HR and Verducci are out at FOX, Smoltz is in.

glennhoffmania

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I continue to be amazed that some of the most sought after jobs keep going to incompetent morons like Reynolds.  There must be literally thousands of people who would love this job and could do it better.  I'd love to be in the conference room when the Fox execs make personnel decisions, because the unintentional comedy must be off the charts.
 

Doug Beerabelli

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As alluded to in a column by SI's Richard Dietsch (who quoted Chad Finn's less than ringing non endorsement of the move), he's likely to be more tolerable providing on the spot in-game analysis, with short bursts of "old school" opinions, than being given the platform to provide longer opinions of such a nature.   He might be slightly more tolerable and more useful in that role.   Maybe.
 
Here's link to SI article:   http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/more/news/20140302/kevin-burkhardt-fox-sports-sochi-olympics-espn/?eref=sihp
 

joe dokes

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Doug Beerabelli said:
As alluded to in a column by SI's Richard Dietsch (who quoted Chad Finn's less than ringing non endorsement of the move), he's likely to be more tolerable providing on the spot in-game analysis, with short bursts of "old school" opinions, than being given the platform to provide longer opinions of such a nature.   He might be slightly more tolerable and more useful in that role.   Maybe.
 
Here's link to SI article:   http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/more/news/20140302/kevin-burkhardt-fox-sports-sochi-olympics-espn/?eref=sihp
 
He'll be fine, until a team leads off with a guy who isn't a speedster but gets on base a lot, and then eschews the sac bunt in the first inning after said leadoff guy gets on base. Thus, it is quite possible that by the 2nd batter of the FOX season, the mute button will be worn out.
 

Granite Sox

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And the first time a starter is pulled with two on, two out and a 3-run lead in the sixth, his head will asplode because the manager didn't have any faith in the pitcher to "win the game... that's what it's all about."
 

Vandalman

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Dick Pole Upside said:
And the first time a starter is pulled with two on, two out and a 3-run lead in the sixth, his head will asplode because the manager didn't have any faith in the pitcher to "win the game... that's what it's all about."
 
McCarver tried to convince us it was the hokey pokey.
 

JohntheBaptist

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It isn't even an "anti-sabremetrics" thing. I don't give a shit what the guy is espousing, just keep it moving, keep it simple, and don't go on and on insulting my intelligence because you've got some idea in your head you need to hammer at me.
 
I think an intelligent broadcaster could make definitively old-school-baseball color commentary fascinating. The problem is that Harold Reynolds is dumb, and he likes to pick an idea and then lavish it with stupidity as support. That, for me, is what gets real old, real fast. In my experience watching him, actually, that's kind of his bread and butter.
 

Harry Hooper

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InsideTheParker said:
 
 
From that piece:
 
Reynolds said he will continue his MLB Network analyst role each weekday as well and will call eight regular-season games for FOX plus its postseason commitment. Verducci also will continue his MLB Network role as well as writing for Sports Illustrated and SI.com.
 
 
 
MLB seems to have gotten the network-spanning broadcast setup it wanted. The quality of the actual game broadcasts is a much less important consideration.
 

cromulence

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Wait, he's only doing eight regular season games? So we still don't know the #1 team for most of the FOX Saturday games? Seems strange that they'd make him their guy for the postseason but not the whole regular season too. Might have to do with his MLBN commitments. I'm sure whoever we get during the season will be equally terrible.
 

the1andonly3003

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at least if you are Comcast subscribers, you get a free preview of MLB Extra Innings, so I can choose Vin Sculley over Buck/Reynolds/Vertucci for today's game
 

InsideTheParker

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So, I've been watching the SF broadcast, also on EI. Is this a change? Will FOX no longer have exclusivity on Saturdays? Because that would be nice.
 

Ed Hillel

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YES!!!
 
I was talking about that in the game thread last night after the game. I am so glad someone else recorded it and put it on the internets.
 

Reverend

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Everyone keeps saying sliding, but Reynolds is actually saying diving. He's not a proponent of sliding and makes that clear, but then the guy asks the question and swaps in sliding which creates confusion.
 

Ed Hillel

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Reverend said:
Everyone keeps saying sliding, but Reynolds is actually saying diving. He's not a proponent of sliding and makes that clear, but then the guy asks the question and swaps in sliding which creates confusion.
 
Yes, but then he shows, as "proof" of his theory, Brett Gardiner sliding headfirst into first base. That side by side is so hilarious. The one where he doesn't dive, he's staring out at the ball half the time he runs down the base, whereas on the one where he dives, he puts his head straight down and hits the gas. It's also not completely synched. There are also obviously variants in his speeds down the basepath for a variety of reasons. the fact he cites it as "proof" is enough in and of itself to demonstrate his pea-brain. He also slides when he goes down himself and demonstrates how he thinks it should be done. I think he's using the terms interchangeably.
 
Then he says it's faster, and that more people should do it, but they shouldn't have done it on plays where they were trying to beat out a throw. Ok...
 
The Michael Phelps stuff is off-the-charts stupid.
 

joe dokes

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Reverend said:
Everyone keeps saying sliding, but Reynolds is actually saying diving. He's not a proponent of sliding and makes that clear, but then the guy asks the question and swaps in sliding which creates confusion.
 
 
Except that there are very few humans who can convert the speed (momentum? physics not my bag) attained while running upright into horizontal motion without losing any of that speed (momentum?) AND landing right at the base so friction doesn't come into play.  Even in Reynolds' demonstration, he went from running upright to bending his knees to go into his dive, there's no way that those two knee-bent steps -- while still running -- did not cause a loss of speed that is greater than whatever (if anything) is ganied by diving. 
 
As for his Gardner comparison vids....I suppose Harold thinks that the moon is larger than the sun, because JUST LOOK AT IT!
 

Reverend

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joe dokes said:
 
 
Except that there are very few humans who can convert the speed (momentum? physics not my bag) attained while running upright into horizontal motion without losing any of that speed (momentum?) AND landing right at the base so friction doesn't come into play.  Even in Reynolds' demonstration, he went from running upright to bending his knees to go into his dive, there's no way that those two knee-bent steps -- while still running -- did not cause a loss of speed that is greater than whatever (if anything) is ganied by diving. 
 
As for his Gardner comparison vids....I suppose Harold thinks that the moon is larger than the sun, because JUST LOOK AT IT!
 
I agree his "proofs" are stupid, but he clearly states he is referring to a specific skill. He's not wrong.
 
If anything, the real sloppiness is the other guys keep asking him about sliding when he's not saying that.
 

joe dokes

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Reverend said:
 
I agree his "proofs" are stupid, but he clearly states he is referring to a specific skill. He's not wrong.
 
If anything, the real sloppiness is the other guys keep asking him about sliding when he's not saying that.
 
I'll give you a maybe on his intent, but I dont think anyone actually has that skill, and I'm not sure if its physiologically possible given the short distances involved.
 

Reverend

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joe dokes said:
 
I'll give you a maybe on his intent, but I dont think anyone actually has that skill, and I'm not sure if its physiologically possible given the short distances involved.
 
 

Reverend

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joe dokes said:
 
OK. Rickey could probably do anything that Rickey wanted Rickey to do. But did he dive into first much on non-bunt plays?
 
I don't know how frequently he did it, but I've seen it and it's incredible. I mean, you know those clips where he goes flying by the bag but manages to hold on? That's the key: diving as late as possible except insofar as it would cause you to over-slide the bag. But at first, you are obviously allowed to do so and he's been known to do it. Which is kinda awesome because it indicates how much thought he's given the matter and the level of preparation he approached the game with.
 

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I didn't even get to the Phelps stuff and I feel stupider.
 
Fuck man, did he not bother to notice on the Brett Gardner dive that it's the one time that people who say that it is stupid to dive are telling you that it's okay to dive? Where it isn't going to be a force play because the ball isn't going to be on the bag, and you're diving to avoid the tag? The pitcher covering first is moving which means he's standing up which means he's catching the ball maybe waist high at the lowest because if it's lower he aint fucking catching it and you want to get under the easy tag even if it fucking takes you longer because it's not a goddamn force play because the ball is going to get there late you goddamn motherfucking moron.
 

MuzzyField

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He's in the booth for the Braves and Nationals game and he's exceeding his predicted level of suck. The post season will be unwatchable. Tim may have lost his fastball, but Reynolds, never had one, and isn't worthy of this prominent position to display the cookie sheet depth of his baseball intellect. Now, we're stuck with him. Play Ball!!

I'd like to nominate someone to replace Reynolds and vastly improve the telecast....
 

 

 
 

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MuzzyField said:
He's in the booth for the Braves and Nationals game and he's exceeding his predicted level of suck. The post season will be unwatchable. Tim may have lost his fastball, but Reynolds, never had one, and isn't worthy of this prominent position to display the cookie sheet depth of his baseball intellect. Now, we're stuck with him. Play Ball!!
What do you think of Cliff Floyd? Here in Ct we got Kenny Albert and Cliff Floyd. Albert is a pretty good announcer and Floyd has been interesting if somewhat nervous considering its his first game. I am anxious to see how he will sound after a few more games under his belt.
 

MuzzyField

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What do you think of Cliff Floyd? Here in Ct we got Kenny Albert and Cliff Floyd. Albert is a pretty good announcer and Floyd has been interesting if somewhat nervous considering its his first game. I am anxious to see how he will sound after a few more games under his belt.
I'll give it a look.  I get the out-of-market FOX games on Extra Innings.  Thanks for the heads-up.
 

InsideTheParker

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Floyd provided the answers to the Sox hitting problems. He said that he played on three teams with Pedro Martinez: Expos, Sox, and Mets, and that Pedro gave him great batting advice, looking at his ABs through the eye of a pitcher. He said that Pedro was completely unselfish and was always thinking about helping other people. 
 

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I'm starting to think Reynolds is some kind of performance artist, he is actually the most knowledgable baseball mind on the planet but has decided to see how far he can get if he says the precise opposite of what is correct whenever possible. The answer is national color man, evidently. 
 

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I am in the minority, in that I like him on MLB Tonight during games. But he tries way too hard in the booth. It's not pleasant.
 

Byrdbrain

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soxhop411 said:
 
Heard on MLB Tonight ‏@HeardOnMLBT  4m
"There was times he would have expanded the zone to drive in a run, but he might have said, 'Forget it, I want my OPS higher'." - Reynolds
 
I mean  how the hell did he get this job?
 
Thanks for the exact quote, I was so blown away I knew I didn't quite have it right(why I didn't put it in quotes). The exact quote is worse than what I said since it is the complete opposite of Ted's philosophy.
 

soxhop411

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Thanks for the exact quote, I was so blown away I knew I didn't quite have it right(why I didn't put it in quotes). The exact quote is worse than what I said since it is the complete opposite of Ted's philosophy.
Its gotten to the point where I will just mute it and put the radio on.... He will drive me insane 
 

glennhoffmania

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I really think he may be the worst baseball announcer I've ever heard.  He is a very stupid man.  I didn't like McCarver or think he was any good at analyzing a game, but I never thought he was a complete moron in general and he didn't come across like someone who had minor brain damage.  Reynolds is barely coherent at times.
 

Rough Carrigan

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soxhop411 said:
 
Heard on MLB Tonight ‏@HeardOnMLBT  4m
"There was times he would have expanded the zone to drive in a run, but he might have said, 'Forget it, I want my OPS higher'." - Reynolds
 
I mean  how the hell did he get this job?
 
Christ, Ted only drove in as many as 159 runs in a 154 game season when he was young and playing most every game and had a good offense around him.  What kind of shit head (who betrayed no particular knowledge of hitting in the course of his own career) would have the fucking nerve to criticize the philosophy of hitting of Ted Williams?  I'm not saying that no one can ever criticize Ted.  But bring something to the table not just a caricature of what you think Ted was doing.  When he was a part of big offenses, he had huge rbi totals.  He had guys like Joe Cronin, Bobby Doerr, Vern Stephens and Jackie Jensen batting behind him.  He wasn't batting 8th and leaving it up to the pitcher. 
 
The other thing is that dopes like Harold Reynolds probably want you to believe that every time Ted walked with men on base he was watching a pitch just an inch out of the strike zone that he could have swung at and mashed.  But perfect pitcher's pitches like that are pretty rare.  More likely, Vic Raschi threw a slider in the dirt or Billy Pierce bounced a curve off the plate or Herb Score threw a fastball neck high.  And a fair number of any pitches juuuust off the plate that Ted saw would've been thrown further off the plate if pitchers thought that Ted would swing at them.  There were two parties making choices there.  Yes, pitchers do not have perfect control but come on.  The Harold Reynolds thesis ignores the fact that pitchers likely knew they could try to dot the outside corner and hope for a call from the ump and if they just missed Ted wasn't going for it.  Ted's walking wasn't entirely Ted's choice.  A lot of those times the pitchers semi intentionally walked him to face Cronin or Doerr or Stephens or Jensen instead.  If Ted had started going for some pitches juuuust off the plate, pitchers would have recognized that and their target would have gone from an inch off the black to four inches off.  Would Harold still want him to expand the zone? 
 

Hendu for Kutch

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He's been more atrocious than I could have imagined, and he seems to be emboldened by the position, as I've noticed he's just getting worse and worse on the MLB Network.  I was watching the other night and he was going on and on about how great striking out swinging on a pitch over the batter's head because too many people take pitches nowadays.  As if taking a pitch down the middle and swinging at a pitch over your head were the only two options available in baseball.
 

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The player with the highest career OBP in baseball history would have definitely have gotten on baseball more often if he'd just heard about this newfangled OPS stuff. He'd certainly want to try and "OPS more".
 

rembrat

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You can tell he believes his knowledge of the game is superior to his colleagues because he was a professional ballplayer. He kept throwing "yea but" at Tom Verducci and Joe Buck all night. It was painful.
 

Byrdbrain

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Rough Carrigan said:
Christ, Ted only drove in as many as 159 runs in a 154 game season when he was young and playing most every game and had a good offense around him.  What kind of shit head (who betrayed no particular knowledge of hitting in the course of his own career) would have the fucking nerve to criticize the philosophy of hitting of Ted Williams?
The thing is it wasn't really a criticism of Ted. Reynolds just has no idea the kind of hitter Ted was and assumed he was an "old school" type hitter who would expand the strike zone to drive in a run. His thought was if he were a modern hitter he would have a different approach that would make him worse.
 

Curll

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Spelunker said:
The player with the highest career OBP in baseball history would have definitely have gotten on baseball more often if he'd just heard about this newfangled OPS stuff. He'd certainly want to try and "OPS more".
Williams was one of the pioneers of OPS, in actuality. He called it "production" and literally hand-calculated his OBP  and SLG.
 
Sigh.
 

DJnVa

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I was only half-watching and posted about it in the game thread, but I think my favorite was when he was talking about Drew not being able to catch up to pitches because he wasn't in spring training and his timing is off and then they showed the Yankee defense and Jeter was almost behind 2B and the third baseman was way over in the hole--you know, because when a hitter can't catch up to the heat, you put a bit of a shift on and play him to pull.