Hey it’s Hannah and last night I enlisted Zach to help me unpack my unreasonably strong feelings about all the mindless MVP content cropping up relatively early in the season. It’s a subject I posted about on social media here and in the links section of a Bandwagon issue here.
It is, as we repeatedly acknowledge, a pretty meta media conversation. But I think it represents a pretty inauspicious evaluation of the baseball content industry at large. If the assumptions being made are that people only want to know Who Is Good but also want the answer to be Guy They’ve Already Heard Of, then what are we even doing bothering to play the games?
Anyway, I won’t make right here the fourth(?) time I go off about this. Give it a watch!
What we’re chatting about
⚾️ In a helpful update to our story about Steven Kwan and dekes, Sports Info Solutions tracks dekes as good fielding plays. And the guy with the most tracked dekes since last season? Steven Kwan!
I’d be lying if I said we realized he was the No. 1 Deker, but we will take it. –ZC
⚾️ If you haven’t been following the Hunter Dobbins mini-drama, I’m here to recommend it: So, the rookie Red Sox pitcher made some rival-ish comments about the Yankees, great, fun! But in justifying his distaste for the classic pinstriped franchise, he said his father had been drafted by the team and traded away to the Diamondbacks (yes, apparently people’s parents could have been traded to the Diamondbacks). Anyway, the New York Post’s Joel Sherman reported that wasn’t true! And now, in trying to stop talking about this, Dobbins has uttered the immortal if sad phrase, “I don’t go fact-check my dad.” –ZC
⚾️ Dobbins thoughts, part 2: It amazes me that his version of his dad’s career reportedly wound up in the Red Sox media guide. Nobody popped “Lance Dobbins” into Baseball-Reference? –ZC
⚾️ We’ve bandwagoned before about how Andrés Muñoz is a big cat guy — working with local shelters in Seattle and hosting a theme night at the ballpark. “As pets, cats are obviously superior, but even I have to admit that they are probably not great hangs at the ballpark,” I wrote at the ballpark. Ah, but I was wrong. A certain Matilda Muñoz would disagree. Matilda is, naturally, Andrés Muñoz’s cat. Who recently visited Chase Field, as seen below. Chase Field, you’re wondering, that’s not Seattle, that’s Phoenix, right? Indeed it is. According to a story from last season, Muñoz takes her on most road trips. “The name of my cat is Matilda,” he said. “She has traveled with me almost all the time.” –HK
⚾️ A friend shared this screenshot from Hinge, the dating app, which I have cropped further for the sake of keeping this Mets superfan extra anonymous. This feels like a lot to lead with on a dating app unless “Mets fan” is truly a non negotiable. Maybe he’s operating on the assumption that he won’t attract a lot of women this way, just the right one. (If that’s you, uh, hit me up and I’ll tell you his name.) –HK
⚾️ Relatedly, Should Starling Marte, who actually plays for the Mets, do that to his hair instead of whatever this is? Seriously though, what is this? –HK
⚾️ One of my favorite baseball writers, Brittany Ghiroli (who is also one of my favorite people) wrote about how baseball players navigate schooling for their kids when it conflicts with the season. I love these kinds of stories about the way in which athletes’ everyday lives are and are not like our own. And it’s a topic I’ve been thinking about specifically since talking to Mets pitching coach Jeremy Hefner about how his family lives in Oklahoma. The Mets, you may know, play in New York. “Most off days, I’ll sneak home,” he told me. “Then they'll come up for parts of the summer, and then spring and fall, it's a little hit or miss.” That aspect of being a pro ball player seems extremely arduous. –HK
⚾️ Tired of staid three-true outcomes? Watch this. “So much to unpack here.” So true.
Share this post