The Baseball Rabbi Podcast

Miguel Andujar might be the league's best rookie - and the Baseball Rabbi suggests trading him ASAP. Why do the Yankees have an Andujar dilemma, and what does that tell us about the changes in MLB over the past ten years? Meanwhile, Rico Petrocelli - or somebody - had the strangest career in baseball history by one very specific yardstick; Pesach Wolicki and Scott Kahn discuss what it is. And in what way is Willie Bloomquist a key component of this conversation? Better listen to find out.

After striking out batter number 300, Max Scherzer gave a shout-out to Matt Wieters for being the best at catching foul tips... but Scherzer provided no evidence for his claim. Is he right? Can we measure it? More to the point, does it even matter? The Baseball Rabbi put stat guru Moshe Schorr on the case (because when Scherzer talks, it's worth paying close attention). Plus: more about pitching in and out of the zone, and the most memorable games we've ever watched. (Also, Pesach Wolicki disses Fenway based on a game he and Scott Kahn attended in 1998.)

The Oakland A's surprised everyone by winning 97 games with a relatively miniscule payroll, so is this Moneyball 2.0 - or a mirage? That leads Pesach Wolicki to a further discussion about the AL Central's role in making decent, mediocre, and even bad teams look like world beaters (with one obvious exception). The Baseball Rabbi also talks end of season awards, and Scott Kahn takes a final look back at the unsung villain of game 163 in 1978 - and no, it's not Mike Torrez.

Is Aaron Judge's career going to be like Ryan Howard's or Al Bumbry's? The Baseball Rabbi suggests that Yankee fans better hope for the latter - though history shows that such a positive outcome is very unlikely. Inspired by Joey Wendle, Pesach Wolicki analyzes old rookies, and what history shows about the length of their careers. He also answers Scott Kahn's question about why he likes to trash Lou Brock, who, he claims, might be an even less deserving Hall of Famer than ol' 6-4-3 Jim Rice.

When Steve Phillips argued on MLB Radio that the Chicago Cubs don't run enough, the Baseball Rabbi, Pesach Wolicki, picked up the gauntlet and rose to the challenge. Through analysis of the Cubs' current baserunning prowess, Pesach analyzes whether Phillips is right or wrong, and then moves on to a general analysis of the overall value of stolen bases. Plus: The American League Rookie of the Year debate, Scott Kahn offers his Rosh Hashana baseball memories, and why writer Roger Kahn should get a new editor.

It's an old parlor game: compare Babe Ruth to Barry Bonds, or Lou Gehrig to Albert Pujols. We can calculate that the older players were generally greater than their peers in a way that modern greats are not; but the Baseball Rabbi, Pesach Wolicki, offers a new way of viewing the entire question which demonstrates that today's players are the best in the history of the game. (Even Johnny Unitas and Julius Erving come up in this discussion...) In addition, Pesach and Scott Kahn analyze the unfair tragedy of the Twins, and derive lessons in team building from, of all teams, the 2003 Detroit Tigers.

At the trade deadline, the Baseball Rabbi, Pesach Wolicki made a double prediction about Cole Hamels's future on the Cubs, but naturally he's not gloating or anything. On this week's episode, he and Scott Kahn modestly investigate whether Pesach was right or wrong, discuss one of baseball's most beautiful ballparks (though it's no Metrodome), analyze further the historically terrible Baltimore Orioles - are they good at ANYTHING? - and discover a strange but true way of analyzing Max Scherzer's chance to win a postseason award.

It all started with a casual observation: the New York Yankees rank first in fastball velocity, and last in fastball usage. That sounds like the team doesn't know what it's doing, but the Baseball Rabbi, Pesach Wolicki, jumped into the rabbit hole to find out what's really going on - and the numbers kept getting curiouser and curiouser. To Scott Kahn's everlasting regret, Pesach discovered that the Yankees are expanding the strike zone in a manner as brilliant as it is unexpected. Join us as we uncover the Yankees' organizational pitching philosophy, and discover that they are at the forefront of an MLB pitching revolution.

The New York Yankees might win 100 games in 2018, but are likely to get into the playoffs only if they win a sudden death Wild Card Game. The Cleveland Indians almost certainly will win fewer than 100 games, and they're virtually a lock for a playoff spot. Is this as unfair as it sounds? Join Baseball Rabbi Pesach Wolicki and Scott Kahn for a discussion about the MLB playoff system - both in 2018 and throughout history - in order to answer the pressing question, once and for all, of whether Yankee fans have a serious argument, or are just a bunch of whiners. Also - why Cleveland, even with a terrific run differential, isn't nearly as good as they seem.

For the second straight year, it looks as though three Major League teams may win 100 games - something that has happened in consecutive years only once before. The conventional wisdom is that we're in an era of superteams, and that this might be a long-term problem for baseball. But does baseball actually have a parity problem? Pesach Wolicki and Scott Kahn compare MLB with the other major North American professional sports leagues to see which has the most parity, and to determine once and for all if there's a need to address this pressing issue - or whether things are actually fine the way they are.