Rates & Barrels - Paging Dr. Sarris

Episode Date: July 31, 2020

Rundown0:52 We've Reached Nightmare Status4:21 Reality Setting In for Players & Team Personnel?7:38 Coverage at the Park Is Strange12:16 Do You Like This Year's Extra Innings Rules?18:51 Shortened Doubleheaders, How Many Will We See?25:32 You Shouldn't Throw Baseballs At People's Heads28:07 Already Thinking About 2021 & A Baseball Bubble36:44 'Can't Let This All Crumble'42:11 Andrelton Simmons Looks Like A Cowboy? Follow Britt on Twitter: @Britt_GhiroliFollow Eno on Twitter: @enosarrisFollow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRipere-mail: [e-mail] Get 40% off a subscription at The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels episode number 119. It is Friday, July 31st. Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris and Britt Giroli. 31st. Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris and Britt Giroli. On this episode, we will discuss the latest twists and turns of the 2020 MLB season ahead of the second week of action. Yes, this is only week two of this season. It feels like it's lasted a lifetime. We have some new rules, some added on the fly this week, others that were implemented on opening day that we've seen play out for a few days, such as the extra innings changes, which are kind of fun, actually. It's good to have a little bit of fun in our lives since everything else is looking pretty terrible. Good morning to both of you. Let's start with Britt. When you saw the news today that the Cardinals Brewers home opener was postponed as a couple of Cardinals players attested positive, you had a chance to wake up first. You had a chance

to maybe have a cup of coffee, to possibly go to the gym or go for a run or do something to just feel good about your day and settle in a little bit. So I imagine you were able to take that news a little bit more in stride than, say, Eno, who on the West Coast woke up and was just obliterated by tweets

and subsequent follow-ups of just how bad the situation already is. Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't say I'm super ambitious enough that I got really anything accomplished, but I did have breakfast, I did have coffee. I was scrolling through Twitter when I saw it and knew that it wasn't just like lack of caffeine, like the caffeine that already kicked in

when I first saw that report. And my first thought, guys, was, okay, this is now just no longer an East problem. We're now dealing with a team that had no contact with the Marlins or the Phillies or any of these teams. We're now in a whole other division, which obviously is not great news, right? I mean, it's upsetting. It's disappointing. It's frustrating.

I did speak to a few people in Milwaukee who were glad that at least this happened now and that the cardinals did not go to the stadium they did not expose themselves to the brewers at all um but i'm also still wondering i'm still thinking about rob manfred's comments about how this isn't a nightmare yet we're now talking about six teams that aren't playing today i guess i just would like to know what is the nightmare? Because to me, this feels like it. We're close. Are we not close here? How scary are Rob Manfred's nightmares if this doesn't qualify?

One fifth of baseball is not playing tonight because of the coronavirus. It's crazy. I don't know. I'm hoping that, you know, I don't want to be just a stupid optimist, but I'm hoping that like the Marlins situation, we've already seen that it's like created like different, you know, protocols in terms of, I guess they're changing the mask that they have to wear and they're more teams are staggering workouts. But, you know, to me, to some extent, I'm like, what? Why aren't we doing this already? Clubhouse, yeah, you should have a mask on. Like, you should definitely stagger workouts.

You don't want to lose your whole starting rotation because they're all hanging out together, swap and spit or whatever. I don't know. I mean, they are touching each other's balls, you know, baseballs. Thank you for the clarification. I don't cover games in person, so I didn't know how much it really changed the last time I was at the ballpark.

Are we going to get explicit on this podcast now because of this? This is so ridiculous, though, because it seems like every team had a slightly different set of procedures they were following, and I would have thought some of that would have been mandated. In any clubhouse around the league, anybody entering should have been wearing a mask.

That should have been obvious from the start. Hopefully, that's what's in place now. Team flights, though, too. If players aren't wearing masks on a plane, think about the way air is circulated on a plane. And think about how close together you're sitting on a plane. There's so many things that can go wrong in those scenarios. If they couldn't get that right from the start, it only adds to that can go wrong in those scenarios. If they couldn't get that right from the start, it only adds to that creeping pessimism in my mind. We're not going to just

wax poetic about how terrible everything is for the next half hour. That's not fun. No one's going to want to listen to the entire podcast if we do that. Hang with us. Yeah, hang with us. We're going to try and have some fun with this. But I mean, Britt, you had a Zoom call earlier this week with Davey Martinez. He's obviously very high risk. And I think what we're starting to see is the reality is beginning to set in for managers and team personnel and players who previously got there, maybe started to get comfortable with the new normal. And I've realized that their new normal is much more dangerous than they really ever thought. Yeah, so I have a couple thoughts on this. normal is much more dangerous than they really ever thought. Yeah. So I have a couple of thoughts on this.

Like one, why are masks not being mandatory in dugouts? Right. I think everywhere, but the field, they should be, they should just be mandatory, right?

You should just put it on unless you're out there playing and pitching and hitting, and then it can be up to you. We've already seen a lot of guys wear it in the field. But I think what you're seeing, what a lot of people are worried about is what they were worried about coming in. And that's pitcher Sean Doolittle took a lot of crap on Twitter for this,

for being the guy to say like, cool, we agreed, but what about safety? And everyone was like, ah, shut up, Sean. Or at least a large faction of people were, well, this is all coming true now. We don't have a stop date. We don't have protocols in place for what happened to the Nationals and Juan Soto, which is a false positive. He's not back till Saturday. He has not made his season debut yet. So on the flip side of all these players actually getting COVID, we've got a guy who never had COVID who has been forced to miss the first, you know, 10 days of the season. and you know i had a player text me this morning and about the logistical issues and i think this is worth mentioning is you can have all these players that are abiding by protocol right and the marlins got absolutely skewered mlb is trying to not pay them because of everything going on

whether they may or may not have broken protocol the main issue a lot of players are feeling is they go to these hotels and not everybody is versed in MLB protocol, right? They go to hotels in different cities. They're being put in the middle of Chicago, which has, 100,000 cases in a 30, 50 story hotel with how many other guests? Well, you have to get in the elevator. You can't even take the stairs. Stairs are not an option in a hotel that size. Yeah. I just think a lot of it is is and a lot of it is the protocols. And if MLB made these sweeping promises that they can enact these.

And I just wonder if they bit off way more than they can chew, because how can you make sure that the person at the hotel in Milwaukee is following the same thing that the person in Minnesota is right? That all these hotel workers, all these security guards, that everybody is following this because just speaking from someone who goes to the stadium, there's been a lot of issues just enforcing the media rules. Yeah. Every person you interact with is a new variable. And when you're adding travel every three, four, five days, the variables are off the charts, right? This is the problem. And I think we're also bumping into an ethical concern that probably first surfaced for a lot of us back in March when the pandemic shut down spring training. At that time, widespread testing for the general public for the COVID-19

virus was still very limited. There are massive delays in a lot of places with processing. And here we are with Major League Baseball testing players repeatedly, processing tests quickly, whereas the general population is waiting longer. So now we're kind of wrestling with that. And that's more on the back burner right now. It's just something we'd previously thought about that is actually happening. It's not getting a lot of attention right now. You know, you went to the ballpark for the first time, perhaps the only time a couple days ago. And on the Tuesday show, you expressed some reservations about it. And what was that experience like and how different really was it compared to what you expected and what really stood out to you the most as you went through that process? Oh, it was lonely as hell. I mean, it's so weird to go to a place that there are thousands of

people normally. And even like a place where you're supposed to see your colleagues, some of them you might call friends, you know, PR guys. There's like this whole list of people you might see. And I saw the PR guy and Vince Catronio. And I only saw Vince because I got lost and I went to the actual press box when I was not supposed to be there. And Vince is like, yo, go away. I have a mask on.

But I was like, I don't think I'm in the right place. And then I, you know, I end up sitting in like kind of one of the luxury kind of boxes that they have down on the first tier there. And I would have to say that I don't normally like to report on energy. Like, how does a clubhouse feel? I don't know. There's like 40 of them. I talked to a couple. I'm not supposed to tell you how they all feel.

But I did feel, I thought the energy was super weird. Because what they did, at least in the Coliseum, is turn up the music really loud. So it's even beyond just like... Or maybe there's just not fan noise to counteract that. But it was like being in an empty club.

That's what it was like. It was like being in an empty club. And there's two people dancing, and they are super into it. Everybody else is like, what the hell is going on? It's like when you walk past the place in Vegas in the morning, if you happen to get up at a reasonable hour. The people who just refuse to leave are still hanging out at a bar, and the music is still really loud from the night before. You're like, wow, you guys are still feeling it right now.

I need to catch a plane. I'm very tired and going to the airport. I'm glad your day from yesterday is still carrying into today. So, Britt, is that kind of what you experienced at Nationals Park, too? It felt loud and echoey. Even on TV for the opener, I noticed when they were playing the video, the Morgan Freeman narration, the sound coming through the TV, it took Morgan Freeman's voice, which is maybe like the greatest voice in the history of humanity, and it made it sound very dark and creepy. meant acoustically to have nobody in them when they're playing sounds and playing music and having voiceovers like that so did it have that same kind of hollow feel that eno was describing when you were at nats park yeah the weirder part was the nats actually hosted the jays for their

home openers so wednesday and thursday's games were absolutely bizarre you had the blue jays montage on the jumbotron you had the pa announcer who was very like monotone announcing the gnats and then all four like you know what's going on the canadian flag is in center field in the seventh inning they started playing okay blue jays and i was like i love this song just being an alee forever all the nl guys were like what on earth is going on here right and the weirdest part guys is you know you're starting to you're like there's no crowd noise the nats are the road team they play extra innings that night and you're like holy shit they could get walked off on in their own stadium like is that not funny

like fortunately they won the game because otherwise it was just like, this is the creepiest thing I've ever seen. Wasn't there the Dodgers guy, Edwin Rios, hit the first leadoff two-run homer in the history of baseball? Yeah, this is like a season that's just ripe for Jason Stark articles. This weirdness is perfect for him. Yeah, if the Nats had been walked off at home, that would

probably be the first time that's ever happened. We've had a few unusual situations where teams have been temporarily displaced, but usually those teams aren't playing in their home park as the road team. I can't really recall ever seeing that happen before. It's been

a bizarro year, of course. And I'm glad you brought up the extra innings rule. Starting a runner on second base and extra innings, we've seen it play out a few times. I saw Brewers-Pirates game with that, Dodgers-Astros. You mentioned the game you saw, Britt. Do you like that as a wrinkle this season? I mean, from a writer's perspective, I know the longer a game goes, the more frustrating that is because that's just time spent in the press box and people who don't cover the game are like, how could you guys want to leave? It's like, well, we do this

every day and it's just not quite fun. It's just extra unpaid work. As someone who is okay with the game maybe being sped up in the extra innings, how did you feel about that modification, kind of seeing it play out? I'm okay if it speeds the game up, though.

Didn't the Houston game the other night go like 13 innings and take forever? I don't know if it speeds the game up. I think it does add some intrigue, right? Rather than like continuing like the other night, continuing to swap zeros maybe with the Nats and the Blue Jays, it finally like created a little like strategy. And, you know, Nats manager Davey Martinez, I asked him afterward, he said,

it kind of felt like NL baseball for once, like it was back almost, you know, obviously, we don't have the DH anymore. And there's a lot of strategy and a lot of differences. But he he kind of liked it. I kind of liked it. At first, I hated it watching it. I'm like, well, at least it's something fun and different when you've already watched like three and a half hours of baseball, and you're just hoping somebody scores. It kind of gives you a little bit of energy. I don't know. You know, how do you feel about this?

Well, you know, there's nothing more deflating for a press box, I think, than someone tying it in the ninth. You know, at least at least the road team, at least, you know, it's like you see everybody slump over in the press box. Everyone's changing their game story. And they're just like, ah. And some of those newspaper people have to file by a certain time. So they'll have to file some weird game story that doesn't really have an ending to it. Because it's like, well, it's 11. Gotta get it in.

And I'm just like, that is so weird. But I will say this. It's not just the writers. I don't think that people appreciate how bad extra inning baseball is, especially when it gets to like the 18th inning. Because what happens is, and I don't know if people know this, but swing rates go through the roof. Like the average swing rate in baseball is like 40%. In the 16th inning, it's like 55%.

Everyone is just like taking these huge swings and trying to end the game. And of course, that means that the pitcher knows this and can manipulate that, and that's why you get these zeros. Run scoring just goes into the basement, and that's why it sucks. So I actually, you know, I was expecting like maybe everyone's going to bunt the guy over and then try to get a sacrifice fly, and that would be really boring. But I think everyone knows now that you put a guy on second, the other team's going to get that too, and they're probably going to score a run.

So almost everyone's playing for multiple runs because they figure if I score one run, the other team's going to score one, and I'm just going to keep doing this. So we need to turn this guy on second into two runs in order to win. And I think that's actually kind of played out. Most teams are swinging away. I've seen like three X-Rating games. I don't think I've seen a bunt yet. Yeah, I think you're right.

And also like what makes sense logistically for 2020, and we don't know if this is going to be something, all these rule changes are going to stick or not stick, but they're trying to get them off the field, right? They're trying to limit injuries and limit how long they're on the field together, which is the reason why they're going to shorten up those double headers to seven innings this year.

So it makes a lot of sense logistically, like just hurry up and find a winner, which I think is ultimately what they're trying to do, right? Like no one's going to come out and say, let's hurry up and find a winner. You know, right? Like no one's going to come out and say, let's do three innings. Let's do three innings. Let's find a winner. You know, I've had a rock,

paper, scissors, you know, they're just trying to like speed it up a little bit so that somebody gets a win because I think everyone can agree that, you know, if they end up not making up these games that like the win, a season decided by winning percentage is going to really irritate the

players. I think they're trying to find as many conclusions as possible. Is it fair? Is it right? Well, is anything fair and right in 2020? You know? Yeah. percentage is going to really irritate the players. I think they're trying to find as many conclusions as possible. Is it fair? Is it right? Well, is anything fair and right in 2020? You know?

Yeah. Well, you know, we can't even get through a week without a new outbreak. So I got, I just got a text from, from AGM saying it's over. So I don't know.

There's a lot of pessimism today. Yeah. He didn't get word that it's over. He just is feeling like it's over. Yes, he's feeling pessimistic this morning. If they play tomorrow, maybe things change. But, you know, what, like the Phillies, do we have any word on positive tests from the Phillies yet?

Just the one, right? I saw a tweet go by right before we started recording that said no new test as of today. So a little sliver of good news, right? I would expect just from being an amateur epidemiologist that on the field. I like how you've given yourself that. Semi-pro. Semi-pro. I would feel like on the field transmission might be lower.

There are the two spots. But, like, when the catcher and the hitter are not, like, speaking to each other. They're not, like, looking at each other. It's, like, a little bit more like this. I don't know. That's, I think, at the plate is probably the time where I'm the most nervous. But it's the dugout. I mean, put the masks on in the dugout, please.

Yeah, it's the dugout. It's the planes. Like, I think if your brewers, guys, even if they say, hey, we tested everyone, they're good, would you feel okay as a Milwaukee brewer playing tomorrow? I would not feel good about it, and I would wear a mask. I would play with a mask on. I would figure it out.

If I hadn't been wearing one on the field, I'd be wearing one on the field because we know it can be a few days before more players begin to test positive. We've seen that with the Phillies. It's been five to seven. That's why the Phillies are still sitting. And I think the hard thing about this is that the KBO had a plan. If the KBO had a plan, if there was an outbreak, they were going to shut down for two weeks.

And MLB doesn't really have that, right? There's not anything written down that confirms, like, at this point, we will do this. It's sort of build the airplane while it's in the air, like Britt said last week, and make up these rules on the fly. I mean, literally, this is how fantasy baseball is happening, where we're changing rules in season. We're like, actually, we're going to do daily moves, because guys keep disappearing, because games keep getting canceled.

So, we've never done this before. We've never played through a pandemic before, so I get that they're not going to have all the answers figured out, but I think what frustrates me the most is that things were handled differently in Korea as a country. We don't have to get into that. But the KBO had a good plan. And how the MLB didn't take that and say, hey, this worked pretty well. Why don't we put this in place? Why don't we use this as our foundation? That's the frustrating part. It seems like they're making up things that they didn't have to make up, and that's going to cost them in the long run. And it's just a really unnecessary source of

frustration and disappointment. So I think we should move on to some of the new rules. Britt, you reported earlier this week, double headers, seven inning games. I think we're going to see a lot of double headers if things keep moving forward to try and make up ground and avoid the winning percentage scenario that you guys outlined. How many doubleheaders do you think we're going to play this season, Britt? Like per team, like if you had to project a rough average. I mean, I think each – you're probably looking at maybe like a half dozen right in the 60-game season as it stands right now, maybe even more.

I mean, the Phillies are going to take an eight-day pause. Even if you eliminate one or two off days, you're looking at six double headers and that's assuming, which I think is a big leap that there's no other issues, right. With any other team. So the nationals are off guys until Tuesday right now, which like how many teams and I haven't really gone through, like are impacted by all this, right. There's so many different.

Oh yeah. It goes beyond the positive test team so um yeah the union sent a text message to players on wednesday and asked them what they thought obviously they were all for that um extending the 30-man roster is another thing they're talking about doing with mlb which makes sense um given the fact that like you look at the marlins all of a sudden half their team is gone right you need to be able to have some reinforcements if something happens if the cardinals do say we're going to play minus these two two guys you know they need those they need those extra spots um so i think it makes a lot of sense for these seven inning double headers and for the 30 man rosters just

from a again like we talked about with the extra innings rule like a hurry up let's get a decision let's get in get out and get on with the season. It seems very obvious. MLB is doing everything possible just to get to the postseason. They put their chart at tomorrow. So I think that they were kind of on the fence about the double headers. And then as soon as you heard the Phillies news yesterday, all of a sudden MLB was making progress. All of a sudden now it's going to get announced and it's going to get enacted starting august 1st so um to me it also shows that when mlb wants to

make something happen they can do it quickly so where are the protocols can we just like it's a living document can we just change them around now and say this is enough to shut the season down and this is not um why is that still not really been a thing those conversations have to be happening yeah hopefully worst job in baseball right now is scheduler, though. My God. Traveling secretary. Yeah, traveling secretary and whoever's in charge of the schedule.

I was like, oh, well, Yankees-Phillies, they're close to each other, they can make those games up. They tried to have the Yankees play Baltimore to create some flexibility later, but it becomes this to, like, create some flexibility later. But just, like, it's, like, becomes this thing. Well, if they play them here instead of this, then they have to move this over there.

And then they have to change this. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. That's my nightmare. I'm glad I don't have that job. Yeah, I think there's a failure of national leadership on this one. think there's a failure of national leadership on this one uh i i don't know if it's born of the fact that there's like this contentious relationship between the union and um mlb leadership because you know that was relevant when it came to the money side but you know when it came to the health side i don't think the union was actually pushing back so much as being like you know that we'd like

them to be able to take showers advocating for the players. But it didn't seem as contentious. They always said, oh, we'll figure out the health part. We'll figure out the health part. So I don't know. There should have been more stringent protocols. There should have been more benchmarks. We should have had these benchmarks.

We should have known what. The only benchmark we had was that three equals an outbreak so basically by their preseason protocols this st louis cardinals thing is not an outbreak you know so you know by preseason protocols like this is this would be to be expected not a big deal just two guys but we learned like with the marlins well four turned into 18 uh pretty dang quickly. So, I don't know. Does two equals stop? And it's funny.

It's like, well, two equals cancel tonight, but they'll play tomorrow. It'll be fine tomorrow. Well, the gestation period is like five to seven days. So, they'll play tomorrow, and then they'll all be sick a week from now. It'll be great. It'll be fine. Did you read that McCullough's piece? Oh, my God.

Oh, my God. Oh Oh my god Just it's fine That was It was a chef's kiss That was well done by Andy McCullough That's what we're living right now We're living the it's fine Meme In real life

People playing baseball with the world aflame around them. Exactly. And for those who didn't read it, it's hilarious. The whole thing is satire. And then you look at the comments and you get depressed because people are like, yes, Andy, absolutely. Finally. Finally.

A writer who loves baseball. Baseball. It's like detailing everything that happened to the Blue Jays who, like God bless them, have gone through already a ton and everything going on it's like oh here's all the angry players and it's like oh fans get treated to what players are thinking you know with it with the cursing carriage piece was good too you know that's definitely true you could hear the cursing very loud and clear uh from yeah're sitting. What kind of week is this when Joe Kelly throwing at the head of another Astro has become like the 10th most important story by Friday, guys? I mean, what world is this?

That was on the outline three days ago. It didn't really make the cut as more than a comment in passing. I got to ask the hard-hitting questions. Britt, do you actually like baseball? No. Why do people think that that's like a thing? Like, of you actually like baseball? No. Why do people think that that's a thing? Of course I want baseball to happen. Probably in the same boat as everyone else.

Baseball is super fun. Our jobs are super fun. Nothing about this year is fun. As you said at the park, it's not fun. You can't talk to anybody. You can't go anywhere. You're sitting there with your mask on, wondering if somebody has it around you uh nothing about this year is fun so i do enjoy watching the actual games go on on tv uh

but that's about it everything else about this like you know poor you know waking up this morning and like probably being like holy hell the world is over right like i don't miss that at all um i miss the days when all we did was complain about the astros and when like a justin verlander and clayton kershaw being done for maybe the season was big news literally no one has talked about that at all because it's so far down the totem pole like we were saying with joe kelly that's what i miss i miss you know the biggest issue was fans complaining about davy martinez's ninth inning decisions um you know we've been going at this for 25 minutes, and have we talked about a game outcome yet

as it relates to something important? I mean, just think about it. Who's playing well? I do think we should talk about the Joe Kelly thing. So I think you shouldn't throw at people's heads, right? I can agree to that, yeah. You should not throw projectiles at people's heads. Bad things can happen,

especially when you throw 95 miles an hour with inconsistent command, as Joe Kelly possesses. Window-pane Joe Kelly. And I should clarify, I don't want to fight Joe Kelly. I think Joe Kelly would probably destroy me in a fight. I'm not trying to call him out. I'm not sure about that.

Just because he could throw 98. That guy, you could see it in his eyes. You don't want to fight Joe Kelly. It's a bad idea. This is my point, though. I don't think it's fair to say that this is a 21 or 22-game suspension because 2.7 times. It's not fair because the way suspensions work is you have to think about how many games you're actually pulling them out of, right?

So you gave him an eight-game suspension. It's like giving, like when you give a position player a five game suspension, you have to give like a starting pitcher almost like a 25 game suspension to like, to like make it the same, right? You know, like, so when you give a reliever an eight game suspension, it's like three appearances, you know? So you're really taking three appearances away and yes those appearances are weighted two point like are each of those games is 2.7 times more more important but like in terms of precedent and stuff you're not gonna if you just just spend Joe Kelly three days and say oh well it's actually

nine you know like uh you're only taking him out of one game and the way the precedent works is like the next time somebody will be like, well, Joe Kelly only got three. Why am I getting eight? So I understand the 2.7 times. I understand math. But I don't actually think that this Joe Kelly suspension is that aggressive. I think it fits in precedent.

It's an eight-game suspension. It's two or three appearances. Based on usage, it's more like a 2.7-game suspension. He pitches like every second or third game. Exactly. It's nice that it fits into that framework. I got a hilarious message this morning that was like, Joe Kelly's getting suspended eight games while the season's only lasting seven.

You're right. Will it carry over to 2021? Yeah, right. Does it carry over? Oh, my God. They have to carry it over. You have to laugh to keep from crying, dude. Jesus Christ.

I know. That's pretty good. That's pretty good. Does it carry over? I was already starting to think about next season probably again, Fantasy Keeper Leagues, seeing how this one's not looking so great. But if you don't have a vaccine by next year, which is at least a possibility, right? Things are encouraging, but vaccine development takes some time.

How do you change things for 2021? Do you plan on a bubble? It's so hard to project anything that far into the future. project anything that far into the future. And if you don't try a bubble, do you start projecting a schedule in which you play the same team for a week straight, and then you move on and quarantine for a couple of days, and then start

your next series, or at least five-game series would make sense. You'd see each team starting pitcher once before moving on, reduce the amount of travel in the schedule. That might not be a bad idea anyway, when you think about it in the grand scheme of things. You could stretch out the divisional matchups a little bit better anyway. I've been talking to players about reducing the number

of regular season games anyway. The only problem is that they get sort of paid by regular season games. You have to think about pay structure and stuff. But I think most players, in Japan, everyone gets Sunday off. I think it's Sunday or Monday. They get one day a week off. And they play a shorter schedule. Like, 154, 145, like, that would allow you more space.

And if we're still, like, in the grips of this virus next year, why not say, like, 133? And, you know, you play five days against one team. You quarantine for two, everyone gets tested and then you move on to the next place and play for five games. I mean, why not? I I'm into that, but I also would like to say one last plea for the bubble. I know that it's harder than other sports. I know that there's a bigger rosters. Um, I know that it's a bigger deal, but like travel is, is a travel is the biggest portion of this, I think. And Arizona is a viable thing for me.

And I think you could have games at 10 a.m. and 8 or 9 p.m. And those would generally line up with sort of 12 o'clock East Coast starts, especially they don't do summer, they don't do like daylight savings. So it would be like basically 12 o'clock east coast starts and seven o'clock west coast starts. So basically you could still kind of hit your normal TV schedules and you could stay out of the 120 degree weather, I think for the most part, if you did that. I mean, at the end of the game would be kind of hot, but the hottest part of the day is always like sort of two to five. So why not do that? Arizona's pretty good. I mean, at the end of the game would be kind of hot, but the hottest part of the day is always like sort of two to five. So why not do that? Arizona's pretty good. I mean, yeah, you have to set up some track mans or some Hawkeyes. You might have to put up some lighting stanchions

or whatever it is they're doing in Buffalo. But like, you know, baseball has money and this, you know, if you do the bubble, I think it would work out better than any travel based idea. Yeah. That's my plea for the bubble. I agree with the bubble. My it would work out better than than any travel-based idea yeah that's my my plea for the bubble i i agree with the bubble my i my problem is how do you get the players to agree to the bubble like to not see their families for that long right like this year alone you would have had harper trout all these guys that are having kids uh can't you bring the families into the bubble i i think maybe you create four bubbles geographic bubbles and then you can let more of the families in so that you can house those

bubbles. And then that's it. You're only playing those teams in the bubbles until the playoff or something. That'd be kind of fun too, because then you wouldn't have, they wouldn't have seen each other. We kind of go back to the old American league of the national league. We'd like, Whoa, you know, these two teams haven't played each other. They don't know anything about each other. That's kind of fun. Right. Cause I just think logistically, like having them all in one bubble, there's so many of them,

right? It's just not the NBA. They've got, what, like, ten times the amount of people when you factor in the expanded rosters and all the people that take to make baseball operate. So many more coaches. Yeah. So maybe you have multiple bubbles, and you say families are cool for regular season, postseason, like, X everyone, players

only, everyone is safe. You go to one bubble, and that's it. And it's only, like, three to four weeks or five weeks something you can do it dude dude the marlins are getting on a bus yes 17 hour bus all the covid guys who's driving that bus are they getting hazard pay oh my god the bus, dude Oh my god I had a guy today that was like a player that was like I would quit if they wanted me to I don't care if I had COVID or not You want me to do what?

A 17 hour bus ride with everybody who has COVID And imagine like Somebody coughs Imagine somebody coughs on that bus Everyone's like You'd never be Taking that bus. Everyone's like, Mother of God. You better be. They just take that bus next. Oh, yeah. They just take the whole bus

and dunk it in bleach. Just like, dunk it up with a crane. Just burn it. Don't even... You're not sterilizing that. Just burn it. What is the hotel they've been housed at, though? There's a reason you haven't heard what hotel it is, because you know that hotel's got other guests.

Oh, my God. Well, if you book that hotel on Priceline, it's going to be like $10. That's how you're going to know. You're going to get a four-star hotel for $10. Oh, my God. I'm checking out. I saw Sandy Alcantara. I'm out of here. It's so bad. And you're right. It's like, if you don't laugh,

you'd cry, because this is such a cluster. And it's so 2020 in every way like it speaks to how we've handled it it's a national tragedy like just how poor our response has been like this was so inevitable from the start i keep thinking about this bubble for bubble thing you guys just talked about i mean you probably have to just focus on major league facilities that have retractable roofs so you'd have places like the new ballpark in Arlington Miller Park in Milwaukee T-Mobile field I think it's

called now in Seattle maybe that's a contender you kind of pick your spots but then you'd have a lot of teams concentrated in one city I think it's doable but you have to kind of remake some of the areas in those ballparks to have enough facilities for players unless you take some existing space near the ballpark and turn that into almost like a remote clubhouse for everybody. The actual facilities are just not meant to house seven or eight teams at a time.

I would just say turn the whole concourse into having three or four have like three or four uh clubhouses built you know just you know they and you'd rather be open air you don't want to be in so like just make just put lockers up in the club in the in the in the court concourse then it's a little bit more you know a little bit less like just recycling everybody's air in your face so yeah i think it would be doable i think you could do it um i don't I'm stuck One song that's stuck in my head today I'm feeling maybe a little rebellious After all this negativity My kid is really into

Imagine Dragons Whip whip run me like a race horse Pull me like a rip cord Whatever it takes Oh no That's like Rob Manfred's wake-up song in the morning and i'm probably echoing that cardinals what's that what's that cardinals prominent cardinals players say totally i mean it just seems to me like guys there's this wide range of emotions

with players right because every time we talk to max scherzer who's a big union guy he had a big part in getting the season done. He refuses to complain, refuses to address any of the issues that are going on with it, which is kind of unusual to some extent, because he's a guy who's usually very upfront, very honest. So I just think that it just kind of shows, whereas you have Sean Doolittle,

who kind of called out the testing early, and you just have a wide range of players. And just hearing that today where some Cardinals want to go and they're like, let's do it. And some of them are like, Hey man, like I got a family, like slow the brakes, you know, like I can't afford to get sick. So I think in baseball, it seems like, because there are so many guys, different backgrounds, it just seems like it's, they have so many more logistical obstacles than the NBA.

And like you talked about Derek, like next spring, I think if I'm MLB, I'm consulting with soccer and the NBA and the NFL and I'm looking and I'm like creating some kind of committee and seeing like what works and what doesn't work and really closely watching these other sports and seeing what you can take and what you can't. So by next spring, if we are in this situation which you know we very well what might be there's at least some like subcommittee that's dedicated for the last you know six eight months to practices yeah to like figuring this out and having some

epidemiologists you know maybe maybe eno who is who is moonlighting on the side can be on this committee you know but you know i just think that there has to be a way for right now while we're in it to think about the future. But, you know, I mean, Eno also has a great voice here. I mean, he's a man of many talents. Dr. Saris. Call it paging Dr. Saris. With the beard t-shirt. People can't see that.

Sport the beard t-shirt, I think. Oh, yeah. It's interesting because Mark Saxon, he covers the Cardinals for The Athletic. He had a tweet about an hour ago. A prominent Cardinals player informs me he wants to play tomorrow. Quote, can't let this all crumble. And it's never been about toughness and wanting to do things. It's always been about just doing what the medical community tells us to do.

Listen to the smart people. Just listen to them and it will get better. If we can just be diligent about that, things won't crumble. It's not, I'm tough. I can go hit a home run tomorrow and we're going to win. No, that's not it. Also, who is that prominent Cardinals player? There's only like three guys it could be.

It's like a terrible game of guess who. Who do you think that prominent Cardinals player is? I don't think Yachty says Crumble. I don't think he says Crumble. I think Crumble is a... You know, Crumble is like a

dessert. I love Crumbles. Tyler O'Neal is a power lifter. I think that's Matt Carpenter. He's not a prominent player. I think Carpenter at 2-1 would be my favorite. If I had to set odds on who that prominent Cardinals player is, I'd put that out there.

What do you think, Britt? Yeah, and Goldschmidt's so very vanilla that I don't see him, one, using the word Crumbles, and two, maybe not texting Mark back. I don't know. Right, right. Goldschmidt is eating a giant bowl of cornflakes he's not checking texts right now yeah but like back to your point eric the issue is is like guys are so conditioned to play through anything right their hamstring hurts

their foot hurts they're this they're so conditioned that they need an adult in the room this is where there needs to be an adult and this is where the marlins went wrong with the group text of the players deciding they should play is like this is not an injury this is not you know this is a pandemic and a virus you really need adults to say like that's cool but shut up and go in the corner like this has nothing to do with you you will do what we tell you like the players shouldn't be deciding what's a great plan here you know and i think that's the issue is guys like you said are like oh i'm so tough blah blah i'm gonna play through this covid can't get me well like this is this is just silly to even be to bit this is not a case of being tough or being not tough by not not wanting to play at all but just look at eduardo

rodriguez man like just be like hey, yes, you probably won't die, but you might get this heart thing, dude. And, like, your heart is pretty important. You know, there's some, you know, there's some. Dr. Saris weighs in on the importance of the heart. No, the heart is very important. But also there's, like, evidence that, like, lung capacity changes afterwards. So, like, you know.

Oh, man. Yeah, lungs also important. Oh, man. Lung's also important. Also, you can't catch a sprained ankle from somebody. You cannot. I'm going to add the brain to your list of important organs, by the way. I think you should point out that the brain is also important. Those are probably your top three.

Your heart, your brain, your lungs, not necessarily in that order. My five-year-old has gotten very interested in death and us being mortals and has recently, this morning or yesterday morning, said, you know, dad, if your brain falls out, you die. You got to get him off the Imagine Dragons. Those lyrics are terrible. That's on you. Dr. Saris's book's a little too much. Yeah. No, but I think it's a great point that you need to kind of pull players back from the field sometimes.

They are definitely conditioned to kind of grind it out. I mean, that's like our favorite – a baseball player's favorite word is – their favorite descriptor is, I'm a grinder. And look, all three of us would really like there to be baseball. It is good to keep all of us employed. We like talking about baseball and writing about baseball. Even though Britt answered that question kind of like a GM, and Eno dodged the question completely. He didn't even address it head on.

So we've done over 100 episodes of this show. I don't know if Eno even likes baseball. Never even verified it. We let Britt join the show on Fridays, and we don't know if she likes baseball either. But it kind of sounds like she does. I'm going to give Eno the benefit of the doubt, too. I think you guys – oh, there it is. Oh, I wonder if sports missed me, too.

Someday this might be a video show, and then our shirts will matter. I've got a shirt on for the draft of minutes. It's got a big plate on it. It says Flex. It's not because Brit lifts. I do not. It's for a league that I'm in. The accuracy is Flex.

Brit, do you think you could out – you're big in deadlift, right? Yeah, yeah. Deadlift squat. Do you think you could outlift some players? If they were around my size. Size matters, like relatively speaking. I can squat more than twice my body weight. So if a player weighs 200 pounds, then he can only squat 350.

Then by what they call Wilks in powerlifting, I'm actually stronger. Nice, nice. So then the answer is yes. Yeah. stronger. Nice. Then the answer is yes. Gerard Dyson, he's a small frame guy. Wilkes says yes. Wilkes says yes. We should do that.

You should go up against Gerard Dyson in a power lifting contest. It'd be fun. Some of them are sneaky strong though. They're like wimpy. He might be way more solid than we realize it's hard to tell I was thinking about this with body types

and stuff Anderson Simmons looks like a cowboy because he's got a little bit of that bend he's not bow legged he's a little bit bow legged but What is that? Like, is he bow-legged? He's a little bit bow-legged. Yeah. But he also reminds me of Jacob deGrom in terms of body size.

I was like, you know, he could have been a really good pitcher. I mean, he was drafted at 97 or so. And someone described Jacob deGrom as whippy. And I was like, I think that might be the two body types that I like the best in baseball are whippy and then what I would call like fireplug. So like Harrison Bader is like fireplug. It's not very big, but it's just like, you know, Tyler O'Neill-ish is like, you know like Jacob deGrom and Annalisa Simmons somebody who can like just sort of use the leverage of their limbs to

kind of create velocity and do things like that but there's another Dr. Nick type musing for me I mean like to follow on that manager Buck Showalter was always like hey I need you guys to look at these guys' ass and we'd be like what?

It was like an old adage of like old scouting, you know, in the Yankees. Like, if a guy didn't have a good ass, then he wasn't going to be a good pitcher. Like, he wasn't going to be able to get power from his legs. For pitcher. Yeah. So, like, you know, look, check out. I mean, it's a lot less creepy probably for me. I don't even know.

Is it more creepy for me or for you guys? I'm not sure. No. But if you check the picture's butts, then you can kind of see who's going to make it as prospect-wise. So that was always a big thing. Scouting is creepy, dude. Scouting, yeah.

There's some work to be done to clean up scouting. A lot of work. But also, a lot of times, you're scouting a 12-year-old or a 13-year-old in the Dominican. Whoa. You've got to hold on yourself here. But I have talked on Austin Meadows. I'm going to be 19. year old or 13 year old in the Dominican, like, Whoa, like get a hold on yourself here. And then, but I, I have talked about Austin Meadows. Right. 19. Uh, I, I've, uh, I've, uh, I've,

I've talked about Austin Meadows ass for years and years because, you know, there was like, there was a question about whether or not he would have any power. And I was like, look at that ass. He has power. So, uh, I think there's, there's something to this ass scouting i like it derrick can this please be the one snippet you take out of this hour is you know saying like look at that ass i'll just cut that and put it right into the beginning and people are going to know at the very beginning of the show as the music starts this episode was a lot of fun so Went off the rails. I stayed for the COVID updates and I stayed for Eno and Brent Derrickson on acid. I know this is how scouts look at players, so I don't think that was an

isolated incident with Buck telling you guys to look at players that way. I think looking at body type is absolutely something scouts have done for a long time and that's one of those signs. Power comes from the legs, right? That's simple. That's an easy way to identify it. I think also ass gives you a little sense

of how much more the legs could fill out because it kind of gives you a sense of this type of leg would fit in that ass. He has a slightly larger ass than his legs suggest, so he can probably put some weight on those legs. It's similar to when Manny Machado, when they first drafted him, he was so, like, real thin, but you could see the frame, right? Yeah.

And that's what scouts look at, too, right? Is they can fill out their frame. Isn't that, like, a big thing? Like, you can match 20, 30 pounds and, like, fill out, whereas, like, some of these other guys, like, have kind of maxed out, right? You're like, I don't know if they can add more velocity, power, whatever it may be. Like, Austin Riley's not going to get any bigger. No. Right bigger. No. Or if he does, it's not good news. Yeah. But the projectable frame is very real. If you have these like disproportions that could

become more proportional over time, then you have something really good there. Well, Dr. Saris has an anatomy lecture here that he has to get to in a few minutes, so we should wrap it up. But if you're enjoying this show on a platform that allows you to rate and review this podcast, please give us a rating and review. We greatly appreciate that. If you don't have a subscription to The Athletic, you can get 40% off at theathletic.com slash rates and barrels. Get

Brit's articles, get Eno's articles, all the baseball coverage, league-wide, team-by-team, fantasy stuff, too. I'm going to write an ads and drops column on Saturday. It's going to be full because a bunch of guys are hurt, a bunch of guys are sick, and the schedule's a mess. So lots of fun stuff there. As always, you can reach us via email, ratesandbarrelsattheathletic.com. If you want to reach us, and be sure to use the word and spelled out. If you send an email, you can't use the and sign.

That doesn't work. On Twitter, she's at Britt underscore Droli. He's at Eno Saris. I'm at Derek Van Ryper. That is going to wrap things up for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We are back with you on Tuesday. Thanks for listening.