Bat Flips And Nerds

Tom is at the San Diego Padres Spring Training facility in Peoria, Arizona. He is joined by AJ Cassavell to talk about the Padres Spring Training plans, their outlook going into 2019 and how AJ's thoughts about writing for MLB.com as a beat writer.

 

Next up he is joined by Padres radio broadcast Jesse Agler, where they discuss Tom's true love Don Orsillo, once again Padres baseball and how Jesse deals with being on the road away from his wife and young child.

 

Check out AJ on twitter @AJCassavell and Jesse on @JesseAgler

John is joined by Somerset Patriots ace Rick Teasley to discuss his itinerant career which has taken him from the Rays minors system through Australia and Taiwan to Venezuela. They discuss Rick's approach to pitching in-game and to self-improvement off the mound, and his experiences in different cultures - notably Taiwan's baseball mad populace and the role of baseball in the everyday lives of Venezuelans as the country was on the verge of revolution.

Darius and Tom break down the Ken Rosenthal article on the major changes proposed in MLB, some as soon as this season!

They then answer listener questions on Harper, Machado, Keuchel and Kimbrel - plus many more!

Tom and Darius are here to guide you through the very basics of Fantasy Baseball.

What is Fantasy Baseball?

What are the different types of leagues?

What are the different methods of scoring points?

How does the draft work?

What are the different types of drafts?

All yor questions will hopefully be answered, if not, then please get in touch @batlfips_nerds on twitter or through the website www.batflipsandnerds.com

Tom is joined by MLB's head groundskeeper, Murray Cook to discuss his role and the upcoming London Series.

They start by discovering how Murray got into being a groundskeeper, then his previous projects and finally the London Series. They discuss the challenges, the potential issues and some of the logistical problems he has already faced in trying to make this happen.

It's a fascinating pod and has a few mini bombshells, including the type of turf for the field!

Craig Calcaterra joins John to discuss Britpop, sticking to sports, baseball's faux history, and the fact that the media is obsessed with ill-informed vox pops the world over.

John talks to NBC Sports Lead Baseball Writer Craig Calcaterra about 'sticking to sports', covering baseball from the middle of nowhere and his recent tour of the UK's crappest towns.

Christmas is here! John is joined by Tom 'Jingle', Darius and Ben for a live Christmas special, complete with mince pies, mulled wine, silly jumpers and secret santa.

They go over listeners Christmas wish lists, deciding whether santa will be naughty or nice, and conduct some live present unwrapping that reveals some truly extraordinary eBay finds - although one poor member of the team is left giftless. There's always 2019...

MLB.com's Mike Petriello is the special guest this week, joining Russell and Darius to talk about Statcast, from what to look for when using the data to what might be coming in the future. They also discuss Mike's experience with bringing Statcast to a TV broadcast, the impact of advanced stats on Hall of Fame voting, and his discovery of the UK's baseball fan community.

John and Darius are joined by MLB Community's Dave Shaw to discuss MLB London's ticket prices and taking a positive from a negative through fan owned events, plus some hot stove chat and listener Qs.

Episode title c/o Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs.