The Old Dog With A New Trick

CC Sabathia

A lot of us like to root for young, upstart underdogs with attitude. That motivation is the root of “The Kid” character, the star of the current MLB campaign “Let The Kids Play”.

But I think we also love old farts. Grumpy, stodgy, but wise older folks make compelling characters. They personify a whole subsection of baseball fans, but there is something even more broadly appealing about older athletes, especially veterans with long tenures on the same team. But I want to talk about an even narrower category. There is a specific subset of older athletes that I believe offer a very compelling narrative. Old farts who retool and lengthen their careers as a result. The Old Dog with a New Trick.

At the 2008 All-Star Game, as the story goes, HOF closer Mariano Riviera was talking with the late HOF pitcher Roy Halladay. Riviera taught Halladay his grip for the cutter, the pitch that made Mo’s career. Halladay was ten years into his dominant career, and yet he was humble enough to add the cutter to his approach and reinvented his game as a result.

Right now, CC Sabathia is the Old Dog With A New Trick on the Yankees. He is the established veteran, the wise sage, who admitted his mortality and changed as a result. CC will be going to the Hall of Fame. However, if he hadn’t changed his approach from power to precision, he might not have stuck around long enough to get the credits needed to get into the Hall of Fame.

CC went from throwing gas at batters–daring them to hit his fastball, to painting the corners with sliders and cutters–to get soft contact and easy outs. There’s a certain masculine sense to fastball pitching, pitchers who can hit the high 90’s don’t usually like to change to throwing breaking balls. Adjusting is not something every older athlete is capable of doing–look at Craig Kimbrel right now for example.

The Old Dog With A New Trick appeals to everyone. They’re characters in a nicely written story. An older great in the twilight years of their career who changes an essential part of their game is a very compelling narrative completely ignored by “Let The Kids Play” and that’s a shame.

Archetypal Hall of Famer

Roy Halladay

The Round Boy

On the Yankees: Luke Voit

Somewhat close to “The Kid” but Round Boys are different in that they are round. Very round. Or thick. Some would say fat. I wouldn’t, but some would.

America has a storied history of round athletes: the Fridge, later years Shaq, John Daly. We love watching big fellas play sports. Baseball in particular has had a cavalcade of corpulent characters.* The joy of watching a large person bumble their way around the field, no matter how fit they are under all that *ahem mass, will never not be fun.

Luke Voit is the archetypical round boy, and he is fun as hell to watch. He’s another player that somewhat fits into “The Kid” category, but he’s a dead ringer for Round Boy.

Luke’s a throwback to a simpler time. A time when you could bring a different kind of six-pack to the diamond. He’s not as round as some Round Boys, but he’s thick–with a lot of meat on the bones. Every time he legs out a double, I holds my breath.

My favorite part about Luke is the little hop he does after he thinks he’s hit a home run.

It’s endearing to watch Round Boys play sports. They are very special characters to me and many Americans, and I want them to be appreciated by the MLB marketing strategy. As sports become more and more physically specialized, they are becoming a dying breed. #SaveTheRoundBoys

Archetypal Hall of Famer

The only player with a candy bar name after them.

https://imgur.com/gallery/3iAhwPz

*Yes, I used a thesaurus, but only for corpulent

Glove With A Bat

Gio Urshela

Look at this play.

https://twitter.com/deflategator/status/1146602625011507207

Ridiculous right? Gio does things like that every game. Defense is exciting as hell, but if you pay attention to sports media, you’d think nobody cared about defense. Clearly what people care about is launch angles. So often, the highlight players are hitters whose offense outweighs their average-to-bad defense. But I believe defensive magic is marketable, as long as the player can hit. A defender that can’t hit is so depressing.

And Gio can hit. Therefore, Gio is a Glove With A Bat, or a GWAB. He makes defense look simple and elegant. He’s smooth, he’s quick, and he’s cool. He makes plays to save games all the time. But again, Let the Kids Play doesn’t mesh with Gio’s personality or narrative.

Defense matters, but it can also genuinely be fun. The GWAB is a player who makes baseball magical. They make the expression “flash the leather” an understatement. There’s something appealing about someone who can do both. Even some pitchers can be put into this category–National League fans have their own similar archetype known as “Pitchers Who Rake”. Unfortunately, the Yankees are in the AL, so we don’t get to enjoy that archetype as much, but I should acknowledge the similarity.

Archetypal Hall of Famer

Ozzie Smith- “The Wizard”

Your Dad’s Favorite Player

DJ LeMahieu

The first character that the MLB could have played up is Your Dad’s Favorite Player. This character exists at all levels of sports. They do the little things right and they are quiet about it. In any sport, ask a Dad their favorite player and it’s bound to be a fundamentals type player, like Tim Duncan in the NBA. That kind of personality actually does resonate with people, and I wish the MLB could recognize that fact.

DJ LeMahieu has been the MVP for the Yankees. He is the type of player little league coaches drool over. Your dad wishes you played like him for Allied Surgical Double-A team.*  He keeps his head down, can play every infield position, and is all-business. He’s also clutch–his average with runners in scoring position is absurd because DJ isn’t a pull hitter, he hits to every field. Traditionalists or not, a solid amount of baseball fans HATE the shift; people like DJ make the shift look stupid.

Look at this hit. DJ isn’t flashy; he puts the ball in play.

I don’t really need to argue that DJ is a marketable player, he’s managed to attract a viral audience on Twitter and Reddit just through his performance this season. Hell, the Yankees callers love him too. Every broadcast, Michael Kay seems like he’s pitching DJ to his daughter as a suitor.  But he clearly doesn’t fit into Let The Kids Play narrative.

Archetypal Hall of Famer

Mike Trout (Yeah it’s early, but c’mon, he’s a shoo-in)

*No, this is not about me, it’s about everyone.

I think the current Major League Baseball ad campaign “Let The Kids Play” is a dumb strategy.

In my opinion, that ad sucks. It’s really bad. It’s doesn’t generate any excitement, it’s poorly acted, and is just a mess. I think maybe it was trying to copy the NBA strategy of allowing player personalities to shine and clash, but wow, that is not good. I remember when I saw it for the first time and thought something was wrong with my screen.

Let The Kids Play is badly executed, but it’s also poorly conceived. It’s too narrow. Or rather, it’s an awkward attempt to squash squares, triangles, and trapezoids into round holes. There are whole set of personalities in professional sports, and baseball in particular. Trying to market your whole league with one them is just bad strategy because you force the others to play that role. And it’s unnatural when they do it. Let The Kids Play, or LTKP, works for certain types of player, the archetypal “The Kid”, but it doesn’t accommodate other personalities and narratives.

Wow Joe, what a scoop. I know–I just want to talk about narratives in sports, this isn’t a thesis. But if it was a thesis, this would be my argument- There are multiple different ‘characters’ in baseball, each of them appealing in their own way. Whole swaths of players–with marketable personalities–don’t fit into LTKP. Ignoring them is bad strategy.

So in the following series of posts, I’ll speak about players on my favorite team, The Yankees. Right now, the lineup has a variety of fan favorites and like-able personalities– each appealing and marketable characters. They are good examples of characters that I think the MLB should be playing up, beyond just “The Kid”.