White Sox vs Texas Rangers crazy call on Tuesday

I don't know how many people saw the play at the plate in the Chicago White Sox-Texas Rangers game in Chicago yesterday, but a player was ruled out at the plate and then was judged to have been safe based on replay where the catcher blocked the base without the ball.

Except that that didn't happen. There was no blocking of the base. His foot was on home plate, but he was on the back part of home plate, leaving the entire front side of home plate available for a sliding base runner. But the play was ruled on replay to have violated a rule. I don't understand the rules, obviously. We'll see if Elliott Johnson, my friend, Durham Bulls legend, former big leaguer, we'll see if he understands the rule. I thought that might have been the worst call since Jim Joyce took away the perfect game from Armando Galarraga with the Tigers, now back about 12 or so years ago.

I'm sure you saw the play at some point. What are your thoughts on that? Well, I mean, for me and most of your listeners, hopefully, Adam, you know, we grew up watching and playing the game when you could actually hit the catcher.

You can now, but. So, you know, they've made a clear stance. This is going along with what they want, Adam. They want to protect them. This is the equivalent of protect the quarterback rule, you know, because Buster Posey was a really good looking guy and good at baseball.

Very handsome. And so they parlayed that into every other catcher and every other rule. So they're making it abundantly clear that it will not be tolerated to have any kind of, you know, they effectively have a red jersey on, is the best way to put it. So they're going to side with, and obviously this is important to MLB, they're going to side with making sure that catchers don't block the plate in any way, shape or form, and don't encourage anybody hitting them. It was a terrible, terrible call, especially because of replay. So to make the correlation between Jim Joyce with Galarraga, the reason why this one may be worse is because they use replay and still got it wrong. Whereas Jim got it wrong without replay. He did. And I appreciated the couple of days later, Jim Joyce came back and said he kicked the call. He admitted, we don't see umpires admit to getting the call wrong all that often, but boy, I don't understand how replay overturned that. I also don't understand how you could come up with the notion that he was blocking the base.

There was a clear path to slide, get your hand across home plate. Still did not work. All right. So there are two questions in one here.

I'm only going to ask it once. How bad are the New York Mets at whatever their payroll is, which is close to 300 million, Elliot, how bad are they still five games under 500 on the first day of summer? Not as bad as you think. So I know that you're going to, obviously not, you know, the reason why they stink relative to years previous is because the expectations are so much higher this year. Okay. You know, the, the solution has always been get rid of the willpower ponds. And, and I agree with that sentiment a hundred percent, but things haven't worked out. So, you know, I was going through the war leaders for this year, Adam, you know, whether you're listeners like that or not is another story above replacement for people who don't know. Right.

So the, the, the problem with the Mets this year is your best ability is availability. And the problem is that the guys that they're expecting large contributions from, they're not contributing. Now I will give them credit.

As I've talked about before, they did not bring the ground back, which has proven to be a pretty good decision. Okay. Sure. But I think they're the number one contributor. I don't know if you can name it, Adam, I'm going to put you on the spot. Who's their number one contributor from a war standpoint.

Oh gosh, do they even have one at this point? He's 50th in major league baseball, their number one war contributor. Brandon Nimmo. Nice job, Adam. You know, you're Mets.

Thank you very much. Door is not far behind the problem with Lindor is that offensively, he hasn't been great, although he has been driving in runs. So let's give him credit for that. He does play a good shortstop, so let's give him credit for that. But when you get paid that much money, they do expect a little bit better than, you know, two 19 or whatever it is, you know, I mean, unfortunately for him, his career batting average is a lot closer to the guy you're talking to than the guy that's getting, you know, 20 plus million dollars a year. So they're just expecting a whole lot more, especially when you're playing for the Mets and you're playing in New York and we have all these expectations. You've got to be, you've got to do good.

You know, I'll use the old, you know, the favorite adage, good isn't good when better is expected. And that's the Mets of 2023. Elliot Johnson is here. I actually, I'm surprised I didn't knee jerk, say Pete Alonso, but he's also, he's hit a lot of home runs, but he hasn't done a ton else.

Nimmo is a good player. Uh, I think my, my biggest thing with the Mets and I hate to turn this into a Mets thing, but there are a lot of Mets fans out there. My biggest thing with them is that when I looked at their roster at when they were in spring training, I went, you spent $300 million and that's what you have. Like it's not that good a team for $300 million. It just isn't, especially when you are spending about 80 million on 80 years old worth, actually it's more than that worth of starting pitching in Matt Scherzer and Justin Verlander, who have taken turns, uh, both looking like they're in their forties, uh, in terms of being quality starting pitchers. Um, let me, let me ask you about the Braves here who, I mean, I think they're, this is the way to do it. What they have been able to do to convince players to take the, no, I would, I would hate it as an agent because there's about seven players on that team who are playing at significantly below their market value in terms of a salary, but they have convinced the Ronald Acunas and Ozzie Albies of the world, Matt Olsons of the world to accept team friendly deals, but I'm not sure they're not the best team in the national league and moving on from Dansby Swanson, um, and not paying him.

So I think they've proven that they're going to be smart. Um, so the reason why the Orioles and the rays do so well is they aren't top heavy, like the Mets are. So you have 86 and a half million, roughly tied up in Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer. And if they're not there, if there's certainly a hole in your roster, um, you know, so you're expecting guys like that to be all stars you're expecting, you know, because you're paying them, you know, and where much is given much is required, which is one of my other favorite sayings for any club. Okay. Right. So you're expecting a lot out of those guys and you're not getting it.

It certainly leaves a void. Um, the Braves have done an exceptional job. I think our SIA who has taken over at shortstop and they didn't want him to win the job, Adam, just so you know, out of spring training, they were hoping it was going to be somebody else. Um, and he's won the job and he's doing an outstanding job. Um, you know, uh, Murphy has been one of the best acquisitions, uh, from a contribution standpoint on both sides of the ball.

Um, losing Freddie has her he's, he is better than Olson, but for the dollar, uh, but he's doing exceptionally well for the Dodgers and he would certainly be helping them. But the biggest surprise in the division has been the Marlins. Yes.

10 games over 500. Yeah. So, I mean, nobody expects them to continue to stay there. I think everybody expects it to be a battle between the Phillies and the Mets.

Um, that's what I expect. I expect the Marlins to fall out. What will be interesting as we get closer to the end of July, if we're still in this place, I mean, do the Marlins by when's the last time we said that. So that would be interesting to see what Kim has, has in store for all of us, uh, in, you know, her first potential role as a buyer at the deadline, we'll see what she's made of, but overall, I mean, I think that the parody is good for the game. I think having the Orioles relevant right now is a lot Adley. Rutchman is incredible. Um, what those guys have been doing Gunnar Henderson hasn't played well that, you know, as of late, although supposedly as a furthest ball hit on Utah street, which happened or not, uh, cause it's hard for me to believe you sit in a further than Ken Griffey because Griffey was, you know, obviously on a pedestal up as a kid, but it is exciting to have so much parody in the game.

And then here, I'll leave you with this and let you grab the mic. The red Sox would be in first place. They're currently in last in the, uh, ALEs. If they were in the AL central, they would the AL central Minnesota leads at two games under.

500. And we're going to have that. I mean, and maybe it's good for those teams to all be in the same division because financially speaking, they're all pretty similar. Uh, they're mid, you know, those Midwestern cities, which do not spend a lot of monies and maybe it's good that they're all together. Uh, I don't know, frankly, I would almost rather see no divisions, uh, and just have the best, however many, what, six teams in each, each league make the playoffs. Oh, one final thing before we let Elliot Johnson go, your old, your old stomping grounds explain why over the last thousand games, actually, the stat is from two days ago.

So it's, it might not be exact. Um, over the last thousand games, the Rays have the best of the fourth best record in major league baseball and regular season play. How do they do it basically every year?

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It's the iconic candy that's all about bringing people together to bond over colorful bite-sized chocolate candies, delicious flavors, and something else we all have in common, fun M&M's for all fun kind. Well, it's a number of factors. I would say they do an exceptional job of talent evaluation and drafting. Of course, it starts there, but they don't hamstring themselves. They oftentimes can sell early, what seems early, like if you remember David Price trading him away. I would say that they probably held on to Longoria a little longer, probably Kevin Kiermaier a little longer. However, he's still a gold glover this year. So shout out to KK for probably being the greatest defensive center fielder of all time. Hope that doesn't ruffle any feathers, but he's incredible. Andy's good for the game because he increases the female viewership.

My mother-in-law always tries to pretend like she cares about him because he's from Fort Wayne, but I'm not buying it. But I think that the Rays do a good job of just making sure that they have players within that one to six range. If they get guys that are over the seven-year range, it's going to be guys that they're buying on a budget.

So think Cliff Lloyd. If they bring in Tyler Glasnow and give him a multi-year deal like they have, they backdate it so they can pay him more later and then give themselves the flexibility to potentially trade them off. By the way, they basically held a heist with the Pittsburgh Pirates to be able to trade Chris Archer for three players that were huge for them, Glasnow being the best one of them.

And then they end up getting Archer back on the Pirates dime. So I mean, they know what they're doing. They're doing a great job of it. And they make sure that they try not to get too inundated with the fandom that comes from having a player there, which is really, really hard to do when you create a bias that puts butts in the seats. And you have number three jerseys all over the place.

It's really hard to trade that guy. But overall, I think they do as good a job or better than everyone of trying to stick with the process and not be so results oriented. However, they also do have the benefit of the fan base. They're not necessarily calling for people's heads when things don't go well. Right. And they have not won a World Series.

So with all for all the wins, they have not yet finished the deal. Elliot Johnson, your mother-in-law was probably a big Elliot Johnson fan, too. She indeed she was.

Yes, and probably still is. Thank you so much for your time. I will talk to you again very soon. Thanks, Adam. You got it.

Elliot Johnson here on the Adam Gold Show. Hey, look, there's a place for handsome people in big league baseball. This is absolutely a place for handsome people. I mean, I recognize handsome. Oh, yeah, sure. I mean, I don't know that I would put Kevin Kiermaier necessarily on my, you know, my most handsome list. But right. Certainly. He's certainly a candidate.