00:00Explain why the defense is playing well, because this team was terrible defensively last year,
00:05and they were terrible at the beginning of the season, too.
00:07Yeah, although at the beginning of the season, John, I think they were better than it looked.
00:11They just made a lot of errors, which is a bad look, but they were making...
00:14Wait, wait, stop, stop. That was a truly remarkable sentence, Tom.
00:18Yeah, I know.
00:18What, what? Explain that.
00:202026. Well, I mean, the metrics show that they were making above the average plays.
00:27No, I mean, this is the problem. The problem they had in April.
00:30Is they were making above-average plays, but booting the easy plays.
00:35So when you ask me what changed, they're making the routine plays, finally.
00:40And that's what they weren't doing in April.
00:42They were, I think, up near the top, if not first, in turning double plays at the beginning of the
00:47year.
00:47They were actually, range-wise, they were getting to more balls than most infields.
00:51We know the outfield's good. The outfield's been good for a while.
00:53The infield's been a mess. But Story was throwing them away.
00:57Durbin was throwing them in the dirt.
01:00They've cleaned that up.
01:01So the routine plays have come along now.
01:04And right now, by most measurements, they're the best infield defense in baseball.
01:07One other question. It has to do with leadership other than the manager.
01:11I mean, you saw after the friend of Valdez hit-by-pitch with Trevor Story,
01:15Wilson Contreras charges out of the dugout and is screaming,
01:18is Contreras a leader on this team, or is he just that guy that's kind of fun to watch be
01:23excitable?
01:25Can you be C, all of the above?
01:28I mean, you know, I think he's becoming a leader on this team because they need more adult voices in
01:35the room, right?
01:35Like, there's been a void. You know this story.
01:38And when Story's going good, he's got that platform.
01:40But when you're struggling, you've got to deal with your own stuff.
01:44And Contreras is a leader in a lot of ways.
01:47I mean, his rookie year, he won the World Series with the Cubs.
01:49He's been in this game a long time.
01:51And they need a guy to lead the way.
01:54But he's also, I mean, you talk to some other guys on other teams, they don't like him.
01:57You know, he's a guy who annoys you as an opponent.
02:02And those guys are, like you're kind of hinting towards, those guys are usually out on their own.
02:06So this guy is both.
02:08Like, he's the annoying guy for other teams to face who's a leader in your clubhouse.
02:13And, yeah, that's all right.
02:14I mean, if that becomes your personality, that's not bad.
02:16This team could use a little bit of that.
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