Crowdsourcing MLB Broadcasters: Names and Places
Each summer, baseball fans spend upwards of three or four hours per day with the broadcasters for their favorite teams. With the advent, and increasing ubiquity, of services such as Extra Innings and MLB.TV, fans have become acquainted with broadcasters from other markets, as well.
It’s not uncommon to come across exasperated tweets — or entire websites — dedicated to censuring the sometimes poor behavior of broadcasters. The present author has even attempted a couple reviews of baseballing broadcasts. But never (so far as I know of, at least) has an attempt been made to put a grade on each of the league’s 30 television broadcast teams.
The present post represents the beginning of an attempt to do just that. Much as we attempt, each winter, to facilitate fan projections for players stats here, we will also attempt to do the same for the league’s broadcasting teams.
The first step: to arrive at some understanding of who, exactly, we’re grading. The names you see below are intended to represent the main broadcast teams for each of the league’s 30 clubs. The information here is taken from a combination of Wikipedia and MLB.com, but would certainly benefit from readers who know and care about such things.
Again, the idea is to identify the broadcasters most frequently found in each team’s booth. Many clubs have occasional color commentators and guest announcers, but isolating the most regular contributors will make this process more streamlined, if slightly less nuanced.
So, how do these look?
Arizona: Daron Sutton, Mark Grace
Atlanta: Chip Caray, Joe Simpson
Baltimore: Gary Thorne, Jim Palmer
Boston: Don Orsillo, Jerry Remy
Chicago Americans: Ken Harrelson, Steve Stone
Chicago Nationals: Len Kasper, Bob Brenly
Cincinnati: Thom Brennaman, Chris Welsh
Cleveland: Matt Underwood, Rick Manning
Colorado: Drew Goodman, George Frazier
Detroit: Mario Impemba, Rod Allen
Florida: Rich Waltz, Tommy Hutton
Houston: Bill Brown, Jim Deshaies
Kansas City: Ryan Lefebvre, Frank White
Los Angeles Americans: Victor Rojas, Mark Gubicza
Los Angeles Nationals: Vin Scully
Milwaukee: Brian Anderson, Bill Schroeder
Minnesota: Dick Bremer, Bert Blyleven
New York Americans: Michael Kay, Paul O’Neill
New York Nationals: Gary Cohen, Ron Darling, Keith Hernandez
Oakland: Glen Kuiper, Ray Fosse
Philadelphia: Tom McCarthy, Gary Matthews
Pittsburgh: Tim Neverett, Bob Walk
St. Louis: Dan McLaughlin, Al Hrabosky
San Diego: Dick Enberg, Mark Grant
San Francisco: Duane Kuiper, Mike Krukow
Seattle: Dave Sims, Mike Blowers
Tampa Bay: Dewayne Staats, Brian Anderson
Texas: Dave Barnett, Tom Grieve
Toronto: Buck Martinez, Pat Tabler
Washington: Bob Carpenter, F. P. Santangelo
Thanks to concerned citizen Sean McNally, who forwarded this suggestion to us via the Twitter.
Carson Cistulli has published a book of aphorisms called Spirited Ejaculations of a New Enthusiast.
Paul O’Neill does a limited number of NYY games. Ken Singleton is the primary color guy.
Noted. Thanks.
Leiter, Flaherty and Cone are also in the booth way more than O’Neil.
also John Flaherty is frequently part of the NYY broadcast team. It’s frequently a 3 man team between Kay, Singleton and Flaherty. Or either Kay and Singleton by themselves or Kay and Flaherty by themselves. So I’d add Flaherty as well. ONeill does about 20-30 games a year and Al Leiter does some from time to time.
Flaherty is greatness.
Oh and David Cone as well. They rotate. Kay is there most of the time. He’s there more than anyone. I don’t know the ratio of the others but the other three are there as well so I’d make it Michael Kay, David Cone, John Flaherty and Ken Singleton.
I would say that Singleton is the clear #2 man for the Yankees. If you really want more guys than that, then the next two would be Flaherty and Cone, in that order.
btw Flaherty is terrible.
Agreed. Flaherty is terrible.
O’Neil is the best color man because he just makes fun of Kay the whole time. And Lieter and Cone are also just two of the best color men in baseball.
^ what this guy says
its amazing how much we care about these things. But like you said – I spend about 500 hours with these guys every year … LOL … I spend more time with Michael Kay than members of my family …
Any way to do each broadcaster individually? The possibly have an overall vote for the team? EG David Cone is awesome, Michael Kay is not, Yankees overall are decent. Perhaps include the radio folk as well.
To be even meaner, include the national broadcasters in the vote as well.
Hey Michael, seeing as you spend so much time with Michael Kay, what do you think of him? A lot of people hate his broadcasting, but I don’t mind it, and think that often times it’s enjoyable. Thanks.
I used to dislike Kay but as time has gone by I’ve come to like him more and appreciate him. And now even when he’s rude or says stupid things – he’s like a relative who sometimes makes dumb comments. He can be a jerk – but he’s our jerk. LOL.
Cant forget Bob Lorenz…
Main team has to be considered Kay/Singleton and Flaherty as I’d bet they have the most “starts”. O’neill is m favorite (probably all Yankee fans) as he to me represents a Phil Rizzuto of sorts for this generation.
Just to add to what others have said…Kay is Play-by-play guy but doesn’t do long roadtrips (i.e. West Coast) due to his radio show on ESPN. Ken Singleton generally picks up the play-by-play duties but isn’t really a pbp guy. Singleton is there probably 90% of the games.
O’Neill does color when the Yanks are in Cleveland and does some home games too. Cone has done more this year than in the past and loves to talk sabermetrics. Leiter does some too. But Flaherty is probably there the most.
And don’t forget Kimberly Jones down on the field!
Yeah, please don’t leave out Little Kim Jones!
The primary color guy? That is RACIST sir!
Lol, solid!
Although I guess technically he isn’t actually a primary color
Owine…I think Singleton prefers to referred to as African-American…not the term you used.
You should do radio too. Tribe radio is 5x better than TV.
Second the motion.
Absolutely, if this version works, we can do radio, too.
Since the Tribe radio is the only broadcast team I like less than the Yankees’ radio team, I find this statement terrifying.
Entitled to your opinion. I’m obviously biased and love Tom Hamilton. Have grown up with him. I agree with Barkey about when games get out of hand and they’re two old guys havin’ a funny conversation. I also recall when the Tribe was in Toronto a few years ago and Bruce Froemming missed a call at first. Hamilton said, “AND BRUCE FROEMMING WAS TOO BUSY EATING A HOT DOG TO GET IN THE RIGHT POSITION TO MAKE THAT CALL.”
Never laughed so hard.
This, if only for Uecker.
Cubs TV guys are correct, btw, and would also benefit greatly from ranking each guy separately (i.e., the one who reads fangraphs gets a different score than the one who can’t read at all).
You mean the one who managed a world series winner? Go away troll.
I can’t stand to watch a game on TV, but I love to listen to a game and wonder what that crack meant and hear the excited yells.
I doubly can’t watch a game when the good guys are down by a huge amount but that is when I think a radio broadcast shines–they tend to start to shoot the shit and talk about goings on in the league and the club… every now and again pausing to fill you in on how your team has hit another popup with a guy on 2nd and no outs, or how your pitcher has served up another meat ball that #4 opposer dutifully knocked over the fence (sometimes the cheering will even be dying down when they call it).
I cannot begin to articulate how annoying and bush league I find it when radio and TV announcers refer to the home team as “the good guys” like their broadcast was an episode of the Lone Ranger or something ….
Michael Law, the good guys are the team the Yankees are playing against.
Agreed. Charlie and Dave are awesome for the Nats.
Gary Matthews is the color commentator for the Phillies for only 3 innings. The majority of the time, it is Chris Wheeler (unfortunately). Mathews just does the middle innings; never the beginning or ending of games.
Right, in case you are wondering, McCarthy does all nine innings and has since Harry Kalas passed away, while Chris Wheeler does innings 1-3 and 7-9. Gary Matthews does innings 4-6.
Yeah, I would replace Gary Matthews with Chris Wheeler in the listing above. I actually prefer Wheeler over Matthews, but I am not a Phils fan and Wheeler tends to be more impartial and critical.
I love Wheels! Why doesn’t anyone else like him? IMO he’s the most knowledgeable of the Phils announcers.
Perhaps because he’s the world’s biggest team apologist. Nothing that the Phillies or their players do can ever be questioned according to “Wheels” because, well, they’re all “professionals” and of course always trying to do their best blah blah blah… sickening.
http://chriswheelerglossary.com/
Wheels is just plain annoying. He acts like he knows more than he does. Which is his job, except it’s glaringly obvious to a baseball player that Chris Wheeler knows very little about playing baseball.
Wheels’ attempts at pitching color commenting never ceases to make me hit the mute button.
Wheels is awful but McCarthy is unbearable. Typical commentary:
Wheels: “Man, this guys up here throwing frisbees and if only one of our hitters could get to it in this heat. Because when it’s hot out, the ball just flies out of this place. Maybe our lineup can put a crooked number on the board. ”
TMac: “HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA” [Robot laugh]
Not to pile on to McCarthy, but he is just awful. Count me as one of the many who mutes the TV and listens to the Franzke and LA instead of subjecting myself to the nails-on-a-chalkboard horror that is Tom McCarthy.
The entire fillets booth is bad. Sarge is unlistenable, McCarthy is a bore, and Wheeler is an apologist. This, after generations of Kalas and Ashburn.
I would consider Ken Singleton to be more of a primary broadcaster in the Yankees booth than Paul O’Neill. Pretty sure it can be up for debate though.
+1 for Texas Rangers’ broadcasts…..those are correct.
And if you do radio for the Rangers…..Eric Nadel is a god, Steve Busby not so much
Yeah, actually did one of the broadcast reviews on Texas Radio:
http://www.fangraphs.com/not/index.php/broadcast-review-rangers-radio/
I really DID like Nadel quite a bit.
Detroit’s are correct.
Texas is correct.
Tigers are correct as well.
I agree that the radio guys are typically more enjoyable. If you’re going to keep track of the announcers, you should definitely track radio as well.
You might want to give radio a shot as well. Here in Cleveland it’s common practice to watch the game on mute with the radio on instead.
Check out http://www.buckblunders.com/ — it’s a site dedicated to the (many) mistakes made by Buck Martinez during Jays’ broadcasts.
Jeez. I’m all for bagging on broadcasters but that seems a bit excessive. As someone who’s done games on the side, it’s far harder than most people think to do play-by-play, or even color commentary.
That may be true, but are you telling me that Rogers cannot find a guy in Canada (or even the US) who can do play-by-play?
Buck is terrible. He was OK as a colour guy but he’s horrible as a play-by-play commentator.
The radio guys, on the other hand, are excellent.
It is excessive, making a few statistical mistakes/bad pronunciations a game doesn’t make someone a bad broadcaster.
It’s the broadcasters who don’t fully understand baseball or make philosophically unsound comments that drive me (and everyone else) crazy. Buck Martinez is actually a pretty good commentator compared to other ones I’ve heard.
It may be excessive, but consider the PBP man’s job description is to tell you who is doing what at what time in the game, in case you were off getting a snack or doing cold fusion experiments in the basement. These are exactly the things Buck gets wrong ALL THE TIME. And he rarely corrects himself or apologizes.
He can tell you exactly what happened in a 1971 Royals/Rangers game he played in, though. He is much better suited to being a colour guy.
Glad someone is keeping track. In addition to just lacking in general goodness Buck also has this unfortunate nasally voice. I’m probably one of the few people who preferred Jamie Campbell.
I think Buck does a good job. His broadcasting has improved over the years. While conventional in some respects, he also keeps things lively and makes some astute comments.
New York (NL) is correct.
With the very slight addition that Ralph Kiner still comes around every week for a few innings on the network broadcasts to tell stories about 40s baseball and exhibit his dry wit.
I admit bias, but I watch every team play from time to time on the MLB package, and there is no question in my mind that the Mets’ tv guys are the best in the business. The Rangers guys are also excellent, imho. ChiSox (Harrelson, that is) are putrid, in spite of Steve Stone.
Twins are correct. If you want to add sideline reporters or radio guys, that would be another cool post as well.
Twins radio guys are John Gordon (retiring) and Dan Gladden. The fill-ins for Gordon, whose schedule was cut in half this year, have been Ted Robinson, Bob Kurtz, and Kris Atteberry. Jack Morris also broadcasts from time-to-time.
Both Morris and Gladden are….interesting to listen to.
I agree — radio guys also deserve looking into. And in the case of the Twins, I think we’ll see a significant up-tic if a Kris Atteberry is tabbed to fill Gordo’s shoes. Gordo peaked in “Little Big League” 😉
What bothers you about Gladden? While I used to not like him so much I heard a broadcast without him or Gordon and I just turned it off it was so bad. Lots of dead air, and the play-by-play was way, way off.
One time I switched to Detroit’s radio broadcast and heard, “Hrbek style tag there.” switched right back.
Gladden has a good voice and some nice insights but he is very wrong a lot of the time. This year I heard him claim that Cuddyer could play shortstop for any team in the majors when speaking of his versatility. Can’t get any more wrong than that.
Milwaukee’s sound good.
BA is probably one of the top 5 TV announcers in the game. Bill Schroeder is kinda your typical vet announcer, seems like a good guy but relies a lot on bad stats, touts the defense of Yuni Betancourt, and thinks that every hard hit ball is the result of a “hanger”. But he’s hardly the worst.
It’s also become common practice in Philly to mute the TV as well and listen to Scott Franzke and Larry Andersen on the radio. They are the far superior broadcast team in this town.
Cosign.
Thirded
But Larry Anderson is not as funny as he thinks he is. Too much schtick.
On the NY American.
I would just have a list of all the people just in case they seem to use a rotation if anything in which Ken Singleton is play by play for the road games with any combination of John Flaherty, Paul O’neil and David Cone. Kay sometimes calls games on the roads but it depends on other scheduling conflicts. I know this is more information than you need but I figure it might help if you want to have a more precise measure between road and home games.
It would also seem that radio games have a lot less turnover or variability so you may want to examine these groups instead. Television crews seem to be less constant with a host of factors you won’t be able to account for. Whereas radio teams are more static consistently calling each game. Just a thought.
In order of frequency, I’m pretty sure the New York (American) booth goes: Michael Kay, Ken Singleton, John Flaherty, Al Leiter, David Cone, Paul O’Neill.
Leiter and Cone might be interchangeable in frequency; it’s hard to say, since Cone didn’t broadcast any games at all last year (contract dispute), although he’s done a lot of games this year. When Kay’s off (which is usually for the West Coast trips), YES has done Singleton/Cone this year, which is far and away the network’s best booth, to be honest.
Incorrect. Best booth- Kay/O’Neill/Leiter. Dont like Singleton at all though he plays well with O’Neill. Kay and O’Neill have good chemistry, the best of any combo. When O’Neill is around it turns what is normally a very sterile, stodgy, professional booth into a fun one where the guys are jabbing each other and laughing while announcing the game.
If we’re going to radio, the Yanks have to have by far the worst duo in the business. Not familiar with too many others, but John Sterling is way beyond annoying. Enough with the stupid HR calls. Makes even Hawk tolerable. And Susan Waldman is just plain stupid. Doesnt know the game at all. I’ll never forget the time she was trying to explain that a Yankee hitter was trying to hit the bottom of the ball to hit it on the ground. And her voice!
I agree on quality. But that is not the issue here. If you want to develop a consistent metric it would be pointless to do it without first ensuring that your measuring the correct observations. I can be catching games called by Michael Kay when they are really being called by Ken Singleton. There are ways around this but, without establishing what group is calling all of the games this measure will really be useless in determining which broadcaster is the worst. So I think before deciding who to use, we need to know with reliability whose calling the games consistently. Does this make sense?
For those who need to know about Waldman this is all you need:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fdtn0Z4o8cM
I’m sure Suzyn Waldman is a nice woman, but jeez is she awful to listen to! Every Yankee is “terriffic”. A lifelong Red Sox fan, with the Boston accent to boot, cheering for the hated yankees is just repulsive.
Ironically, her voice brought her to NYC in the first place, as a singer/actress. Who knew?
I hardly ever watch the opposition’s feed, but in my limited exposure to it, I can’t think of anyone worse than the guys doing White Sox games. They were absolutely unlistenable. Though it was a few years ago, though, so apologies to the current guys if the booth team has changed since then.
You just can’t handle the Hawk.
I personally love Hawk, but I could see why people don’t as he is an unabashed homer, HOWEVER, how could you not love Stoney? He is one of the best in the business.
Agreed.
My relationship with Hawk is like my relationship with bleu cheese: in my younger years I found it thoroughly repugnant; as a slightly older person, I enjoy it for almost the same reason.
My best friend was a Sox fan. We used to watch the games in the early 90s with Hawk and Wimpy.
“Can of Corn for One Dog”
It was like they were speaking another language, but kinda cool when you figured it out, i.e. an easy fly ball for Lance Johnson.
I enjoy the Hawk and think Stone balances him out a bit, which helps. However, I don’t know of any other announcer that has a website devoted entirely to ending his broadcast career. heavethehawk.com I believe.
Yes. A little blue cheese goes a long way. Hawk is OK in smallish portions.
It’s like listening to a five year old (harrelson) and his vaguely embarrassed father (Stone) call a game. Harrelson is an embarrassment to all organic life forms.
Still unlistenable, although Stone is good… Definitely mute it and listen to Rooney (back in the day).
The Hawk is so bad, I can’t stand watching video highlights on MLB.com.
May I present to you exhibit A of why “The Hawk” is the worst sports broadcaster in the history of civilization:
http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=5699087
“ALEXEI!??!?!?!!?……YES!…YES!…YES!…YES!…YES!…HISTORY.”
That’s your perfect game call? Shoot me now.
Hawk is by far the worse. Talks in a foreign language? No he doesn’t, baseball in general is like that “here comes uncle charlie” “here comes the curve” most of what he says is understandable to baseball fans. It’s his bitching when the Sox are losing and his ridiculous nut hugging celebrations that REALLY kill it for me. He is the only reason I wish the Sox lose every game 100-0 except when they play the Yankes, Sox, Mets, and Phillies.
Like the guy above said, Hawk is so bad you can’t even listen to highlights. People who like Hawk are those messed up girls who like to be hit and stuff during sex. So much abuse over time that it becomes the only way you think things can be and you end up liking it in a sick way.
Here’s something I saw in the comments section at South Side Sox that pretty much sums up Hawk Harrelson:
There are a lot of terrible announcers in this world, but Hawk drives me nuts more than most. I don’t like too much homerism in my announcing, but that’s to be expected to some degree. I hate it when my announcer talks to the ball, telling it to “GET DOWN” or “STRETCH” or “STAY IN THE AIR” or “GET FOUL”. I hate his “Dadgummit” and his “You gotta be bleeping me!” and his angry silence and his umpire conspiracies and his cool-story-bro stories from 50 years ago. I hate his exaggerations of players’ skills, and I hate his exaggeration of White Sox prospects that ultimately fail every time. I hate his bending over for the Twins and his “future first-ballot Hall-of-Famer” and his “former 20-game winner”. I hate that he ruined one of the greatest moments in White Sox history because his call was, “YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! HISTORY!” I hate that when I’m angry and frustrated with the White Sox, I have to be angry and frustrated with him too, because when things go wrong, he gets angering and frustrating. —by mikecws91
Boston is correct. You could add the lovely Heidi Watney as their member on field as well.
For radio it’d be the excellent Joe Castiglione as well as Dave O’Brien and Jon Rish.
Grew up in NH/MA, so pretty familiar with Castiglione. Actually still prefer Jerry Trupiano to O’Brien. O’Brien’s almost too polished, maybe.
John Rish is absolutely horrible. He reads a laundry list of sterile, useless crap for every guy that comes to the plate, and says idiotic stuff like “The wave is old and stupid, who likes it anyway?” and Castigs just awkwardly ignores him, as he should. Fcukin Rish.
Dennis Eckersley is Remy’s primary fill-in for road games when Remy isn’t feeling well enough to travel.
How is it that Castig gets consideration for the Fricke award and Ned Martin doesn’t? Ned was the last great radio guy they had (Jim Wood, too, of course).
Haven’t seen much from Eckersley this year now that Remy is feeling better (very glad to see remdog healthy). But wouldn’t mind a trio broadcast from time to time. Sometimes Remy just goes silent and DO drones on and on.
Kruk and Kuip are the main guys for San Francisco, though Jon Miller subs quite a bit.
I believe Miller does only the games that are on NBC in San Fran, which is typically Friday nights at home.
Giants: Jon Miller and David B. Fleming are the radio broadcasters and I thought all 4 broadcasters (those two plus Kruik and Kype) shared both radio and TV duties, depending on the day and the schedule. They are awesome group. Radio is better because they talk more.
All four (Kruk , Kuip, Miller, Fleming) do both TV and radio. Though Kruk and Kuip are the mainstays, Miller and Fleming have been doing an excellent job for a number of years now. Any rating of the Giants’ broadcasters must include all four.
Atlanta is correct.
There have been a lot more games this season with Joe Simpson doing play-by-play and Brian Jordan doing color though; mostly during the week.
Yeah looks like a revolving door of Glavine, Jordan, and Smoltz I think?
Caray and Simpson are a pretty difficult listen for someone of the FanGraphs ilk like me, and the Simpson/Jordan games are almost completely unwatchable. Huge, huge step down from Jon Sciambi a few years ago.
Fortunately, Jim Powell and Don Sutton are not half bad on radio.
I’m more of a fan of the Braves radio broadcasts as well, but Don Sutton should absolutely NOT be allowed to do play-by-play. He’s horrible at it.
Caray had that great call the other day.
“LINE DRIVE CENTER FIELD, AND it’s scooped up by the shortstop on one hop, throw to first, out.”
It’s nice to have some enthusiasm from the booth, but excitability is another thing entirely.
They also had Erin Andrews in studio before she took speaking lessons.
I like Joe Simpson even though he’s old-school. He’s not old-school in a full of himself kind of way. Chip Carey is bad on his own, but he carries the Carey name which makes him worse. he has cut down on the use of the term “fisted” a bit, which is nice.
I think Powell is a genuine star. He understands some new-school stat concepts and gently nudges Sutton along; he sells Sutton’s jokes; he’s pretty good at a neutral play-by-play; and he seems to have actual chemistry in the booth with Sutton.
Powell’s occasional replacement is Ben Ingram, who’s decent but not quite as good. Sutton’s occasional replacement is Mark Lemke, who has a face for radio and a voice for silent films. He’s awful.
St Louis splits evenly between Dan McLaughlin, Al Hrabosky, and Rick Horton.
Yes, Ricky Horton should be added. The 3 of them are splitting the broadcasts so that any 2 of them are on the air at the same time and all 3 are getting equal time.
Chicago Nationals is correct.
The radio side is Pat Hughes and Keith Moreland…Pat is a fantastic Play-by-player and Keith is getting better in his rookie season.
While I miss the subtle (and not so subtle) ways Pat used to make fun of Santo, it’s nice having someone else in the booth who knows what’s going on.
Seattle is right.
Yes, though former player Jay Buhner and Dan Wilson are frequent guests. These rotating assignments change year-to-year, though.
And there’s a lot of rotation this season with the passing of Niehaus. Rick Rizzs does games as does Ron Fairly.
It’s my sense that Mike Flanagan has done more games than Jim Palmer this year. Palmer generally does not go on the road, and has done fewer home games than in past years. Given Jim’s verbosity and Mike’s restraint, one would be forgiven for remembering one and overlooking the other.
I think this is correct. Its probably a 60/40 split in Flannagan’s favor, which is a huge loss for O’s fans, since Palmer is so much better in the booth.
Not sure how you want to handle Pittsburgh. Greg Brown and John Wehner split time with Neverett and Walk (they shift back and forth between TV and radio). Steve Blass also does a fair amount of color commentary, but is definitely a fifth wheel (and doesn’t travel).
Actually they mix and match color guys don’t they?
Its Brown and Nevrett spliiting play by play (one on radio, one on TV alternating).
Walk is one color guy, Wehner is the road color guy, while Blass works at home. The color guys rotate as well between TV/radio and Brown/Nevrett.
Yeah, not all of these are easy to streamline. Am hoping to narrow all the teams down to two or three names, for sake of simplicity.
For the Pirates I’d definitely recommend three names, Greg Brown, Tim Neverett and Bob Walk, as they do pretty much every game either on tv or the radio, so it wouldn’t really make sense to leave any of them off. Wehner and Blass split the home and road games, so it’sfine to leave them off.
That’s interesting, the shift between radio and television. Atlanta used to do that when they had Skip Caray, Pete Van Wieren, Don Sutton, and Joe Simpson as their foursome. They actually made the switch in-game, each group doing 4.5 innings.
Braves’ broadcasters have sure fallen far since those days
Back in The Day, the Mets had HOF’er Bob Murphy, Lindsay Nelson and HOF’er Ralph Kiner trad off three inning shifts, one on the radio, the other two on TV. THAT was a great booth.
kansas city is correct. [if we’re adding the field reporters, joel goldberg is on the field for the TV team]
You like Ryan Lefebvre? I was reading about his problems with depression and anxiety, and cited Thomas Merton and lectio divina.
Seems a little more thoughtful/introspective than the typical play-by-player.
I think its cool he has battled depression and is open about it.
I think his broadcasting of games is not cool. He is very much wedded to old school philosophies and praising guys like Chris Getz. Very much a company man.
He’s also the guy that called out Milton Bradley, inciting Bradley to search him out. To be fair, what Ryan said wasn’t all that controversial or awful, just contrasting Bradley to Josh Hamilton turning his life around.
LeFebvre has some dry wit to him, which is ok from time to time, but he can be pretty condescending/ignorant of the stat community, even for a PBP guy. I agree with Max about him being attached to mediocre players.
I like Frank White in his current role as the color man. He’s good at breaking down the more interesting things like positioning and mechanics when they come into play. He’s also good for a chuckling fit every so often.
Joel Goldberg is a great on-field guy, but he does a weekly spot on talk radio where he’ll shirk the kitschy sideline reporter stereotype and actually be pretty insightful. He seems to have a passion for the game, which you don’t always find in people with his job.
Houston’s is correct. And it ought to tell you how great they are, that JD and Brownie actually make watching the Astros fun.
Radio is Brett Dolan and Dave Raymond, with Milo Hamilton still calling home games. He’ll occasionally come on a road trip nowadays, but it’s usually only to call a game in a stadium he hasn’t visited.
Agreed completely on JD and Brownie. Best on air combo I’ve ever heard.
Side Note: Jeff Bagwell has provided commentary on Saturday home games the last couple of seasons, excluding his time as hitting coach.
Eric Collins and Steve Lyons call most of the Dodgers away games. Scully does home games and a limited away schedule.
And we get Charlie Steiner in lieu of Vin as well – Steiner is brutal, but maybe that’s because in comparison we’re spoiled by Vin’s dulcet tones and witticisms.
Charley Steiner only does radio. I’m surprised a Dodgers fan wouldn’t know that.
Scully just does home games and games west (Joe West?) of the Rockies.
That said, he is the greatest announcer of all time.
I know, I know, its sacrilege, but Vin Scully annoys me. He talks a blue streak, as though he was reading the press guide. Take a breath Vin!
Chicago AL is correct but Steve Stone would like to make a motion to consider color commentators and play-by-play men separately.
This would also be an opportunity to give Vin Scully an ‘A’ (or is it Announcer NERD of 10?) twice.
They get added together. He is a twenty.
Cleveland’s are correct
Royals is correct, although Frank White takes extended vacations and Jeff Montgomery fills in quite a bit.
Ehhh not really. Jeff Montgomery has done about 3-4 series so far. Really not much for now.
Also, if radio team is done in future, I think most Royals fans will tell you Denny Matthews is very good, but goes on very few road trips. That leaves us with Bob Davis, who we can only hope isn’t on during a weird play. You’ll never be told what happened. You’ll just get a “oh boy!” or similar redneck-sounding exclamation. Steve Stewart is always in the booth but only goes on air when Denny is gone. He’s actually okay. Very raw, but eventually he’ll describe what happened. I always hope for him to jump in during a Bob Davis call to elaborate.
What criteria would these announcers be graded on? This sounds fun. Would be interesting to see who the most respected announcer is.
Washington is correct.
For Baltimore, I think Mike Flanagan is on more than Jim Palmer at this point. And I’m not sure but Jim Hunter may do more games as play-by-play than Gary Thorne. But I don’t watch nearly as many Orioles broadcasts as I do Nationals broadcasts.
For Colorado, if you’re limiting to two, I’d use Jeff Huson instead of George Frazier as the #2. Frazier’s there about half the time, always in the booth with Goodman. Huson’s there pretty much every game; when Frazier’s in the booth he’s on the field just outside the dugout with the TV cameras, when Frazier’s not there he’s in the booth with Goodman.
Came here to make sure this was said. Frazier seems to be transitioning out of the broadcast team, and calls less than half the road games and maybe half of the home games. Huson is always at the ballpark, similar to Goodman.
Cleveland’s is accurate for the main booth, but Mike Hargrove has joined for a handful of games (and has been very entertaining). If only we could dump Underwood and go to a Manning / Grover color commentary duo. . . and please go ahead with radio, too. I’d praise Tom Hamilton and Mike Hegan along with expressing extreme distaste for Jim Rosenhaus.
Cincy is correct.
DBacks are correct. Probably my favorite tandem if you take away my hometown Tigers bias. Although Rod Allen is nails as an analyst.
Does anyone know what happened to Josh Lewin in Texas? I loved that guy.
Lewin was let go somewhat unexpectedly this past offseason. Rumor is that Nolan Ryan didn’t much care for his style. The thought is that he spent a little too much time talking about pop culture and not enough time focusing on baseball. Fans’ opinions on him was pretty split – I personally had grown to like him quite a bit after absolutely hating him in the beginning. I think he is now hosting a show on a local DFW sports talk radio station. He also does San Diego Chargers football.
He was replaced for this season by John Rhadigan, who by all accounts is a great guy but had no play-by-play experience and was absolutely terrible in the booth. In late May, Rhadigan was replaced by Dave Barnett moving over from the Rangers’ radio booth. Barnett is adequate. He was replaced in the radio booth with Steve Busby, alongside the absolutely magnificent Eric Nadel.
Rod Allen has taken to calling pitches “pieces.” I find this hilarious.
Lewin and Nadel were excellent.
I know it would certainly be difficult to include radio guys in this, but Par Hughes on WGN is a remarkably talented play-by-play guy for the Cubs. He’s knowledgable, he’s got a great home run call, and when my cubbies are getting blown out he finds a way to keep the call interesting. Hes at the pinnacle of his profession.
I believe Vin Scully only handles home games and division road games. I don’t know who handles the rest.
Carson – might be helpful to split guys up when you do the voting. Have a rating for each member of the pair, and then the pair overall. Some of the splits are going to be huge, I assume. Like, on scale of 1-10, The Hawk may get a rating of -100000, while Stone gets an 8.5.
David Cone is awesome! He has mentioned WAR, FIP, ERA+, and FanGraphs multiple times during Yankee broadcasts.
Yankees is NOT correct. their broadcasters are usually Joe Morgan and Orel Hershiser and sometimes Nomar Garciaparra.
oh, an ESPN joke. that’s uh, that’s really funny.
no, i’m serious. ha. ha. ha.
Mike Flanagan does a lot of Orioles games, Im not sure if Palmer does more or not.
For the Pirates, the announcers rotate between radio and tv so there are no primary announcers. Greg Brown and Tim Neveritt do the play by play. As far as color, Bob Walk does all games whereas Steve Blass only does home games and John Wehner does road games. Mostly, I want to give some credit to John Wehner, who I would argue is THE BEST analyst I have ever heard. He certainly is better than all the clowns on national TV. Every time I listen to him I learn something. Once you get past the strong Pittsburgh accent, he really knows the game. He’s particularly enlightening for me, a stathead, in revealing awesome scouting insight. I’d put him up against anybody.
Even though as has been mentioned, Michael Kay and Singleton are the two main guys in NY AL, Cone and O’Neil are way more fun to listen to. Here’s why:
1. Cone brings the sabermetrics.
2. O’Neil makes fun of Kay the whole time and it’s hilarious.
Also, if Kay says Rodge-riguez one more time I’m going to pull my hair out.
On the Washington broadcasts, I rather like Bob Carpenter. Solid play-by-play guy, knows the game. F.P. Santangelo is cheerful, colorful, knows the game, and carries just the right blend of realist and home-team-apologist: he takes a constructive-criticism-only approach. He also only mentions his own playing experience if it’s ACTUALLY RELEVANT.
fp is good. he did giants pre-game, post-game, and the occasional in-game during his tenure in sf. really liked him. glad to see he landed on his feet in dc.
Others have mentioned David Cone but I’m surprised he does not have a massive following here since he mentions Fangraphs almost every game by name. He loves all of the stats we love and cites them regularly.
I can only wish this will eventually drive Kay insane and make him leave. Forever. And into eternity.
The Phillies guys are an F, more like a Q they’re so terrible. The White Sox guys are a D-. Harrelson’s terribleness overwhelms everything else. Vin Scully A+. I feel like a few years ago he could kind of go soft and lose focus, but now I think he’s as good as he’s ever been. I feel like a bigger deal should be made about the oncoming end of his career.
Rick Rizzs is definitely the #1 guy in the Mariners booth. He has been with the Mariners since 1983, except a couple years somewhere in between. I would put Sims as the second person.
Rizzs is rarely on TV. He does radio most of the time and fills in occasionally on TV. Sims and Blowers do almost all of the TV.
Darren Sutton is the worst pbp man in the country.
Carpenter kinda comes across as an idiot, although he’s improved immensely in the past twoish years. Santangelo often subtly corrects him. FP is pretty great, actually. He’s consistently eye-opening and typically cheerful. He’s young and energetic and seems to really enjoy doing it. Both of them seem to go out of their way to give occasional shoutouts to the tech and camera crews.
I apologize if this has been mentioned, but for the Pirates, Greg Brown has done as much pbp as Neverette and is significantly better and has been there longer.
Also if we are giving opinions here are a couple:
-Chip Caray is absolutely horrible although I’m sure that has been said. It’s a shame because I though that Skip and Don Sutton used to be very good together for Atlanta.
-I would take or leave Michael Kay he seems to be more about Michael Kay than anything else.
-I don’t care how long he has been around, Ken Harrelson is like a drunk fan calling the game and shouldn’t be allowed on the air. He constantly roots and has stupid catch phrases.
-Vin Skully is obviously amazing. Especially how he carries the game by himelf so fluently that you don’t notice no one else is in the booth for a couple of innings.
-Duane Kuiper of the Giants has an extraordinarily annoying homerun call with that “its hit high ITS HIT DEEEEEEP” like he is drilling it into your brain. I think I dislike him from the Barry Bonds days.
-Finally I really appreciate my redbirds broadcasters. McLauglin is very solid and Hrabosky brings and old school personality to the table…he’s the best.
Every time that jackwagon Ray Fosse opens his mouth people all over the east bay fight the urge to kick puppies and punch babies.
Glen Kuiper is only good by comparison to his partner.
I also think the radio guys should also be ranked.
Why not doing one list for TV, one list for radio broadcasters?
The Phillies TV broadcasters are so bad, I’ve given up. I now watch on TV but hit mute and listen on the radio. For a first place team to have a last place announcing team is embarrassing.
I wish Tom McCarthy was “looooong gone” after this year.
Phillies announce crew gets a D from me. McCarthy is a D, Wheeler is about a C-, Matthews is about a C-. So bad.
Gubby and Rojas for the Angels are hilariously awesome. The most intelligent banter? No, but funny as hell
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TIME TO END THE CRAP. I’M TIRED OF MLB CONTROLLING WHO WE GET STUCK W/ ANNOUNCING PLAYOFF & WORLD SERIES GAMES. YOUR TEAM WINS YOUR ANNOUNCERS. WHY SHOULD I BE FORCED TO LISTEN TO YOUR HAND CHOSEN ANNOUNCERS , WHO BY THE WAY SUCK , WHEN I COULD BE LISTENING TO AN ANNOUNCER WHO REALLY CARES ABOUT THE TEAM PLAYING. LIVING IN NEW YORK WE GET ENOUGH CRAP ANNOUNCING WHEN THE YANKEES PLAY THE MUTTS , OH, EXCUSE ME THE METS , & THEIR ABYSMAL ANNOUNCERS. THE HOME TEAMS SHOULD BE ABLE TO HAVE THE OPTION OF LISTENING TO THEIR OWN ANNOUNCERS INSTEAD OF WHAT EVER RODEO CLOWNS YOU TRY TO FORCE DOWN OUR THROAT. I’D , & MY FELLOW YANKEE FANS WOULD RATHER HEAR THE TIME DELAYED RADIO ANNOUNCER WE’RE USE TO THAN YOUR BUMPKIN OF CHOICE. ACTUALLY THE OTHER & MORE FREQUENTLY USED OPTION IS SAID “BAR” ,WHERE YOU CAN’T HEAR ANYTHING ANYWAY. THUS COSTING THE ALL IMPORTANT TV AUDIENCE #’S TO THE CABLE COMPANY. NOT THAT YOU’LL DO ANYTHING NOW OR IN THE IMMEDIATE FUTURE JUST THOUGHT I’D THROW IT OUT THERE FOR THE REAL BASEBALL FANS. OH , WAIT IT WOULD PROBABLY COST YOU A FEW DOLLARS TO DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT , WELL HOW ABOUT DOING SOMETHING FOR THE PEOPLE WHO PAY YOUR CORRUPT SALARIES FOR A CHANGE.