Hello, this is the new and (hopefully) improved PRODcast – an easy-to-digest nugget of baseball and music that should pass through your system without causing bloating, headaches and/or abdominal discomfort. It’s like the All-Bran of podcasts. PLEASE HAVE SOME.

Musical Guest: WHITE DENIM. Buy it here.

Email from an Internet Superhero: @OmarUnited

Baseball Things

BASEBALL IS BACK! (Have you heard of it?)

1. Our picks to win each division + wild card teams
2. Things we’re excited about/not excited about seeing this season … 
   

• A full season of Correa, Bryant, Buxton,
  
• The Mets rotation
  
• If Jered Weaver can crack 80MPH
  
• More Mike Trout, gimme all of the Mike Trout
  
• Hot dog Twitter, Wrestling twitter, Twitter in general
  
• MLB.tv and MLB Network ads
  
• This season’s installation of Unwritten Rules enforcement
  

Old School Player of the Week: Tito Fuentes

THANKS FOR LISTENING!

This is it! The last show of 2015. Thanks for hanging out with us this season. Y'all made it fun. And weird.

(0:00-3:21) The Open

(3:21-7:30) The Musical Guest: LOMA PRIETA. Buy “Self-Portrait” here.

(8:03-25:27) Emails from the Internet’s True Heroes

(26:07-1:03:44) The Human Guest: Andy McCullough of the Kansas City Star talks Gordo, Locain, Yost, and indie rock (?)

(1:04:17-1:19:49) Some baseball things that happened today. WHO CARES?

(1:20:30-1:27:25) The final Old School Player of the Week of 2015 is…

KEN REITZ

Ken Reitz, who was nicknamed “Zamboni” because he scooped up grounders on Busch Stadium’s artificial turf, spent 11 years in the bigs (he gets a MLB pension!) as a third baseman with the Cards (twice), Cubes, Giants and Pirates. In those 11 years, while playing a position dominated by quality offensive player, he hit .260, with an abysmal .290 OBP, and .359 slugging. (That’s a .649 OPS if you’re keeping score at home and aren’t good at maths.) Reitz won a gold glove in 1975, and was an All-Star in 1980 despite posting a -0.7 bWAR that year. WAR was not a friend of Ken’s, as he finished his career with whopping -3.2 wins above replacement.

A #FUNFACT from Wikipedia: Reitz was not known for his base running speed. This is reflected in one dubious Major League record. Reitz holds the record for most career plate appearances (5079) among non-catchers who finished their careers with fewer walks than times he grounded into a double play.

That explains that anemic OBP, I suppose.

Reitz belongs in the DADHAT Hall of Fame, despite evading everyone’s DADHAT radar up to this point. His mustache is pure 70s porn, and his hairdo is best described as a man sitting in a barber’s chair holding a picture of a mushroom and telling his barber, “Make me look like that.”

(0:00-4:21) The open, where we tell you what’s in store and commiserate about our intern situation.

(4:53-9:15) The musical guest: HEAT DUST. Buy “Heat Dust” here.

(9:15-27:49) Emails from Canada’s best inbox-stuffers

(28:25-45:12) The baseball things

• The World Series is upon us, and the Royals are rolling
• Ruben Amaro is now … a first base coach?
• Scott Servais is now an MLB manager but has no experience
• Bud Black is one again and has lots

(45:45-51:05 ) Musical advice: How do you practice playing the drums when you ain’t got no drums?

(51:05-56:34) This week’s Old School Player of the Week is: Lynn Jones

Can you even after today’s Jays-Rangers game? We can’t! But we try. Because we must.

(0:00-7:08) The Open

(7:43-11:00)  The Musical Guest: PIG EYES. Buy their stuff here.

(11:00-29:10) The Emails

(29:38-46:18) The Human Guest: Mauricio Rubio of Baseball Prospectus and BPWrigleyville

(46:50-1:02:40) The Baseball Things:

• Astros: doomed by a bad ‘pen
• Royals: frustratingly stubborn and good
• Ragnars: that was one helluvan implosion
• Jays: our odd friends to the North
• Doyers: Utley, Kershaw, and Greinke slide into a bar…
• Mets: ridiculous rotation
• Cubes: Schwarber is beasting, actually they’re all beasting, they’re in the NLCS!

(1:02:40-1:08:21) The Old School Player of the Week is: RAFAEL RAMIREZ

We have a wonderful, semi-Canadian-themed episode for you this week! We hope you enjoy it.

(0:00-5:10) The open

(5:48-10:18) The musical guest: CHELSEA WOLFE. Buy “Abyss” here. Stream it here.

(10:18-22:13) Generally baseball-themed emails from non-Canadians with bonus “Heavy Metal Bands to Jack Off To” segment

(22:52-46:18) Our human guest: Drew Fairservice of the Birds All Day podcast, talkin’ all things Jays.

(46:57-1:09:14) The baseball stuff. Mostly trade-related, with some bonus other nonsense.

• Carl O’Sgomez to the Astros
• AJ Preller and the Padres don’t do nuthin’
  
• Leake to the GAINTS
• Cespedes to the Mets
• Haren to the #CUBES
• Parra to the Orioles
• CJ Wilson is done, but his teammates don’t believe him, Weaver might be done too
• The Hiroshima Carp wore denim uniforms because Japan

(1:09:52-1:14:44) This week’s Old School Player of the Week is: WILLIE MUELLER

Jeeeeeeeeeeeeeeez!

70 Merm, 70 DADGLASSES, 30 stache, 60 DORKHAT, 20 complexion

Mueller was a brutish 6’4”, 220 lb. reliever who pitched in two seasons for the Milwaukee Brewers (1978 & 1981). In those two seasons, he pitched in six games, logged 14 ⅔ innings, posted a 6.14 ERA and a 1.773 WHIP. He spent 10 years toiling in the minors before hanging up his spectacles after the 1983 season at age 26.

Mueller’s claim to fame is that he played the Duke, a menacing Yankees reliever, in the movie Major League. He’s now the pitching coach at Concordia University of Wisconsin. So there’s that.

Thanks for listenin’!