Episode 8 Season 1.

Hoffman is out as the closer. Major league baseball teams are hiring unqualified coaching at the big league level. Radar guns are lying to everyone

Transcript

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This is Walk Off Slams with Greg Zone on AM 1150.

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Well, Blue Jays fans, we know that Jeff Hoffman is no longer the closer for the Toronto Blue Jays, which should tell you fans that they still think they can win. Because if they didn't think they could win, they would just kind of roll with it and take what he's given you. Ross Atkins gave us the news about Jeff Hoffman, and a lot of people are wondering why it took the Blue Jays so long to make that decision. Well, first you got to ask yourself, you know, who is this Hoffman guy and how did he end up in a Jays uniform? And what made the Jays think that he could be a closer? Well, Hoffman was originally drafted by the Blue Jays, which makes everybody in the front office excited about getting him back in the organization. He was a first-round draft pick, after all. So that's one of those things that guys can't admit they're wrong on. And they traded him away to bring Troy Tulawitzki to the Blue Jays organization. So they always had high thoughts or high opinions of Jeff Hoffman. But when you look at his career numbers, his career numbers minus the saves from a year ago were pretty much on par with what he did last year. So let's take a look. You know, you see an ERA just under five, and you wonder, well, is is this a guy who should be closing ball games? Is this a guy with a whip of 1.4 career, four walks per nine, K per nine under nine, not exactly closer worthy. And you're sitting there thinking, well, if these are his numbers, then how on earth did he get to be the closer? Well, one thing I'm going to tell you about closers. The closers are the closers because the team says they're the closers. And most closers in the Major League Baseball convert about 65% of the opportunities that they get to close games. 65%. The elite, the best ever, Mariano Rivera, 85%. Put that into perspective. So 85 times out of 100, he's going to convert to save. Now that doesn't necessarily mean that he doesn't give up a run. It just means he got three outs before the other team tied the game or took the lead. So going back to Jeff Hoffman, what was it about this guy when he was in Philly, which is where he was before he came to the Jays as a free agent? What was it about this guy that led them to believe that he could close games? Well, if you go back and you look at his 23 and 24 numbers in Philly, they're ridiculous. They're amazing. We're talking about a two ERA. And if you've ever been to Philly, you know the ballpark's a joke. An absolute joke. Routine fly balls fly out of there. And so him having a two ERA in the modern era, and I and I say the modern era is after Major League Baseball bought Rawlings, started super juicing the balls, you know, the advent of maple bats, the lightning rods that are super light and ridiculously hard. The two ERA that he threw up in in 23 and 24, awesome. Awesome numbers. So you couple that with the fact that he's a former first-round pick by the Jays. He's throwing up ridiculous numbers. The contract costs you 11 million. You're thinking, wow, how did we how do we get this guy? Well, in my mind, I'm sitting there looking at the numbers, and I'm saying to myself, if this guy's that good, why are the Phillies allowing this guy to hit the open market? Where's the qualifying offer? You know, why isn't this guy on a multi-year deal after 2023, 2024? Why isn't this guy a priority for the Phillies? And if you go look at the guys they had closing games, not exactly household names in my world. So I'm sitting there going, maybe they knew something that nobody else knew. Well, fast forward to Jeff Hoffman in a Blue Jays uniform, and I can tell you he converted 82% of the save opportunities that he was afforded in 2025. 82%. That's three off the goat of Mariano Rivera. So yeah, the ERA was you know just under five, which I mean, I'll tell you the story. You know, when he gives it up, he gives it up. When Mariano gave it up, you you were like, okay, he gave up a run, he might give up two, you know, if somebody hits a two-run jack, but that didn't happen very often. He was ridiculously stingy over the course of 19 years. And so can you know, Hoffman converts 82% of his save opportunities last year. You got to ask yourself, am I really surprised that John Schneider and the Blue Jays have all this faith in the guy and that they weren't willing to ride out his early season struggles? Well, clearly they were only willing to go so far with it. But you know, I'm gonna get to Schneider now. So I as a former player, if I'm in that Blue Jays clubhouse and I'm watching the way he's standing behind Hoffman after the numbers he threw up in 23, 24, the save conversion rate in 25, I'm thinking to myself, I gotta back my boy. I gotta dance with the girl I took to the prom here. You know, I'm I'm not gonna I'm not gonna throw him under the bus. I'm not gonna abandon ship right away. I gotta give him a shot to at least get hot and figure this out. But he's still making the same mistakes. And, you know, if you're an avid listener of the program, you know that I warned you at the beginning of the season not to look at this Blue Jays team with the same lens that you were looking at him at the end of 2025 when they took the Dodgers, or I should say the Dodgers took themselves to game seven. The Blue Jays really didn't have much to do with it. Um, but the point is they did not address a lot of things. Hoffman's still a guy who throws 97 to 100, trying to trick everybody. Ernie Clement's still swinging at everything. He's gonna have days where he goes 0 for 4 and sees five pitches, and then there's other days where he's three for three with a couple of doubles and he's only seen five pitches. I mean, he's a hacking machine. Uh everybody is still the same guy that they were last year. There's been very little to look at that's any different than what we saw last year. And Hoffman, for me, still got problems, still has it asked backwards with regards to how he pitches. Here's a guy with a big fastball. Does he have fastball command? No, he does not. Does he understand what pitches to throw in what situations? No, he does not. And I blame the Blue Jays scouting department, the catching, I blame it on everybody. They're they're not pitching smart with the guys who they have. So, you know, when I when I look at what they're staring at when they come out of spring training, they're looking at guy Jeff Hoffman who threw a lot of sliders last year. Now he's throwing a whole bunch of splits, which is a harder pitch to command than a slider. But when you're a hitter and you look at these guys and you go, okay, I'm sitting soft. He's gonna throw something soft 75% of the time. Well, I'm gonna definitely pay attention to that. I don't have to respect his fastball. Uh so I look at it and I go, all right, let me try to call Jeff Hoffman's game. As a catcher, when I'm calling the game, the way I was taught to call the game, which is the way I think it should be called, you look at the situation and you ask yourself, what's the worst possible outcome that I could endure if I called a wrong pitch? So let's take a look at a particular game in Arizona where he blows the save. He gives up a grand slam to Kobe Carroll. All right, well, let's back up. Okay, it's a tie ball game. In a tie ball game, the worst thing that you could have happen is extra base hits. Most hitters, their best chance for an extra base hit is to the pull side. So that should dictate to you as a catcher, as a pitcher, what pitches you are going to throw in those situations. So remembering, the best chance for an extra base hit is pull side, and we're in a tie ball game. And what pitches give hitters the best chance to pull? Fastballs up in the zone or middle in. Off speed pitches in the strike zone. Why do you say that? Well, don't off-speed pitches trick guys? They do when they're below the zone. You get a lot of swing and misses when you properly execute your breaking balls, but there's a risk reward there. Okay? They speed up the barrel. Okay, so now I've already set the stage for you. I've given you all of the insight that I was given in my entire life, starting at my dinner table at Christmas, sitting there with my uncle who caught 24 years in the big leagues. Things that most fans don't know. I just told you, fastballs up in the zone, middle in, and breaking balls allow for pull. All right, so let's go to the first hitting, the first hitter of the inning against Arizona. All right, hot hitter. Il Demaro Vargas leads off. The first pitch that Hoffman throws him, slider. Not fastball down and away. He gives him a pitch to pull. He misses. Okay. Ball one. Then he comes back with an off-speed pitch, the split, the change, whatever he's calling it, that doesn't change planes. It's just soft. It allows for the barrel to get out front. He allows a base hit up the middle. Okay, single, but still a chance to pull. So Alec Thomas then squares to bunt, fastball down and away, ball one. It was a good pitch, great choice, but ball one. So he wanted to bunt it to first base, and so he's not going to allow him to bunt it to first base. He throws him something away. Tougher pitch to bunt to the pull side. Now he goes fastball away, but he leaves it up. He poorly executes the pitch and he gives up a single. Now, that one I can live with. All right. I can live with it. Opposite field single. No big deal. All right. So what are we looking for now? In this situation, we're looking for a ground ball or a strikeout, but he throws a first pitch split in the dirt. All right, fine, cool. You're trying to get that swing and miss, that strikeout. Maybe he rolls over the split. So then a fastball misses up and away. And now we're in deep trouble here. We're 2-0. 2-0 split misses badly. He throws him a split 3-0 because he's worried about giving up a big ball. He doesn't want to throw the fastball because why? He doesn't have any fastball command. He can't locate it down and away 3-0. So he goes and he throws him a split and it misses. Now, we already know what happens next, but before we get to that, I have to say, given all of Hoffman's struggles, how do you not have somebody up, preferably a ground ball or another strikeout guy, uh, up in that situation? Loyalty. You're not going to, you're, you don't, you don't have somebody warming up in the bullpen when your closer leaves the bullpen because that shows no confidence in him whatsoever. And that's, you know, uh tip tipping my cap to John Schneider here, because he's going to ride it out. He's going to find out, and I respect that. All right. So then we get to Carroll. Okay, just going to say, I hate this matchup already, but the base is loaded. We need a strikeout or a ground ball? A ground ball from Hoffman, not going to happen. Strikeout's really the only option. Um, and he ain't getting one right now in the status that he's in. So you can see, you and you can see it in his eyes. The guy's beat up. And I understand why. It's struggling. All right, so here we go. First pitch split in the zone. Carroll is out front of it. Now it's 0-1. So typically I'm thinking, I'm going to execute the split again. I'm going to go below the zone. I'm going to throw him another split. Or I'm going to go heater on the hands and jam him up or try to speed him back up for the split. Um, maybe get a weak ground ball if I jam him, but bases are loaded, so we really don't want to take the chance to hit him. So we're not going to go in. All right. So, because honestly, in retrospect, we probably would have preferred him to drill Carroll and only give up one run there, but it didn't happen either. So you saw the reaction after the first pitch. He's out front of it. Maybe take a little bit off, throw the split again. Nope, he didn't do that. Uh it's a max etford field pitch. It's tough to command. So instead, he opts for a second pitch fastball. Heinemann sitting right down the middle. I what happened to catchers moving out on the corners further and further out as they get ahead and account. He's sitting in the middle, and that's exactly where the pitch ends up. Oppo Grand Slam. All right. Now I get it. You know, hindsight's 2020, but the approach here is just it's pedestrian. Like the it's like they don't have any idea what they're doing. I I don't know whether it's a byproduct of catchers having the game called for them their whole lives or what, but the sequencing in that inning alone was just absolutely awful. So couple awful sequencing, awful pitch selection with just a lack of ability to execute. And quite frankly, just awful, awful game planning execution. And you sit there and you go, all right, we got a closer that doesn't feel good about himself. He can't throw strikes the way he wants to, with the pitches that he wants to. You know, if I'm the Jays, I might do something drastic like send this guy back to A-ball so he could learn fastball command. Fastball command, bro. You throw 97. You you can't you can't continue to trick people with breaking balls. And I know I said 97, but 97 is is really just you know 93, maybe 92. I mean, you know, we'll hear about it later in the roast. It's it's kind of a joke the way they measure velocity now. They they got everybody believing that that all these guys are throwing, you know, 95 plus when when in actuality it's you know, subtract, depending on who you ask, depending on what ballpark you're in, three to five, four to six miles an hour. That's reality. Yeah, there's a bunch of guys throwing a little harder, but you know, Hoffman ain't one of them. But he still has a big fastball by league standards. They're 97 plus. And this guy should be a better commander of the fastball, but nobody ever made him try to command the fastball. So they allow him to trick everybody, kind of the way uh your boy Little is right now. He's out stuffing guys in AAA. Everybody's oo-in-and-on over how well he's pitching. I guarantee if I go down there and I look at what he's doing, he's doing exactly the same stuff he was trying to do against big league hitters to AAA guys, and because they suck, he's getting everybody out. I mean, I'll go down there and let my eyeballs tell me whether anything's going on. I've said all along his his pitch repertoire is all wrong. For a guy with a big two-seamer, he should have a slider. For a guy with with uh a curveball, he should have four seam down and away to the the lefties, but he doesn't. Uh, I mean, they've got it all asked backwards. It's just, it's, it's, it's frustrating to watch. It's frustrating doubly for me. Um, one of the reasons why I walked away from the game was because I got tired of going into ball games with these dudes who are blessed with thunderbolts for arms, who have no clue what they're doing, no confidence, and it's my job getting paid 800 grand a year. I mean, nothing to sneeze at by, you know, regular Joe standards, but by big league standards, you got me making 800K, hold holding the guy who's making $15 million hand because he's got no confidence and no command. And I'm and I'm here to tell him, oh, you're so pretty. Your fastball is so big. Come on, you can do it. You can do it. Everybody loves you. Don't you worry, I got you. Like, that's my job. Come on. Like, I'm getting sick of it, and it's even worse now. These guys don't throw strikes with their fastball, they have no clue what they're doing. They're letting the analytics department tell them how to feel pitch to pitch. They throw the same pitch to the same location over and over and over again, and they wonder why these guys who can't hit a breaking ball down in a way suddenly get a feel for hitting a breaking ball when you finally hang the fifth one of the at-bat right down the middle and he hits it 420 feet with an exit velocity of 117 and a launch angle of 28, 28 degrees. Well, I mean, just come on. Like they they they're throwers of the baseball and swingers of the bat. They are no longer pitchers, they are no longer hitters, and you wonder how somebody with as much talent as Jeff Hoffman could spiral out of control as quickly as he did. Because you didn't fix the problem before when you had a chance. In A ball, in double A, in AAA. And so, um, you know, you wonder why can't this guy get to the big leagues and th throw his fat throw his fastball uh where he wants to? Like, come on. It's it's not rocket science. Like, this stuff should have been done a long time ago, and we shouldn't be looking at the situation. But guys like guys like Hoffman, guys like Little, they've got better stuff than the athletes in the minor leagues, so they're gonna out-athlete, outstuff these semi-pro hitters, and then they get to the big leagues and it's all revealed. All right, gang. When I come back on walk-off slams, we're gonna talk about major league baseball news and talk about a couple of managers that are on the hot seat.

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You're listening to Walk Off Slams with Greg's on on AM 1150.

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Yeah, welcome back to Walk Off Slams. Lots going on in the game right now, and if you can believe it, there's already four managers on the hot seat.

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Leading off the latest MLB news.

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All right, well, it should come as no surprise that Tony Vidiello, the college coach that they hired to manage the San Francisco Giants with the 12th largest payroll in Major League Baseball at 220 million, is on the hot seat already. Now, I'll argue that you know, if you're a lower rung team like the Pittsburgh Pirates, and you've got you know a low payroll, and you're one of those welfare babies of the major leagues who basically puts nothing into their ball club and just takes luxury task money from everybody else, uh you might you might experiment with giving a college coach that never coached in Pro Bowl a managing job in the big leagues. Like you might do that. Uh you might do it to and it and and regardless of whether you do it or you don't, it's still a slap in the face to every professional coach, every ex-baseball player, every guy that's already been a professional coach who could have been hired for that job, it's a slap in the face to those guys. It's literally the dorkedom basically saying, we don't have any respect for you. We don't care about all the years that you spent toiling on a minor league diamond in Pro Bowl, riding buses. We give zero you know what's about that. We just think this college guy's cool, and we're gonna hire him to manage a baseball team in the major leagues. Like, come on, really? Uh so you you look at this situation, the guy actually, he's got no street credit whatsoever when he comes into the season, and look no further than week one. His own player, Robbie Ray, basically threw him under the bus and was like, dude, don't worry about it. Us professionals, we can handle this kind of thing. Uh like, holy crap. And then, like, I watched one of the most agonizing games I've ever seen in my entire life. Washington Nationals in Washington versus the San Francisco Giants. You got Blake Buttero managing the Nationals and Tony Vidello managing the San Francisco Giants. Agonizing. Agonizing. It was literally. One of the hardest things I've ever seen to watch, these guys were struggling with basic professional baseball decisions. Their players weren't executing properly, didn't run the bases properly. Neither one of these dudes has any street cred whatsoever. Can't discipline a player. Nobody's looking at the situation. And it's like you sit there and you ask yourself, well, maybe it's time for Buster Posey to strap the uniform on again and go down to the dugout and start managing the club. Like he'd have instant street cred, right? He he's a he's a Hall of Famer in my book. Um, but then again, you ask yourself, isn't this the same guy who you know hired Tony Vidello to manage the Giants with no Pro Ball experience? So you kind of maybe have to question his decision-making ability. Um so I I don't understand, you know, yeah, hire this guy to manage an A-ball team. Hire this guy to see what happens. Because I I played for guys that didn't play Pro Ball. I mean, I love playing for Carlos Tosca. I played for Jim Leland, never got out of A-ball as a player, best manager X's and O's I've ever seen. But he toiled, he grinded, he paid his dues in the minor leagues. He worked for the genius that is Tony LaRussa as an assistant coach when he was in Chicago. Like, come on, these guys, they learn professional baseball. You know, one of the, in my opinion, college ball and professional baseball have about as much in common as baseball and softball. They're all played with bats and balls and gloves, and you run the bases. Uh, but grown men, grown male professional baseball players are a heck of a lot different than women, and they're definitely different than college baseball players. So you got to ask yourself about this. But you know, what's he supposed to do? Say no to the job? No, I'm I'm taking that job if I'm him, even if I know I'm unqualified. What's it gonna lead to? I don't know. All I get to say is, hey guys, I've managed the big league ball club. Uh next on the list, Matt Quotraro from the Royals. Now, unlike Vidiello, Quitraro, he took the pro route. He played and managed in the minor leagues, he coached in the show, then he gets his shot, former catcher, uh, all that stuff, you know, and he earned it. He earned his spot, he got a shot. Now, I'm not sure I would have fired Mike Matheny, and I'm not sure I would have, you know, given the reins to this guy. I mean, another guy, another catcher, Mike Mitheney, uh toiled under Tony LaRusa for years. But you gotta ask yourself, like, you get rid of him to hire this guy? Is he dynamic in any way? That's a good question. I don't know the guy. Um, but seems to me that when I do a deeper dive, he checks the only box necessary at this point for most coaches to move on and manage in the big leagues. He coached for the Tampa Bay Rays, everybody. Oh my goodness. You know, all of a sudden, it that's like the thing. Like the the Jays hired, you know, Charlie Montoya, because he was a Rays minor league manager or coach. Well, let me ask you this: if they're so smart in Tampa and those guys are so good at what they do, how come none of them ever win? How come the Rays haven't won a World Series? Why do they continue to yo-yo up and down in the standings? Because they're flipping a coin. They get rid of all their good players, they quote statistics, they do this analytics thing. Bottom line is they don't want to spend any money. They don't want to keep good players and they don't want to hire good coaches. So they start talking about all this analytics nonsense. Well, you know what? I don't know Maddie Quotrero from Adam, but at the end of the day, if you get him some good players and maybe start developing your minor leagues a little bit better, and and right now the Kansas City Rails minor leagues, it's bottom feed. They're not any good. So, how could you expect Matty Quotrero to be accountable for any of the failures of this ball club? I know you better do something more than just Bobby Witt Jr. He's a stud, but he can't play all eight positions and pitch. And it's kind of a joke that you would expect anything else. You gotta spend money, you gotta have a good minor league, and you've got to get good players in the big leagues. Otherwise, you can't expect these dudes to work miracles. I don't care what the analytics say. You're not gonna outsmart better athletes, you're not gonna outsmart, I'm bigger, faster, stronger, I execute at a higher level, I hit the ball farther, I throw it harder. It's just not gonna happen. So stop thinking it's gonna happen. Just because you know somebody worked for the Tampa Bay Rays once upon a time that they're gonna all of a sudden step in to a small market club and work miracles. It's just sorry, not gonna happen. You know, we're gonna we're gonna continue to see the exact same thing happen from town to town. And don't kid yourself, gang. These clubs have an algorithm, they know exactly how much money to spend, they know exactly what to pump into chat GPT to get the the you know the the super soft answer that everybody's looking for. They can make it look like they're trying to win, but are they really trying to win? Doubtful. Doubtful. And speaking of not really trying to win, let's move on to the Mets. Let's move on to the Mets and Carlos Mendoza. All right, so Carlos Mendoza, he spent a lot of years with the Yankees. If he knows how to win, or let's just say this, if he doesn't know how to win, I'd be surprised because you know the Yankees are still the Yankees, they haven't won anything big in a while, but they're still the Yankees and they still develop good players. But let's be honest, the Mets are an absolute scene right now. You know, they're missing Juan Soto, but in my opinion, the most noticeable, the most noticeable hole in their arsenal is Pete Alonzo. This guy was the heart and soul of the New York Mets. And you let him walk and go to a place like Baltimore? Really? This is the respect you have for Pete Alonso? It's unbelievable to me that he would be allowed to leave New York. How is this guy allowed to even get to free agency? Like, no way in any shape or form you can let this guy leave. Uh such a huge part of that ball club. But probably a close second, maybe even second place right here or whatever, biggest hole, the coaching staff. Let's get into it. Like, holy smokes. Kai Correa, bench coach, never played. Pitching coach, Justin Willard, never played. Assistant pitching coach, Dan McKinney. I think he was drafted in the 29th round by somebody, but I looked high and low for his stats, couldn't find a stat. So guessing he next never actually suited up and played. Holy smokes. Bullpen coach, Jose Rosado. Now, I think this is the former Kansas City Royal who made the all-star team and then blew out his shoulder and was never the same. But at least this guy was a big leaguer. He was an all-star, probably more qualified than the other two no-name guys to teach pitching. But instead, they've got him in the bullpen, writing down how many warm-up tosses guys are throwing on a daily basis. The director of major league hitting is Jeff Albert. 11 independent league games in his life. A 143 hitter. This is your director of hitting. I'm not even sure what that means. Because they have another guy named Troy Schnitger, who's the hitting coach. 226 lifetime in two minor league seasons. Yeah, before you get into me into me, I know he was with the Astros for a little bit, uh, but I'm certainly not going to give him credit for anything that those guys did. But he was there, and yeah, you recognize the name, his dad managed in the big leagues. So, eh, but I don't know. Uh the the Mets are really struggling offensively, and you know, we'll get into that a little bit later. Assistant hitting coach, Rafael Fernandez, eight years as a pro, a cup of coffee in double A. First base coach, outfield coach, Gilbert Gomez, minor leaguer in the Mets organization, cup of coffee in them in AA. Third base coach, infield coach, Tim Leaper. We all know him, Toronto Blue Jays fans. He's legit. He's got a resume. Now, the longest big league career of any of their coaches, you know him, JPier and Sibia. He's their catching coach. Now, I wouldn't exactly say JP was known for his catching prowess. He was a pretty good power hitter, uh, but even that was cut short. So that's your dude. Okay, that's your that's your one guy in the big leagues other than Leaper, where you go, oh yeah, this guy's somewhat legit. He was in AAA for a couple years uh with Dickie Scott. Uh, and then we have the quality assurance coach, Danny Barnes. What exactly is a quality assurance coach? Danny Barnes, you may recognize the name, Jay's fans, was a pitcher in the Jay's organization, pitched in the big leagues. The quality assurance coach, I had to Google this. This is the liaison, the bridge between the Dorkedom and the coaching staff. So basically, this guy is giving written copies of what the analytics department is telling the coaching staff to parrot that night or that series. And you sit there and you go, Wow, this is the coaching staff for the second biggest payroll in baseball. This is the best that they can do with regards to resources. If I'm a Mets player, I'm losing my ever-loving mind. This is the best you can do. It's the second highest rated payroll in baseball. They have five of the top 100 players in Major League Baseball, and it's New York. And this is all you got? This is all you got. Like ridiculous. You're getting the results you deserve in New York. You know? But 26th rated batting average in baseball, 25th in home runs. Go back and look at the names that I gave you for hitting coaches, and remember, five of the top 100 players in Major League Baseball are New York Mets. And those are the numbers they're generating. Moving on, I don't really want to, but I'm gonna. Joey Cora, the Red Sox. Well, the Red Sox, their payroll is kind of low for a modern era Red Sox team. They usually spend more. So they're getting exactly what they're paying for. They're cozied up next to Kansas City, kind of middle of the pack. Uh you want to blame anybody? Blame Craig Breslo and the and the brass for putting this squad together. Get Cora better players and see what happens. Um, and I'm wondering, where's my boy Veritek and all this? You know, he's he's still on the staff, he's in the in the dugout, but he's the catching, he's not the catching guy. He game plans a little bit and he worries about the running game. Uh the rest of the staff lack luster. I mean, just absolutely lack luster. But the big the big deficiency here is the is is the is it's the players. It's absolutely the players. So you look at their center fielder, sixth rated, left fielder, seventh rated, right fielder, seventh rated, designated hitter, ninth rated, second base, 11th rated. Here's where it gets awesome. First base, 16. Third base, 21. Catching tandem, Connor Wong and Carlos Novaez, 26th ranked catchers in Major League Baseball, with Veritec sitting in the dugout. Shortstop. Are you serious? You're expecting to win with a 25-rated shortstop, Trevor Story. These are fangraft numbers. I know a lot of people respect that that app, website, whatever you want to call it. I'm just sitting here looking at this club that they assembled, and I'm asking myself, if I'm a Boston Red Sox fan, who am I really mad at? Am I mad at uh Cora for mismanaging this lackluster blase middle of the pack type of team? They're getting middle of the pack results. But you sit there and you ask yourself, like, holy smokes, you're expecting to win with 25th rated shortstop and a 22nd rated catching tandem, and you've got Jason Veritek, one of the best catchers of all time, sitting in your dugout, and he's not the guys that's in the guy that's in charge of your catching. The shortstop and the catchers are the backbone of your defense. This is shocking and unacceptable if I'm a Red Sox fan. And quite frankly, if I'm one of the other guys on this team, I'm like, is this the best we can do in a big market like Boston? Like, holy smokes. It's it's absolutely not Joey Cora's fault. Okay? It's actually not Cora's fault at all. And I'm sitting here looking at it and I'm like, this is what you get when you let the nerds run the ball club. And I know Breslow played, you know, but he's a left-handed little bullpen specialist. I'm not even sure, you know, who's running the show over there in Boston, but this isn't the Boston that I remember. This is this is not Manny, this is not Poppy, this is not Papelbond, this is definitely not Noma, Noma Garcia Para, one of the best shortstops of all time. Like, holy smokes, how how far the mighty have fallen. Do they really expect to compete with this collection of players? I hope not. So don't blame Cora for the lack of success. It's not his fault. You know, there are certain things that people need to understand. A big league manager can win you 10 games by himself, he can lose you 10 games by himself, but the rest of the games pretty much gonna happen because of what the players can do. That's it. So don't expect miracles. All right. The biggest part of a managing job in the big leagues is managing all the personalities. But if the front office doesn't back the manager's plays, if he doesn't, if he's not allowed to coach, discipline, you know, and run the ball club, if you let the inmates run the asylum, who's to blame here? Who's to blame here? Certainly not Cora. So, you know, these four guys probably shouldn't be on the hot seat, probably shouldn't be getting blamed. Certainly Tony Vittiello, like I said, did you expect him to turn down the job? I wouldn't. So, moving on, you know. When we come back in the final portion of Walk Off Slams, you know what you're getting. You know what you want. The Sunday roast. And now, the Sunday roast with grades on. Why is velocity measured out of hand instead of at home plate where you hit? Why is modern day baseball so insistent that guys throw harder when stat cast admittedly measures velocity impractically? Why does baseball care what the velocity of a pitch is 55 feet from the home plate? The answer? Higher velocity readings are sexier. They give fans something to ooh and ah about. Just like stats give people who never played the game a seat at the table. It creates more baseball fans and more fans spend more money. I get it. I'm a businessman too. When you look at it through that lens, you understand why Tim Salmon's recent comments about how velocity is measured sparked such a debate. There is no debate, actually. Go to MLB.com and look it up. It's right there for anyone to verify. And there's no debating. Pitches lose velocity on their way to home plate due to atmospheric drag. In my opinion, it's actually four to six miles an hour, not three to five. Radar can tell I'm speeding while sandwiched between two semis. ABS can supposedly tell within a fraction of an inch whether a pitch is a strike or not while measuring from space. But Major League Baseball can't truly tell how fast a pitch is going at home plate where it actually matters. I'm going to trust my eyes in a little something that matters called experience. Every time I watch a game, I'm timing every pitch in my mind as if I were getting ready on deck for an at bat. My brain tells me that the 95s that we routinely see in the game today are 91s. I'm not able to process the signal to hit like I did in my 30s, but my eyes and my brain, they still send it in real time. That never goes away. I know what 95 looks like. I'm not seeing it as often as it's posted, but let's pretend for a few minutes that guys are really throwing harder. If they are, why are they throwing so many spin pitches? If they throw that much harder, why don't they just blow guys away? Why do they run from contact? Why don't they challenge guys more often with plus velocities if they really throw that hard? Human response times are still human response times. Those are never going to change. They're going to stay static until they add bionics to the list of things we're allowed to use in a baseball game. Why are they giving up more runs? Why are their arms exploding more often? Well, because chasing velocity is the new way. Pitchers are more worried about velocity than ever. But gun readings aren't real, and only the lucky few are born with the ability to really bring the heat. Velocity labs like Tread and Driveline are making piles of cash selling lies. They can't throw quality strikes. They can't execute because everything they do is max effort. Ultimately, most of them are blowing out their arms, chasing that requisite 95 that almost everybody is looking for. I can subtract four to six miles an hour. My internal timing isn't even excited until it feels like 94 in the circle. If you throw 94 plus, I have to cheat to hit your fastball, or I've got to sit soft. I can't cover both speeds. The hitters today look like they are trying and succeeding in just seeing the ball and hitting it. That isn't possible if these guys are really throwing as hard as they say they are. But when you subtract four to six miles an hour off of every gun reading, it makes it possible to sit in the middle of the velocity spectrum and sit on both pitches. The game's changed. It's obvious to everyone. It's devolved into home run derby, swing up and see how far you can hit it. Situational hitting is a lost art, and pitchers are huffing and puffing to chase the metrics that are meaningless at game time. They can't spot the fastball, and it seems like they are 2-2, 3-2 on every hitter. No wonder they break down. If they really threw harder and guys are swinging up on everything, then why isn't the focus on spotting 95 plus instead of trying to trick everyone with spin? If everyone throws harder, then why are they throwing slower pitches that spend more time in the hitting area more often to longer swings? They're selling crazy. Well, I'm all stocked up here. It's Sunday. Can you smell that roast?