, and I think that.
Acona is just the better player, so you go with the better player.
I don't disagree with that at all.
I mean, and you're talking about I have no problem breaking in a young player as a utility guy with the Angels. We did it with Sean Figgins in the early two thous thou and then with the Rays. When bj Upton first came up, I wanted to make him into a utility guy. And I think it was the second year, first or second second year he played second base, Remember bj, We put bj at second base, and my thought was, I told him the show up with all kinds of gloves. I want him to work at a whole bunch of different positions. And I thought if we did that, he would spend more time thinking about his defense and would just react more offensively and just hit. And I thought he would benefit from that. He ended up playing second base, and I was on his way to a very good season before he blew out a I think it was his achilles running down to first base at Joe Robbie Stadium that time, Ben Zobrist. When Zoe came up, it was obvious he was here at a shortstop, but that wasn't really going to work. But then here's this guy that once we stuck him in the outfield, he became, you know, one of the most prominent super utility guys possibly had ever played. I mean, Zoe was that good. So I have no issues with that whatsoever. None, And I don't want to misrepresent this. I love young players absolutely. I love young players, and I love young players that deserve to be there and can handle it and all that kind of stuff. But I also love middle class I love a lot of good baseball players that could augment your group because they have good skills on the field, they don't make mistakes, and like you had already mentioned, the clubhouse benefits too, So it's a fine line that you.
Got to walk.
I just don't like the fact that they're just totally pushed out of it. He talked about Riz. I've just been texting with that and hopefully have dinner with them soon. But guys like this, I mean, how does that happen? He is if you put him in and played him the proper number of games. And we've talked about this too, the way first basemens are considered these days compared to the past, he could easily be a wonderful platune at first base. Match him up the way you want, He's still an outstanding field. I know what the metrics might say, but the guy, he's one of the best throwing first basemen I've ever had. Nobody even talks about that what he does with his arm. And I think if you played him less and put him in the right spots and maybe just drop the DH spot on him once in a while, you're gonna get a better product from him too. So anyway, you could go back and forth. I love young players one hundred percent. I love a lot of these young players that are playing. I'm not arguing that point, but I still love really well rounded baseball players, liberal arts players, guys that know how to play the game wholeheartedly fully, and that's that's what you see missing. A lot and a lot of the guys that are being pushed out are able to give you that kind of game, but not given the opportunity.
There's no doubt they're getting squeezed out of the game.
When we get back Joe, the term baseball lifer, I mean that is a term of endearment.
Right.
You've got to hear some of the stories about one of the baseball lifers we lost in the last week. We'll do that right after this on the book of Joe. Well, Joe, I'm sure you can appreciate the life of one Bobby Malchmus. He was born on the fourth of July in nineteen thirty one in Newark, New Jersey, so right into the Great Depression.
He did make it to the big leagues.
Play six years in the big leagues, mostly as a utility guy. He got one run in every j job at shortstop for the Phillies and sixty one we'll talk about that. But he went on to manage in the minor leagues. He nine years managing the minor leagues, Joe, never above a ball, Eugene, Spartanburg, Watertown, West Palm Beach, Lewis and Idaho, Miami, Bluefield, Lodie. He's with the Phillies, the Expos, the Orioles organizations. I mean nine years never above a ball. That is a lot of buses. And from there he went on to be a scout for Cleveland for a long time. He passed away at the age of ninety three. I mean, think about a life like that, Joe. I mean, there's so many you think about all the people that he touched right, whether they made it to the big leagues or not. Now, his first managing job in Eugene, he had Buck Martinez and Stump Merrill on that team, two future major league managers. So you know, I just want to recognize somebody like this because his name was never in the headlines for the most part.
And what a full life dedicated to the game of baseball.
Man, I mean, you're just making me almost cry. I mean, that is That's it. That's baseball right there. That's what baseball should be all about. Stories like that, I could really well reflect and empathize with a lot of that. The bus riding and amount of time spending the minor leagues, the buses, et cetera. The outposts, like you said, the lives impacted all these players that he did impact it nobody would ever know about. But purely the romance. That's where the romance and the level of the game really exists.
That's pure.
That's like Division III football or baseball in college, or even sometimes Division two where it's.
More more real.
I do cherish stat I'm so grateful that that was my path to getting to the major leagues and eventually becoming a manager. I'm so grateful that I spend all those years in that kind of a situation. That's where you really learn your craft, not only about baseball, but people in general, how to deal with situations, things that are not perfect by any means, adaptation, on the move, all that stuff occurs when you're faced with those kind of moments daily. So man, I seriously, that is really heartwarming and endearing to hear all that, And having said all that, it will never happen again. The way that the game is structured right now, you're not gonna hear about people like this anymore.
And that's a shame.
I mean, thinking about Tom Kauchman, when your coach's son, Casey played in the Big League's coach was with the Angels.
He and I came up together.
Koach was in rookie ball for so many years I don't even know how many years in Boise, Idaho and other outposts. And he was with the Red Sox too, and you never wanted to move him higher than that. He got up the Triple A as a manager, but I never wanted him out of a rookie ball because his impact was so great. He was like the guy that broke these guys in annually. And you ask anybody that played for Coach back in the day. We talked to Sean Perty Rock Perty's dad, he played for Coach. I think Kotch signed him as an example. Those are the kind of guys. When you mentioned this fellow, that's immediately what I think about. Cotch was invaluable to the success of the Angels for so many years, and nobody ever talked about it, Nobody ever mentioned it. I knew that Jeter Hines another guy that was like that. These are the guys that really make a difference in a lot of lives of young people. People that you never see make the big leagues, but having been coached and touched by these different guys really makes remarkable changing the lives of these players.
So yeah, fella's name again one more time, Tommy, I'm sorry.
Bobby Malcolmus.
Bobby, Bobby and Kotch they sound like a lot of the same guy you know, and Coch Coach is like one of the most dedicated baseball people I've ever met.
Well, it will not surprise you that one of Bobby's early mentors was Gene Mark.
There you go.
The nineteen sixty one Phillies. Bobby.
That was the one time that Bobby had a chance to play really every day. Wow, this is amazing. Nineteen sixty one Phillies. He actually got an MVP vote, Bobby Malcomus, he finished twenty second, He got a vote. He hit two thirty one for a Phillies team that lost one hundred and seven games, and someone put him on his MVP valley. First of all, gen Mock played him because he knew that this guy was a quote unquote winning ballplayer, right the intangibles that he saw. But a guy who hit two thirty one with the two seventy six on base percentage actually got an MVP vote because I think back then people appreciated what a winning ballplayer was. Let me tell you about this sixty one Phillies team, Joe. They have one point, lost twenty three games in a row. They went basically an entire month without winning a ballgame. They finally won the second game with a doubleheader against the Milwaukee Braves, breaking the Braves ten game winning streak. Isn't baseball great? By the way, a team that loses twenty three in a row beats a team that won ten in a row. They go back to the clubhouse, the old County Stadium, Milwaukee, and I'm sure remember that place. Yeah, spare and cheese and crackers and beer. That was a postgame spread, big celebration there, Gene Mark. They have the photographers in there to celebrate like it's the World Series.
And they asked Mack to hug the picture. Who won. A guy by the name of John Buzzheart And by the way, it's just so good.
He was from Prosperity, South Carolina. They asked them to, you know, post for a picture. Jean, put your arm around him.
You know.
Jene talks about his team. He says, I never saw a group of guys stick together the way this team did. But they asked him to smile, Gene, he can picture this, Joe. He had a hard time smiling. He actually said, how has a guy who's won one out of his last twenty four games crack a smile and joke around. He just couldn't do it, but he did take the picture. Anyway, the Phillies come home. The road trip ends. They fly home. They land at the Philadelphia Airport at one o'clock in the morning in a rainstorm, and there's five hundred people there. Tom, there's actually a band called the Last Battalion that is playing songs as the Phillies, losers of twenty three straight breaking the streak, walk off the plane. The fans create an aisle for them to walk through while the band is playing to welcome this team home at one o'clock in the morning during a rainstorm.
How great is that?
Amen?
That that exceeds anything that could possibly watch on social media today, any kind of video clip that is heartwarming. And I could just say, I thought you were gonna say, Jean flipped the spread.
I thought you were gonna go there.
That's one went out of twenty four games that see that. Those are I know there are times gone by. He ain't coming back. It's never going to be that way, and I get it. But those when I think of sending through baseball and how I started out, that's those are the kind of stories that make it all worthwhile. That is why as a kid I wanted to do baseball. It was larger than life. I don't even know if I could say that anymore, but it was. There was such a connection to every part of the country, every kid, every father, a lot of moms too, man were into my mom was there's such a strong connection with all that, the grassroots component of it, that it's just the time going by.
I get it.
I know you get accused of being nostalgic or whatever, but that's that's real right there. That's that's that's that's uh. That's Division III college football or baseball whatever.
That's what that is. And the fans showing up.
I that that in and of itself is worth a movie, that that whole day, if they could recreate that or a mini series.
I mean, that's that's all right.
That's the stuff that to me, that we're missing, the fact that you can't get any more pure in regards to why you're doing something. It wasn't about money, it wasn't about fame or acclaim. It just because they really did love the game. And and that's that's the part that I think some guys have yet.
But it's a lot don't just the.
Way the day is formulated, the way they pressure's mouth, the scrutiny involved, all this other stuff that technology I still believe subtracts emotion and connection because it just it just does its way too sterile. So anyway, days gone by let's do the mini series. Let's contact Netflix or somebody. But that's a hell of a story. Well done, man, I love it.
The Pride of Newark, New Jersey Bobby Malkmus. He was ninety three years old. He went to Southside High in Newark, then Saint Benedict's Prep and was signed.
By Honey Russell. Is that name ring a bell? Honey Russell, the old basketball coach at Seaton Hall. It was the game. He was a scout as well.
That was back in the day when you had these gurus who you know, cross pollinated in sports. They were just good teachers, educators, you know, analysts, whatever you want to call them. You know, they knew what a winning ball player was, no matter the sport. So these guys contributed to multiple sports. Honey Russell was one of those guys, a longtime scout as well as a Hall of Fame basketball coach. He was the one that gave Bobby mal Miss a chance of the game and was rewarded with a lifetime to the game of baseball.
Seriously, that is such wonderful stuff.
And I mean just drove up to South Carolinias that I have been waxing nostalgic to begin with. And now you're going to go on this trope for me, right now, that's going to I'm not going to cry, but god dang, you're starting to hit some strings.
Man.
That's such good stuff because I'm thinking about all the different scouts. It was Gene Thompson and all these guys back in the day, Bob Aloo, Bob Clear is in our book. That's what baseball represents to me. These kind of thoughts, these kind of memories, and nobody's capable of generating these kind of memories or thoughts anyway.
I really don't think so.
It's just too complicated, too much involvement by things out of your control as opposed to just being able to control your own destiny. Sometimes it's too bad. I mean, this is the kind of stuff that novels were written of, that movies were made of. I like we're just talking about, and this is the kind of stuff that when you have a chance to sit in a room by yourself and ruminate on, these are the kind of things that matter.
Well said, Joe.
And speaking of well said, you always bring us home with some words of wisdom. What do you have this week to end this episode of the Book of Joe.
We're on point, Buddy, right point. I got a fello by name of abdu Kalom.
I don't know who this is, but I was thinking about the word fate this morning before I drove up here. Last night I meant Paully's Island, South Carolina. I'm hanging out for a couple of days here, meeting up with Thom Sagudo, a very famous young golf instructor. Had dinner with them last night. What a wonderful personality. And it's going to be here for a couple three days. But I'm driving up Paully's Island. You think you're I don't know. It could have been any year. It could have been nineteen thirty, forty fifty sixty on rot seventeen coming up from Charleston. So it became very nostalgic in regards to like, you almost feel like you've lived here before.
So anyway, it was fate.
Be active, take on responsibility, work for the things that you believe in. If you do not, you are surrendering your fate to others.
And that's it.
I mean, that's I think that really sums up you know what I believe in general. In these days, I think we do surrender too often, and when you do try to stand up to what you believe in, you get shot it down sometimes you know people will and then you succumb to the majority when you shouldn't. If you really feel strongly about something, don't surrender. Don't let anybody else control your fate. Go out there and make it happen, make it work. You have to have a real strong belief. You have to believe in yourself. There's a confidence level to do those kind of things. So I love the line, do not surrender your fate to others. I cannot agree with that.
More good stuff there, Joe. I just the word conviction came to my mind.
And as you know, going out there to take golf lessons, that's right, all right, it's a big part of what you do.
Conviction, be convicted, Know what you believe in and be convicted in it.
Absolutely.
Good luck on the course and we'll see it next time. By the book of Joe.
Yeah, if you get a chance to check out Tom Sagudo, his videos are outstanding.
A young guy, a lot of energy. I'm looking forward to this morning.
I'll check it out.
See you all right, buddy, alright man. Bye.
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