Postgame Show: The Pitch Clock (feat. Michael Schur)

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Can I tell you that I wore my glasses on purpose just to show the proof that there's nothing reflecting in my glasses off of my computer screen?

That's the type of trustworthy I want to be here on the pitch clock.

What a man you are.

Man of honor.

Love you too.

Nope, there it is.

Welcome to the pitch clock.

Here's the pitch, a two-part baseball segment combining a nostalgic baseball trivia game and an interview with an expert.

This is the pitch clock.

Hey, it's another episode of the pitch clock, but I'm not in studio with that guy.

Hi, everybody.

We're cheating on Taylor with Ethan.

Ethan's here.

He's going to be dishing out the trivia today.

That's before we get to, hey, Mike Schur's back on the pitch clock.

So that's pretty exciting.

He'll be our expert on 2025 Major League Baseball.

But Ethan, what is our trivia game going to be today?

The hot topic in Major League Baseball right now is the AL MVP race.

Cal Rowley just crossed 50 homers.

First catcher to ever do so is he's sneaking up on Aaron Judge.

So, we thought we'd test your guys' trivia on MVPs from back in the day.

So, it's gonna be a three strikes in your out format.

Alternate guesses.

We're gonna start with Chris since he actually decided to come to work today.

And

in front of you is a list of AL and ML MVPs from 1990 to the year I was born, 1999.

Oh, it's all about Ethan.

It's all about me.

I am telling you, I might really struggle with this, but here we go.

All right.

Take a pitch.

Take an easy one.

Okay, so there is an easy one on here.

All right, no, I'm kidding.

I'll go 97 AL MVP.

I'm going to go.

There's one or two guys.

I'm going to go

Ken Groovy Jr.

That would be correct, sir.

If you had guessed Ichiro, you would have

the other one.

Okay, got it.

Okay, okay, fair enough.

I know Ichiro to it.

The non-position player.

Yeah.

Okay.

No, that's actually not who I was going to go with, also.

So, Cody is on the board.

Are you going to go with Edgar Martinez?

I was going to go with a shortstop, guys.

A young shortstop.

Yeah, I know the shortstop.

Yeah.

He might pop up somewhere.

That's what I was debating between.

Got it.

Got it.

Got it.

All right.

So I'm going to go.

I'll go with a cupcake as well then.

I'll go 1998 Chicago Cubs.

That's Sammy Sosa.

That is Jeremy's favorite year of baseball of all time.

Yep, and that is correct.

It is.

It is my favorite year of baseball.

Cody, it's back over to you.

I mean, who else

could it be?

96 Padres, Tony Gwynn.

That is incorrect.

Jeremy.

I told you I'm going to be bad at this.

Would you...

So Cody has his first strike.

This is going to be a slightly risky one.

I'm going to go 1992 Pittsburgh Pirates, Barry Bonds.

That is correct, sir.

Jeremy

Bonds is on the board.

It has been too long since we've had this 2025 MLB baseball expert with us.

Mike Scherr is back.

Hey.

I don't like to be referred to as an MLB expert.

That's ridiculous.

I know you don't.

You give me this guy who likes it every time.

Yeah.

Just a guy who likes baseball, man.

Don't say, don't you get an under-promise and over-deliver.

All right.

So we're going to dive into actually a couple of fun stats stats here, real quick.

And this is going to give you another insight into Chris Cody because basically for two or three weeks in a row, I think on Against the Spread, one of the segments that we do on the main show, Chris said, hey, pick against Trevor Rodgers.

That guy stinks.

And I'm going to read you this stat, which is that pitchers in the integration era with an ERA below 150, so 1.5, 70 Ks,

and two or less home runs allowed in their first 13 starts of the season.

81 Nolan Ryan, 94 Greg Maddox, 2025 Trevor Rogers.

The other stat I want to bring you amongst pitchers is that Paul Steins has thrown 50 games where he started.

He's allowed 66 earned runs.

His ERA is 0.01 worse than Vita Blue for the best live ball ERA

amongst your first 50 starts.

That's at 2.02.

Which one of these stats impresses you more?

And what do you think about, you know, these two pitchers and the way that they're throwing the ball this year?

Trevor Rogers' stat is more impressive.

And the reason that Trevor Rogers' stat is more impressive is that Paul Skeens is 6'6 to 55 and was the number one overall draft choice.

Everyone knew that guy was what he is.

Trevor Rogers did stink for a while as a pitcher.

Like he straight up stunk.

And I have watched him annoyingly absolutely shut down the Boston Red Sox twice in the last month and a half.

You know, look, both of those stats are insane and incredibly impressive.

And Trevor Rogers has a long way to go

before you consider him to be in that upper echelon of elite starters.

But given that he has the skills he has to work with, I think he is putting together a more impressive run than anyone else in the league right now.

Let's talk about something else that I know I'm happy to see and I imagine you're happy to see.

The Field of Dreams game is coming back in 2021.

Yeah, fun stuff.

Obviously, if anyone also watches or listens to Pablo Torre finds out, they know your relationship with Field of Dreams.

But how exciting is this for Major League Baseball?

Like to get that game back and something that can pull on that nostalgia?

It's a great event and it's wonderful.

And frankly, they shouldn't have stopped doing it even when they added these other game.

You know, they played a game in Birmingham.

They played the Speedway game, which was kind of a mess, a literal mess.

But in general, let's give it up to MLB for finally, after 100 and something years, realizing that the product that they have could be improved upon with a tiny bit of ingenuity and uh and the all-star game no one cares about the all-star game anymore and if you put it at the field of dreams field suddenly you're like wait this is special and everyone's going to want to be there and i don't know they should just i just want them to innovate more because every innovation that they've come up with in the last call it 10 years has been pretty good the field of dreams game and these these neutral site games and the playing game and the in the at a negro league stadium and the pitch clock and the bigger bases that allowed more stolen bases like all of this stuff is working why you're so right the pitch clock is working

chris it's back over to you my friend

i hate this larry walker rockies 97 absolutely correct sir

nice job that's my boy larry walker took him way too long to get into the i should have you know what one real baseball player that's absolutely one that i should have

i should have knocked that out

I'm trying to think there are there are a few potential options for for all of these in a way that's yeah, there's some of these are gonna trip you up and like picking the year exactly for certain ones is really tough you might get the right

the wrong uh year

yeah I'm gonna go

All right, I'm gonna go to the name we were thinking about.

I'm gonna go 19

1999 Texas Rangers Alex Rodriguez.

That is incorrect.

Damn.

Damn it.

Damn it.

Damn it.

Damn it.

Damn it.

Now you'd think Chris would be like, oh, if it's a J-Rod, it has to be this guy.

You might think so, Cody.

1992

Oakland A's Jose Conseco.

That is incorrect.

Your second strike, sir.

Prussia.

You know what?

I'm going to go...

It might be...

No, I don't.

Oh, I'm an idiot.

I don't think it's too early.

I'm going to go 91 Baltimore Orioles, Cal Ricken Jr.

That is correct, sir.

It's time for us to move to the real topic and the reason why you're here.

It's the Boston Red Sox.

The Red Sox, well, they dominated the Yankees this year.

But between that,

there's a half a game between them at the time of this recording, which is pretty unbelievable to think about that swing.

And you've got those two teams and the Seattle Mariners in the thick of this AL wild card race as Seattle's also nipping on Houston's heels.

So for you, an opportunity to sort of brag about your Red Sox, but what do you think of the way that this race is shaping out?

It's very interesting.

It's arguably more interesting than any of the individual division races

for sure.

If you look at the schedules for the rest of the year, the Yankees play a bunch of cream puffs.

It's a very, very easy schedule.

The Red Sox have half cream puffs and half decent teams.

So it would not be surprising to me if the Yankees recovered and ended up taking that first slot.

The Red Sox,

they ended that series in New York with a better run differential than the Yankees, which is pretty amazing.

And because the Yankees have like eight guys with 20 homers.

It's like everyone on their team gets homers.

So there's a lot of variables.

I think you're like the romantic choice here is the Mariners because never won the World Series and Raleigh's having the year he's having and very quietly Julio Rodriguez, which most people think of, most people think of him as like a weird bust, and yet you look at his stats every year and he's got five war or six war or whatever, like because he hasn't quite turned into Willie Mays offensively, but he's such a good defensive outfielder that he's just insanely valuable.

It's going to be a wild race.

I think given the Yankees opponents, you would be foolish to bet against them.

If you look at their playoff odds, the Yankees, even though the Red Sox are half a game in front, Yankees play off higher, and I think it's because of their strength of schedule remaining.

Cal Raleigh and Aaron Judge.

You brought both of these guys up.

They're competing for the AL MVP.

Cal Raleigh gets to 50 home runs.

It's insane.

Look, we're going to start doing it.

Let's talk about the MVP conversation.

Let's do it.

Let's do it.

Cal Raleigh, Aaron Judge.

What do you think?

It's right now, it's still Judge, unfortunately.

He just was so, he's so important to that team.

And his numbers are

otherworldly.

Again, though, post-injury, he has not been the same hitter.

And if he continues to merely be one of the best hitters in baseball as opposed to one of the greatest hitters of all time, which is what he was in the first half, and Raleigh keeps doing what he's doing, it's possible that Raleigh steals it from him.

There's a lot going.

People still love narratives in baseball, and the narrative of being the first catcher to hit 50, being a switch hitter,

let me say this.

If the Mariners make the playoffs and or he gets 60, I think he steals it.

Now, he's only hitting his batting average is like 249.

Like he, he doesn't have some of the things you need to be like automatic red, you know, like

uh stamp of approval.

But I think to beat Judge in the year he's had, the Mariners need to get into the playoffs.

And I think it's possible that Rally needs to get all the way to 60 and then it'll sort of be like, you know what?

Screw it.

This is the Jokic situation where he's gotten the MVP a couple of times before.

Let's give it to this other guy who had an incredible year.

It's sick, and he

leads us right to our little bonus question because this is a pretty quick game going on between me and Chris.

He has arguably the best nickname in baseball.

Sure.

A couple guys have recently come up to challenge him in

Jostinson Garcia, the password.

The password.

What do you believe is the best nickname in Major League Baseball as a man who truly, truly loves names.

Password is pretty great for Jostinson Garcia.

Also, it should be noted, he has a younger brother named Johan Fran, whose nickname is the username.

I just found that out, and I'm so excited about it.

If you combine those two into one nickname, I think that's your winner.

There is a

first baseman in double-A, I think he plays for the Blue Jays AA affiliate in New Hampshire,

whose name is Peyton Williams, and he's 6'5, 255, and his nickname is the Iowa Meat Truck.

Oh, my God.

I think that's kind of amazing.

And so if the Iowa meat truck ever makes the majors, I'm going to vote for Iowa Meat Truck as

the best nickname in the game.

Mike Scher, thank you so much for joining us on this episode.

And let's get back to the end of this game with Chris.

92 Oakland A's Mark McGuire.

Cody,

you got to slow your roll here, bud.

You're out.

Strike three.

Strike three.

Was it 90?

Was it 90?

No,

that's why I avoided the A's because

I didn't think Maguire had won an MVP.

He won Rookie of the Year, I think, was at 89, 87.

Maguire is not on this list.

Maguire did not win an MVP.

Unless he won one in the 80s.

So what is Jeremy right to get this night to technically win?

Yeah, he's got to avoid getting two wrong here.

Two wrong in one guess.

94 Houston Astros.

Is that Bagwell?

That is Bagwell, yeah.

Oh, that's Jeremy.

That's just a special win.

That's just my favorite baseball player, like non-Marlin of all.

Like, ever.

Like, my

cool.

Casual.

Wait, can I?

Can I, yeah, when I was a guy?

Can I go ahead and guess?

Can we guess some other ones?

96 Padres Trevor Hoffman.

No, it was Ken Kamaniti.

Oh.

That was the Ken Kamanidi.

Classic steroid.

Yeah.

Giants 93 Bonds again.

Yes.

And so is 90

Pirates.

Right, he won't seven MVPs.

Yeah, you guessed that one, right, didn't you?

He went 62.

I guess 92 Pirates.

Was 99 Chipper Jones?

Or

99 was Chipper Jones.

Damn, any of them.

Yes.

By the way, the 99 Rangers was Pudge.

The 96 and 98 Rangers.

Do you guys have any idea?

Not Pudge, not

Juan Gonzalez.

One of them or both of them?

Juan Gonzalez.

Both of them?

Both of them.

96 and 98.

Was it Movon in 95 or was it?

Movon was 95.

Pedro, the Pedro year was 99.

Okay.

But Pudge beat him out.

And Frank Thomas.

One both in 93 and 95.

That's the one we should, like, the fact that's the one you should have gone with.

That's the one.

You're like, I didn't get any wrong.

Legendary.

I got one wrong.

I got one wrong.

I got my

A-Rod one wrong.

Yeah.

The 92A's.

Okay, I'll do it in this order.

The 90A's was Ricky Henderson, which I think we all could have expected.

The 92A's was Dennis Eckersley.

Really?

Yes.

Wow.

And then to finish up the NL,

the only one we have left is 95 was Barry Larkins.

MB Peter.

And

91 was Terry Pendleton.

Wow.

Yeah, that never would have gotten

a lot of time.

I think

what really

tells a story in all of that is you get Bonds being the best player in baseball, 90, 91, 93.

And then guys start taking steroids.

Yes.

So Ken Kamanidi wins a one Gonzalez wins.

One Gonzalez wins a couple.

Let's be real.

Larry Walker wins one.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Bagwell?

What are we doing?

Whoa.

Bagwell wins one.

We're throwing that accusation at Larry Walker.

Sammy Sosa wins one.

And so, by the late 90s and early 2000s, Barry Bond goes, all right, I'm going to go ahead and start doing this too and becomes the greatest thing that's ever happened to baseball field.

Chipper doesn't get any of that, huh?

And Larry Walker has no connections either.

I don't know why Jeremy threw Larry Walker out there under the bus, which, I mean, it's fine.

Look, he's still in the Hall of Fame team.

Like,

all his teammates, though, like, yeah, the Lake Street Bombers, that team, Dante Bichette, Galarrago.

There are several guys already in the Hall of Fame who absolutely.

Of course.

Dude, Pudge.

Pudge failed the test.

One of my favorites, Yvonne Rodriguez.

Pudge failed the test.

That said, hey, fun steroid era MVP conversation.

Glad we talked a little bit bit after because otherwise, there would have been no show today.

So, great work.

I get a win.

That's very exciting.

Hey, Tony.

Hey, Mike.

Hey, man.

Summer's almost ending, man.

I like that.

There's no way.

There's no way.

I am excited about cooler temperatures, but down here in South Florida, that just means slightly less boiling.

It's been a pretty incredible summer.

We've had a parade down here.

We've grown our family down here at Metal Arc Media.

A lot of exciting things, a lot of memorable benchmarks.

And along the way, at almost every step, I've been tailed by that beautiful white can of Miller light.

Oh, that beautiful white can.

Or the brown bottle.

You can do it on draft.

Draft is crisp.

There's been so many great special times.

And each time, I've decided to make those special times a Miller time.

Whether it's a long weekend like one we got coming up or a full-on vacation, it is a perfect time to get the crew back together.

This year marks 50 years of Miller time: 50 years of great taste, great friends, and unforgettable memories.

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Go to MillerLight.com/slash Dan to find delivery options near you, or you can pick up some Miller Light pretty much anywhere they sell beer.

Cheers to 50 years of Miller time.

Celebrate responsibly.

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