The Book of Joe with Joe Maddon and Tom VerducciThere's a lot of news for the first week of the season! Joe Maddon and Tom Verducci compare the use of 'torpedo' bats in baseball to a golfer trying different clubs. Joe explains how a batter finds a bat that works for him and how analytics are once again changing the game. Tom notes the rough start for Rafael Devers while Joe offers up some drastic changes to turn things around. Atlanta has also struggled out of the gate and the PED news with Jurickson Profar is an early dagger.
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The Book of Joe podcast is a production of iHeartRadio. Hey there, welcome back. You are back at the Book of Joe with me, Tom Berducci and Joe Madden. Of course this is the most interesting baseball podcast on the planet, Joe. But I want to start with a golf question which will lead into our baseball discussion.
Here.
I understand you got a new driver.
I have got a new driver.
How do you like it?
I love it.
What I did was, I'm going to just be very brief, but I was very consistent with the regular driver, regular length of a driver. I just could not control the ark whatever, so I knocked it down. I was hitting the tailor burner. But then I figured, let me just try a regular hitdit club. So I went and got a titleist TS One had the guys cut it down to the same exact length of the burner driver, which is like forty four forty three point seventy five inches, like forty five and a quarter. I think, and wow, that made all the difference in the world. And I'm controlling my driver, I'm staying behind the baseball or the golf ball going farther, it's going straighter. All the above speeder shaft, and I really don't understand the difference of shaft makes in a golf club to kickpoint, et cetera. So yes, and actually I've had my buddy Frank Ratis now the pro at BCC Valley Country Club, ordered me the new iteration of the I think it's a GT one T the titleist driver with a new speeder shaft that's been cut down directly from the factory. So let's see what happens. That should be there one should be here once there Thursday.
Well, I love all the detail you gave us there, Joe, because you know this dovetails with what I want to talk about here. Because you're a good golfer, but you're not exactly on the Champions Tour. No, that's ther Ga Tour, right, I mean you're doing this because it's fun. You want to get better. Imagine though, if you were on the tour right what you just described in terms of finding the right driver for you, the right shaft just multiply that I don't know by how many times to understand what a professional golfer goes through.
Right.
We're seeing that now in Major League Baseball with these bats. I mean we can't do this show without talking about torpedo bets, right, But there's something bigger going on here, and that is customization of bets.
Now, it's been going on for a while. This is nothing new.
You know, Marucci was one of the first ones I can remember down in Louisiana that had to a lab where they.
Go in there they literally fit you for a bet. This has been going on for a few years.
I wouldn't say it's gone for a long time, but it makes complete sense when you use that golf analogy. Joe and I think that's what we're talking about here with these torpedo bets because what they did where they were able to find out where guys are making contact on the part of the bet. And listen, we all want it as baseball players, you always want to hit it on the sweet spot, right on the barrel.
But there are some guys maybe are just slightly off the barrel.
And in this case, a guy like Anthony Volpi, you know, he was hitting the ball maybe more than he wanted to, actually a little bit below and I'm talking about below, being closer to the handle on the normal sweet spot of a bet. So what they did was they got them into a bat where that barrel now the thickest part is a little lower, and that matches up with where he's been contacting the baseball. And so we have a lot of people now obviously talking about torpedo bats.
Are they legal?
You know, it looks weird, so people think maybe it shouldn't be allowed. But I think this is a great innovation in baseball. And I'm saying this, Joe, because it's like your driver. Maybe I hit your driver. It doesn't work for me. The same with these torpedo bats. It probably is not. Well, it definitely is not for everybody. Just ask Aaron Judge who sticking with his bat. But there's something going on here larger picture that we're getting into an age now where you know, we have so much technology we can get guys into labs literally see where the ball is coming off their bat and try to get the beat either through the zone faster and or get it on the barrel more often.
What do you think?
Yeah, I think I came into a letter part of the discussion yesterday on Baseball Now, and you had spoken about the ax bat. I did, so I chose not to mention it. But that's another creation with the handle and the ax bat for me, was designed in order to help prevent a hitter from rolling over at contact. I thought it was a great concept and had all the I got enough of them in the Angels camp.
I just wanted guys to try them.
You don't have to use them, just try them in spring training and see if, in fact, it makes a difference. So you could go all the way back when arizona'structurally, I don't remember exactly, but I'm the hitting coach and I saw too many bats blowing up. I saw too many bats splinter ring. So I ordered all the bats for the guys that you're in camp. And what I wanted was each bat to be within two ounces of the length of the bat. So it was a thirty five, it could be a no lighter than a thirty three. It was a thirty four, no lighter than a thirty two ounce, and of it's a thirty three inches no lighter than a thirty one ounce. I was just trying to get these guys to understand the length of the bat.
Controlling the length of the.
Bat, plus a feel within it where the bat actually survived. I mean, if there were like thirty five thirty one outs. There were just anything in off the handle was just absolutely explode, exploding. So I was just looking for a better piece of wood and just having the guys try and experiment with these things.
We could keep going.
Cup bats got the bat cup at the end, so you get a little bit more dense wood at the head of the bat, and you cup it to take out a little bit of that weight, and then it was said to be a little bit more aerodynamic.
I don't know if that's true or not, but that was the word on the street.
And sometimes if you hit the ballped end of the bat, that cup area would actually be indented. Guys would still use the bat as long as the piece of wood stayed intact. Thinner handle, thicker handles, thicker and thinner heads on the bat case seventy five K fifty five. Back in the day, the Mickey manno bats, or you could go back to the m Ones, the Jackie Robinson that almost you could use from either end that the head of the bat was a stick as the handle of the bat are forty three.
He goes the Hank Aaron model on and on.
Reggie Jackson an RJ forty four at Rondack, which I used in coming out of college, all different land sizes fields. I like the heavier back because I wasn't a home run hitter, but I could. I felt this dope. I just got the barrel of the ball. It would come off hotter and I could manipulate and use the ball with the whole field. So this is my point is this has been going on forever, and so now with this new torpedo bat, the bottle bat, whatever you want to call it, I get it and I understand it. It's always about, like you're saying with the golf gig. I didn't realize to what extent these shafts make a difference until I've started experimenting with different ones. Wow, there's a tremendous difference in feel and performance. And like you said, based on my body, my swing, my clubhead speed, how I'm able to manipulate the clubhead through contact. So there's even we could go on and on even more than that. But I'm a big believer in all of this stuff. Last point, even in the instructional leagues in the late eighties, I brought ponds of machine. It's a machine that has like this, these parallel wheels spinning and.
That they're very accurate.
And I got them, and I cut the legs down to make sure that the release point was thirty six inches off the ground and it was thirty three feet from home plate, and I would make my hitters. This is Tim Salmon, This is Damien Easy, This is Jimmy Edmonds, This is Garrett Anderson, this is Todd Green thirty It was thirty five thirty six and thirty five thirty six ounce bats.
That they were not permitted to choke up.
And I put duct tape on the end of the bat in the sweet spot. And the point was I was trying and this was high velost. He was the equipment of a ninety five mile hour fastball from thirty three feet, which was about sixty sixty five miles an hour, and I was trying to really incorporate or have them use their hands and keep their body in their arms out of it. I was trying to incorporate and promote like getting top half inn half of the baseball, because if you dipped your back shoulder at all, or today's try to lift the ball, you would swing underneath it. Did it in Major League camp Dave Winfield had a really hard time. Remember the really elongated swing he had, and remember Wally Joiner, Wallace Keith short and quick to the ball. So I've been experimenting with these things forever. So when I heard this long story short, I really was intrigued, because, again, I believe all this stuff. I believe the manipulation of the kind of bat, the handle, the head of it, the weight, the ounces, and all this stuff matters. So not a surprise to them at all.
Yeah, this is a big innovation. Again, it's not for everybody. I mean, it got a lot of attention obviously because the Yankees, you know, went off on the weekend and people were saying, well, what is that thing?
Nine of their fifteen home runs.
In the weekend against Milwaukee were hit with guys using the torpedo bat. Now that dovetails with about you know, five guys were using it, so fifty five percent of their lineup hit sixty percent of their home runs, So it makes sense. It wasn't like everybody who was using the bat. But then we had La de la Cruz go to a torpedo bat on Monday night for the first time, and he went four to five with two home runs the distance combined distance of eight one hundred and fifty four feet. He's now a believer. You know, we're gonna see more people try this out. If you want to look at the other side. Francisco Lindor started the yar O for thirteen using the torpedo bat. So listen, it's not a miracle bat. I don't want to go that far, Joe, but I think for some people it will make a difference.
And I know that it is spreading like wildfire.
Like the bat companies were putting torpedo bats out there to buy as soon as Sunday night after because it was the Yankees, obviously, because they were winning by such huge margin with somebody home runs.
Its spread like wildfire.
So between one hundred ninety nine dollars and two hundred and forty nine dollars, you can buy your kid a torpedo bat, and they're taking advantage of that. I spoke with someone who owns a part of a bat company, and he said, we have to get this customization out there in the travel ball industry. Now we're talking about millions of dollars. You're gonna see this trickle down. There's no question about it on the travel circuit, getting your kid into a cage and get analyzed where he hits the bat and what bat's going to suit him best. The story I always to tell Joe about how things have changed so much involves Derek Jeter. He gets drafted out of high school, good player, obviously a first round pick, but it always used a medal bat. So the Yankees sent him to rookie camp in Tampa and he goes to the minor league complex there.
He needs a bat.
Back then, you know, high school players were not using wood bats in the summer.
It just didn't happen. So he's never used the wood bat before.
He goes down to the Tampa facility and there's this huge rack of bats and bins of bats there, and he's got to figure out what bad.
Am I going to use?
Now I'm a pro, I can't use my metal bat. But he found one shaped sort of like the metal bat he'd been using in high school. Wait, probably similar. Basically, he tried to find one most similar to his metal bat. Do you know that Derek Jeter never used another model his entire career. All three thousand plus hits were used with that same bat. Totally by feel. Just pick up the bat. It feels like the bat.
I used in high school. I'll use this one.
Is become so scientific now that yes, you will see more torpedo bats, but no, they're not for everybody.
I love the word feel. I do love the word film wanting my sweatshirt right now. Feel is the gift of experience.
I love that.
Now the other side of all of this, with the torpedo bet et cetera, I'm just curious.
I'm waiting to see.
It's going to take a little while here, but will analytics change.
On these hitters?
Will the way they want to pictures want to picture these hitters change. This is the first time you're hearing anything that there may be an analytical advantage that's been born to help the hitter. Because from the beginning we've been talking about this, and I've been pounding on the fact that the hitters have not been helped with this analytical revolution at all. The defenses have the pictures have all that other kind of stuff has I mean, pitching shape, you know, episodas, all this Stuffye, just slowing things down, that's all helped the picture. The hitter has gotten very little out of this now with the change in the bat, for instance, like we're talking about Volpe talking about having the ball hit them up the hands too often want to get the barrel closer.
To the hands that was.
Is analytics going to change because have left He's been pounding him in with cutters and fastballs because they know they can have right, He's been running two seamers in on his hands because they know they can and they're going to be rewarded. So is this bat going to somehow cover that pitch now? And all of a sudden, the analytical concept of this hitter is going to change, and how they're going to try to get him out is going to change. So thus do we start going away to the weaker part of this bats? The weaker part of the bat has always.
Been a handle.
Now the handle is going to be the theoretically the stronger part of the bat. So what does this mean moving forward? I'm just curious as heck about that. I think teaching inside the ball is going to be more prominent now. Like I just talked about with the machine that I had years ago, I wanted my guys to focus on the top half, inter half of the ball. We were always talking about line drives and hard ground balls actually are not fly balls because flyballs were considered out. So all I'm curious. It's one of those things that create a shifting analytics. And again people have to understand analytics is not pure and it's not this all knowing concept. There's always there's always biased involved in analytics. So now that there's there's a change in certain hitters based on the kind of bath to us and how they're being rewarded, the way to get them out may change.
Also.
Yeah, that's a great point. We'll have to see.
But I do think the game changes more quickly than it ever has. When you talk about you know, reactions and reactions back again, based on analytics, these things happen.
You know, it used to happen on a yearly basis.
It's almost a daily basis, but certainly weekly or monthly where they're reacting to the data. I think this is a big innovation, Joe, because listen, bats have changed over the years.
You know that you just mentioned a couple of things.
The axe handled bat, you know, the cupped end on the bat probably dates to about the seventies or eighties. I don't know, but This is one of the first ones. You also had the counterweight. You see some guys still using it with that hockey puck style thing and the huge nom at the at the end. But this is one of the first ones and forever that actually changed where the impacts the bat, right, It's not so much about swinging the bat. It is, obviously because as you said, it's about feel, and as Cody Bellinger said, the bat feels better balanced to him. But you're talking about the area where wood hits the baseball. That's the most important thing in baseball, and this is a change to that area. The only time I can remember this really, you know, being in play, Joe, was you know, back in the in the eighties and nineties, people went to the maple bats and then they would like triple lacquer them, right. They had such a hard finish on them. It eventually became illegal. I mean, it was just basically too good. But it's Lacker upon Lacker upon Lacker, these hard maple bats. That's the only one I can remember this. So this is to me is a major change. And I know bats have changed and evolved over the years of shapes, the weights, and you did a good job hitting on that Joe. But we need to see how this plays out. We need more data hear about you know, is this a huge advantage or not?
Yeah, the maple bats, listen, I was all over that. You remember they were exploding. Yeah, they're absolutely exploding.
Because let me just jump in maple bats. People don't know that's the most dense kind of wood you can have.
Most bets. Way back when we're hickory, they was just way too heavy.
I mean there were forty n's bets and then ash became the most popular model, right, the big stick remember those? Oh yeah, and you know, Northeastern ash was the popular bat. It's a little bit lighter, and guys wanted bat speed. But those broke and then they went to maple. As you mentioned, it's the hardest, densest wood you can have. It's just a solid hunk of wood. But guys were having a thick barrel and a very thin handle with all the way to the end. And yeah, you're right, they were actually exploding. We don't see them as many. They made some modifications to the size of a bat and what's allowable in terms of the difference between handle and barrel, But we don't see as many of those shattering go ahead.
Yeah, they were dangerous, man, I was really, I mean it was. I remember actually was Derek Jeter at the Yankee Stadium and he swings and he had a black bat and he swings like had to be maple and it's just broke in half. And I, you know, I always stand, uh stand next to the uh as far as close as I can't get the home plate on that side of the dugout, and this thing came whirling back.
I never saw it. It was a black bat. At night, you can't see it.
That's why check swings are very difficult from piers to check with dark bats. Anyway, this thing comes back at one hundred miles an hour. It seemed it hits the wall right there.
I would have never I never saw that you could have gotten paled with that so easily. I remember.
I remember talking to the the cub Is about like putting up a net I said, why don't we have more netting? Uh, you know, from around home plate and then down towards the baselines because they were there, they were breaking and actually they were there, there were projectiles. But they eventually did was they put a black dot on the bat on the maple bat. Apparently that's where that that was supposed to be facing you. Somehow they determined I guess the tensel strength wise whatever.
Yeah they see, uh yeah, that and the direction of the grain exactly.
And then the other thing about babel bats crazy. I'd stand behind home plate for batting practice, and let's say a right handed hitter when he hit it on the screws up the middle line drive between where the shortstop stood and second base bag into the outfield, the ball would knuckleball almost every time. And a left handed hitter, same thing invp line drive up the middle from the bag to the second baseman out into that short right center field area.
Ballwood knuckleball.
So there wasn't as much spin on some of these because the ball, like you're saying it was so darn hard, whereas the ash bat would impart more spin. The the ashbat also would chip on the top and the top of the bat. You always look for the thickest grained ash bat that you could find. If you had like thirteen grains or less on an ashbat, man, you wanted to keep that sucker as long as you could. That was some seriously good wood. If it was really thinly grained wood, you just knew it was going to disintegrate at some point. But it was all different characteristics of the ball coming off these different bats. When I was a kid, I used to take a blowtorch out of my dad's shop. I would rub a battery, I'm seriously a deep battery over the top of my bat, and then I would flame it myself in order to try to get the bat harder at the top to prevent it from shipping so they could use it long.
Right. We didn't buy We used wood back then. It was no aluminum.
As a kid, so you have between that and brad little nails to keep it alive with some glue and tape. That's what we did. So listen, I've been on the bat thing for a long time. I think it's interesting. But like I said, now, my next point of curiosity is will it now impact the analytical way to get guys like Bulpy out. I'm curious to see what happens.
Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up, because you know, I think this is in some ways response to I see more same sided two seamers, Joe. I mean you mentioned offsided cutters working in on left handed hitter is right to left, but the right on right sinker. You see a lot of pitchers picking that up.
Now.
I mean, we went through a stage where the four steamer top of the zone played and played and played right.
That was a response to launch angle swings.
And now the compliment to that high force as guys start looking out over the plate is the two seamer that runs in on right handed hitters. And you see Zach Wheeler is the best in the business at it. You see guys with great fastballs like Wheeler and Bryce Miller and Joe Ryan, they're adding sinkers because that'll keep the right handed hitter honest.
So I looked at this.
Joe Volti actually was really good on sinkers last year hit three twenty one. He's more of a low ball hitter than a high ball hitter anyway. But here's the what caught my eye. In twenty nineteen, same sided sinkers we're talking about, right on right sinkers came in in an average of ninety two point eight miles an hour. Well last year that average was up to ninety four point one right and in twenty nineteen, the average on right on right sinkers was too eighty eight. Last year it was down the two forty one. I mean that's only six years, Joe. Where that right handed to right handed batter sinker is becoming not just hey, let me get a ground ball or you know, show him something inside so I can work away. That's becoming a go to pitch. That's become a weapon. So I'm with you, I'm metioned. Does this now open up the outside part of the plate and we're going to see more guys trying to guys with torpedo bats. We'll see more pitches away to see if they can cover that pitch.
Curious to see.
Let me see if I could describe this right.
I mean, the fact that it went down is that because hitters have been trying to adjust hitting the elevated fastball. In otherwords, they have they changed their swing in this sense, and now they're where they were more able to get to this sinker lower down and in I know, there's a difference in velocity, but now all of a sudden they're changing their hack and now they've been trying to catch up with elevated fastball dust, this becomes a more difficult pitch.
I'll go back to Darren Nursey.
It could be, but I'll just go to Vello. I mean, yes, of course, i'ming in ninety two point eight. Now it's up to ninety four point one. And with this, as you mentioned that these labs, the way they can shape these pitches, I think it's just become a better pitch. Like everything else these days, it seems.
I've seen darrener I love, by the way, Darrenurse. That's one of my favorite players of all time. Ersty if you remember he had that and thirty nine whatever he hit season I think was two thirty nine. Yeah, Ersty was the best backspinner of a baseball I've ever been around. I mean, as a coach, I made he want up until present time. He hit the most vicious line drives back up the middle I've ever seen when he came out of Nebraska. But what happened was because to do that you have to have a real flat bat, stay inside the ball, really get to the top half of the ball.
They were killing them underneath.
They were throwing breaking balls underneath, opposite side, breaking ball underneath, two seamers underneath. All this stuff started happening underneath, so he started adjusting to try to pull that ball, which kind of like I didn't like, only because I thought it would change this beautiful swing that he had, and eventually it did because he started protecting against that and he's better able to handle that pitch. If you look at the home run he hit in the two thousand and two World Series. That was a big hit to right field that I think put us or tied the game for us. But he lost that ability to drive the ball back through the middle. So you always have to be wary of Okay, when you make kind of adjustments to cover a weakness, at some point, do you lose your strength. That's always something that's always been in the back of my mind, and it's a very interesting question.
Last point, Mario Rivera.
He shows you what a cutter can do to the opposite side hitter, and they said it was great against righties too. Don't get me wrong, but this guy was a buzzsaw against lefties, and you know that was something that we noticed early on. Obviously, then he played out, but I would just curiously, if this bat was more prominent than he still would have been great, no doubt, But would there have been more success against him left handed hitter wise, only because now that that really weak part of the bat became stronger. And that just a curiosity thought that I would have based on all the information we're talking about.
Bottom line on torpedo bats, it is a major innovation. It's not for everybody. I don't think it's going to change the game. It will enhance some guys hitting, There's no question about it. It's just a matter of fit for a lot of guys. And it definitely is going to be a boom to the bat making business is just going. It's gonna spread like wildfire, There's no question about it.
Last point that back in the day, they made aluminum bats like that, and I I brought it up yesterday. Also the old Tennessee thumper and.
That Yeah, yeah, I used to think that was illegal. That looked like an enormous barrel.
Dude, Well you caught you as a catcher.
If somebody came up there and used that bat, the sound that made was deafening. Anytime somebody made contact, your ears would ring literally and actually would hurt.
There was such a different But I'll tell you what I did. I used it in nineteen eighty and the.
When I was playing for Boulder after I'd been released professionally, I was playing in a bolder collegiate in the summer league, and I picked up one of these things. God did the ball jump off of those. I was actually a power hitter, although Boulder, Colorado always helps that, but there was such a difference. So the bottle bat torpedo bat theory, it's been a big thing in softball and actually Little league bats in the past.
Now it's being caught up with wood.
Well, there was a lot of news for the first week of the season.
Joe.
We're going to take a quick break, but there's a couple of guys who made some news that they'd rather they're not be making, and that's Rafael Devers and Jerrickson Profar and.
We will dive into those headlines.
Right after this.
Welcome back to the Book of Joe.
Joe.
I should have brought this up. We were talking about the bats.
I think they should start looking into the size of the outfielders' gloves. Have you noticed they've gotten biggert. I mean, come on, there is a limit on the size of the gloves because it got way out of hand, and I think we're getting back to the situation where they got to start pulling out the tape measure.
Yeah, that's the Willie Mays the basket catch famous. These guys are all incorporating the basket catch.
Now it is that large.
Hey, I mentioned Rafael Devers and it's I'm curious your take on what's going on here. We know about the story in spring training, right they signed Alex Bragman to play third base.
But announce he was immediately the third baseman.
Instead, they had Rafael Devers say, Hey, I'm a third baseman.
I'm not going anywhere.
It took for me way too long for the Red Sox to say the obvious that they're a much better team with Alex pregnant at the third base in Rafael Devers as the DH. But clearly Joe Rafael Devers in his mind has not accepted this move. And to me, these moves don't work unless and until the player buys in. And the Red Sox have a player who's one of their franchise players, he's one of the great hitters in the game, and he clearly has not bought in. He has started this season worse than really basically anybody in history, Joe. He is oh for nineteen with fifteen strikeouts. I mean, no one has struck out in the past more than thirteen times in the first five games.
That was a record set by Pat Burrow and match by Bybran Buxton.
Gary Sanchez once went over for fifteen with ten strikeouts to start the year, but over nineteen with fifteen strikeouts.
I mean, this is amazing.
His whifth rate went swinging at a fastball is seventy five percent. I mean he swings and misses seventy five percent of the time he swings at a fastball. I mean, listen, I can't get inside his head, Joe, but I mean physically, there's obviously something wrong. I know he had shoulder issues last year, didn't play a lot in spring training. Lack of plate appearances maybe has something to do with this. But he's just not getting to the baseball. He has no timing whatsoever.
Yeah. I watched a couple at Batch yesterday.
I was just curious and filed off a couple of fastballs and then really way out in front of an offbeat pitch.
Yeah.
And I also read which is just mentioned, which I found curious. I mean the fact that he had his shoulders had bothered him so much at the end of last year, and that apparently began measuring bat speed. His bat speed was down like four or five miles an hour as over it would have been in the past. For me, curiously, would that be all of a sudden I got to start cheating to get it back up there. When you start cheating because I can't get to the fastball, then you get out in front of a breaking ball. There's all kinds of things that multiply when you have that kind of an issue.
I think I learned. I think you know, many years ago, I read.
A book about the was it halber Strum the nineteen sixty four Yankee Cardinals series, And in that Johnny Keene, once the famous manager of the Cardinals, had question Ray Sideki's desire, you know, is intensity with playing and did he care enough? And as it came out, eventually Sideki walked into his office and said, listen, you could you could tell me I stink, You could tell me that I'm not pitching while playing well whatever, but don't never attack my heart.
You just don't know. And that really taught me a lesson.
So in this situation, I'm going to give Devers a break right here, because I don't know the kid, and I have to believe, first of all, they did do the right thing. They should have been They should have been handled from like you said, the very first day, it was obvious. There's no there's nothing non obvious about this, the fact that this Bregman belongs to the third this kid, either First Space or DH whatever. So yeah, there's gonna be there's gonna be some you know, settling in, getting over it kind of a thing. But they've had all camp to do that, and there had to be a thousand different conversations with him, to the point that it might have got annoying to DeBras and whomever.
But I just think, give it a little time right here.
I don't know him. I don't know what the Batsby looks like in person. I even mentioned yesterday I thought he looked bigger on but you know TV, can you know, play some tricks. I just thought he looked bigger. You don't know where his head is. I have to be there and the dug. I'd have to be able to talk to the kid eye to eye, and I got to know this kid before I understand whether or not I believe he truly is sulking, or if in fact, there's something else at work right here, easy to point fingers at the fact that he might be sulking.
Yeah, I'm with you, Joe.
I mean, it's a tough place to go to try to get inside anybody's head. But it's clear if you look at video between life ye in this year, he's definitely bigger.
I mean, that's obvious.
Whether that has something to do with the hitting, I don't know, but that's a physical thing that you can see. Getting inside his head that's a lot more difficult. But you're right about the bat speed. This is a guy who was with above average bat speed. Last year he was in the sixtieth percentile of bat speed, and this year he's down to the thirty first percentile. That's a pretty big drop, which you know, typically might tell you that maybe physically he's not right, maybe the shoulders are barking. I don't know, But I do know, Joe that you know, for Alex Korrah was a great manager and that front office.
This is a problem.
This, you know, begins to you know, really manifest itself in how he's playing. If he's uncomfortable with dhing, you know, because there is something of a learning curve to being a DH when you've been a position player your whole career. If he hasn't bought in, that's that's the scariest thing for me. That might never come if he feels like this is some sort of demotion or you know, they think less of him in this regard. He put in all his work to make himself into you know, it's hard to even say a decent third basement because he really was the worst fielding third baseman, but he did work at it. I'll give him credit for that. So you've got a problem if your Boston. If this thing lingers, you know, maybe this is much farther down the road. You call up a team like Seattle and try to work out a deal, a team that needs offense and has a surplus if you will of pitching and get one of their starting pitchers.
I don't know.
I just I'm trying to see the end game here, Joe, and where it starts is getting rock Field Devors to buy into this is the best thing for his career is to be the DH on this team.
I mean, I know, obviously Alex has had conversations with him and the people there, so they know where he's at mentally, physically, whatever. They know better than we know. Now, this is the like epically the one of the worst starts ever. And this might sound absolutely nuts, but I would give him a different thought process to work with. If, in fact, I believe you know this is just wow, he has lost in bat speed, shoulders, she hasn't gotten all this strength level back whatever, believe it or not, I would ask him the lead off. I would ask him the lead off, and I said, I would then take the onus off your hitting in a sense and say, listen, the biggest thing I want you to do is work on getting on base except your walks. Narrow your strike zone down a bit, try try easier, use the whole field. Just try to hit singles for a couple of weeks and just see if you get yourself going again. I would go in that direction. When I had good hitters, like really good hitters, I would go. I would go in that direction as opposed to knocking them down in the batting order.
Again, I don't know everything.
This is if if I had a conversation with him, and I all the different points were satiated, and I felt like, you know, no, he's okay, he's on board. He's just things are not right coming off his shoulder issue. Right now, he definitely is into the team. We're going to try to get this thing rowing. Put him on top. Singles and walks, That's all I want you to be concerned with right now. Singles and walks, get on base as often as you can, and then let's roll from there. I would go in that direction first before I considered anything else.
What's really interesting is you look at his numbers, and again it's a very small sample size.
He has cut his chase rate in half.
Okay, he's the thirty four percent chase rate guy last year, he's eighteen percent this year. Pitchers are coming right after him with heaters in the zone.
But there you go.
He just not catching up to him.
But hey, maybe the answer is to try a torpedo bat.
Well, whatever, listen, this is what you do. It's all about field, right, It's all about field.
Do something different, to keep doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result.
We know what that equals.
Well, speaking in bad weeks, the Atlanta Braves, it couldn't start much worse, Joe, it couldn't win a game in San Diego, lose the first game out in Los Angeles. The Atlanta Braves, they're an interesting offensive team and have been built this way. They slug, They swing it, man, They'll chase pitches. They have swing and miss. They sign up for a few more strikeouts to get the slug up.
That's how the Atlanta Breves roll.
They're hitting oh seventy eight against breaking pitches. They've seen two hundred and four three five breaking pitches and they have four hits. It's just amazing the way this team is just cratered offensively.
To watch it.
I know they're still waiting on Ronald Lecunia Junior to get back, but in the meantime, right now, Though Lopez, their number two starter, is out with an inflamed shoulder. He didn't look right all spring, didn't look right in his first start, and sure enough he's hurt. You know, he's won one of these guys who's transitioned from the bullpen to the rotation. Had a great year last year, but there's something not right with his shoulder. And then on top of that, Jerkson Profar they signed him in the off season three years forty two million dollars. He was a bargain last year for the Padres as their leadoff hitter leftfielder Jerkson Profar.
Turns out he gets busted out a ped test.
The test happened in spring training or in the offseason actually, so he's gone for ninety days. If the Brays make the playoffs, he was, he's ineligible to be on the postseason roster because of this, and he was busted for a substance called sure ionic Gone.
I'm gonna miss this up basically hCG.
I was waiting for you to try that. I saw, I saw it written down. Good try.
Yeah, it's hCG.
Basically, it's a fertility drug for females, but a lot of bodybuilders will use it to offset some of the side effects of using steroids.
It helps in the production of testosterone.
It diminishes some of the side effects of using steroids such as gonna add shrinkage and infertility. So this is something it's it's actually in a pregnancy test for women where it will turn up because in pregnancy that chemical will go up. But it's manufactured from hamster ovary cells and it's injected and you got you know, Profar coming out in the statement saying I would never knowingly do anything to cheat the game. And you know, listen, we hear these things all the time, Joe, I mean these guys.
One thing about this drug is a lot of at least.
People in competition, not just baseball, might use it because it doesn't upset the te ratio too much. It is a banned substance. It has been since the eighties. And here he is gone for ninety days. Makes a question the production before, makes a question what his production will be coming back. That's a major hit for the Atlanta Braves to lose their leadoff hitter or left fielder. He just invested three years in this guy and he blows a test even before the year starts.
Interesting Hampster research. Yeah, it is tough. My god, I read that this morning.
I've liked this kid from my first song with Texas. I thought, gosh, when he came up with the Rangers years ago, I was pretty special, I thought. And I know he kind of disappeared that he kind of resurfaced again. So I hate reading this kind of stuff. I don't like it because I don't know anything. Because I'm met around these people. But this guy, to me is a good baseball player regardless. He's very athletic, you know, very quick twitch kind of a thing. His biggest problem was on the infield, being accurate with his arm. He had some issues there that I didn't really like, and I thought he might have to move to the grass in the outfield, which eventually has but really had some pop, speed, light body, all that kind of stuff. And now you got this, and then it really sets a pall over the entire you know group. However, you know, moving it forward, man, I the Braves have been able to been able to overcome a lot of stuff over the last several years. I anticipate they will again. But this one's different. I mean, having a tough start right now, and they've played, you know, a couple of pretty good teams and so what happened last night for v Dodgers and you know, Glass now look pretty good obviously.
So this is going to take a while to sort out.
But they have the culture set up there to fight through it.
It'll be interesting.
But the division they're in is not going to permit them to get too far behind too quickly, because it makes it even more difficult to fight back.
That's a great point.
Yeah, I think when you look at New York, you look at Philadelphia, you know, I think those are ninety plus win teams. So you can't you can't back in to a playoff spot. To me, in the National League, especially, the league is so deep, you're gonna have to go ninety plus and profar. Listen, I don't want to hear, as he said in his statement, that you had eight tests last year and you passed them. That means absolutely nothing. When I hear guys say that, Joe, I just rolled my eyes. We're not talking about the times you got away with tests last year, right, and they you know, it's not like they're grabbing every single guy who's cheating. You know, guys are using fact acting stuff, they're micro dosing. There's ways that you can get around tests. You have to be very careful and eventually you're going to get caught. But when you protest that you were clean eight times last year, that's a red flag to me.
Come on, yeah, to know.
You to know that you passed actually eight tests whatever, that was all researched before he actually spoke to anybody. This was all you know, he's got a lot of people trying to help and support him right now. And again, I don't know the kid. He seems like a bright kids. It's just it's part of the culture. And then you listen, you go back, you go back in time. I mean when Greenies are big and that little red juice and Dugouts was big, and all the different things that players have done for years.
And I said.
I'm not advocating for it, but and a guy like him, did he see what he perceived to be his abilities slipping away a bit? Did he feel as though it was worth the risk because if I don't do it, I'm gonna be out of a job anyway. There's all these different things that go into people's heads. And then of course it's always about who is advising him. Got to believe your agent knows something about this. I gotta believe or somebody you.
Know that's that's within the group.
That it's hard to carry that thought alone, Like if you're a profar to carry the thought alone that you know you're doing this kind of stuff and without any kind of support or reassurances and you're not gonna get caught or you need to do this, because if you don't you're going to be out of the game anyway. So there's there's a there's almost like this, this group a support group around him that I'd be curious about too, because listen, if you're as an agent, if you're really doing your job and you have any whiff of this whatsoever, you really got to get the dude off of it in order to sustain his career in that in that regard, because like you said, you eventually going to get caught, and he did. And it's too bad because I just from a distance, he looks like a great kid.
Yeah, it's too bad for the Braves.
I mean, we're going to talk about this, Joe after this quick break. I do want to ask you about when you run. You're managing a team and you get off to this kind of start, and of course it's early, but you're trying to get the wheels back on the truck.
Here and get back on the road. How do you do that?
We'll talk about that next on the Book of Joe. Welcome back to the Book of Joe. We're talking about Brian Snicker's Atlanta Braves. The worst start imaginable starting pitcher goes down, you're still waiting on Spencer Stryder and Ronald the Cuney junior to come back. You're left fielder gets busted for peds. He's out for ninety games. It's a rough situation. You can't win a game on the West Coast, by the way, you know, that's kind of the worst thing for the Braves. You see the schedule come out and like, oh, we're opening in California, San Diego, in LA.
We won't have to deal with.
Any weather, no cold temperatures. But there's no off days here. The Braves like to use their pictures on the sixth day, and they they're using Chris Sale on the fifth day here, which they didn't do until mid season last year. And when things go bad, you could use an off day. But anyway, Joe, my question to you is your Brian snicker and it listen. It's a veteran team, it's a veteran staff. I mean, his coaching staff, they've they've been together really most of them for you know, a good time that he's been there now ten years.
How do you handle this situation?
I mean, everybody knows it's early, we know that, but as you know, Joe, you can lose a division in April.
Yes, yeah, I was thinking about it when you when you posed this question earlier, and you know I've been through it if you remember. I can't remember exactly the year, but we started out like two and six, two and seven, two and eight with the Rays. We go to Chicago and on the plane ride up, I get in front of everybody on the plane, I grab the microphone, I pack up, pass out those little those little cups you passed medicine with, and I poured a shot.
Of Shemy not samee.
Gosh, it was a whiskey from the Napa Valley Sharbey and I went up and down the aisle, even Zoe had a shot. I went up there and I got grabbed the mic and I says, this is a toast to the best two and seven team in the history of Major League Baseball. We're going to straighten this out, guys, stay with it, et cetera, et cetera. Then we took our shot, went on to get to the playoffs that year. Hey, I evaluate, what is the problem here? I mean something you get off to a bat start like this and all of a sudden, gosh, everything's wrong. Maybe not maybe everything's not wrong. Maybe there has been a couple of bad breaks. You talked about a couple injuries, and I have this distraction with Profar et cetera. So first of all, evaluate what the problem is and really be specific and be honest with yourselves, because you're gonna read things, You're gonna people, you're gonna hear things, and all of a sudden, things might be manipulated, and all of a sudden, there's this narrative created that really isn't true, and it's and if you try to explain it, it sounds like you're making excuses. So what is the problem here and try to figure it out. The next part, I would have a staff meeting just the coaches only love to do this on the road, and they're actually on the road, and I would sit down with everybody, would talk about each guy on the team, each guy specifically, and determine what can we do to help this.
Guy individually right here now.
And then I would permit or have the coaches handle their department and stay out of the way. If there was a situation where I felt I needed to be involved, we would talk about that in this meeting. And furthermore, like for instance, when I had Ken rivisa. Who needs Kenny's help right now? Mental skills? Which among these group? Who needs to speak with Kenny specifically? And we would make sure that Kenny, if he wasn't with this, would get in touch via the telephone, etc.
And make sure that the player knew.
It, so you wouldn't show any panic whatsoever. You can't show that and you can't start blowing the whole thing up. So what is the problem, Be honest about it, and once you've arrived at the problem, have a group discussion with your coaches and individualize whatever we're going to do with each guy to get out of this, and they'll let the coaches coach out of their way.
Let the coaches be what they were hired to do.
And then furthermore, like if there's any tweaks, like I said with Devers, put him in a leadoff spot whatever. It's too early to send guys opering guys up that you just haven't had enough time to evaluate. So really be just to understand what am I seeing right here?
And do not just follow the narrative.
Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that in terms of not just follow the narrative, the idea of disruption I mean, listen, I covered Billy Martin. I was there when he sometimes pulled a lineup out of a hat.
Literally.
I was there when he had Rick road In one of his pitchers in the lineup as the DH.
The first time up he gets a sack fly.
I know there's some hitting coaches and people who trained on hitting who if you're trying to change a swing, they'll have the player work with, say a thick PVC pipe, because you put something very different in their hands and it challenges the brain to think differently rather than thinking by roots. So if you're Brian snicker and again, I wouldn't classify this as panic. I hate the use of that word, and people always ask that in the clubhouse after game, is it time to panic? No, people do not panic. Professional athletes do not panic. Folkses don't even use that word. But do we need a disruption here? If you're the Atlanta Braves to come to the ballpark with a different kind of vibe.
Shot, like I said, shot a whiskey on an airplane, and then that'suption.
Yeah. Right.
Here's the biggest thing too, that I've always felt when you me as the manager, whenever I walked in the door.
They could.
They had to see the same guy walk in the door. So when I walked in the door, it always had to look like a five or six game winning streak. And even if it was a five or six game losing streak, it still had to look like that five or six game winning streak.
They can't see something different.
If you talk about panic, whatever that word is, it's not panic, okay. It's like this this cloud, this uneasy feeling, this concern, trepidation, all this stuff, uneasiness, uncertainty, all creeps in to the group if in fact the leader shows different versions of them.
And that was really important to me.
So I would actually steal myself before I walked in sometimes because it could be kind of crappy. And you walk in and you said to yourself, you know, you go in there and you act the same way, talk to everybody the same way that save up beat, positive personality, bring it, man, because they need it now more than ever. So these are the kind of thoughts I would have for me personally as the manager walking into a situation like that, because too many times, man, you know, the dude who walk in the manager would walk in bad moment all of a sudden, you see this this.
Vile, different person, and everything was great. He was your best friend. I hated that.
I hated that from my leaders, I hated that from my manager. I never reacted well to that as a player. So those are the kind of things that are really important to me. We went through some difficult moments.
Well, if I were Brian Snitker, I'd call up Joe Madden, I'd invite him out to Dodger Stadium for this series and I'd say, Joe, you're so good at bringing up the right line and these Book of Joe podcasts, why don't you give us the Thought of the Day. So that's what I would have, Joe Madden, I'd have the Book of Joe Thought of the Day. So on that note, what would you tell the braves or at least our audience you saw this?
Did you actually saw this somehow?
Wow?
This is crazy?
So I was actually did this last night a little bit going into this morning. They have a big golf match going on today. I want to make sure everything in order. So this was from Aristotle. I like to dip back into Aristotle, Socrates, all these guys. I mean, when you read their stuff, I mean, my god, there's nothing's really changed what people were faced with back then and with their face what we're faced with today. We always exaggerate our plight as human beings. We think it's the worst it's ever been, And you can roll back the clock fifty years it was just equally as bad, and thousands of years was equally as difficult.
With the same kind of thoughts.
So this is what I came up with today, And you're right on the money. Is this the question you just posed to me? And it's from Aristotle? There is no great genius without a mixture of madness. And when I read that, all I could think was the time I talked about it got to be a little bit crazy to be great. So that's it. Get outside your normal patterns. You have to you have to get outside your normal patterns. Whatever created this issue, whatever created this problem, it's got to be dealt with in a different way than what created it. I love this so and I didn't I probably read this several times, but maybe an influence in my thought about got to be a little bit crazy to be great. But there's no great genius without a mixture of madness. Don't be afraid to take a chance. Don't be afraid to go into some uncomfortable territory, because that's what's necessary. If you want to just stay in that comfort zone, brother, it ain't going to happen. And always know that you got to go out on the limb to really find the best fruit. So these are the things that I would be thinking about right now.
It's really uncomfortable.
Sometimes when you go out there and you do these different kind of crazy things, and I think to my said, man, what's the reaction going to be? Is this actually going to work? But then I I said, no, let's stay with it. Let's go with it, and almost one hundred percent of the time it does. So don't be afraid to go out on the limb.
Man.
That that is like two perfect.
And I swore, I swear, Joe, I had no idea you were going there, right, I.
Had that, dude, Look at all my notes on my paper from today. It's right, wow, it's right there.
That is so perfect. Well, we'll see you next time. Of the Book of Joe.
Nice job, all right, telling me you two buddy. Thanks.
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