The Mets don't try to break up double plays, a breakdown

every Tuesday on the Talkin' Baseball channel.

Jake and Trev do series recaps.

We got a lot of in-depth baseball coverage

on Talkin' Baseball YouTube channel, so check it out.

This one, though, I think a lot of people would enjoy,

so I'm sharing it with you here,

and then you can catch the rest of the episode over there

if you are so inclined. Thanks.

Topic number one, McNeil and Reese Hoskins, the fight.

I did a breakdown on it. I was very interested in it.

In my breakdown, this part kind of really made me think like,

wait, what? Because they watched the replay,

and then McNeil turns after watching the replay,

and he says, you think that's fucking okay?

And you can see Reese is like, yeah?

So there's just a disconnect between what's a good slide,

what's a bad slide, what's allowed,

what's not allowed, what's dirty,

what's not dirty, what's aggressive and competitive,

and what's dirty.

And McNeil seems to think that anything aggressive

and competitive is dirty, because a lot of MLB players

that I reached out to, Trevor Plouffe,

who does Talkin' Baseball,

and then he reached out to other guys,

like, that's not dirty. It's aggressive.

It was late, but he's trying to break up the double play

within the rules of the game and didn't get anyone injured.

Dallas Braden tweeted out, like,

dude, learn to move your feet around the bag.

You're just planted there.

So, the first thing, in the rabbit hole,

I'm just going to give you the rabbit hole

that I went down in chronological order.

Number one, this picture was flying around the internet

from Braves fans saying, like,

well, McNeil's done a dirty slide, too.

Look at this slide. He's way offline, out of the base path.

So, I said, all right, let's go find that play.

I want to see if that, you know,

if this is just a screenshot, or is that really a dirty play?

So, I pulled up play, and here it is.

Vogelbeck hits it to second.

McNeil slides.

McNeil slides, and they run at each other.

It's not dirty.

He's really just sliding way early.

Like, if you want to say the cutoff of the grass,

I don't know if my cursor's on the screen,

the cutoff of the grass right there,

that's kind of, like, early or late.

Just an easy way to gauge.

If you slide after that, it's a little late, aggressive.

If you slide before that, you're giving yourself up,

because he's not really trying to get to the bag there.

I think he didn't realize the shortstop

was going to come into it.

So, I didn't think that was dirty.

It ended up helping, but I didn't think that was dirty

on McNeil's part, to his credit.

Now, where things got weird is I went, and I was like,

well, let's see if McNeil has any dirty slides.

So, I went and I searched every time McNeil's been on first base,

and there's less than two outs,

so the team is going to try and turn a double play,

and there's a ground ball to the infield.

And I wanted to see what that looks like.

And what I found kind of blew me away.

And I'll just show you all the videos that I found now,

and what you're looking for.

As far as this plays is, McNeil's the runner on first,

and how he tries to break up double plays.

There is a 6-4-3.

Taylor.

Guard to short.

Velasquez makes another good play.

Starts an inning.

Hopper out to Adamas.

Kalau, one.

First.

Right at Pena.

Altuve with the easy turn for the 6-4.

Play ball.

Right at Birdie.

The turn by Diaz.

For Rojas.

The flip to Castro.

The off-balance.

Double play ball right at Iglesias.

The turn.

Turned by Alberto for the 6-5.

Kim will go to second for one on the first.

Double play ball right to Crawford.

The turn.

So as you can see, he doesn't try to break up the double play.

It's almost like it's not an option in his head.

I watched 160 instances in his career,

and I had to cut a lot down because this got too long.

A lot of them look like this.

For the play ball right at Bogarts.

And the turn by Gonzalez.

To turn.

There's one on the first.

Double play.

That's why he did it.

You saw him move into the spot, and it started.

Over to McMahon.

I mean, he's not even, he's being considerate.

He's being gentlemanly.

He's saying, hey, I don't want to get in the way of what you guys are doing.

You want to turn the double play?

Go ahead and turn it.

Who am I to try to stop it?

To the second.

And Brennan.

Donaldson on the back end.

Out at second.

And there's the grounder.

Camargo to second for one.

On for Harrison Garcia.

Down to third.

Walls goes to second for one.

Low.

Panic.

Panic to Crawford.

Two.

Obbies to right.

Could be.

What was the hat?

You know?

What was that one?

If I go backwards here, when I was finding these,

there were some like that where he just runs straight through,

doesn't slide at all.

He never really tries to slide and get to the bag.

He's not really trying to get in the way.

So that was really weird to me and kind of eye-opening.

Like, oh, he's very respectful.

So he thinks that you shouldn't try to break up double plays.

And then I was like, okay, let's go watch what Reese Hoskins does,

who's slower than McNeil.

And McNeil has this like reputation as like a blue collar grinder,

like tough player.

So that kind of really surprised me to see all of that.

I went to Reese Hoskins,

who's slower, I think 20%.

I think Hoskins is like, I think McNeil's 50% in a sprint speed.

And Hoskins is like 25.

So here's every time Reese Hoskins has been on first base and there's a

grounder to the infield, less than two outs.

So the team's going to try and turn and double play.

And here's how he attacks it.

That's trying to turn to left side.

Cronenworth will go to second base for one on the first.

It'll be off the mark.

Shortstop.

DeYoung has it.

Goes to second for one.

Back over to first.

Not in something.

Rendon, the second for one.

And they won't turn the double.

So as you can see,

what Hoskins does is he gets his ass down the line quick.

When he gets to that cutoff point that I was talking about,

he gets big like a bear, like you're trying to scare a bear.

Ah, you know, throws his hands up,

gets kind of upright with his chest and then drops down into the base.

And as you can see on these highlights,

he induces a lot of bad throws and breaks up.

The,

the double play.

He's never injured someone at second.

That's a good example of what he does.

He's never injured the player.

You know,

there might be contact,

but within the rules and he's,

it's winning baseball.

I mean,

he's doing everything he can.

He's like,

Hey,

I don't have speed,

so I'm not going to be safe here.

Let me try and do everything I can to play winning baseball.

And that's what he's doing.

And this was,

again,

I had to cut this down.

I just,

there was just a lot of examples of this where he's inducing bad throws,

putting pressure on the fielder.

And it's working.

McNeil was the complete opposite.

He was granting people double plays.

I was very confused.

I was like,

this is odd.

So I,

Oh,

this,

I have so many more of these from McNeil.

See,

I color coded it.

Pink was to the shortstop.

Yellow was to the third baseman and blue was to the second baseman.

And yeah,

so Reese breaks up a lot of double plays by using his big body and getting to

the bag down late.

And again,

he never hurt anyone.

It's just,

that's,

it's still part of the game.

The rules didn't make this not part of the game,

but I I'm beginning to think the Mets might think the rules made this not

part of the game because I kept digging,

right?

Well,

first I wanted to compare Reese and McNeil again,

McNeil is faster.

Here's a ball hit to the shortstop and flipped to second base.

Very similar play.

Reese is already in frame and he's sliding.

He's not going down.

Until he hits that cutoff point of the grass where McNeil is giving himself up

way early,

has no interest in being part of the play and just says,

there you go,

go ahead,

turn it.

So that was wild.

And then I was like,

okay,

let me find one in a close game because that's unfair.

If one game doesn't matter.

And the other game is really close.

So up top,

you have Phillies.

They are tied at zero in the bottom of the fourth inning.

Base is loaded down below.

The Mets are up two in the sixth inning.

And I also wanted to find balls that were hit.

It's similar.

So if you see on my premier timeline,

this blue marker,

that's when the ball hits the bat.

So the ball hits the bat.

I synced that up.

And then the ball is hit to the shortstop.

And as they flip it to the second baseman,

you can see Reese Hoskins is in frame and he's about to get big on him like a

bear and then drop down to make it hard.

And McNeil just comes into frame now and is,

has no interest in,

in playing competitive baseball on this play.

Just gives himself,

up and makes it easy.

And I was like,

that's crazy.

And then I wanted,

and then I wanted to make sure people didn't think I was cherry picking a

bajillion.

So I put two Reese Hoskins on the right and eight McNeil on the left.

And again,

this point where the blue marker is on my timeline is when the bat hits the

ball.

And if you watch through to when Reese gets to the bag,

he's by the cut on the two on the right already.

And McNeil is nowhere in frame on the bottom four.

And on the,

on the top four,

he's like going down already and not really trying to break it up.

So that blew me away,

man.

It was like,

what's going on here?

Is this just a McNeil thing?

Is this a match thing?

And then I was,

I was,

is this around the league thing?

Like,

what is this?

I,

again,

I sent videos to some players that I know and talk to,

and they were like,

what?

That is crazy.

What is going on?

They were like,

Reese looks normal.

That's like what you're supposed to do.

So then I had to dig deeper because I was,

I was watching the Mets game last night and Lindor on a double play ball ran

through the bag.

And then the announcers kind of talked about the strategy to that.

But to be honest,

I forget.

And I couldn't figure out what they,

the strategy was.

So I'm going to have to go find that footage right now.

Cause I couldn't prep it.

Let's go see if I can find it.

Okay.

I found that it was a double play to end the first inning.

Lindor just runs through the bag and they explain why here.

Again,

this is me hearing it for like the first time.

Cause I don't remember what they said.

Play that ended at the bottom of the first inning.

I'll be biased with the glove flip.

And you see that Lindor does not slide there.

This is something that is relatively new in the game where players are being

instructed to do this.

Yes.

And the idea is that if they don't get the out there,

they have to go tag and they're running from thirds and the score.

And also another thing too.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

If they don't get the out,

if they don't get the out,

if they don't get the out,

they have to go tag him and the runner on third will score.

So if the,

if the,

if they don't get the out at second.

So if the fielder,

what,

if the fielder botches the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

he misses the bag with his foot.

That's what they're preparing for.

There's a runners on first and second.

So they're saying,

don't try to slide and make this what they,

okay.

Standard strategy would be like,

Hey,

it try to do a late slide and make this dude uncomfortable.

Turning this double play within the room.

In the rules and without injuring him.

And if he throws the ball away,

the runner that was started on second,

that's at third rounding third right now,

we'll score on a bad throw,

right?

So force a bad throw or make him so uncomfortable.

He doesn't want to throw it away and he eats the play and doesn't turn to

them.

They're saying their Mets are instructing them to casually jog through the

base in case this dude's foot isn't on the bag.

So then he would turn around and go tag Lindor.

And while he's doing that,

the runner on third will score.

That's crazy.

Weird.

I think the Mets think you can't break up double place.

So I watched this last night.

I was like,

wait,

what,

what are you doing?

What's happening?

So then I went back into the deep dives and I found all the other Mets players

last year that kind of have speed.

And should be hustling and breaking up double plays.

And I searched for instances when they would be tasked to like make the dude

uncomfortable to throw it.

So here's what I found.

Side Urias to second for one on the first.

One toward the middle and a great diving stop by Abrams.

The turn by Garstamito right at Rojas.

Juggles takes it.

They all do it.

To the back.

What is that?

There's not a runner on second.

That could be rounding third in this one.

So like that strategy doesn't even make sense,

even though it doesn't make sense already.

This is a tied game in the third inning.

And instead of trying to make,

break up the double play.

Play ball right at Franco along with the turn.

And it should be to ball the second for one.

Over to.

First tied him up.

There you go.

Double play.

Only down to third.

Hayes goes cross-botted to second.

To the left side.

Chance for two.

The turn by Ant.

Rivera high hop to second.

Cattell for one.

Ball right here.

Perdomo.

Marte.

Softly hit.

But Vogelbach doesn't run well.

It's a double.

Play ball right to Seager.

The turn by Simeon.

Double play ball right at Arsena.

The turn by Albee.

Roll to third.

Ground on a hop.

Adamas.

Nice play.

Throw to second.

Picket.

Three-two.

Marte not running well.

And it's going to be a third chance for two.

Vargas to second.

And Garcia sharply one hop by Anderson.

He gets the out at second.

And on.

Where was he?

Where are they?

What is going on?

My only saving grace was,

and Mets fans, if you're still watching,

I'm so sorry.

I was running this by Mets fans in the office being like,

guys, what's going on?

They said they never noticed this.

Alonzo and Canna last year,

they acted normally.

Grounded slowly to third.

Durant with the sidearm toss.

That is the same as the Reese Hoskins slide.

You know?

Good job by Pete.

He's at the cut of the grass.

He's getting down late.

He's throwing his arms up.

He's trying to make them uncomfortable.

Here's Alonzo again.

Look at this.

Nice.

So, some guys, I guess,

aren't listening to whoever's telling them

to not do this.

Here's Canna.

And yeah, he's playing hard.

He does not want them to turn this.

He doesn't want them to turn this.

Look at that slide.

You know?

And he gets the player here, Oswaldo.

And that's legal.

And that's fair.

Oswaldo's got to move his feet.

You got to come through the bag.

You can't just stand on the bag.

So, you know, Alonzo and Canna, great stuff.

And then I thought, okay,

before I make this video,

I got to check around the league.

I got to make sure this isn't widespread.

And just because, like, the Yankees don't do it,

I've never noticed it.

Or, you know, even Mets fans that I talked to,

they didn't even notice it.

So, I checked around the league,

and I'm going to give you guys the link to check.

But yes, not every team is doing this.

Sure, there's slow guys that they don't get down the line

they're not going to.

There's kind of guys that might be injured or hurting

and, you know, or the game's lopsided.

But in most cases, when it's a close game

and you have a double play ball,

guys are trying to break up the double play.

They're trying to slide late,

make that fielder uncomfortable

within the rules of the law,

and break up the double play.

So, that at least saved my soul a little bit.

But I don't know what's going on in Queens.

It seems like they're instructed.

I think maybe they have the rule wrong.

So, I will post a link to this search that I did

for you guys, so you can go check it out.

And what I did was, here's all the parameters.

So, I did 2023 season, okay?

Ball.

Balls hit to the shortstop and third baseman, all right?

There's zero outs or one out, so you need two.

Runners, not on second, not on third.

Runner on first, so you're going to turn two.

Batted ball type, ground ball.

And then, just because you get like 200 options

to find better ones, or, you know,

to even like limit it a little more,

I did batting score difference, three runs.

So, it's a three-run game.

And then, I did the exit.

Velo on the ball, 80 miles per hour to 95 miles per hour.

Because if it's over 95, they're going to turn that so fast

that the runner doesn't really have time to get down there.

But anywhere between 80 and 95, that's a double play ball

where the runner has time with a lead

to go make something happen and break it up.

And then, you can, all you got to do is change the team.

So, you can check out how your team does this.

The only warning I'll give is Mariners,

you guys were very similar to the Mets.

But I think it's mostly Eugenio Suarez from last year.

But like, man, go to the Angels,

who last year were, you know,

well, they were in it for a while,

and then in the last two months, they weren't.

They, like, they had 17 instances

because we really dwindled it down.

And if you just watch a bunch of theirs,

I'll pop them all out, and we'll just watch

so you guys can see, like, if you want to do this at home,

this is how you do it.

Just hold option or command, open new tab.

And then, you know, just skip ahead to the ball.

And got down.

Threw the hands up.

Tried to break it up.

Yep.

Hands up at the cut, trying to get down.

Very normal.

Here we go.

Oh, that was an error.

Those will pop up.

You'll see those every now and then.

Okay, here we go.

Right there.

Hands up, sliding late, trying to break it up.

So, Angels fans, if you tuned in,

you know, you got other problems you care about,

but this isn't one.

So, this is what I did all last night.

I just checked every team to figure out.

I just didn't want to make a video about the Mets

and have it be widespread around the league, you know?

But if you do this same search and you find the Mets,

it's, it's, it's, it hurts my baseball soul, you know?

Look at this.

What are we doing?

What is going on?

Okay, that one got botched.

What are we doing?

This is Nimmo.

He's fast.

So, yeah, you can go to this search and I'll put the link in the YouTube.

And what are we doing?

And you can see, if you're a team, what the organization does.

Do they tell people to break up the double play?

Or do they tell people to run away

and not try to make anyone uncomfortable

and just give up and say,

oh, you guys want to turn two?

Who am I to get in the way?

Very bizarre behavior.

I don't really get it.

And like I said, it kind of hurts my soul a little bit to watch

because just because you can't slide past the bag,

all you have to do is slide in the vicinity of the bag,

maintain contact with the bag,

and you're fine.

Like, Reese's slide was a legal slide.

The reason it looks dirty,

and I'll go back to the premiere video of it,

the reason it looks dirty is because McNeil bobbles this ball.

Also, McNeil just stands on top of the bag

because I think he thinks you can't do this, but you can.

You're supposed to, like, run through it.

A lot of times you see the second baseman run through the bag,

catch it, and move their body forward with momentum.

Now, there's three ways to do this.

There's three ways to do this.

There's three ways to do this.

There's three ways to do this.

The throw wasn't great, and then he drops the transfer,

so instead of watching out for the runner,

he's, like, you know, worried about the ball maybe,

but he's just planted.

Normally, he throws that, and that back leg comes up,

and that's what happens when Reese goes down.

Instead, the back leg stays down because he didn't throw it.

You know, think about a throwing motion.

That leg would swing forward,

and he'd be on the other side of the bag.

Reese doesn't know he's going to bobble the ball.

He bobbles the ball.

A lot of people said that Reese,

and I was like, what do you mean?

Like, spikes weren't that up.

They're, like, the same level as the foot.

Spikes up would, like, get him in the shin,

and some of the videos I showed earlier,

they did have spikes up,

and then it is awkward that he lands on the other foot,

but again, at the time Reese goes down,

he doesn't know Beatty's going to bobble this ball

and stay planted with both legs.

He thinks he's going to throw the ball

and end up on over here, you know?

So it ends up, it's bad, and it doesn't look good,

but it's mostly incidental,

and it's still a legal slide.

I just think the Mets have been told

that those slides are illegal,

and that's why we had this confusion.

You think that's fucking okay, you're allowed to slide.

What's wrong with that?

All right, that was Jimmy's first thing,

and to be honest, I like these videos to be around 20 minutes,

and that was a deep dive into a first thing,

so I'm going to speed up the next two things,

because Oakland's committing errors like absolutely crazy,

and Blanco threw a no-hitter.

I don't know if I'm going to be able to get into all of these that much,

so let's just speed through it.

I'm going to, maybe I'll dice it up.

I'm going to search around.

I'm going to find some interesting stuff.