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Talkin' Baseball with Ellen Adair ⚾
4.4k Plays1 year ago
Ellen Adair is a regular analyst on MLB Network's "Off Base," and has also appeared on "MLB Now," "Hot Stove" and "MLB Central."
Ellen is a multi-talented artist, actor, writer and baseball brain.
Ellen was the guest on SRTN 128
Ellen is the co-host of the podcast "Take Me In to the Ballgame," on the Underdog Sports Network.
Thanks Ellen for chatting baseball on EPISODE 200 of Something (rather than nothing)!
Props to the Red Sox and the Phillies.
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Transcript
Introduction and Host Details
00:00:01
Speaker
You are listening to something rather than nothing. Creator and host, Ken Zalante. Editor and producer, Peter Bauer. So everybody, this is something rather than nothing. And, uh, have Elena Deere, who I looked it up, Ellen, you were episode 128. Seems like a long time ago, but, uh, welcome back on the show.
00:00:30
Speaker
Thank you. It's so nice to be back on the show.
Elena's Love for Baseball
00:00:34
Speaker
I appreciate the opportunity to be a repeat offender. You were definitely, since we talked, I mean, one of the things that I noticed and just reread about you
00:00:46
Speaker
that I really want to interrogate you on right off the bat. You announce an unhealthy love of baseball. Is such a thing possible? And how is your relationship with baseball unhealthy? It's absolutely possible. And I think it's because people often think about the good side of love when they hear the phrase unhealthy love.
00:01:15
Speaker
and they don't think about the bad side of it, which is how sad I am made by baseball regularly. Partly this is my fault because I
00:01:32
Speaker
I do not post my negative thoughts on social media. I only post my celebratory ones because I feel like there's enough negativity in the world, so I don't post my negative thoughts about anything. I do this because then I feel like then I am focusing on my negative thoughts about anything. If it's about politics, it actually matters. If it's about baseball, it doesn't.
00:01:56
Speaker
But in either case, I'm like, I don't want to focus on these thoughts.
Emotional Impact of Sports
00:01:59
Speaker
I can see them and accept them and then let them go. Right. But so then people, I think, look at what they observe my baseball fandom as to be, which is like, hooray. I love baseball. Look at this. Look at that. And there are no videos of me actually crying.
00:02:17
Speaker
In pain in physical in physical and mental pain physical pain about Usually the Philadelphia Phillies. Yes So because what I will say is my love of baseball Extends to the sport in general it extends to many different teams it extends to many different players but mostly it's the Philadelphia Phillies who can really hurt me and
00:02:42
Speaker
It is true that in the postseason, if there's another team that I really love that I've really put myself behind and then that they do not win and some other team that I hypothetically
00:02:57
Speaker
don't love at all wins, I will also be actually sad. But it's perhaps a distinction that I have to make, given that I am taken to going and sort of rooting against literally whomever the Yankees are playing just as the hypothetical example, right? And I'm sad, I'm sad when the Yankees beat the Angels or the Twins or whatever, but it doesn't devastate me in the way that it does when
Phillies' Team Improvements
00:03:24
Speaker
Um, one Phillies player is thrown out on the base paths, like a nincompoop, which is something that has happened up and down the lineup this year. It, it doesn't make me sad, uh, in the same way that it does when a, when a Phillies player muffs a perfectly fieldable ball, which has happened less this year than it has in some years past. Less nin, less nincompoopery.
00:03:44
Speaker
More or less past nincompoopery, less like fielding nincompoopery this year for sure. You know, partly that's because of Trey Turner. We've got Trey Turner now and he's a defensive upgrade. And also we have Brandon Marsh, you know, the qualified OPS leader for all of baseball, which is what I totally saw coming, obviously. And I would imagine all of your listeners did as well.
00:04:12
Speaker
here on April, April 20. Where were we at? April 26. Yes. 26. I looked at my computer to find that out. I wouldn't have known that number organically. You're a stats person. Yeah. I mean, I didn't.
00:04:25
Speaker
Yeah, but like remembering specific numbers, like I know, I don't remember exactly what Brandon Marsh's OPS is. It's like 1173 or something. It's ridiculous. I don't know if that's the actual number. It sounds like a lead leader one. Yeah, sure. I mean, you know, I am aware that you're a Red Sox fan.
00:04:45
Speaker
And I believe that Adam Duvall for the time that he spent with the Red Sox, not that he won't come back, has a higher OPS, but it's of, you know, it's like two weeks, even though it's all a tiny sample size.
00:05:00
Speaker
I think it might be less than
Ken's Red Sox Fandom
00:05:01
Speaker
that. It's one of those things where I feel like often early in the baseball season, I feel like it's gone on for a lot longer than it has. Even though I'm like, oh, it's a small sample. Always, I'm like, well, we've been playing baseball for all of our lives at this point, right? That's always how I feel. Yeah. Oh, wait, no, it's been like not even a month. Yeah, so. Well, you know, there's so much there's so much to chat about. I wanted to say a couple of things.
00:05:29
Speaker
First of all, so the listeners know, yes, Ellen is a big time Phillies fan, but noticeable lover of baseball as a sport and overall, and you can get into the stories. I share some of that. I'm a big Red Sox fan. I lived in Wisconsin for 12 years and adopted the Milwaukee Brewers as my National League team. And the games I get to go to live out here in Oregon is to go up.
00:05:59
Speaker
and see the Mariners. So I try to follow the Mariners out this way. At this point, the Red Sox are 13 and 13. They just lost against Baltimore. I saw that the Phillies are 11 and 13. We're in a similar spot. But before we get to the current state, I wanted to
00:06:19
Speaker
hooking back to where we began about the unhealthy love of baseball. I think there's something absolutely right about what you said. And to connect with that, I will tell you that I believe in my development as a human being, there was a major traumatic event. So Red Sox 86 lands when I'm 14 years old, which I dare say is a transition type of age from one period of life to another.
00:06:46
Speaker
My outlook on life was significantly diminished by the outcome of the 86 World Series. It took me a while to recover. The question is, in your experience with the Phillies and such, do we ever really recover when the unhealthiness of
00:07:09
Speaker
You know, at that point, maybe the Red Sox outcome were my life outcome in my limited, you know, head at that moment. And, uh, so I really appreciate you identifying that, uh, the love can be unhealthy and there can be some, some dark spots. I'm a much more happier Red Sox fan after championships and world series. That period seems long ago, but when I was living in that period of no world series, it was an ongoing.
00:07:39
Speaker
crisis. Yeah. Yeah. Bill Buckner haunted your dreams, you know? Like he was everywhere that you looked, I'm sure. Yeah. I mean, I guess I do believe in the notion of redemption.
Baseball Memories and Personal Ties
00:07:54
Speaker
I too, I would say that my formative baseball memory
00:08:00
Speaker
And it's actually my first real baseball memory is of the 1993 postseason.
00:08:11
Speaker
World Series. I know I'd been to baseball games before then, and I know that I had attachments to players, but I was young enough that it's like the first actual baseball outcome that I remember is the Joe Carter home run, right?
00:08:33
Speaker
Like the devastation of that. Everything prior to that was just like, I don't know, like I love these guys because I'm sure they did something at some point. But I think it is, it is, and I'm sure at the time, right, had you talked to like tiny child me, I was very young. At the time I would have been able to tell you more about like, oh, you know, I love Darren Dalton because he did this, right?
00:09:00
Speaker
But like now I don't remember what I do remember, I think what does sear itself into our souls is the extreme of the emotion, right? So whether that is the extreme devastation or whether that's like potentially the extreme elation. But I will say obviously it was a while for me to be, for that particular heartbreak to be redeemed.
00:09:27
Speaker
in 2008, but it has been, and at least that's my experience.
Family's Influence on Baseball Fandom
00:09:36
Speaker
I lived in Boston, which is why I have a fondness for the Red Sox as well. I was raised, as I lightly alluded to earlier, rooting against whatever team the Yankees are playing. I was raised in a fundamentalist hatred of the Yankees.
00:09:54
Speaker
Fundamentalist, yeah. Fundamentalist hatred of the Yankees. And it's because my parents are Pan baseball fans. So I was born in Philadelphia. They were Phillies fans, but neither of them are from Philadelphia. My dad is from Virginia and my mom is from Oregon. We might have talked about that before.
00:10:13
Speaker
Um, so they, they, that is why the Yankees were the big bad. So people have often asked me like your Phillies fan white. And I'm like, I was just the way that I was raised, right? I was just raised that the Yankees are, are, um, primary, the primary evil baseball opponent. Now I, I have in my own lifetime accrued an antipathy towards, uh, the Atlanta organization, but that's all my own. That's not my parents' fault anyway. Um,
00:10:41
Speaker
I'm trying to remember, oh, right, right, right. So when I was in Boston, I was immediately like, I can totally get on board with the Red Sox, right? And so I will say that I did not experience the, personally experienced the disappointment of being a Red Sox fan before they started
00:11:04
Speaker
winning a bunch of World Series, which is, of course, what they've done in this century. But I will say I did fully participate in their elation because I was there at the time. And I think that has also imprinted on me. So there is a good side of an unhealthy love of baseball, obviously. I'm not trying to
Personal Connections to Teams
00:11:30
Speaker
just depict it as
00:11:33
Speaker
you know, as bringing pain and heartbreak, but it's just like, do you really go on the roller coaster or are you zen about it? Are you like, this too will pass? I'm absolutely not like this too will pass. You know what I mean? Like, I just, I completely, empathetically experience everything that the Phillies are going through. However, you know, to that, and I was having this conversation with my husband,
00:11:56
Speaker
I was like, it's not affecting me quite as much this year. And I feel like there are personal reasons for that. But I think it's mostly that a lot of my fandom centers around the fact that the Phillies feel like family to me. They do not feel like a baseball team. I don't remember when I didn't love the Phillies. I have no memory of this time. So the Phillies are
00:12:24
Speaker
that deeply sewn into my heart. And so my experience of fandom is more that I want them to do well because they're my family members. And so I want them to feel good about themselves. I want them to feel like they're good baseball players. It's the main thing that I want, right? So when they do something and I'm like, gosh, I know they're going to be kicking themselves for that. That's when I get really sad. But I'm like sad for them because there certainly are baseball fans who are like angry about
00:12:55
Speaker
I don't know. They're not angry with empathy or they're not sad with empathy. And I'm not judging that. I'm just saying that's not what my experience is. And for that reason, I know that the Phillies, most of them recently, got to feel like they were good baseball players because they at least made it to the World Series. And they beat the Astros a couple of times, which is more than anybody else did in the postseason.
00:13:22
Speaker
And so I'm like, I know that they have that, right? And so the anxiety that I had at this time last year, when of course the Phillies had the longest playoff drought in the National League, was a lot more intense. This is not to say that the love is not still unhealthy. It's just that I'm like, they know that they're good baseball players. They know they can do this. At least that's my hope.
The Longest Baseball Game
00:13:49
Speaker
I love your connection to it. It's such a different way of looking at it. Hey, listeners, chatting with Ellen Adair, who, as I mentioned, has been on episode 128 a little while back. We did the philosophy and our questions.
00:14:09
Speaker
Ellen is an actor most widely known in the center and homeland, a podcaster as well would take me into the ball game and a baseball lover. I saw a recent movie you're in, Cryptid, which really hit my sweet spot of movies that I really enjoyed and I've loved your kick-ass scenes in that.
00:14:38
Speaker
always nice to see you on the screen. But we're talking baseball and one of the things I wanted to, I just wanted to tell you just a bit here is that I had mentioned to you before I went to the longest baseball game in history in Pawtucket, Rhode Island in 1981. And when
00:15:05
Speaker
my dad took my brother and I, about probably 10, maybe 9 or 10 years old. Cal Ripken was in that game for Rochester Red Wings, Wade Boggs, for the Red Sox at third base, probably Rich Gedman, maybe not, somewhere around that time, as a catcher for the Red Sox. But this game, a couple pieces connected to it, my dad was getting tired, you know, like he's got his two young
00:15:33
Speaker
kids, you know, all all excited about baseball. Now it's 11 11 30 at night. My dad's like, geez, I get to get the bed. You know, we left about the 13th inning and the game went 32 innings that over that day, the night it started was a night game and it just kept going. And, you know, when we checked the papers the next day, there was no score. And we're like, why is there no scores? Because the game was still going on.
00:16:02
Speaker
And so two really cool pieces is, one, about two in the morning, the owner of the Pawtucket Red Sox, his name was Ben Mondor, well-loved within the community in keeping the Pawtucket Red Sox kind of an affordable working class baseball experience. He walked around and gave everybody that was still there, season tickets. And it was like an April game. So like everybody was still, I don't know how many people were there I could
00:16:30
Speaker
double-check there's a whole book on this 100 200 people they suspended after 32 innings I think because they didn't know what to do and then when the game was resumed the next time Rochester was in town the Pawtucket Red Sox won within one inning of that replay and that was the 33rd inning so the famous longest baseball game ever I was there for 12 or 13 of the
00:16:59
Speaker
32 innings that night. That's astonishing. I think we actually, and I do not want to swear upon my eternal soul, but I think we talked about that game on one of our podcasts, my podcast. Thank you for my wonderful introduction, by the way, and also for watching Cryptid. Thank you.
00:17:24
Speaker
Um, we, uh, talked about it, I believe in the Mr. 3000 episode potentially, um, about the very longest game ever, because I was sort of curious about, about games being called at a certain point after they were too long. So yeah, you were there. Sorry that you weren't there for long enough to get season tickets. Well, one of the funniest things was right after that.
00:17:53
Speaker
after everybody saw what was happening and how long the game was, and that was the longest game, everybody was scrapping back to the stadium to look for ticket stubs, having the ticket stub to the longest game. So my dad was like, holy shit, do I still have him in his wallet, which he would do. I'd probably do the same thing, stick him in the wallet and all that. So he had the tickets, but there was a whole bunch of people heading back, seeing if people threw their tickets out, checking the trash.
00:18:22
Speaker
That's really funny. Quite the wild experience. You want that claim to fame. Hey, I'm sorry, there's a great book on, I think it's called Bottom of the 33rd or 32nd, something like that. The local reporter over there in Rhode Island did it. Sorry to interrupt. Oh, no. I think I was just going to say it's particularly intrepid for people to, as a person who has been to April Games in Massachusetts, if not Pawtucket specifically.
00:18:52
Speaker
To stick out there for a while for April games in Massachusetts is particularly brave. It's different than a July extra inning slug fight. I had a baptism in Milwaukee of the September
00:19:13
Speaker
Out at County Stadium the old County Stadium in Milwaukee out in the bleachers and you know The Sun dropped and it's Wisconsin and start getting cold in September. I was like, oh, okay. I get it Just Freezing and thinking about April in County Stadium in Milwaukee or May or even June sometimes in Milwaukee Yeah, the elements no doubt about it
00:19:37
Speaker
Yeah, I completely believe it. I've been to a decent number of baseball games already this year. It seems like we just keep on making plans with friends who are like, oh, let's go to a baseball game on this
New Baseball Rules Discussion
00:19:49
Speaker
day. And I'm like, OK. And even in New York, I'm so cold that I often don't even really intake the last three innings of the baseball game because I'm just in survival mode.
00:20:05
Speaker
Yeah, well, another way that it's an unhealthy love of baseball. Yeah, you stick in there. Well, what about the speaking of baseball length? I want to just you know, there's the pitch clock rules that seem to have been
00:20:21
Speaker
uh... implemented smoothly within the rhythm of the game uh... basically for listeners swell let's talk about that but basically to for listeners maybe not as familiar rules change with those a certain amount of time for the batter to be ready and for the pitch to be delivered which is new to arm is new to baseball uh... i on on baseball everything baseball what i i think about baseball law always have since i'm a little kid in
00:20:49
Speaker
I always kind of enjoy when I have like kind of idiosyncratic views of like what's going on. And I found that like when it comes like to the rules of baseball, it's like the only area I tend to be like conservative or like really questioning the change. Like I tend to be kind of traditionalist, at least in the form of the game.
00:21:14
Speaker
And I've had to adapt to the rules and I've adapted quickly and just really kind of think about my reaction to them. Long build in, Ellen, pitch clock. What do you think? You're certainly not alone in being a baseball fan who might be liberal in other areas of their life and yet feels very conservative about the rules of baseball. And I do agree
00:21:43
Speaker
with what I see as, and I mean, I'm not the only person, my friend Joe Pazniewski wrote a really wonderful article in Esquire before the season. And he and I happened to agree about this. We had talked about it many times before he'd written the article, not that he'd
00:22:03
Speaker
not that I had anything to do with the ideas that are in the article, that really what MLB is trying to do is get baseball back to the game that it used to be and that one of the things
00:22:21
Speaker
that the pitch clock is trying to do is get the games back to more or less the link that it used to be. So if you're a nerd like me on baseball, Twitter, there are numerous graphs with the length of game. And you can see that the average length of game now is about the same as the average length of game in the 1960s. So going back a while, but it's not without precedent. And I think even if
00:22:48
Speaker
You know, I have gone back and watched on YouTube some of the, like the Phillies 1980 World Series, which I was not alive to see. And it is striking how much faster the game moves in general, even in the 1980s. And I think if you look at this particular graph of sort of game time, it's striking even how much it has changed, you know,
00:23:18
Speaker
since 2004, for example, as a year that means a lot to all Red Sox fans. Yes. And so a couple of the other changes about limiting the shift and also about larger bases are also about not so much changing baseball as trying to, now that baseball has changed because we have
00:23:42
Speaker
more information about everything right and so teams using the analytical information that they have have then it has changed the approach of players and it has changed the approach of teams now teams feel like oh we don't want to we don't want somebody to steal because the likelihood of them
00:24:02
Speaker
actually stealing the base especially now that we have replay and so we might find that like oh their their body like levitated off the bag for one split second and the tag was still on so there are all of these kinds of things have disincentivized stolen bases and so
00:24:17
Speaker
like the larger stolen bases exist to sort of re-incentivize them. And that's certainly something that we have seen. The number of stolen bases, I was looking at this last week so I don't have the numbers now, but the number of stolen bases that we have so far this year would put us at, if the league maintains the same stolen base pace,
00:24:42
Speaker
the most stolen bases in history by just like a tiny little bit. I'm trying to remember, I think like 1989 is the year with the most stolen bases in history.
00:25:00
Speaker
I think it basically it put it within the error bars or 1987 1987 was like you have Vince you have Vince Coleman in the National League with like 110 120 stolen bases a lot of guys are running Henderson Ricky Henderson still playing at that time.
00:25:18
Speaker
Totally, yeah, it's totally those dudes. So I think that it's not like it would put it to astronomically outpace that. So it could be less, right? But I think it was sort of like within 15 to 20 stolen bases of that number in 1987.
Pitch Clock Concerns
00:25:34
Speaker
And so, I mean, now I feel like what we're seeing more is like everybody is trying to steal a base and certainly like the stolen base success rate is also, I think, the highest that it's ever been, not by a lot, but like by a percentage point, something like that.
00:25:51
Speaker
So these are things that MLB has been doing to try to make the game look more like the game that it used to be, which is, I think, different than being like, we're going to try to change it. I get people who really, really hate the zombie runner on second base, right?
00:26:13
Speaker
I don't I don't like that I've never liked that I've never liked that at all that one I don't I just don't like it I get it when people don't like it I find it's actually pretty fun I wish they would just push it back by a couple of innings but I think it sort of like changes the strategy of the game
00:26:29
Speaker
I don't know, like it's I've seen enough games where you actually still go a number of innings, but it's because every team basically just gets the zombie runner home. Right. Yeah. So you're still tied, but you're tied one, one, one, one, one, one, one, which is just like more interesting to see than nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing. I mean, I always stay to the end of a baseball game. No, I like I like think I like that. I like that way of thinking about it that you presented.
00:26:56
Speaker
you know that you presented it of how the extra innings can continue. I think the only thing is for me on it is and I do agree add something. I have a lot of thoughts about the pitch clock that I haven't gotten to yet but yes feel free. Oh we're we're definitely going but but on the on the zombie runner bit um you know there's something
00:27:16
Speaker
that I can't get my head up, uh, around that it's not earned in any way, like that there is something within the game that is disconnected to any. Hit act or, uh, or rule violation to move a runner along. And so it's implemented right within the, in the rules. And so I think it's not like, you know, I don't ever say it's like inappropriate or what do I have to say about it? But for me, I just have trouble getting around how.
00:27:47
Speaker
The runner appears and I'm still kind of caught up on that. But yeah, pitch clock stuff rule changes. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah. Well, I have quite a crazy idea about the zombie runner.
00:28:02
Speaker
that I think is, I've shared on a number of podcasts that I wish, though I think that this is happening with the shift and with the limitations on the shift and with the larger bases, which also mean like more likely that you can leg out a single or that you can turn a single into a double. It's just like by marginally making the space between
00:28:29
Speaker
the bases smaller by having the bases be larger. It just gives the batters that little extra boost. We have been seeing more balls in play, fewer just guys swinging for the fences. That's an example of something that analytics
00:28:53
Speaker
taught players to go for an uppercut swing and try to loft the ball and try to hit it over the fielders if the fielders are going to be perfectly positioned to the place where I usually hit it, right? So that's an example of like, you can't put the genie of analytics back into the bottle, but how can we change the game a little bit? Anyway, that's an example. So an idea that I've had is that if the game is tied,
00:29:19
Speaker
It's the team that has more runs not scored with a home run that gets the zombie runner. The other one doesn't get the zombie runner, right?
00:29:34
Speaker
You're just going to play the game, right? And like you want to hit a home run if you want to hit a home run because you're never playing the game to tie in the ninth. You're playing the game to just win it, right? So I don't think it would crazily change things. But yeah, anyway, that's been my my idea. So my thoughts about the pitch clock are manifold. One of them is that the way that pitchers are throwing now is different than they were in the 1960s or the 1980s or the even
00:30:03
Speaker
the early 2000s. I saw a 98 mile an hour slider that disappeared a few days ago. I believe it. Yes. Yes. There's so many pitchers throwing with maximum velocity because that's really what has been incentivized for pitchers. So what's been incentivized for hitters is like, we're going to hit it over the fence.
00:30:28
Speaker
And what's been incentivized for pictures is like, we just got to throw it at 101, even if we don't always necessarily know where it's going. So because of that,
00:30:38
Speaker
The reason that the pitchers in the past could keep up a more reasonable pace, I don't know, I don't want to put a value judgment on, could just keep up a faster pace, was because they weren't throwing max effort all of the time. But I am concerned about
00:30:58
Speaker
what this might do for pitcher injuries. We always see a lot of pitcher injuries. We've seen a lot of pitcher injuries so far. I don't know that that's necessarily representative. I think it might be something that we need to look at at the end of the season and sort of be like, or, you know, maybe we even needed a two or three year sample of like how many pitchers are getting injured
00:31:18
Speaker
in the era of the pitch clock versus how many were getting injured before. Because obviously the young pitchers who came up with the pitch clock in the minor leagues, because for people who might not know they had implemented the pitch clock in the minors for a few years before they finally brought it to the majors. So a lot of the younger pitchers are more used to this pace.
00:31:38
Speaker
But it's actually the older guys who are perhaps more likely to injure themselves by trying to throw max velocity and not having enough rust time in between their pitches. So I think that's one thing. I don't know that we've necessarily seen that yet.
00:31:58
Speaker
The other thing that we have seen, and I've seen a number of people and a number of very smart people be like, look at this, the pitch clock is a success. And the thing that they're pointing to is the number of pitch clock violations. So again, for people who don't know, if the batter is not in the box before eight seconds, before the sort of the amount of time that the pitcher has to throw the ball,
00:32:26
Speaker
The batter has to be in the box, and if they're not, then they get a strike on them, an automatic strike. And if the pitcher does not deliver the ball by the time that the pitch clock goes down, it's a different number if there are no runners on base or if there are runners on base, then the pitcher gets an automatic ball. So people have looked at the number of pitch clock violations and been like, oh, it's actually not that bad. People were up in arms about this is what the problem is going to be.
00:32:56
Speaker
But what we actually have seen is
00:33:01
Speaker
Incredible volatility for almost all starting pitchers unless you're Garrett Cole or Luis Castillo Everybody's up and down. So a lot of individual people who just follow their teams They're like wow Like our offense is a lot better than I thought it was gonna be but like our pitching staff can't get it together And yeah, they're pretty good for this start and then they're bad again for this start very much what gives
00:33:28
Speaker
So I mean, my my take is right. I mean, it's the it's the not that I want to quote a Yankee, but like the Yogi Berra quote about like pitching is 90 percent mental and the other half is physical. Right. Yeah.
Pitchers' Mental Challenges
00:33:43
Speaker
Yeah. I love that. There's so many great philosopher. We can vote. This is Yogi Berra even with the Yankee thing. Free quote zone. No doubt. Great.
00:33:53
Speaker
Yogi bear is fine. I also love Bill Dickey. I don't know. I just love catchers. Anyway, those two Yankees are fine. So so because it is such a mental game, this is something, you know, I mean, the pitchers obviously that that I watch the most closely are the Phillies pitchers. And so I feel like I've seen
00:34:14
Speaker
Erin Nola and Zach Wheeler, very good pitchers. Coming off a lot of innings, right? So that's something that I was kind of like, I feel like people aren't thinking about how many innings Erin Nola actually threw because, I mean, Zach Wheeler had a few stints on the IL and Erin Nola really didn't.
00:34:30
Speaker
So nevertheless, Zach Wheeler, for example, in his last start, absolutely cruising. Everything looks so crisp. The slider looks so good. The fastball is exactly where he wants it to land. And then he just has one inning where a few guys get on base and everything falls apart.
00:34:52
Speaker
And I feel like that's because they're not able to... I know that when any kind of a time restraint is put on me, I feel crazy about it. And I can only imagine, maybe some pictures are adjusting to it very well. Maybe it's easier for Bailey Falter, a younger pitcher on the Phillies staff who
00:35:18
Speaker
pitched with the pitch clock in the minor leagues, right? But like Air Nolan, Zach Wheeler, they have never done this. And even if they can, the fact that there's no release valve for them, if they're like, I just need a second, unless JT Realmuto is like, I'm going to go use one of our confabs on the mound.
00:35:42
Speaker
in order to just calm this pitcher down. So I don't know. It's impossible to necessarily, like correlation does not equal causation, but when you look across all of baseball and you see that happening to almost every pitcher, that it's almost like you can't predict what's going to happen, right?
00:36:05
Speaker
this is often how it feels and and so i i just i have to feel like the the pitch clock that they're that they're mentally struggling even if it doesn't look like they're fake physically struggling even if there's not a lot of pitch clock violations i think it's really hard for them doesn't mean that they won't get used to it my my
00:36:25
Speaker
advocacy would be that we just add five seconds onto the pitch clock so that we avoid Pedro Baez-type situations. But still, now that they have a little bit more practice with this, that extra five seconds will just feel like a beautiful reprieve. Not that I'm saying anybody will do what I
00:36:45
Speaker
think they ought to do but that's what I think they ought to do because because I feel also like having gone to a couple of two-hour games and I'm like wait what the game's over already um I wouldn't mind if the games breathe just a little bit more like so that's that's that's my take on the pitch clock yeah thanks Ellen um yeah a lot of things to think about and I think the point that you were making a couple things I took from what you were saying is um
00:37:12
Speaker
uh thinking about the pictures and thinking about the workers you know i'm a union guy that's what i do for my my day job so like yeah thinking about those arms right and you have to adjust to the rules because they're the rules but who's pays the price and i think we have to look at like you said take a look at that and um the variability of performances and which is a little
00:37:34
Speaker
You and I know that's part of baseball being like holy shit this guy last time was out there But I'm noticing what the socks it just kind of the strange study of Chris sale was coming back from injuries and Seeing the Chris sale was the Chris sale like last star and then this one and it's just so unpredictable another piece to on the
00:38:00
Speaker
pitch clock that is a story that was built up in the Boston press was around Kenley Jansen. So it was thought around the league that the pitcher least able to adjust to the pace, particularly a pitcher was pitched for a while. It was Kenley Jansen. So there's this big question as you sign them and coming over to Boston big market, well, he's been lights out. So there's the unpredictability because I think anybody who explained to me
00:38:29
Speaker
Jansen's pitch patterns and how he had done things I'd be like that's a hell of adjustment in at this point in your career and he's knocking it out So it's tough. I think part of it is the data like anything in baseball of seeing What actually what actually is the case with this and it's even though it feels like the season's been going on We're just a few weeks in like we're talking about earlier, right? So I
00:38:55
Speaker
Yeah, it was actually, you know, it's interesting they had on baseball savant, which is a site for nerds like me for people who don't know with it with a lot of sort of like the
00:39:07
Speaker
The batted ball metrics, like the pitch spin rates and velocity and how the pitches are performing and stuff like that. And they had a leaderboard of how pitchers' average pace this past offseason that was really interesting to look at. And it wasn't just Kenley Jansen. It's a lot of relievers, because relievers tend to be max effort type of guys, because they're only throwing for an inning.
00:39:32
Speaker
But that means they really need more time in between the pitches to recuperate. But I mean, I'm delighted to see that Janssen's doing okay. And I think it could be because they're
00:39:48
Speaker
mental game as a relief pitcher hasn't changed as much as I think it has for a starting pitcher. Because you really do just need to be like, I've just got to go out there. I've just got to get these three guys, ideally, right? I'm not even going to let anybody get on base. Whereas you can do that even for four beautiful innings if you're Aaron Nola or Zach Wheeler and then just kind of collapse.
00:40:12
Speaker
Chris Sale thing is just so, so baffling. I think he's a great sort of case study for this, right? And obviously there are other factors in that he is coming back from all of those freak injuries that he had last year and everything like that. But what was interesting in some of his earlier starts, before the start against Minnesota where he got those 11 strikeouts,
00:40:36
Speaker
A lot of his stuff was still there, right? So the results weren't great, but you were kind of like, oh, but things are doing pretty well, just in terms of the way that the shape of the pitch is, and he was still getting swinging strikes and stuff like that. And that last start against the Orioles, he got two swinging strikes.
00:41:03
Speaker
I was baffled. We're always baffled. That is a very small number for people who don't know to like all of the pitches that he threw. Only twice did he get, that's not a strikeout. He got zero strikeouts. Chris Dale got zero strikeouts. It was bananas, right? Because in some ways I sort of felt like I at least could tell myself a story from the previous starts leading up to the Minnesota start that like, I was like, oh, like,
00:41:30
Speaker
I get where he's going. He's coming back from injury. He's going to be okay. And then all of a sudden just like complete chaos. I mean, the only story that I can really tell myself that makes any sense about that is the fact that I know that he's faced the Orioles a number of times this year, including in spring training starts. And it could be that the Orioles just kind of have his number. Seen him a few times. I don't know. For this point in the season, yeah.
00:41:57
Speaker
It's just one of those things where you're trying to, if you're a baseball fan or an analyst as I am, trying to make sense of things and you can't really. I'm aware that the pitch clock
00:42:14
Speaker
is getting to guys is the narrative that I'm telling to try to explain the chaos that we're seeing, right?
Outstanding Performances and Fantasy Baseball
00:42:23
Speaker
Somehow Luis Castillo and Garrett Cole are fine, but like everybody else, it's just chaos. Well, there is a dominant narrative that I think anybody listening to the game- And Shohei Ohtani, oh my God, how could I forget? Shohei Ohtani looks like the best, I mean, he is the most astonishing human being to ever live, but yeah.
00:42:42
Speaker
I'm going to go ahead. No, let's jump over there because I need a segue over. So I had Shohei Otani as a pitcher on my fantasy team and as a tribute to you in a risk of. I thought it was a lazy waiver move for me, but I said. I got to go with the Phillies. I picked up Craig Kimbrel for my fantasy team because is he getting locked in or did I just make a really poor move?
00:43:12
Speaker
I mean, I trust Craig Kimbrel about as far as I can throw him at this particular point in his career. Me too, kind of. But also it's a situation where it looks like Jose Alvarado's getting most of the save chances. I know that Craig Kimbrel got a save chance last Saturday, I think, but I think Alvarado was not available at that point. So, I mean, I don't know. I'm desperate. I should have told you, the caveat was,
00:43:38
Speaker
Like I'm desperate too. So it looks like it does look like a desperate move. Well, sure. Well, sure. Look, look, I mean, here's the thing. Here's the thing that every Phillies fan is telling themselves. Now, I was freaking furious about the Gregory Soto trade where where the Phillies traded away Nick Mayton and Matt Vierling for Gregory Soto, mostly because I just did not believe in the value of the target. Right. Like.
00:44:04
Speaker
I was just like, I don't want Gregory Soto on this team. But the thing that everybody's pointing out is like, look what Caleb Cotham was able to do with Jose Alvarado. He looks like one of the best relievers in baseball right now.
00:44:19
Speaker
And that he is very much like, you know, throw it at 101 but doesn't know where it's going, kind of a guy. And had a great problem with control. Well, well, Kimbrel obviously different because he's at a completely different point in his career, but also like control is a real issue. Too many walks is an issue for Kimbrel, is an issue for Gregory Soto. So I think there's a little bit
00:44:47
Speaker
There's a lot of hope in the Philadelphia fan community that somehow Caleb Gotham can work the magic that he did on Jose Alvarado on these other two dudes. I don't know that it necessarily works that way. But if you're looking for an optimistic viewpoint, you know what?
00:45:02
Speaker
Caleb Gotham has really improved a lot of people's cutters and curveballs and like vastly improved. It's not just Alvarado. It was mostly changes to Bailey Falter, changes to Ranger Suarez were some of the kind of prime beneficiaries of that. So like, yeah, I mean, Craig Kimbrel has been pitching for a million years at this point, it feels like anyway.
00:45:27
Speaker
I still feel it. Yeah, it's not as much of a work in progress as Soto is, but it's good to happen. Well, so on the reliever situation, my fantasy team is the Pawtucket Red Sox. And I understand now there's a team called the Wista Red Sox. That's another story. But my fantasy team.
00:45:45
Speaker
and
00:46:02
Speaker
He's kind of in and out for for closing. So I gotta tell you one strange thing Just as the point about stolen bases on my fantasy team. I was going head to head with another team I can't have any I don't have anybody that will run so I haven't set up my team to win stolen base category So last week I had one stolen base the fantasy team I went up against had 18 like I was like
00:46:31
Speaker
Like and I'm thinking of like last year in the year before I think I used to win this category Squeak out with free stolen bases at like 18 I'm not even gonna compete if a team's pulling together 18 stolen bases in a week Yeah, so lots of lots of SPs lots of SPs
00:46:51
Speaker
For sure. Are you talking about Andrew Chafin, which is only one F, and he's on the Diamondbacks. He's not on the Giants, but I think he has been closing for them. The Diamondbacks obviously look like a really good team right now. I love the Diamondbacks. It has been a slightly unsettled closer situation for them, but I think it's been mostly Chafin recently.
00:47:15
Speaker
Yeah, thank you. I I did I did double-check that and Absolutely look right with
Baseball's Philosophical Nature
00:47:21
Speaker
the Arizona. Thanks for the correction Well, anyways, hopefully that works out for me, but that's my fantasy team. That's very particular We're talking baseball one of the things that I always thought about the whole pace of the game type of thing and I'll never get rid of this just to have the conversation is um, I'll make the aggressive theory around baseball that
00:47:43
Speaker
it in the games fall it in the games fall at all whatever the hell's happened on the field right following the game is not about something it's about nothing it's about things not occurring most of the time things will occur within baseball there will be events there will be home runs they'll be a hundred and one mile an hour swing and miss these are action events but the composite of the thing itself is
00:48:13
Speaker
american human beings looking for something all the time when there is space and there's nothing a lot of the time and i think that there's a relationship between the game in the games always trying to adjust because the game has to be basketball it also has to be football it also has to be this and that and it's still baseball and i know it can change but there's an attitude type of thing where
00:48:42
Speaker
When I go to a game outside of it being cold, I'm ready to chill the fuck out for the most part and try to take a different view of the whole thing nowadays. I wasn't always like that. So for me, there's a lot of nothing in the game and people are looking for some things that aren't there is my theory. What say you, Ellen?
00:49:07
Speaker
I agree conceptually with what you're saying, that obviously baseball is a more leisurely sport. And when people object to the pitch clock on the notion that baseball is supposed to be the only sport without a clock on it, a baseball game can still be any amount of time, right? So I don't quite have that same purist
00:49:37
Speaker
attitude. On the other hand, what I like about baseball is that it is also reflective, right? That there's something about watching a baseball game where there is enough space between
00:49:52
Speaker
large events that if you want to just be in a sort of a meditative space, especially if you're at the ballgame and you're outside with the sun and the grass, you can be engaged in what's going on and also sort of meditative. It's certainly a thing that I like about it. On the other hand, I would disagree that it is nothing.
00:50:15
Speaker
because I think there is actually always something going on. And I feel like that's almost a sort of a physics question, right? So it's like you could say, this glass is empty. Or you could be like, no, there's air in that glass, right? It's not actually empty. There's a lot of little molecules. If you could get down there, if you could get to the particle physics level, you'd see that there's lots of stuff in the glass.
00:50:43
Speaker
Who knows? Are there strings from other multiverses moving through that glass? I love that stuff, but that's another level. I also appreciate that level of baseball, that if what I want to engage in is
00:51:01
Speaker
What kind of pitch is the pitcher going to throw now? Right. Okay. So like, you know, he, he threw him a fast ball and he didn't swing at it. So like he's hunting something else right now. Right. So that mean that you then decide to go for another fast ball somewhere else in the zone.
00:51:20
Speaker
or in the same place, are you going to try to get a called strike? Are you going to go for a swing, but then is he going to hit? I love that level of the game and I love being able to watch and be like, oh my God, he threw that entire at that was five straight curve balls and that's crazy. I love that stuff. For me, nothing
00:51:46
Speaker
stuff is always happening. The sort of the chess game of the pitcher and the batter is always happening. And so I don't think there's ever really nothing, but I think like there's this space for if you're like, I don't want to engage in that chess game right now. I actually just kind of want to like sit back and enjoy being in my body and like with my friends and what it is to be alive and
00:52:13
Speaker
to watch people who are very skilled at something, right? You can do that too. I like that I feel like baseball in that way enables any number of ways of engagement with it.
Media Influence on Baseball Perception
00:52:26
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I think you're right.
00:52:31
Speaker
I think just the fan experience. I mean, looking at seeing, you know, there's enough time and maybe if you're in the sun for long enough and you check the bullpen and you see some sort of interaction between players that have been built up, you know, during the game, maybe on the field, the positioning and all those type of things. So yeah, I think, I think that's it. I think the main, the, I, it's a good discussion. I think the main thing that it seems to me has to do with,
00:52:58
Speaker
in conceptually where we do agree is that
00:53:02
Speaker
The somethings in our, in our, our highlight, our money driven, you know, the capitalist, like American system is, you know, the home runs in the strikeouts, right? So there's, there's so much attention to what is the product we're trying to pull together in this amount of time. And I think there's a tension with how fans approach, approach the game and how they want to spend the time there.
00:53:32
Speaker
When you listen to games right now, I feel like there's such a heavy PR thing that's also going on that you hear on every single game through the announcers, through the teams. Like I heard an announcement was, this has been tested and vetted in the minor leagues. It's best for the game. And your game is quicker. We listened to you, fans. This is what you told us. And there's a whole big PR around everything that's going on right now.
00:54:00
Speaker
I found it very noticeable and I'd imagine it's very influential around some of the opinions people have about the pace and what's going on. But your point about injury and needing to see what's going to go on amongst other factors is the story's not settled as far as what it means and for safety or enjoyment or whatever way we view it.
00:54:24
Speaker
Yeah, in my opinion, it's not settled. I think people are looking at too small of a picture of what it's doing. And I feel like even if at the end of the year, they're like, oh, not more picture injuries. I still feel like that's not necessarily the whole story. And I mean, for me,
00:54:45
Speaker
I'm a baseball lifer. I'm going to enjoy baseball almost no matter what format gets. And so I certainly don't mean to espouse the propaganda, but I also feel a little bit like, look, I know that MLB did a lot of surveys, asked a lot of fans. I know I filled some of them out because I personally, the things that I love the most, right? And I mean, this is also something that I was thinking about.
00:55:13
Speaker
somebody could be like, oh, what happened in that inning? Oh, nothing happened. But another person could be like, there were two amazing defensive plays, right? But from somebody else's perspective, they would be like, nobody got on base, nothing happened, right? But for me,
00:55:30
Speaker
Like the defense is one of my favorite things to see and that was one of the things that like I think that that I will be heard in a lot of surveys. Is that that's something that people really enjoy so by limiting by putting limitations on the shift you're going to get more.
00:55:48
Speaker
Exciting defensive plays rather than just like oh yeah that outfielder knew exactly where to stand and he was standing there and he caught the ball. So i don't i don't disagree with that and then in terms of like pace of play never bothered me right. But that's cuz i'm in it i'm a baseball life i'm gonna watch no matter what yeah i was the same way that he's never bug me yeah.
00:56:08
Speaker
If I hear that it matters to other people, then I'm just like, okay, well then it matters to them, right? And so I'm not then here to be like, but my experience is the most important of the experiences. I've just never felt that way about it. So yes, I don't mean to just sort of, again,
00:56:30
Speaker
like repeat the baseball propaganda that like, this is what it is to get it back to but I actually think that's, I do think that is what it is. It could correspond with what's going on.
Ellen's Projects and Podcasting
00:56:41
Speaker
I mean, it's just, you know, it could be with what's going on or what seems to be going on.
00:56:48
Speaker
Thus far. I mean, football has done the same thing in terms of making rule changes in order to preserve the way that the game is experienced almost. Right. So it's like the literal rules don't necessarily stay the same, but like the overall experience of how the game is played. So in that regard, I'm I'm I'm not against it, but, you know, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah.
00:57:15
Speaker
It's sort of interesting to me, right? Like I came into this season being like, what's gonna happen? Like not just what's gonna happen baseball wise, you know, like who's gonna end up being the best team, but there's just a lot more suspense about how all of these different things are gonna affect the game. And what's so interesting is that a lot of people, a lot of baseball analysts were kind of like, ooh, I think this is gonna be really big, big old bases, whatever. And my dad was like,
00:57:45
Speaker
I like all the role changes except for the bigger basis. I hate those. Interesting. And I actually feel like the bigger basis have been a lot more impactful than I think a lot of people thought they were going to be. So to me, that's interesting, right? Yeah. It's almost like I'm such a baseball fan that I don't mind having a little bit of a scientific view of like, okay, well, if we do this thing in this environment, how's the environment going to change?
00:58:11
Speaker
Yeah, I love it. We're talking baseball. Heck, the philosophy of baseball with Ellen Adair. Ellen, what else do you do? I mean, I know you write and you do the podcast and you go to the baseball games and you're an actor. What's going on like the spring into the summer? What do things look like for you?
00:58:37
Speaker
Well, thank you for mentioning that I do have a movie cryptid that is out on a variety of platforms where you can purchase it to view it in your own home. I do have another couple of movies that are going to be coming out this year. I don't know exactly when. One of them I still can't share the name of. They're just being protective of the name because it is
00:59:03
Speaker
It sort of really lets you know what the concept is and they're being protective of the concept. And the other one is called Herd, H-E-R-D. So I think that's going to be a really special film and I would love it for people to look out for that. And other than that, yes, I am writing a lot and I am doing my podcast, which is called
00:59:24
Speaker
take me into the ballgame. And I have another podcast called Love Takes Action. I am the host of that podcast. I am not also the producer of that podcast in the way that I am with Take Me Into the Ballgame. And that we're going to be getting started on our second season of that pretty soon. And it's a really special podcast talking to people about the ways in which
00:59:52
Speaker
choices in their life have led them towards or the passion that they have has led them towards helping other people making a change in their community or the ways that other people have helped them and it has made a change in their lives.
01:00:06
Speaker
And so I've got that going on. And I am sometimes on MLB Network as well. So folks can follow me on the terrible Twitter place at Ellen underscore Adair for a lot of my doings in that regard. All social media is terrible, but it's the general format of Twitter is still my favorite. I'm on Twitter. Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead.
01:00:36
Speaker
I'm on Instagram at Ellen Adair G, and I'm on post just at Ellen Adair, the only one that I was able to just get my normal name. There you go. I was going to say that on something about certain formats, maybe it is Twitter about numbers and sharing charts and quick hashtags that seemed at least in my head to fit.
01:01:00
Speaker
baseball and being able to converse about it quickly with numbers and ideas. Thanks for letting us know and I just wanted to ask you about just your general thoughts about podcasting right now because there's a lot of attention to podcasts and the listening habits of those
01:01:25
Speaker
who are 30 years and younger, they're shown massive statistical pieces of the amount of time that people listen to podcasts for news and information. It's an industry that just really supposed to rapidly expand and, and
01:01:40
Speaker
in content and advertising over the next few years. So if you've been, you have any thoughts about, you know, you've done some great work. Does it feel different now how people talk about podcasts and then when you begin?
01:01:57
Speaker
I mean, I didn't ever start podcasting until the year 2020 when I think many people also started podcasting. So I can't say that as a podcaster, I have felt that sea change myself in that
Final Thoughts and Future Plans
01:02:13
Speaker
amount of time. I certainly feel like in my lifetime, I know the difference. I remember when there were fewer podcasts, so it sort of felt like
01:02:22
Speaker
Old-timey television shows, you know, like everybody watched the Ed Sullivan show and everybody listened to like that season of cereal, right? And now it's not like we don't we don't have that same like oh Yeah, everybody is listening to this thing because there's just so many highly highly fragmented for sure. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I have so many different podcasts that I that I listened to that it used to be that there were some podcasts that I listened to every
01:02:49
Speaker
every single episode even if they were like a daily baseball podcast and now there's like I'll even be like I listen to 80% but because I'm listening to so many different ones then yeah like I I think my my overall podcast listenership has definitely gone up um I would say in the last few years I love the work that you're doing it's also great to see on MLB uh network I could see you running
01:03:30
Speaker
Being able to dig in on the podcast or be able to do a talking baseball episode with you, it really means a lot to me. It's fun to go deep in and to dig in. And, you know, listeners, if you're not into baseball, you know, we're digging in on some of this stuff and talking. And I don't always get this opportunity.
01:03:34
Speaker
one heck of
01:03:51
Speaker
And I have always been a baseball obsessive with statistics and stories. And I just want to tell you it's a real treat, not only to have you on the show, but to have this type of conversation. And I just wanted to let you know that.
01:04:09
Speaker
Well, thanks. Thanks so much for having me. I always love talking about baseball man. Also, you know philosophy philosophy and something and the nothing and the but I do Everybody check out all of Ellen's creativity and her
01:04:31
Speaker
Conspicuous comments around baseball, which I just love just kind of thinking about the game and Have a great time at the stadium For when for when you go I'll be going to my son been taking this year. I'll be going to Seattle game up north Before I leave
01:04:54
Speaker
Oh, it's a wonderful field, but I gotta tell you one cool little baseball trip when I'm gonna try to duplicate. So, went out camping over in the gorge on the Washington State side of the gorge over in Oregon. Stayed over there next to a native petroglyph area where you can camp.
01:05:18
Speaker
There's a fantastic museum that's on the gorge called the Mary Hill. Right next to that, there is a replica of Stonehenge. Did all that, drove up towards Snoqualmie Falls, visited Twin Peaks, as we know it, fictitiously on the screen.
01:05:38
Speaker
and then got there for game time with the Seattle versus Boston in the beautiful air. And I'm going to try to duplicate that trip very soon. Amazing. Oh, yeah. That sounds like the best trip, a little bit of everything. A little bit of everything. So thanks again, Ellen. Hope to chat with you soon and enjoy your baseball games.
01:06:07
Speaker
Thanks, you too. Thanks so much for having me on. This is something rather than nothing.