Leadoff Grand Slam

This week, for our surprise return - the first episode of season 2, which is a preview for season 3?? - the thing Jordan and Nick love about baseball is Kim Ng! Also no we don't think recording an episode a month after the season ended after not recording any episodes during the regular season is weird at all, why do you ask? We also do a very brief free agent roundup - because there isn't much to talk about because it's a #ColeWorld - discuss whether we think the COVID-shortened plague...

This week, for our second offseason episode, the thing Jordan and Nick love about baseball is basketball! Because being a baseball fan this offseason was rather depressing, and mostly Jordan and Nick prefer to enjoy basketball rather than behold the objective awfulness of Rob Manfred and Major League Baseball. Fun fact though, we recorded the afternoon of Tuesday the 4th, and on Tuesday evening they announced the Brusdar Graterol trade - aka the Mookie Betts trade if you're pedestrian like...

This week, for their first offseason episode, the thing Jordan and Nick love about baseball is Blake Snell's Twitch Stream! We also talk about bad photoshopping, how deepfaking is the future of baseball, and why Rob Manfred is bad this week. He's bad every week, but there's a new reason this week. We also spend a good five minutes complimenting each other. (Also, Jordan here: I realized I said I took Rachel to see her favorite band but never said what the band is. it's Nathaniel Rateliff...

This week, for their final episode of the 2019 season *sob* the thing Jordan and Nick love about baseball is bandwagons! We spend the first part of the ep gushing about the Nats, the bandwagon we jumped on for the World Series. (Except we found out just after we recorded the episode that the Nats are MAGA hat-ers, which completely yucked our yum. So the Nats are actually cancelled, but we didn't know that when we recorded most of this episode. Woof.) The rest of the show is devoted to our...

This week, the thing Jordan loves about baseball is federal baseball! Baseball in Washington, D.C. (This is a solo ep for Jordan, as everybody else was busy. Accordingly, it's a shortie aka a Leadoff Grand Slam Short Porch, which is something we're determined to make happen.) In addition to giving you a brief history of baseball in our nation's capital, I'll also thoroughly meh the ALCS, get very mad about that dickhead Yankees fan, and talk about robots, Frankenstein, and Jesus. It's a...

This week, the thing Nick and Jordan love about baseball is pitch tinkering! You'd think we'd love the various CSes but nope, ALL our teams got knocked out, so we love something evergreen and theoretical rather than timely. (Though Kyle Boddy got hired by the Reds a few weeks ago so it's sorta timely.) We also talk a bit about the Braves tomahawk thing and why that organization so richly deserved to lose after engaing in the most perfunctory kind of course correction that actually did more...

Happy Belated Birthday, Jordan! We got you a podcast episode! On this week's, our 25th, episode of Leadoff Grand Slam, we have a long-awaited Threedoff Grand Slam! The thing we love about baseball is the nebulous concept of players being "healthy," especially when compared with our own civilan relative good health. We get grossed out by a picture of Anthony Rizzo's destroyed ankle (it looks like a bag of grapes thrown against a wall), talk about Max Scherzer's shoulder, and gripe about how...

Today, on this solo episode, the thing Nick loves about baseball is depth. Who is the 5th best player on your favorite team? He dug a bit into the WAR leaderboards and analyzed the differences between teams like the Astros and Dodgers, the A’s, and baseball’s least deep team, the LA Angels. Sorry. Nick might like it if Joe Maddon ended up managing the Mets. Not sure. In the season’s second to last game, Pete Alonso hit dong number 53, placing him in the top spot in baseball’s history for...

This week, the thing Nick, Jordan, and Bill love about baseball is second half stars! This is a serious one, y'all! We talk a lot about Felipe Vazquez, Domingo German, and Joe Torre sputtering moronic, incoherent banalities about why MLB wouldn't let the Mets honor 9/11 first responders - banalities that turn out, we decide, to be cynical in a deeply depressing way. Eventually we climb our way out of the darkness and have some fun: Amir Garrett sprinting away from Kyle Schwarber - our Beef...

This week, the thing Nick and Jordan love about baseball is...nothing? We love nothing about baseball? That can't be right, can it? Yes, our theme for this week is *nothing,* because both Nick and Jordan are of the opinion that despite the on-paper chances for the Mets and the Cubs, it's just not going to happen for them. (Just listen, it'll make sense.) We also do an injury update, we talk about Mike Fiers' G Beard, and we mehhhhh our way through a discussion of the single-season home run...

This week, the thing Nick and Jordan love about baseball is no-hitters! Because come on, Justin Verlander. (Coach Dave is off this week.) We also talk about the firing of Dave Dombrowski, we do an old player check-in - did you know Justin Turner is 34??? - and we come to the unanimous and thoroughly scientific conclusion that Enemy of the Pod™️ Gerardo Parra is responsible for the resurgence of the Washington Nationals. Our other baseball podcast is The Drew Goodman Podcast with Julie...

This week, the thing Nick and Coach Dave love about baseball is September Callups! They're the pumpkin spice of callups. They're not Pete Alonso. They're not Vladdy Jr. They're not even Aristedes Aquino. But they're fun, sometimes. We talk about the amazing NYT profile of Altagracia Alvino, the woman who begat both Vlads Guerrero and cooks for hundreds of Latin ballplayers. We are sad that nobody is Jamie Moyer, and nobody will be until Steven Matz goes to Korea, develops a slurve, and...

This week, the thing Jordan and guest host Bill Porter love about baseball is "the switch!" (Coach Dave and Nick Lerangis are off this week.) "The switch" is moment in August when we go from the doldrums of summer baseball to the excitement of the stretch before the playoffs. (Don't worry if you haven't heard of the switch before; Bill made it up.) We also talk about Derek Holland's noble and most likely misguided butthurtedness on Twitter, why PECOTA is always right and you should never be...

This week, the thing Nick and Coach Dave love about baseball is defensive highlights! Jordan is off this week, and sorely missed. Nick and Dave agree that home run highlights are boring. Who wants a two-camera-angle-needing dinger highlight that needs much context when you could have a silky smooth barehanded catch and throw across the diamond? We talk about the crazyballs NL Wild Card, decide that position player pitching is broke and pitcher position play is woke, and recap the Beef of...

This week, the thing Jordan (yes, valiant, solo Jordan) loves about baseball is the Cubs radio broadcast team. He does an incredible improvised version of Pat Hughes' ad lead-in, and waxes poetical about Hughes and Rons Coomer and Santo. We/Jordan also do/does a Trade Deadline Recap (tl;dr: the "big" trades broke late but were big, holy crap the Astros are tight, the Mets are confusing, the Reds are that pathetic person who starts dating the toxic ex of a friend, the "medium" trades were...

This week, the thing Jordan and Bill - who??? - love about baseball is first base chats! We also do MORE trade deadline check-in - because that's basically the only thing going on - we posit a theory about why there's such a big gap between Mike Minor's Baseball Reference WAR and his Fangraphs WAR, and we throw out a simple, harmless idea - maybe there should be ties in baseball? - that will surely see us burnt at the stake as witches. Oh also, "we" this week is Jordan and Bill Porter. Bill...

This week, the thing Nick and Jordan - Coach Dave is in Norway! - love about baseball is 3 outs! We'll explain, we promise. It's kind of abstract but it's Leadoff Grand Slam, and it's just Nick and Jordan this week, so. We also do a check-in in advance of the trade deadline on July 31st - spoiler alert, Nick meh's a lot of it - we talk about some simmering Kenley Jansen/Dave Roberts beef, and we exult in the fiery cuteness that is Coach Drake. We talk savages too, because we're a baseball...

This week, the thing Coach Dave, Nick, and Jordan love about baseball is the Disco Demolition! You remember, that thing where a rock DJ blew up a crate of disco records in center field at Comiskey Park? Yeah, it does sound pretty dumb. (Fun fact: this thing we love may actually be a thing we hate.) We also do an All-Star Week Recap (tl;dr: Home Run Derby amazing, All-Star Game boring - we talk about the Rob Manfred/Justin Verlander kerfuffle over the space balls, and we ruminate over the...

This week, the thing Coach Dave, Jordan, and Nick love about baseball is little brother teams! You know, the White Sox to the Cubs, the Mets to the Yankees, the Angels to the Dodgers. We also babble - I am running out of synonyms for "talk about" - about why All-Star Week could be so much more fun - short answer, the All-Star Game is stupid and should be replaced with goofy skills tests - and make some predictions now that we've arrived at the break. Coach Dave also enlightens us about Odon...

This week, the thing Dave, Jordan, and Nick - but really just Nick; we'll explain - love about baseball is random dudes from the 90s and early aughts! Strap in, Leadoff Grand Slam Pieces, because this is a weird 'un. Jordan was gone this week because he and his wife bought a house and then moved into it. Also, the day they bought the house, their dog got out, was missing for seven hours, and then randomly showed up at the front door of the house she ran off from. Worst day ever, then best...