Ben & Woods On Demand Podcast

8am Hour - Summer Break Preview + Eno Sarris Calls In

Ben & Woods start the 8am hour previewing what may occur next week on the show for our annual "Summer Break" week where ANYTHING is possible! Then at the bottom of the hour, The Athletic's Eno Sarris joins the show for his weekly "Smart Baseball" segment! Listen here!

Duration:: 57m
Broadcast on:: 11 Jul 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

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Make smarter decisions in 2024. Follow NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast on your favorite podcast ad. Hey, fantasy football owners. The road to winning your fantasy football championship starts now. I'm Matt Harmon from Reception Perception. Join me and James Co as we take a deep dive into the position that's going to make or break your fantasy roster. Wide receivers. We analyze route running, target share, and all the metrics that matter, giving you the insights you need to draft the best wide receivers. As you prep for your draft, let us give you the coverage you need. Follow and listen to Reception Perception on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, we're out to play home on a Thursday, Ben and Woods 97.3. The fan, great to be here with you. Potter has a bit of a skid right now, which we probably should have seen coming based on how the season has trended this year. You know, win a few, lose a few, et cetera, et cetera. But, listen, not going to ruin our good time today, that's for sure. I'm Woodsy, that's Paul Reindel. He's the executive producer. Good morning, Paul. Good morning. The Padres are like a carousel ride up and down, up and down, up and down. Are we allowed to say that? No, no, no, no. No amusement park. No, no. Do not invoke any sort of ride in any sort of amusement park ever. They're like a yo-yo goes down, and then it goes down, and then it goes back up. No, no, no, no. That's not a ride. Nope, no toy. No, it's can't do that either. Ben Higgins, you're like a boomerang. They're going forward, and then they come back. It's actually a good, good metaphor. We can use boomerang. All right, found one. It's a roller coaster. Sorry, Mike. It's a roller coaster. It is. You may have, it may have been prematurely used earlier this year. Fair. That's a fair point. It is now, though. And when Mike shilt, push, push back against it, maybe he was right, you were a little early, and you're calling the season a roller coaster after a month or so. It's not terribly anymore. This has been an absolute roller coaster ride. Paul, you had the, you had the stat earlier, too much more than said it, but here is the stretch from the earlier in the season. So, Padres went five and one, then oh, and five, five and one, oh, and five, 12 and three, and now oh, and four. It's, it's as up and down as you're going to get in a baseball season. Three was like the loop. Yeah. That, that, that's his back and forth as you're going to see in a baseball season. Yeah. You know, normally it's going, you're going to have up and down stretches. Every team does, but they'll be a little bit softer on the edges. You know, it'll be six and three, and then four and seven, and then it'll be eight and four, and then it'll be two and five. This is very glaring, very distinct, very easy to see. When you go to like an ESPN page and you just have the schedule and you see the W's and L's all in a line, they're very much grouped. It's green and then it's red. Yeah. And then it's green and then it's red and then it's green and then it's red. Pleasure killing. Remember the, I thought about it this morning. The Padres heart meat. And I thought Ben's Padres heart meat. I'll do it. I'll do it for summer break. All right. Up until next week, the unofficial first half of the season. Yeah, we'll see how it ends against the Braves. If you guys missed it, we did it last year. We gave up on it after like a week. We were dying, but we had for wins. It was the sound was yes, and for losses, dang it. So when they lost like three in a row, dang it, dang it, dang it. So we just played them all together. It was like the heartbeat of the Padres, and it was, it was funny as hell. And then it got really long. We'll get some new ones. We'll freshen it up this year. We'll do it for the entire first half of the season. First half of the season. We'll just play for you guys in our break. It'll be the audio representation of what you can see visually. I'm on the page right now. The red, green, red, green, red, green, red, green all the way through the season. Bread is when they taught. Yeah, green and red. Yeah, next week, though, on Ben and Woods, as you know, we have, we have summer break here on the program. We're still here. It's like summer school, basically for us. We're here. There's no games or anything. I never had summer school. I went to summer school in college just because I wanted to finish because I wasted like two years with no credit, so I had to catch up. So I had to do summer school. But we'll do this is like summer school for us because we're still here. Is he making us do a round table next week? No games? I think so. Is he really? Yeah. This will be our third mid-season report. Yeah, because this week's kind of a mid-season. Yeah, we did it a couple weeks ago, the actual halfway point. Yeah, and then the round table next week. Have another mid-season round table next week. We got no games. Well, it's up to the moderator to come up with new and interesting topics for next week. Anybody who's doing this? 30 summer break. They wouldn't get actual players like in studio. Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure that's what they want to do on there. They'll be flying out on Thursday, too. Are Cleveland, I think, to start the second half of the season next Friday? Yeah, Cleveland. Yeah. Another really hard team. Please watch this in Baltimore. This month, and I don't think these... I don't think these... I'm not saying that these four losses are schedule necessarily driven. But the month of July is a fairly brutal one. It's the most brutal remaining month, schedule-wise for the Padres. They take on pretty much nothing but good opponents the rest of this month. Atlanta, Cleveland, Washington Nationals aren't great, but they're still in the playoff hunt, for sure, at Baltimore and then the Dodgers. That's the rest of this month. Those are first place teams. You got Cleveland, Baltimore, Los Angeles, first place teams. You got wild card leaders in the Braves and a wild card contender in Washington. Then in August, it definitely gets a little bit tighter. You got Rocky Series, Miami Series, Rocky Series. Pittsburgh may or may not still be going forward at that point. We'll see what they do at the trade deadline. We've got two series against Pittsburgh. It's not nearly as tough in August as it is in July, but July is a very brutal stretch for the San Diego Padres schedule-wise. Yeah, it's tough. So next week we'll be in here on summer break. You will be doing the recaps of the year, but there's anything you guys want to talk about next week. That's just when we really get a chance to explore the space. We could get really freaky in here if we wanted to. You know what I mean? Kind of hope we do. Like freaky. We can do whatever we want. We have the empty canvas here, basically. Then you're going to get a tattoo on the air. That would be amazing. What will you do? Would you do that then? We'll come up with some ideas. No, I do not want a tattoo. What if it's just like a little circle? Like a mole. Like on your leg. One of your moles. Is another mole. Like on your hip even. It won't be sexy when you're right here on your hip. That sexy little spot on your hip. Guarantee somebody's a tattoo artist. I'm going to have to come fully clean as well. I don't endure pain very well. And I know that there are people who really find the process of getting the tattoo painful. Why did you say that like it was some big secret that we didn't already know? My wife does not. She is very... She's sitting. They call it sitting well. She sits. There's different parts of the body where it won't hurt at all. Yeah, yeah. There's parts of the body that gets bought that you're just not going to affect your TV career. I know it's not. Well, we're not going to get you the mike, Tyson. There would have to be some little spider web around your neck. There would have to be some where I can't see it. Right. Because it would bother me to see it. I'd keep trying to rub it off. I don't want my back show like I forget it's even there. If someone ever, you know, people write on their hands like a note, even if it washes off, it creeps me out to have like writing on my skin. So to have permanent writing on my skin, I think would really bother me. Carlos says, get SD fat loss on your lower back like a tramp stamp. SD fat loss. I'll get eco water across my chest. SD fat loss around your, like a tramp stamp would be amazing. Is that term offensive these days? I think it is. Then getting tattooed on the air, live on the air would be pretty amazing. Yeah. Let's just, I mean, I would do it. I would do it. Yeah, I could see that. It's not a circle. It would bother me. You know, that would bother me. I heard this up here really, really hurts. My buddy got ribs like all up and down the ribs. And he said, I want to get actual ribs tattooed on my ribs. Like baby back ribs, baby back ribs. On my ribs. Could I talk to you? Can you tattoo like a six pack of abs? Yeah. Did you do that? They could shade it in. It looks like you've got abs. They could shade it in. They could shade it in. Yeah, listen, summer break. It's anything goes. Probably do some drinking on the air next week for sure. Got to find the new drink of the summer. We did the Sunny D Seltzer last year. Oh, yeah. What phenomenal? What is this year? It was phenomenal. It was so good. So we did that last year. We'll have some fun. Yeah, next week's going to be real loosey on Ben & Woods. As if it's not normally. As if it's not really a tight ship. Take this tight ship. Take this tight ship. Just going to loosen it up a little bit. Sailed it out to the middle of nowhere. Well, listen, man. This team doesn't give us a hell of a lot to talk about of days like today. This is what it is. Joey says we being Ben & Woods tattoos. No, that's his kiss of death. It's kiss of death. I would get our show logo tattooed like that. You can't. I'm going to cherish this moment. You know, I'll cherish it too. But it's the season of my life forever. But what if it went really bad? As radio shows often do. It won't out with bastards. Isn't that the fear anytime you get a tattoo of anything? No, it's no longer going to be meaningful to you in four years. No, but it begs the question. Would you do Meghan's name? Hannah's been after me for 10 years. I'm on our third day. She's like, you need to get my name tattooed. I'm like, you're out of your mind. I literally just got divorced. I'm not getting some of these names tattooed on. I would do something for her. I don't know that I would just do her names. But like, I've thought about something like in her handwriting. I think it's a cool idea. Like what? I don't know. Like, I love you or something. Or something from our wedding vows or something like that. What on her name? Property of Meghan. Loughton property. But yeah, I mean. Yeah, I wouldn't. Yeah. Okay. Everyone's digging the little holes this morning. I feel like on this program. None bigger than you, my friend. That's very true. Very, very, very true. Ooh, a calf sleeve would look good on me. I think I'd rather have a piercing than a tattoo. We can make that happen. I can absolutely make that happen today. I'll stop. Hold on. I'm number one. I'm blown away. Yeah. Where? I don't know. By the way. Here? And you won't get a tattoo. Here? Oh my god. Like Ed Bradley? Yeah. You didn't get a tattooed because of the names, man. Ed Bradley, man. Then would be Ed Bradley. Would they make you take it out on? They can't. They can't make you take it out on channel 10. Can you get your nipple pierced? Wow. That sounds really painful. Woods. My tiny little bitches. You guys have a lot of surface area. I don't. I have one tiny little thing. I want those little bars. Yes. And then you see it through my t-shirt every morning. Would you be repulsed if you looked over and you saw the little bar. No. I mean repulsed. I love them on women. I'm a big fan, but men, a little different. What about a little nose ring for you? I feel like that would hurt a lot. I think they all hurt. I think they all hurt. He won't do a tattoo because of the pain. Do you know what a Prince Albert is? Yeah. You ever thought about that? No. All right. When you think of the spot, then I'll make that happen. Yeah, we'll make it happen. The ear. Please get an earring. Oh, this is a life crisis. I can see it coming on him. I can see it. I can smell it. And it's going to be such good content. Were you Pierce's year on a Monday by Tuesday? He's got leather jacket. Oh, the Corvette. We'll start looking at Vets. When I get back next week, how about that? After the show, we'll start looking at Corbets. I like this. I don't see me with a nose ring. A ring, just a... Yeah, the stuff. Do we... Do men do the stuff? I think I don't think so. Oh, I said we'll have blacked out. Do men do the little diamond stuff? I definitely have a belly button, as I don't really have a ring. I don't really have a belly button. So I can't get it, Pierce. It's dead, man. I am dead. Tongue. One of those clickers. Yeah. You just sit down the whole show. Click, click, click, click, click. Nightmare. Yeah, you have to do it. Okay, if you had an earring, would it be like a diamond stud? Yeah. Or would it be a dangling barry box? No, I don't think it's campus sun. Dangling, I don't think I'd like. That would bother me. Like a... What if it was like a dangling golf ball? I wouldn't want to feel it. It was like a dangling golf ball. No. A golf ball stud. It'd be like a tee. A tee for what? Golf. Golf tee. Oh, golf tee. I think we better know that. Not the letter tee. Golf tee. The plugs. Really drag is here out. Drag it out. Like big holes. Yeah. What are those called spacers? Bugs? That plug's out there. I mean, you just tell me when. I'll make it happen. Little diamond would look really cool on him. Yeah. All right. Summer break. You never know what might happen. Let's go to break right now, though. All right. Let's take time out. We get Enosiris. On the way at the bottom of the hour. Stay tuned for that. That was one of my favorite segments of all time. He's like, I'm not going to get a tattoo. I would get a piercing, though. Excuse me. I am just saying, Dan, in the chat. You made me choose between the two. Gages is what they're having. I mean, you can always take out the piercing at some point and it goes away. Tattoo. You can't. It never goes away. That's part of it. Dan says just get Garvey in number six. That's part of the equation for me. All right. Other baseball games yesterday. We got an update. Got a very tight, tightening wild card race in the national. We'll get to that coming up. It's awesome. Check traffic here on 97.3, the fan. What kind of programs does this school have? How are the test scores? How many kids do a classroom? Homes.com, those, these are all things you ask when you're home shopping as a parent. That's why each listing on homes.com includes extensive reports on local schools, including photos, parent reviews, test scores, student teacher ratio, school rankings, and more. The information is from multiple trusted sources and curated by homes.com's dedicated in-house research team. It's also you can make the right decision for your family. homes.com. We've done your homework. Nice. Today's episode is sponsored by NerdWallet's smart money podcast. Get your head in the financial game with smart investing and budgeting tips straight from the nerds. NerdWallet's experts will set future you up for success. With dependable, fact-based insights, no financial misinformation allowed. Learn how to save on your summer vacation. Find your next credit card or loan for a big purchase. And invest in your next index fund. Make smarter decisions in 2024. Follow NerdWallet's smart money podcast on your favorite podcast app. Hey, fantasy football owners, I'm Matt Harmon. And what's cracking up James Co. Join us on Reception Perception as we dive deep into wide receivers. The position that will make or break your fantasy team. Follow and listen to Reception Perception on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaking of earrings, just as the conversation turned in our last segment, I just got this in and I brought it in. The Luis Camposano pin that they're giving away this Sunday. Theme Game Ticket actually has a dangling earring from Campy's ear. It's actually part of the pin. I don't know if you can see it right there. It's that cross earring that's actually part of the pin. They also will be giving away the No-No Joe pin series as well. You do need a theme game ticket. That Sunday's game against the Atlanta Braves on the 14th. Tickets are still available even for the theme game as well. I'm always intrigued by those theme game giveaways because well, the ones that are for everyone, like the hat yesterday, fantastic. Kind of special when you're like one of the few who get like the limited edition stuff, but you do have to like take the extra step of signing up and getting one of the theme game tickets. And if you're a pin collector, and I know they have the Fernando one, they've had the series going on, you don't want to miss out this Sunday for the latest offering. I wanted to go to I wanted to buy a theme game ticket for the Merrill Christmas shirt, but when I went to go, I was going to go buy the tickets and when I went to buy them, it said they're only available and medium and large, I think. Oh, that's the only size is left or that's the only size they have. You can squeeze me into a large Jackson Merrill shirt. The overcooked hot dog in the microwave. Just folding out of the top. You've lost weight, you ain't fitting in the large. No, no chance. And also ballpark largest. I'm just down, finally down to extra large. Ballpark largest. Some t-shirts. Ballpark largest are different. They're smaller than regular largest. So as much as I want that Jackson Merrill shirt, I can't wear it in a large. That's a bummer. I like that shirt a lot though. I like it a lot. I was going to buy one on eBay or something, but not if they don't have an XL. Now I'm seeing in the chat that they say it's medium or extra large, not medium or large. I'll say the two choices are medium or XL. Okay, I'll take an XL. That's better. All right, I might, I want, but you wash it once and then it's, then it's this guy like, what's up? Hank, you got a hang dry it here. I think the worst t-shirts are the ones when you put your arms over your head that they pull up above your belly. That's the worst. The worst, dude, I hate it. As I just sucked down a donut in here. So you tell I'm very concerned about it. So I know I'm always the good news merchant. Yes, you are the good news merchant. Trying to spin bad days into good. I don't have much for you today. Here's what I've got. Pottery's actually picked up a half game on the St. Louis Cardinals in the wild Cardinals race. Not the worst. That is not the worst good news you've ever delivered. The Cardinals actually lost twice. Yes, your days. That's right. To the Kansas City Royals. They were swept in a double header. So the Padres didn't lose ground to everybody. In the National League playoff chase. Unfortunately, a couple of the teams that are more concerning that are right behind them are gaining ground and gaining ground fast. The New York Mets beat the Washington Nationals six to two and don't look now. But the Mets are a game above 500 and just a half game behind the San Diego Padres for the third and final wild card spot in the National League. And that, of course, is a team that pretty much has unlimited resources. Good point, man. Very, very good point. One of the teams we talked about yesterday that we buried. They were done. They were training everybody. Mets fans buried their own team after like three weeks of the season. Italian Paul was like despondent when he filled in for Paul. He was terrible. You guys are going to kill us this weekend. We got smoked and they went on a run and they've stayed on a run. And they, like you said, unlimited resources to do whatever they want. And yeah, super fun. They've kind of rallied around the Lindor all-star snub, not getting in and taking some momentum here into the all-star break. And the Arizona Diamondbacks, of course, just took two or three from the Padres. They beat the Braves yesterday, seven to six. And the defending nationally champions are just a game and a half back in that wild card race. So there are plenty of contenders still as we head toward the break and the trade deadline. And I would say if you had two teams behind you that I was most worried about, those are the two because of the Mets' resources and the Diamondbacks having already had the success from last season, like the knowledge that they can and have done it makes them a little bit more dangerous than say the Pirates or the Reds or the Nationals or some of the other teams that are still in contention, you know, three or four games back. What about the Giants? Giants, yeah, I mean, you know, a little worried about them. If, you know, Blake Snell gets healthy, then he's second half Blake Snell. You know, they got Harrison Logan. Yeah, they're probably the next on my list. They did lose to the Blue Jays 10 to six. Logan Webb gave up seven runs yesterday. So they've just never been able to truly get on a roll this season, but they're not out of it. They're they're only like three three back as well. So plenty of contenders that are trying to chase down your San Diego Padres. Struggles continue for the LA Dodgers. Third straight loss yesterday, four to three to the Phillies. Cal Shorber hit a lead off home run, but the Dodgers pitching was continuing. They sent Bobby Miller down to the minors. He was supposed to be pretty much. This was the year where he joins the rotation for good and it has not worked out very well. Can you fill me in on what's going on Walker Bueller? Did you see that? I did not seen any Walker Bueller news as of late. He is he left the Dodgers to go work somewhere else. He's trying to address his issues away from the Dodgers. He was activated from the 15th. That's never good. It's a day I L on May 6th. Let's see. Early returns mixed bag. Yeah, we saw him was great. Replaced back on the I L. She's away from the team working out his issues. Well, while players don't usually train and practice away from the club's coaches during the season, the Dodgers have backed up his decision. The idea of working at a facility outside the Dodgers organization was Bueller's idea and we're supporting it, Dave Roberts says. Still no timetable for when he will return. I feel like that's a pretty big story. Don't you? I do. Now, do the Dodgers have any choice other than to support their guy? And if he feels like it's going to make him better, then okay, do what you need to do. But one of those guys that's that's earned that that ability to do is it even if he has, it's still a big red flag. It is huge. If you don't think your own coaches and the Dodgers who have massive, massive coaching resources and organizational resources, and you don't think anyone in that organization can help you. You need to go to your own pitching coach at your own facility to try to get right. That's a huge red flag. That's like when you need, I need to go to my own doctor to get a second opinion after the team doctor says one thing and you don't. That's just a sign that you don't trust your own organization. Yeah, it's really wild to me. And of course, it was kind of, you know, not lost over yesterday in the news. I did see it and I went, oh, I've got to remember to talk about that tomorrow because it did seem a little odd for me that he's like, no, I'm going to work through my stuff. Trust me, this is better than, you know, this is better for everyone if I do. And so yeah, pretty interesting story. I feel like it would be a big deal if it happened to one of our guys. I do. I really do. Speaking of interesting baseball stories, Enos Eris is going to join us. We get our smart baseball weekly segment coming up with Eno, get some more thoughts on what's going on around the league. That is coming up next with Beno Woods on San Diego's number one sports station, 97.3 the fan. Baseball coverage at 97.3. The fan is presented by T-Mobile, switch to T-Mobile. You can get tons of benefits. Still save on every plan versus AT&T and Verizon. Use their savings calculator to find out how at T-Mobile dot com slash switch. We've got, you know, Sarah standing by from the athletic or smart baseball weekly segment. It's coming up right after this check traffic on 97.3 the fan. It's time for the super polish. Just to be named smart baseball weekly segment with Eno Harris. Sarah's son of a bitch brought to you by seven mile casino. Just seven minutes from the ballpark by the pay in Chula Vista. Here's Eno Harris with Beno Woods on 97.3, the fan. So I'm curious about something as we welcome Eno in. We had Kyle Higashioka in studio earlier this week. Gesture, no, two days ago. Two days ago. And he had a home run that night. It did. Now Eno talks to a lot of players. We always worry that when we talk to someone that if they have a bad night, they're going to like associate it with us and they're going to blame us. Eno, do you ever worry about that? Because you just talked to Logan Webb and he went out and had a really bad game yesterday for the San Francisco Giants. Guy probably should have been focused on pitching and not showing your kid pitching ribs, you know, let's be honest. Yeah, no, I mean, I do think about it sometimes. One thing that I'm blessed with is I don't go into the clubhouse after the game. And the reason I say that I'm blessed not to do that is that if they've had a bad game, they don't look across the mic at me. Very good point. It's all very, I think. I think for the most time, I think that they talk to so many people that they pick or catch. But I do wonder like if I do like a big piece, it's about like why they've gotten better or whatever. And then they go through a bad stretch. The reason though that that is always going to happen is that you're going to write about the players that are playing the best. Yeah. And there's just natural, you know, baseball just naturally there's regression all the time. It's only one way to go. They're terrible and then they were great. They were the best in baseball in June. You know, it's like it's just always like that. So if you write about somebody right when they're doing their best, because that's one of their most interesting, of course, they're going to have some hard time back. It does always feel like a jinx, you know, too, because I was in here a couple of days ago and we had Tim Flannery and he told a couple of hours of stories that were just brilliant about some of those old Giants teams that, you know, very well. And I asked him, you know, do you believe? And he goes, oh, yeah, I believe in this team. And I'm like, wow, me too. They deserve a shot, man. They deserve to go out and get a starter in a bullpen. Maybe another bat, whatever they need, this team has really earned it. And then, you know, a couple of clunkers in a row driving into work this morning going, I wonder what we could get for Dylan Cease. You know what I mean? It's just this stupid, stupid nature of a baseball season. Yeah, but they are a decent team. And I like that they make so much contact. And I think what really would it hide though on offense is that they do way better when they hit power, if they're power as well. I think with it last night, they had six singles or something. Yeah, seven had six singles, I think. I think that's right. Yeah, and it's just hard to live like that. I know, you know, I love mud and I love the announcers. But I hear this from other people that like, you know, hit as a hit and, you know, just get on base and you can string together hits. It's just really hard to string together hits in today's environment. You just think about the batting average now is the worst it's been since like 1968, the year of the pitcher. So you get six singles, you get zero runs for it. You know, it's like, it is pretty hard actually to string together a bunch of singles. And so, you know, that's why I think, you know, many getting right and he's looked better and the Tetis coming back. That's enough where you're like, okay, this, this offense is going to get going. Enosaris is with us. And I yesterday, Eno, you and a couple of your colleagues from the athletic posted a story about the 10th anniversary of stat cast, the birth of what has become, at least for me, an integral part of watching baseball. I mean, I can't even imagine now watching a Padres game without going and checking the exit velocity of that last hit and, you know, who's throwing hard the speeds and velocities. How has the game changed based on this information that is now not just available to the, you know, the teams that are have advanced metrics, but now everybody can go and see these numbers and they're posted right instantly online during every single game. You can follow along just like I was doing last night with the Padres Mariners game. Yeah, for that piece, I talked to Mike Petriello who did like an alternate stat cast edition of games early on where he, you know, they, they broadcast with Eduardo Perez and they had David Cohen on sometimes and, you know, Jason Benetti and they, and they would do these games where it was like more static focused and he said, you know, that's coming back and we're going to do some this year and I'm nervous because now every broadcast has the stuff in it. And the regular Sunday night baseball has Eduardo Perez and David Cohen and they took our producer that was producing the stat cast and they just made him the producer of the Sunday night baseball. So it's like, that's how ubiquitous has become is it like now the guy who used to be the nerd on, you know, doing the nerd cast has to figure out how to become even nerdier. And I think that actually is a good way to kind of think about how it's changed the game. Every, the, the nerdiness level has like gone through the roof and, you know, even if someone says to me, like, I don't care about this sort of stuff. I talked to Tyler Glass now and he was like, yes, I look at it. I look at the movement. I look at everything. I look at other people's stuff. I, I care about it. It's helped me in my career. And then James Paxson sitting right next to him said, I can look at a pitch and know if it's good, but even James Paxson knows about like naming conventions for movement. He knows about inverted vertical breaks. He just, he's decided he doesn't care about it. You know what I mean? Like, so it's come to the point where everybody knows this stuff. It's everywhere. And I think the more successful players embrace it and use it to their benefit. J.D. Martinez just joined the Mets. And he, when he arrived, he changed the way the hitting reports were coming through from the hitting coach after a couple of weeks. And he, he literally brought weighted bats to the team and, and distributed them to other players and showed them how, how to use them. And so, you know, that's the kind of, there are these ambassadors that, that know even more than the average player in our sort of proselytizing the data, you know? You know, it's funny thinking about J.D. Martinez, who was a somebody we talked about in the offseason, certainly the Padres were probably interested along with a bunch of other teams coming in. And I mean, if you're the hitting coach of the New York Mets, isn't that Eric Chavez? Yeah. Yeah. He's like, oh, all right. Cool. You bring it. You know what I mean? But then I just saw you retweeted the story we just talked about before we got yawn about Walker Bueller, who's like, all right, see you guys later. I'm off to Florida to go work at Cressy Sports Performance instead of working with Mark Pryor and the Los Angeles Dodgers, who I'm assuming have every single gizmo gadget metric that one could ever want. Well, I think one part is that it would be, it's a little difficult, I think, sometimes to really revamp anything or work on stuff in a competitive environment. So it would have been hard for him to do it between starts with Mark Pryor right now on the Dodgers. I guess you could I.L. him, but then you technically are supposed to send him to somewhere, you know? It's rare to I.L. someone, and he stays with the Dodgers, you know? So maybe his choice was, do I go down to Oklahoma City, you know, and work with people there, or do I go work with Eric Cressy? And I think the modern players also empowered by the fact that there's all these independent lives, pitching labs now, that they have their own contractual arrangements with, and they can maybe feel some ownership over their own coaching, you know, by doing this, so they can go to dry land, they can go to tread, they can go to Cressy, and they feel like they are getting what they want. And when I talk to people that are coaches or people in front offices about this, they struggle with it, you know, they're annoyed because they would rather the player got the coaching that they want him to get. They think they know the right coaching. And there's different approaches to how to deal with that. Some front offices do something that's kind of cool. I talked to one front office, they said, oh, we don't like we don't love teacher man, teacher man's the guy who's Aaron judges. Yeah, I've heard a lot about that guy, man. Oh my god, he's so arrogant. He's so arrogant. I think he really has like one good idea, but I don't think he has every good idea, you know? And so, and it worked for judge doesn't mean it's going to work for everybody else. Judge is pretty unique in terms of, you know, size, strength, yeah. So, you know, so somebody was working with them and they didn't really love everything. But what they did was they had their hitting coach take teacher man's course, so they knew what teacher man was about and what he talked about. So he could speak teacher man's language to this player. They invited teacher man to spring to talk to the player and to other players and just made it seem like, hey, we're cool with him. If that's what you believe and that's what you're into, like we're going to we're going to support you in that. But when the kid went through a stretch where he was over 20 or something, he was a little more receptive to their own coach. Makes sense. Yeah. And so they they wanted they that's the struggle right now is like, how do I make it cool for you to go to Eric Kressy, but also I want you to come out prior. That's that's kind of the line people are walking right now. Smart baseball with, you know, Sarah's every Thursday here with Ben and Woods. And I think when we talk about the numbers, you know, and you've kind of mentioned this before. And so for some people, it's too much. They get overwhelmed by all the stats and they say, I just want to go by feel, but your brain fools you. If you throw a good pit, if you throw a pitch and someone swings and misses, your brain's going to tell you, I just threw a good pitch. But you don't know that's true. Absolutely. The batter may have just taken a bad swing at it for no reason whatsoever. And the numbers will actually kind of tell you which pitches are the better ones. If you can take your brain out of the equation sometimes, is that is that really what the statistical revolution here in baseball is about? I think so. I mean, you know, I think the opposite is the one that's really happens even more, which is that a pitcher throws a pitch that's pretty good, but one of the first times he throws it, someone yanks out for a homer. And then they never throw that pitch again. And you're like, dude, that is a pretty good pitch. And that's why it can be good to have something like stuff plus me. Look, this curve ranks the best here. Here are the cops. You know, oh, this curve looks like this guy's curving this guy. Those guys' curves are good, right? Like throw to him, please, you know. So there's some of that, which there's also some of like when a player is really struggling, and you can come to them and say, hey, you know what, you're barreling the ball. Your barrel rate is on par with this guy's. Your eggs or losses are fine. Like you just just need to chill out and like the hits will come, you know. So the numbers can do a lot of different things. They don't have to be overwhelming. They don't have to be negative. And one thing that I do think is as a fan, you were allowed, you were, I don't progress anybody their opinion about how they want to consume the sport. I understand that. And I think that the best broadcast teams, the best, you know, that shows try to really meld, you know, what is happening on the field, what has happened historically, the stories. People love stories from back in the big day. And then just sort of gently fold in some of us that so that you don't necessarily have to report the eggs of velocity on every Homer. But if somebody tonight hit the hardest hit Homer of the year or ever for the Padres or something, that's when you sort of say it, you know what I mean? Like you don't have to do it for every single one. You don't have to, you don't have to really shoehorn it in. These numbers are supposed to tell a story, you know. It's interesting too. I was watching, I think it was the something on Apple TV maybe. I can't remember what Frank Moore, France, he was on there and he kept calling people that like stats, a baseball pencil next the whole night. Oh, those are those pencils next pencil next that pencil next. I'm like, all right, this is a huge broadcast featuring two great teams pencil neck pencil neck pencil neck. And I'm like, Oh my God. And he's he's not an old guy. I mean, he's not he's not, you know, this isn't goose gossage here. And I'm listing this going. All right. Now I I there needs to be more of a happy medium. You know, there really does. I just I thought that was I don't know if you had heard that. Yeah, I think I think mud does a great I think they do a great job. I'm looking down to a great job. And they're not baseball coverage on 97 through the fan is presented by T-Mobile switch to T-Mobile. You can get tons of benefits still save on every plan versus AT&T and Verizon. Use their savings calculator to find out how at T mobile.com slash switch. We've got, you know, Sarah's standing mind from the athletic or smart baseball weekly segment. It's coming up right after this check traffic on 97 through the fan. It's time for the super polish. Just to be named smart baseball weekly segment with Eno Harris, Sarah's son of a bitch brought to you by seven mile casino just seven minutes from the ballpark by the pay in Chula Vista. Here's Eno, Sarah's with Ben and Woods on 97 3, the fan. So I'm curious about something is we welcome Eno in. Um, with Kyle Higashiyoka in studio earlier this week, guest, no, two days ago, and he had a home run that night. It did. Now, Eno talks to a lot of players. We always worry that when we talk to someone that if they have a bad night, they're going to like associate it with us and they're going to blame us. Right. Eno, do you ever worry about that? Because you just talked to Logan Webb and he went out and had a really bad game yesterday for the San Francisco Giants. Guy probably should have been focused on pitching and not showing your kid pitching grips. Let's be honest. Yeah, no, I mean, I do think about it sometimes. One thing that I'm blessed with is I don't go into the clubhouse after the game. And the reason I say that I'm blessed not to do that is that if they've had a bad game, they don't look across the mic at me. Very good point. Very I think. I think the most for the most time, I think that they talk to so many people that they could catch. But I do wonder like if I do like a big piece, it's about like why they've gotten better or whatever. Yes. And then they go through a bad stretch. The reason though that that is always going to happen is that you're going to write about the players that are playing the best. Yeah, and there's just natural, you know, baseball just naturally there's regression all the time. So when we're terrible and then they were great, they were the best in baseball and June. You know, it's like it's just always like that. So if you write about somebody right when they're doing their best, because that's one of their most interesting, of course, they're going to they're going to have some hard time back. It does always feel like a jinx, you know, too, because I was in here a couple of days ago and we had Tim Flannery and he told a couple hours of stories that were just brilliant about some of those old Giants teams that, you know, very well. And I asked him, you know, do you think do you believe? And he goes, Oh, yeah, I believe in this team. And I'm like, brought me to they deserve a shot, man, they deserve to go out and get a starter in a bullpen, maybe another bat, whatever they need. This team has really earned it. And then, you know, a couple of clunkers in a row, driving into work this morning going, I wonder what we could get for Dylan's season? You know what I mean? It's just this stupid, stupid nature of a baseball season. Yeah, but they are a decent team. And I like that they make so much contact. And I think would really would it hide, though, on offense is that they do way better when they hit power, into power as well. I think with it last night, they had six singles or something. Yeah, seven had six singles, I think. I think that's right. Yeah. And it's just hard to live like that. I know, you know, I love mud, and I love the announcers, but I hear this from other people that like, you know, it is a hit and, you know, just get on base and you can string together hits. It's just really hard to string together hits in today's environment. You just think about the batting average now is the worst it's been since like 1968, the year of the picture. So you get six singles, you get zero runs for it. You know, it's like, it is pretty hard, actually, to string together a bunch of singles. And so, you know, that's why I think, you know, many getting right and he's looked better and the Tetis coming back, that's enough where you're like, okay, this, this offense is going to get going. You know, Sarah says with us, and I yesterday, you and a couple of your colleagues from the athletic posted a story about the 10th anniversary of stat cast, the birth of what has become, at least for me, an integral part of watching baseball. I mean, I can't even imagine now watching a Padres game without going and checking the exit velocity of that last hit and, you know, who's throwing hard the speeds and velocities. How has the game changed based on this information that is now not just available to the, you know, the teams that have advanced metrics, but now everybody can go and see these numbers and they're posted right instantly online during every single game. You can follow along just like I was doing last night with the Padres Mariners game. Yeah, for that piece, I talked to Mike Petriello, who did like an alternate stat cast edition of games early on where he, you know, they, they broadcast with Eduardo Perez and they had David Cohen on sometimes and, you know, Jason Benetti and they, and they would do these games where it was like more static focused. And he said, you know, that's coming back and we're going to do some this year and I'm nervous because now every broadcast has this stuff in it. And the regular Sunday night baseball has Eduardo Perez and David Cohen and they took our producer that was producing the stat cast and they just made him the producer of the Sunday night baseball. So it's like, that's how ubiquitous has become is it like now the guy who used to be the nerd on, you know, doing the nerd cast has to figure out how to become even nerdier. And I think that actually is a good way to kind of think about how it's changed the game. The nerdiness level has like gone through the roof. And, you know, even if someone says to me, like, I don't care about this sort of stuff, I talked to Tyler Glass now and he was like, yes, I look at it. I look at the movement. I look at everything. I look at other people's stuff. I care about it. It's helped me in my career. And then James Paxton sitting right next to him said, I can look at a pitch and know if it's good. But even James Paxton knows about like naming conventions for movement. He knows about inverted vertical bread. He just, he's decided he doesn't care about it. You know what I mean? Like, so it's come to the point where everybody knows this stuff. It's everywhere. And I think the more successful players embrace it and use it to their benefit. J.D. Martinez just joined the Mets. And he, when he arrived, he changed the way the hitting reports were coming through from the hitting coach after a couple weeks. And he literally brought weighted back to the team and distributed them to other players and showed them how to use them. And so, you know, that's the kind of, there are these ambassadors that know even more than the average player and are sort of proselytizing the data, you know. You know, it's funny thinking about J.D. Martinez, who was somebody we talked about in the off season, certainly. The Padres were probably interested along with a bunch of other teams coming in. And I mean, if you're the hitting coach of the New York Mets, isn't that Eric Chavez? Yeah. Yeah. He's like, Oh, all right. Cool. You're bringing away. You know what I mean? But then I just saw you retweeted the story we just talked about before we got you on about Walker Bueller, who's like, all right, see you guys later. I'm off to Florida to go work at Cressy Sports Performance instead of working with Mark Pryor and the Los Angeles Dodgers, who I'm assuming have every single gizmo gadget metric that one could ever want. Well, I think one part is that it's, it would be, it's a little difficult, I think, sometimes to really revamp anything or work on stuff in a competitive environment. So it would have been hard for him to do it between starts with Mark Pryor right now on the Dodgers. I guess you could I L him, but then you technically are supposed to send him to somewhere, you know, you, it's rare to I L someone and he stays with the Dodgers, you know. So maybe his choice was, do I go down to Oklahoma City, you know, and work with people there? Or do I go work with Eric Cressy? And I think the modern players also empowered by the fact that there's all these independent labs, pitching labs now, that they have their own contractual arrangements with, and they can maybe feel some ownership over their own coaching, you know, by, by doing this so they can go to dry land, they can go to tread, they can go to, they can go to Cressy and, and, and they feel like they are getting what they want. And what I, when I talk to people that are coaches or, or people in front offices about this, they were, they, they struggle with it. You know, they're annoyed because they would rather the player got the coaching that they want him to get. They know the right coaching. And there's different approaches to how to deal with that. Some, some front offices do something that's kind of cool. I talked to one front office, they said, oh, we don't like, we don't love teacher man, teacher man's the guy who's Aaron judges. Yeah, I've heard a lot about that guy, man. Oh my god. He's so arrogant. He's so arrogant. I think he really has like one good idea, but I don't think he has every good idea, you know. And so, and it worked for judge doesn't mean it's going to work for everybody else. Judge is pretty unique in terms of, you know, size, strength, quickness. Yeah. So, you know, so somebody was working with them and they didn't really love everything. But what they did was they had their hitting coach, take teacher man's course. So, they knew what teacher man was about and what he talked about. So, you could speak teacher man's language to this player. They invited teacher man to spring to talk to the player and to other players and just made it seem like, hey, we're cool with them. If that's what you believe and that's what you're into, like we're going to, we're going to support you in that. But when the kid went through a stretch where he was over 20 or something, he was a little more receptive to their own coach. Makes sense. Yeah. And so, they wanted, that's the struggle right now is like, how do I make it cool for you to go to Eric Kressy? But also, I want you to listen to Mark Pryor. That's, that's kind of the line people are walking right now. Smart baseball with, you know, Sarah's every Thursday here with Ben and Woods. And I think when we talk about the numbers, you know, and you've kind of mentioned this before. And so, for some people, it's too much. They get overwhelmed by all the stats and they say, I just want to go by feel. But your brain fools you. If you throw a good pit, if you throw a pitch and someone swings and misses, your brain's going to tell you, I just threw a good pitch. But you don't know that's true. That's absolutely the batter may have just taken a bad swing at it for no reason whatsoever. And the numbers will actually kind of tell you which pitches are the better ones. If you can take your brain out of the equation sometimes, is that, is that really what the statistical revolution here in baseball is about? I think so. I mean, you know, I think the opposite is, is the one that's really happens even more, which is that a pitcher throws a pitch that's pretty good, but one of the first times he throws it, someone yanks out for a homer. And then they never throw that pitch again. And you're like, dude, that is a pretty good pitch. And that's why it can be good to have something like stuff plus. Look, this, this curve ranks the best here. Here are the cops. You know, oh, this curve looks like this guy's curve and this guy. Those guys' curves are good, right? Like throw to him, please, you know. So there's some of that, which there's also some of like when a player is really struggling and you can come to them and say, hey, you know what, you're barreling the ball, your barrel rate is on par with this guy's, your, your, your eggs and losses are fine. Like you just, you just need to chill out and like the hits will come, you know. So the numbers can do a lot of different things. They don't have to be overwhelming. They don't have to be negative. And one thing that I do think is as a fan, you were allowed, you were, I don't begrudge anybody their opinion about how they want to consume the sport. I understand that. And I think that the best, the best broadcast teams, the best, you know, the best shows try to really meld, you know, what is happening on the field is what has happened historically. The stories, people love stories from back in the big day. And then just sort of gently fold in some stats so that you don't necessarily have to report the eggs of velocity on every homer. But if somebody tonight hit the hardest hit homer of the year or ever for the Padres or something, that's when you sort of say it, you know what I mean? Like you don't have to do it for every single one. You don't have to, you don't have to really shoehorn it in. These numbers are spoke to tell a story, you know. It's interesting too. I was watching, I think it was the something on Apple TV maybe. I can't remember, but Frank or Franci was on there. And he, yeah, he kept calling people that like stats on baseball pencil next the whole night. Oh, those are those pencils next pencil next that pencil next. I'm like, all right, this is a huge broadcast featuring two great teams pencil neck pencil neck pencil neck. And I'm like, oh my God. And he's, he's not an old guy. I mean, he's not, he's not, you know, this isn't goose gossage here. And I'm listening to this going, all right, now I, I, there needs to be more of a happy medium. You know, there really does. Yeah. I just, I thought that was, I had, I don't know if you had heard that. Yeah, I think, I think mud does a great, I think they do a great job. I'm looking down to a great job. And they're not, they're not the nerdiest that I've ever had. You know, one of my favorite broadcasts is, is John Miller. And John Miller is, he's not like a big stack guy, but I also love Boog's yummy. Yes. You know, the Cubs and he, he folds more stats in. You know, Jason Benetti with the White Sox. So there are different ways to be great, just like there are different ways to be great as a, as a, as a baseball player. And that's why I like these stats is because you can highlight so many different cool things about a player. Yeah. This guy's like one of the five fastest players in big leagues, you know, this guy, and you can do it a little bit more precision. I think then, then without it. And I don't know, you can also just express regret at like, the way that baseball has become very sort of walking of last, you know, sort of, you know, more focused on power. And, and we've got three, two outcomes. Like, that's, that has come from analysis. But my, my, my, my retort is, you know, that's not the analyst fault. They're just trying to help their team win the game. It's not the pencil next fault. They're all, they're, they're working for teams and trying to help players get better. That's my passion is player development. You know, trying to help players get better. They're trying to help their team win. The, if you don't like where this is going, then you should, you should be pro the, the kind of rule changes that baseball is making. That's the reason I'm making those rules changes is to incentivize teams to, to want the single again. You know, enjoy your all star break. We'll chat with you again as we get the second half started. And you will always appreciate everything you've done. First half of the season was great. Thank you so much. So we'll talk to you not next week. We'll give you the week. Yeah, we got second, the first week of the second half. We'll have you back in two weeks. All right. Thanks. Unless we get in a pitch, you know, just call you, keep your phone still might get attacked. We'll see. You know, Sarah smart, smart baseball brought to you by seven mile casino. And he said something. And he always has some nugget that that I grab onto. And it's so simple. But as we've been talking about the Padres and the roller coaster of the season. And maybe this isn't as unexpected as it, as it feels because when we start talking about how well they're playing and get excited, of course, they're about to turn because there, there's only one way you can go when you've won 12 of 15, that's not going to last forever. Unless you're the greatest team in baseball history, you're about to hit a rut. And when they've lost four or five in a row, and everything seems bleakest, that's not going to last either. And of course, they're going to start winning. And things are going to turn around again, because that's just the nature of, of life that, you know, things change. And our attention gets focused when teams are either playing well or struggling, but it's because it's probably about to change and go the other direction. Let's hope the Padres are about to change and go the other direction again. That's exactly what's been happened all season long. And we'll see if that continues. Paul has got the round the report coming up next final hour before the round table on the fan. You don't just live in your home, you live in your neighborhood as well. So when you're shopping for a home, you want to know as much about the area around it as possible. Luckily, homes.com has got you covered. Each listing features a comprehensive neighborhood guide from local experts, everything you'd ever want to know about a neighborhood, including the number of homes for sale, transportation, local amenities, cultural attractions, unique qualities, and even things like median lot size and a noise score. Homes.com. We've done your homework. Nice. 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