Crowdsourcing MLB Broadcasters, Part 1: The East
Here at FanGraphs, we devote a lot of time to analyzing baseball. I flatter myself to think that our analysis, in some cases, helps shape the way you consume the sport. Measured in that way, however, we fall far short of the influence that your local broadcast of choice exerts. We may grace your brainwaves for a handful of minutes every day, but every time you watch a game on TV, the announcers are granted three hours to shape your view and enjoyment of the sport.
In fact, I would venture that no one group contributes more to your enjoyment and understanding of baseball than your most frequently-viewed broadcast crew. Despite that, it has been over four years since we last compiled a ranking of broadcast groups. Over the course of the next three days, we will post a series of surveys, one for each major league franchise. We will then use the results of these surveys to compile a comprehensive fan-based ranking of all television broadcast crews.
When you peruse the section for your team or teams of choice, you will find a link to a poll. That poll covers three categories, as well as an overall ranking. In addition, there is a separate space for any additional comments you would like to make. The eventual ranking of broadcast teams will be quantitative, but I will include relevant comments from this section in my writing of those rankings.
The “Analysis” score covers the frequency and quality of a broadcast team’s discussion of baseball. Of note, this doesn’t mean sabermetric or statistical analysis, though some broadcast teams certainly excel in that area. Rather, it covers all the ways in which a broadcast team attempts to inform viewers about the players on the field and the game situation they find themselves in.
Is a color commentator particularly adept at breaking down a hitter’s adjustments? That’s excellent analysis. Does a broadcaster mention a player’s DRS, then use that number without context to explain why someone is a good or bad defender? That’s bad analysis, despite its use of advanced metrics. This category’s score should represent how much you feel you learn about baseball while you watch the game.
The “Charisma” score covers the amount of enjoyment you derive from listening to the announcers. Does the booth’s camaraderie make you feel like you’re listening to a game with friends? Does an announcer’s wistful recounting of his playing days leave you in stitches? Do you find yourself just downright having fun listening to their stories? All of that is contained in this category.
The “Coherence” score was the most difficult category to name. It covers how well the broadcast explains the action on the field as it happens. Is the play-by-play crisp and informative? Do the announcers keep viewers abreast of the count and game situation in discussing team strategy? When a strange situation comes up, do they convey what happened and what it means for the two teams effectively?
The “Overall” score does not need to be an even weighting of each of the three categories above. It is simply a measure of how much you enjoy watching a broadcast. Some broadcasts excel at emphasizing their strengths, focusing on whichever qualities their viewers most enjoy. Others mistakenly emphasize weak points. All of this, and any other factors that influence your experience while watching a broadcast booth, apply here. One note: please do try to separate any feelings you have about the team itself from this rating. A club can have an excellent broadcast even if the product on the field often disappoints, and vice versa.
The first set of 10 surveys covers the teams of the NL and AL East divisions. The Central and West will follow over the next two days. Please feel free to respond to as many surveys you like, so long as you feel you have watched enough of the broadcast in the past two years to have an informed opinion about it.
One final note: the unique challenges of broadcasting during the COVID-19 pandemic have affected the composition of several booths. I have endeavored to list the most current information available for each broadcast team, but in some cases the personnel mix for 2021 may still be in flux, or I may have otherwise erred in compiling the list of contributors. If your enjoyment of a team is particularly contingent on a single broadcaster whose status for next year is as of yet unknown, please mention that in the space provided for additional comments in the survey.
AL EAST
Toronto Blue Jays
- Dan Shulman (play-by-play) and Buck Martinez (colour) are the main pairing.
- Martinez (play-by-play) and Pat Tabler (colour) are a secondary duo.
- Hazel Mae provides field-level reporting.
Click here to rate Toronto’s television broadcast team.
Baltimore Orioles
- Scott Garceau, Kevin Brown, and Geoff Arnold shared play-by-play duties in 2020.
- Ben McDonald and Mike Bordick alternated color commentary in 2020.
- Gary Thorne (play-by-play) and Jim Palmer (color) will likely return in 2021, along with Jim Hunter as a fill-in play-by-play commentator.
- Melanie Newman and Brett Hollander provided field-level reporting in 2020.
Click here to rate Baltimore’s television broadcast team.
Tampa Bay Rays
- Dewayne Staats handles play-by-play duties.
- Brian Anderson handles color commentary.
- Tricia Whitaker provides field-level reporting.
- Kevin Burkhardt occasionally provides play-by-play coverage.
Click here to rate Tampa Bay’s television broadcast team.
Boston Red Sox
- Dave O’Brien handles play-by-play duties.
- Jerry Remy and Dennis Eckersley combine for color commentary.
- Tom Caron occasionally provides play-by-play coverage.
- Guerin Austin and Jahmai Webster provide field-level reporting.
Click here to rate Boston’s television broadcast team.
New York Yankees
- Michael Kay is the main play-by-play commentator.
- Ken Singleton, Bob Lorenz, and Ryan Ruocco also provide play-by-play commentary.
- David Cone, John Flaherty, Paul O’Neill, and Ken Singleton handle color commentary.
- Meredith Marakovits provides field-level reporting.
Click here to rate New York’s television broadcast team.
NL EAST
Atlanta Braves
- Chip Caray handles play-by-play duties.
- Jeff Francoeur is the lead color analyst.
- Tom Glavine provides additional color commentary.
- Kelly Crull and Paul Byrd provide field-level reporting.
Click here to rate Atlanta’s television broadcast team.
Miami Marlins
- Paul Severino serves as the play-by-play announcer.
- Todd Hollandsworth is the color commentator.
- Craig Minervini occasionally fills in on play-by-play and also provides field-level reporting.
- Jessica Blaylock and Kelly Saco provide field-level reporting.
Click here to rate Miami’s television broadcast team.
New York Mets
- Gary Cohen handles play-by-play duties.
- Wayne Randazzo serves as a backup play-by-play announcer.
- Keith Hernandez and Ron Darling provide color commentary.
- Todd Zeile contributes occasional color commentary.
- Steve Gelbs provides field-level reporting.
Click here to rate New York’s television broadcast team.
Washington Nationals
- Bob Carpenter handles play-by-play duties.
- Dave Jageler serves as a backup play-by-play announcer.
- F.P. Santangelo provides color commentary.
- Michael Morse contributes occasional color commentary.
- Alex Chappell provides field-level reporting.
Click here to rate Washington’s television broadcast team.
Philadelphia Phillies
- Tom McCarthy handles play-by-play duties.
- John Kruk and Ben Davis provide color commentary.
- Ruben Amaro and Jimmy Rollins provide occasional additional color commentary.
Click here to rate Philadelphia’s television broadcast team.
Ben is a writer at FanGraphs. He can be found on Bluesky @benclemens.
Even though he’s not in the East, I think Thom Brennaman deserves to be recognized for his signature commentary in the Red capitol of the world, as there’s a drive into deep left field by Castellanos and that’ll be a home run. And so that’ll make it a 4-0 ballgame.
Brennaman resigned after being suspended for his signature hot mic comment.
I don’t think he knows if he’ll ever put on the headset again.
NBC Sports Philadelphia announced Gregg Murphy would not be coming back after the 2020 season. Was a part of massive budget/headcount cuts at the network this summer, unclear if it’s a position to be filled with someone new or an elimination of the job.
What happened to Mike Schmidt?
I don’t think anything has been said about 2020 for Schmidt but he was calling Sunday home games this past season. Assume he still calls some (Philly fans would revolt if he was “fired”), but he did scale back from doing both Saturday and Sunday to just Sunday this past year which might have been a personal decision. Rollins and Amaro probably cut into his time a bit as well.
Missed that in my combing through information, but it’s now updated. Thanks!
I think that TV broadcasts, and to a lesser degree in-stadium scoreboards, are the reason more people aren’t up to date with modern analytics, when it comes to baseball or any other sport.
As you mentioned in the article, baseball games are three hours where the only thing you hear are the commentators. Most casual fans’ entire baseball experience, and therefore knowledge, comes from these broadcasts.
Generally if an announcer says that a certain player is good or bad, the fan base will believe it. If they say a certain stat, people take it as gospel. These things aren’t necessarily bad, but when the info being passed on isn’t very good, it makes it difficult to change people’s mind.
Every time a broadcast shows a stat line when a batter comes up to bat, its AVG/HR/RBI, sometimes with OBP tacked on at the end. This is why most baseball fans still hold on to these so hard! They are never taught anything new, and are told these traditional stats are everything.
It’s not the fans’ fault, and it’s not any one broadcaster’s fault. That’s just the way the system is. Broadcasters have a lot of power in the way fans think about the sport, from players, events, teams, stats, whatever. That can be good or bad.
There are a lot of good commentators that aren’t analytical because they understand what they do and don’t know, and they are just fun to listen to for other reasons. It’s the ones that don’t know but say that they do, and therefore are a bad influence, that cause a problem.
Good broadcasts are really fun to listen too. I hope that there are more in the future!
100%
In football, there’s 8 seconds of action and 25 seconds of dead time. They maximize that dead time with strategic conversation and the drawings.
You could do so much with visual aids,previous video highlights, and analysis. Instead they bitch about players having fun.
I think it’s because the target TV audience is still an older crowd that has less interest in a lot of the analytics.
But why? You can mix good old fashioned storytelling with interesting and modern stats. Have a play-by-play, color, and need in the booth.
The Red Sox do this, now, and while I’m not a megafan of the broadcast team, it works. The anecdotes from Remy and Eck are often fun, even if Eck lays the jargon on too thick.
No radio? Because that makes the Braves picture look a lot bleaker than it really is, particularly in this age of MLB.tv’s audio overlay allowing fans to watch the game but listen to the radio feed.
Completely agree. Francouer is fun because he’s possibly a HOF most likeable guy, but the rest leaves a lot to be desired (especially if Glavine is on)
Frenchy was awesome on tbs with Darling and Anderson during the playoffs those guys love baseball and don’t crap on analytics unlike Smoltz, who is the absolute worst and outright hostile toward today’s game.
It absolutely baffles me that Smoltz keeps getting selected to do the World Series. What FOX executives listen to three and a half hours of Smoltz bitching and say “this guy’s doing a great job”?
Plus Buck has long overstayed his welcome. The World Series commentary was a truly awful experience.
Not if you were blogging on the Fangraphs website.
FRENCHY IS A NATIONAL TREASURE
So, when are you going to do the radio broadcast teams so I can see my childhood friend, Andy Freed (Rays), mentioned on Fangraphs?
David Cone, Merideth Marakovits, and Ken Singleton (he just needs to do more games) are, in my opinion, the only bright spots of the Yankees’ broadcasts. Unfortunately, the radio broadcasts aren’t much better.
Not a Yankee fan but Cone and Singleton are great and I loved it the Kaat and Singleton broadcast team in the 90’s. The Yankees booth is so bloated that is reminds me of the scene in Naked Gun where’s there’s like a ten person broadcast team for the Angels game.
I miss Al Leiter so much on this score.
So, we don’t get a shot, I mean the opportunity to provide valuable feedback to ARod???
No votes for radio teams?
TOR is my favorite of these teams. NYM would be right there if they’d get rid of Hernandez. On the radio side, Nats are fantastic, but Santangelo puts them at the very bottom for TV.
Love this series but think it’s a big flaw to ignore the radio.
1) Any of us who watches more than one team uses mlb.tv where you can sync in the radio.
2) I’m many markets the radio guys are more vaunted than the tv guys.
3) It is a good point of comparison with the TV guys for a given club, which will be good feedback for teams. For example, I live in the Bay Area where both teams have awful tv and great radio. I think it is good for teams/producers to see that feedback so they can better understand where the standard should be.
I’m a lifelong Giants fan, and it’s refreshing to find another person who can’t stand Kruk and Kuip.
The Giants have Bill Miller and Dave Fleming—two of the best voices in all of sports—and instead, they trot out Stadler and Waldorf for most games? It’s a baffling decision.
Ron Darling ruins the Mets for me. Too much of that “I’m a former major leaguer” whininess from him that just becomes obnoxious over time.
I’m a NY fan who follows both the Yanks and Mets. Even though the Yankees are the better team, I watch and listen to more Mets games because Mets announcers are so far superior to the awful Yankees announcers.
Thank you for all you do. As part of my MLB audio package, I have listened to a number of the radio broadcasters, but have rarely ventured into the TV realm. Are you going to do the same thing for the radio teams?
Baseball is still best when I am tending my tomatoes with Joe Castiglione’s voice describing the action on my head set. The great voices on radio on unsurpassed. I am sure it was Curt Gowdy or maybe it was Russ Hodges or Ernie Harwell that first drew me to the game, then again it might have been Vin Scully or perhaps Red Barber or Connie Desmond, no, it more likely was Mel Allen. I often plan my travel to coincide with a Brewers game to listen to Bob Uecker or Pat Hughes with the Cubs. My point is that these men have played a huge part in my lifelong love affair with baseball for which I am forever grateful.
As a Braves fan, I was really disappointed about Kelsey Wingert getting let go. I believe it was because she had too many personal relationships with the players. We loved her in the A!