Shohei Ohtani (大谷翔平) vs Aaron Judge, Alex Verdugo’s allergies & more with John Smoltz

all right I am pumped to be joined as we are every single week by the Hall of Famer John Smoltz John how we doing this week we're doing good uh headed to Philadelphia for a big series uh with Fox uh the Braves and the Phillies love that the Braves are certainly playing a lot better right now that offense is starting to turn around as as I think everybody's just been waiting waiting for it to happen so that should be a really good series speaking of hitters John I want to ask you about Aaron judge had a conversation earlier this week on the show about Aaron judge obviously the peak that that he's in right now starting in 2022 through right now is historically good so the conversation I had is Aaron judge is the best hitter since who and went through a few names myself but wanted to ask you that question in your opinion Aaron judge is the best hitter we've seen since who well with the combination of power and average we what he's done is single-handedly closed window s for pitchers to get him out and one of the guys that was very difficult and the right-handed batters box was Albert buol he didn't miss a pitch when he got one middle to up you could get him out down similarities are the same you can get out judge down but he's not expanding The Zone down so he's really Shrunk The Zone and that's saying a lot for a 68 guy because the zone is is quite bigger for his batting stance and his size yeah obviously albertt um was in the Heyday of of the Cardinals was about the greatest right-handed hitter I'd ever seen and then there's going to be comparisons to Barry Bonds because Barry Bonds just eliminated any mistake you could make and he made it impossible to pitch to when he was in the prime of his career absolutely what so obviously the the Albert phol numbers coming over you know 2001 that stretch from 2001 to about 2012 is arguably the best 10 years 10 11e stretch we've seen out of a hitter what were your numbers like against uh against Alber phol they weren't great um I didn't face him a ton but I gave up three home runs to him in like eight or nine at bats so uh he he definitely crushed a couple pitches that were gone for a long ways to Big mland in in St Louis uh but listen he he just struck fear he he didn't have a weakness and I didn't fear any right-handed hitter but I feared Albert PS well there there's B to be somebody that had good numbers against you one of my favorite stats I've ever heard is the one you told about Tony Gwyn and those numbers he had against you glavin Maddox and I believe it was Pedro yeah it it's we'll never see anything like that ever again NOP absolutely um so I want to stick with the Yankees I don't know if you saw this John but Alex Verdugo it recently came out that Verdugo was allergic to his batting gloves uh and it was causing him issues blisters scabbing itching uh but it turns out was allergic to two different chemicals in his batting gloves one for The Coloring of them and the other for the coating on the leather just a a crazy weird story and since then he's changed his batting gloves and it's been hitting a lot better so I'm not going to ask you about that in itself but what I want to ask you about is what is one of the weirdest things that you can remember happening to a teammate yeah I mean there's all kinds of superstitions that's that's not a Superstition that's an unfortunate thing that you uh luckily they got it they got under control but we had a teammate that had this God awful shirt I mean it had holes in it it looked like it was 20 years old and he would wear this shirt under his jersey as he thought that was the only way he could perform and then one day we in the middle of the clubhouse set it on fire and he Dove on it and put it out trying to salvage the shirt and we said you got to get over the shirt man is things barely hanging on you could barely put it on and I think eventually he got the hint after we had uh burned it pretty good but that's one of the craziest you know we had a teammate that obviously brushed his teeth ate licorice you know had certain routines that he had to do every single way then you got Wade bogs in his theories and what he did to hit so there's all kinds of crazy things but that shirt was one of the most it was awful I mean you wouldn't give it to any anybody if they needed just a little bit of covering and we finally took care of it who Who was the player with this shirt you know that that that's what I'm trying to remember we had so many different players the name actually is escaping me but it was in a kangaroo court situation oh yeah where we took that shirt you know back when we had Kangaroo Court one of the greatest missed opportunities for players today I don't think they have any court anymore but we had so much fun we raised a lot of money for charity and uh those days have since passed I wore the robe I had an actual judge's robe I was the judge for a long time we had we had BFFs we had you name it and that particular court case was brought up against this young man and um we uh we took care of it for for those that don't know so I don't know if it still exists I would seem to guess yes because when I was in the minor leagues it was a thing so kangaroo court is essentially just the team policing itself it's the the guys in the locker room the guys on the team keeping each other in check not letting crazy things happen not letting a guy wear a stinky shirt for a long time and then like John said there's a judge and everybody brings it up to the judge and everybody votes on whether they think you should be fined or not but you guys the the difference is in the big leagues you guys were donating the money in charity and in the minor leagues we were doing it to throw a party at the end of the year and maybe raise a couple bucks yeah we we had both of those components charity and party and then um you know you you get uh you get a little carried away sometimes you get guys that have a vendetta against another one and they go back and forth and try to bring them up on some frivolous court cases we had some pretty good find that we levied um and I I ran I ran a tight tight Court you know I had I had some pretty Heavy Hitters for the ba bays and we we ran a we ran a good uh we ran a good um court case let's put it that way I love that good good memories for sure um John the the last thing I want to ask you about today sh Otani doing what he's doing in the National League uh Aaron judge doing what he's doing in the American League they're both on Pace to win the uh the MVP awards in each league in the NL and the AL so what I want to ask you is if sh Otani goes 5050 50 home runs 50 stolen bases and becomes the first player to ever do that and ends up with a 1,000 Ops on the year and if judge hits 63 or more homers and breaks his own Al record with a 333 batting average and a 12200 Ops who had the better season between the two well since that would be two historic things in one year I think um you know we're going to see I I don't know I I we may not see many 4040s but we're going to see more than we have because the opportunity to run and H greater than it's ever been and I think um stylistically and philosophy wise they weren't promoting Bas stealing so it was more of a rarity you know aunia uh started breaking the mold now Otani what'll be interesting in your discussion is when Otani becomes a pitcher again I don't think we'll see this I agree so when he's focusing only on this it will be truly be a historic offensive season minus the defense and I would say that Aaron judge in what he's doing again with the New York Yankees could single-handedly put his team in the playoffs where it's going to be a I mean the tiebreaker goes to judge just by a fraction but I think it's absolutely um something that we'll probably never see again out of a 5050 just because it's just there's not many guys that can do it there are not many guys that can hit 50 homers in the big leagues and the fact that he's stealing could steal 50 bases this year is remarkable but I I absolutely agree with you as long as he is pitching which next year he's going back to pitch ing we're not going to see him steal 50 bases next year we might see him back in that 20 to 30 range but I don't think he's going to be running like he has been this year no he will not yeah uh John always a pleasure my friend this one was a lot of fun good memories with Kangaroo Court I'm glad you brought that up and always a pleasure my friend thank you my pleasure all right see you John all right just wanted to thank John Smoltz for joining us as he does every single week seriously great memories with kangaroo court so a lot I've been thinking of what we used to do with it and it's just a lot of thing like if somebody doesn't it's often not things that happen in the lines of play if you make an error like it is it is what it is like everybody's trying to play well but it's always things that happen either on the field in The Dugout or outside of the lines I remember one guy was you know turned around in the on Deck Circle because his mom was sitting behind him and he took he posed for a photo in the on Deck Circle for his mom and we ended up finding him and Kangaroo Court uh stuff great stuff that happens off the field as well I don't know I loved Kangaroo Court I'm really glad he brought it up and I do it definitely still happens in in Major League locker rooms for sure I would I would bet on that but thank you all for listening as you do every single week having John Smoltz means uh so much to me in this show and hopefully to you all as well so make sure you subscribe wherever you listen to your podcast Apple Spotify wherever uh we're also on YouTube you can watch every single thing we do there flipping back bats pod is our YouTube channel we're on all social media as well but it all really helps and I really appreciate it so until next time my friends have a great weekend great Labor Day and we will be back soon and remember find your bat and flip it peace