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00:00Welcome back to Newswire here on SportsGrid. Jack McMullen has got a busy offseason ahead,
00:05just kind of covering baseball for just baseball. He does play-by-play for the Miami Marlins. He's
00:09got a couple of months here to get all rested up and get ready for spring training back
00:14coming up in February and March. Jack, it's great to see you. Welcome back here to Newswire. And
00:20look, I think the baseball offseason does take a little bit of a dip in interest at some point,
00:26but this week is not the week because we had a lot of news. So let's dive in and let's get right
00:31to it here. A stunner for the Colorado Rockies. They've dipped into the old money ball days with
00:39Paul DePodesta as their new president of baseball of operations who did such a fantastic job
00:4515 years ago before he ended up going to the Cleveland Browns. And now he's back in the mix
00:53again. I can't even begin to wonder how this all happened, but I guess we should have known that
00:57something out of nowhere was coming. Because when I heard Adam Adovino may end up being the GM or
01:02president, I was like, whoa, okay. So the Rockies are going not outside the box, but outside the globe
01:07to find their next GM. That's not to say that he can't do a good job here, but I'm just like,
01:14what direction are they headed in here, Jack, with DePodesta becoming the president?
01:18I'm not sure. If you don't know the name Paul DePodesta, might I introduce you to Peter Brand?
01:25Might I also introduce you to Jonah Hill who played Peter Brand in money ball? Peter Brand,
01:31the Jonah Hill character in the movie money ball was based on Paul DePodesta. He was the guy
01:36that Billy Bean brought into the Oakland days to kind of vitalize this money ball approach to
01:43building a major league baseball team. So a lot of Bill James, a lot of sabermetrics here.
01:49This is the cutting edge person from 2002 that is now running the Colorado Rockies in 2025.
01:57It's a fascinating development for me. Like you mentioned, he was with the Cleveland Browns. He
02:01was their chief strategy officer for the Cleveland Browns. So fascinating hire. It's interesting.
02:09I know a lot of people around the league have always felt like the Colorado Rockies have been
02:13a decade or two decades kind of behind the eight ball when it comes to baseball and
02:17organizational development. So perfect that they hire the money ball guy. And that's about the 2002 to
02:222003 Oakland Athletics. So I don't know. I wish I could say that it was, you know, a nice change of
02:29pace for the Rockies, but it did feel sort of kind of on brand. We'll see. We'll see if he still has this
02:34baseball chops here, but this is an incredibly respected person in sports and incredibly respected
02:39person in the game of baseball as well, but really interesting. And, uh, I guess uncomfortable hire
02:46that, you know, you, you got to push to, to make that team a contender in Denver.
02:51Yeah. I think he said he's going to hire a GM. So I think maybe that will give us more of an
02:55indication as to kind of where they're headed, but where they've been is at the bottom, uh, five last
03:02place finishes recently, their ERA. They've never been able to solve this altitude thing, no matter
03:06how they, they slice it, they haven't been able to, and maybe that's what he's being brought in to do
03:11because back when he was running the A's, the deep Podesta, he had Tim Hudson and Barry Zito
03:16and a fantastic pitching staff that really doesn't get talked about enough during that time. I think
03:20that was overlooked as well. Okay. So if that's not a surprise for you, let me give you another one.
03:25New manager of the San Diego Padres, Craig Stammen, relief pitcher, not that long ago.
03:32Is now the new manager of, uh, of the Padres here. Wow. Like I, I thought the pools thing would
03:38have been strange. This is even stranger. Not a lot of experiences from what I'm understanding here,
03:44uh, Jack, but I will give the guy credit. It was a really good relief pitcher, uh, for a long time.
03:48Before we get to that, I want to show you this clip on how, uh, AJ Preller got him to take the gig.
03:54Yeah. The process was, uh, was AJ was very coy about it in the beginning. And I think he's been very
04:01understanding of my family situation, how important they are in this process. And even that was a big
04:06part of being a special assistant the last couple of years, uh, him understanding that situation.
04:11And so he was always like probing a little bit, like, would you like to do more? Would you like
04:15to be in part of the front office a little bit more? Would you like to be, you know, have a little
04:19bit more, would you be like to be a part of the coaching staff? And so I always knew, and he's
04:23articulated that to me, you know, several times of, of what he thinks of me and how he thought I
04:28could be successful in some of the leadership roles within the team. Um, so he was very coy
04:32about it at the beginning. And then we kind of got through the interview process a little
04:35bit at the beginning of it. And then he put the sales kibosh on me and said, you know,
04:40I really want you to be a part of this process. I want you to think about being the manager of the
04:44Padres. I really liked this guy, but I'm going to say this. You got a college baseball coach
04:50managing. You got a guy who was a special assistant, Jack. I'm thinking a host on sports
04:54grid is the next manager. So me or you, we got a shot. I mean, the more this happens,
04:58I think we got a shot at getting some big gig here. I mean, how do you figure this one out?
05:03I mean, I'm left for another one. That's just way off the grid. Had no idea that this was coming.
05:09Now, let me ask you, do you feel like you could manage a bullpen particularly well? You get into
05:13July, August. Do you feel like your bullpen management is okay? I mean, I've look, I'm very
05:17good at hitting the ice cream thing, pulling it down. It goes in. I mean, what, what other experience
05:21do I need? No doubt. I think you're good. Uh, yeah. Not to mention a 33 year old in Blake Butera
05:28was just hired as the manager of the Washington nationals as well. So you've got a 33 year old,
05:32you've got Craig Stammen, who was a reliever and a front office member, an assistant to the general
05:37manager. And you also have, uh, yeah, Tony Vitello in San Francisco, the college coach who doesn't have
05:43a lick of professional baseball experience, stepping into a managerial role. I think what you're seeing
05:48now, as we start to transition in this era of manager is you want to communicate her with people
05:54and you want to communicate her with professional athletes. Is it a matter of X's and O's and
05:59strategies? I don't know. We'll see how well the Cubs do over this eight year deal for Craig or for
06:04Craig council. But like, that is the strategist, the X's and O's guy when it comes to baseball
06:11managers. Now I think they want Tony Vitello, who is a recruiter, who is a program builder,
06:16a guy that can build a culture in San Francisco, Blake Butera, 33 years old. He's going to be managing
06:22guys in Washington that are older than him. Stammen is going to be managing guys that he played with
06:27over the course of his playing career. So I feel like you're going a different way and you're almost
06:31going to a vibe curator in that role. And you want somebody to control the vibe in that clubhouse and
06:38make sure it's a positive environment and guys are getting along. Guys are, you know, having fun.
06:43They're building towards this greater good as one unit. So I don't know. I thought it was an
06:48interesting thing. It also, you know, seems pretty interesting to me, the timeline of events
06:53that AJ Preller was kind of pursuing Craig Stammen because he was interviewing candidates. And then
06:57all of a sudden it turned into, well, maybe I should just interview for this job as well. And AJ
07:02Preller was pushing him to do that. I am fascinated though. Albert Pujols was a candidate for what,
07:07three different openings. It was Anaheim for a minute and it was Baltimore. And then it was San Diego.
07:12He didn't get any of them. I just wonder if like, he is that future manager and waiting that
07:18everybody wants to call him. It seems like he would have had an opportunity and then he would
07:22have jumped to St. Louis when that eventually does open up. Now it seems a little bit more
07:27Yachty Molina than Albert Pujols to me. Yeah, I would, I would agree there. By the way,
07:31the Padres have a ton of free agents of which I don't think any come back. Cease, King, Suarez,
07:36O'Hearn, Arias. I think that this is a clean sweep. They're going to be looking in a new direction.
07:40Padres have spent so much money over the last few years. It feels like there's a pullback
07:44coming from them. Okay. Rookie of the year. This was an easy one in the American league.
07:48I mean, Nick Kurtz did not have a great start, but he was as good power wise as any hitter in the big
07:53leagues from about May on 36 home runs, 86 runs driven in 290 helped maybe with Sacramento a little
08:00bit, but congrats to him and very well-deserved Jack. I thought that he was as impactful as any
08:07hitter down the stretch ended up hitting four home runs, I believe in one game too. So A's future,
08:12probably brighter when it's in Las Vegas, but for now they get some hardware here and a draft.
08:17This is as yeah, they do get a draft pick. That was the prospect promotion incentive,
08:21the PPI pick that they get from Nick Kurtz. They also get it as it pertains to Jacob Wilson,
08:25who is up the shortstop. They are the first guys to finish one and two teammates to finish one and
08:31two in rookie of the year voting since Spencer Strider and Michael Harris did it a few years ago in
08:35Atlanta, Nick Kurtz prodigious power. When you start looking at the best first baseman in major league
08:41baseball going into the 2026 season, it's Vladimir Guerrero. It's Freddie Freeman. It's Pete Alonzo.
08:47And you probably get to Nick Kurtz right after that. What that guy did in just over a hundred
08:52major league baseball games is solidify himself as a top five first baseman in the sport. 26.
08:59Yeah. And the nationally, which we'll get to in a minute, a very rare catcher winning rookie of
09:04the year in major league baseball. So let's take a quick break and we'll keep Jack around.
09:08We'll talk about the Atlanta Braves rookie of the year and also preview the American league and
09:12nationally managers of the year, which will be announced tonight. You're watching newswire
09:17here on sports grid. We're back with more with Jack McMullin from just baseball. After this,
09:22welcome back to newswire here on sports grid, Jack McMullin coming up just baseball 15 minutes
09:26away, exclusively here on our network on sports grid. We have the nationally rookie of the year
09:31Jack awarded yesterday. Very rare in two forms. I would think first form catcher generally don't
09:36see that a lot winning rookie of the year. Drake Baldwin ends up taking it for Atlanta Braves team
09:41that had a pretty dismal year. All things considered, they get the rookie of the year
09:45here. So that's like the other rare part of this. And I think when you really look at it,
09:51the other rare part for me, Jack is, you know, looking at the odds from the beginning of the
09:54season to the end. Like he was kind of a wire to wire rookie of the year in it winner. Like Kurtz
09:59kind of came out of nowhere. You just don't know rookie of the year in April,
10:02but he started off strong, missed some time a little bit, came back, uh, was essentially,
10:08you know, the rookie that I think showed the most consistency over the course of the season.
10:13I mean, the guy that we covered, of course, uh, Gus Ramirez, like at one point he was up there and
10:17Horton, I thought would end up getting it, but you know, really a credit to the Braves for keeping
10:21him in there, hanging him in there and, and they get that draft pick as well for him winning.
10:25Yeah. And the only guy that really made a push at the end was Kate Horton. To your point,
10:29who was one of the best pitchers in baseball after the all-star break, the Chicago Cubs right
10:32hander finished second. That goes to show you that voters will almost always side with a hitter.
10:39You have to be a generational type of pitcher and you have to be a guy that pitches beyond
10:45your rookie status to win rookie of the year. You think about Paul Skeens in Pittsburgh, but
10:48even a guy like Spencer Strider, Spencer Strider was one of the best pitchers in major league
10:52baseball in his rookie year. But it goes to Michael Harris, who was a very, very productive
10:58everyday outfielder playing everyday matters to these voters for the rookie of the year.
11:03And the rookie of the year is more of a situational award than really anything else manager of the
11:07year. It's almost always going to go to the best team or the team that outperforms expectations
11:11the most MVP. It's kind of an OPS leaderboard award. Like whoever leads an OPS is probably going
11:18to win the MVP award. Whoever leads the, you know, ERA leaderboard. And if they're near the top and
11:23strikeouts are going to win a Cy Young, but rookie of the year, you got to play a lot. Games played
11:27does matter. And you have to be productive in those games played. And I thought the only thing that
11:32would do Baldwin in because he was on that roster on opening day with the Sean Murphy injury was Sean
11:37Murphy coming back. I thought that was going to hinder his candidacy where he was going to be a
11:41part-time player, but they got to a point where they kind of relegated Sean Murphy to this part-time
11:47role. And obviously that'll look a little bit different in 2026. Marcelo Zuna is not coming
11:52back to Atlanta and Murphy and Baldwin are probably going to flip-flop between catcher and DH. But
11:57Baldwin performed to the point where he took it bats away from an all-star and an extended guy,
12:03a guy that was under contract in Sean Murphy. So credit to Drake Baldwin for being good at the
12:08beginning. And that allowed him the leeway to kind of push through the end of the year and win this
12:12rookie of the year. Let's get to manager of the year tonight. Luke, I'm going to flip this
12:17up here and do NL first, and then we'll do American league first. Okay. So let's start
12:21with that. Cause the reason why is there's no discussion here. Pat Murphy's going to win
12:24the nationally manager of the year. Um, either Francona or Rob Thompson will finish second.
12:30Is there anything more to add on this? Milwaukee was fantastic. Murphy's been great. He's very
12:33popular amongst everybody. And then we can debate the AL a little bit, right? Cut and dry.
12:39Cut and dry. Have you started doing the pancake in the back pocket thing? I mean,
12:42Pat Murphy's pancakes and quesadillas out of his pocket now. Yeah. Okay. Easy one. All right.
12:47So now this is a little tougher American league manager of the year. Let's try to make people
12:54understand. I do this all the time here, but people forget, I don't know how they do forget
12:57that this is voted on before the playoffs begin. So as fun as John Schneider was, and as good as
13:03Toronto was in the post season, it's irrelevant for this award. Steven vote had another great year
13:10with Cleveland. Dan Wilson finally got Seattle to a position where they almost competed and got to
13:17the world series here. Uh, I'm going to say, I don't know who is going to win this.
13:22I'm still going to go down Schneider and I can understand. I can wrap my head around
13:28them voting, the voters getting their votes in before Toronto's world series run. And the reason
13:33I still say John Schneider, Steven vote had already won manager of the year in 2024. Is he going to win
13:39it in back-to-back seasons? I have no idea. I feel like natural voter inclination is not vote for the
13:45guy that you voted for and won last year. As for Dan Wilson, this was his first year. Seattle was very
13:52good. I'm with you. A lot of people expected Seattle to be very good and finish near the top
13:57of that division. That's exactly what they did with Toronto. I feel like a lot of people forget that
14:02they were more likely to finish in last place than win the division. And what do they do? They win the
14:07division. You could make the argument John Schneider was on the hottest seat in Major League Baseball.
14:11Him and Derek Shelton in Pittsburgh coming into the year were the two guys that you said, if this
14:17doesn't go right for the first 50 games, they could be out the door. Derek Shelton, after 50 games, was out
14:23the door. John Schneider ends up, what, six inches away with IKF's left foot from winning a World Series, but
14:30he won the American League East. John Schneider, for me, was the manager of that trio that outperformed
14:37expectations the most. I can really appreciate Cleveland's meteoric comeback in the AL Central,
14:44but it takes two to tango while Cleveland was playing really well. Detroit was playing incredibly
14:49bad. That's true. And you've got like, there were no other factors there. Obviously, New York had their
14:54flaws and Boston had their flaws. Toronto outright won the American League East when they were
14:59forecasted to finish last. So that's why I go Schneider. It will be close, I think, because
15:04Cleveland was just so hot at the end of the year. That's the last thing that people remember when
15:09they made this vote. Okay, American League Cy Young will be tomorrow as well as the NL. The finalists
15:14are Crochet, Scooble, and Brown. They have to name three. Brown's not going to win. It's going to be
15:19Crochet or Scooble. I feel like Scooble, because he led for the majority of the season, was the guy,
15:26but Crochet down the stretch probably better. Is it Scooble winning again? I mean, the numbers
15:31look like Crochet could be the guy here. I know. I bet they go Scooble again, because the well-rounded
15:38nature of Scooble's go is probably just better. You look at the strikeout totals, 14. Is that as
15:44negligible as a 2-2-1 to a 2-5-9 ERA? I think so. But 18-2 is a crazy record. Records, how much do they
15:52matter in Major League Baseball in 2025? I go Tarek Scooble. Scooble will be the first back-to-back
15:58Cy Young Award winner in the American League since Pedro Martinez in 99 and 2000. I think I have those
16:03years right. But that is elite company for Tarek Scooble to be a part of. It's really 1A, 1B. When
16:10you think about the best pitchers on the planet, those guys should both win Cy Young's this year
16:14and Paul Skeens and Tarek Scooble. So you got Skeens in the NL? Landslide. Landslide.
16:20Yeah. Landslide. Okay. There's Skeens' numbers. Can't win games in Pittsburgh,
16:25but the other numbers are fantastic. All right. We'll catch Just Baseball.
16:29It's a big role of Cy Young. It is. It is. All right. Just Baseball coming up. They'll
16:32talk MVPs and everything else. Thanks again, Jack, for coming on the show. Really appreciate
16:37it. And I'm sure we'll see each other soon. Thanks again. Thank you, Craig.
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