Bat Flips And Nerds

New recruit Rachel Steinberg hits the ground running by asking John, Darius and Rob to chart their baseball autobiographies in five players. This is a fun one.

Russell talks to Derrick Goold, Cardinals beat writer for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch about the team's efforts to become an international brand, Derrick's love of London, and his participation in a world record.

Justin Mason and Joe Pisapia come on the show to educate Tom and Rob on the ways of Fantasy Baseball. During the show they discuss Justin's murder basement he's recording from, Joe wanting to fight dudes bigger than him, oh and they chat a bit about Fantasy Baseball. Joe Pisapia is the author of the excellent Fantasy Baseball Black Book, available here from Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fantas...

Brandon Lee and Alex Crisafulli join Russell and Darius to give the American perspective on the upcoming Cubs-Cardinals series in London, from the players to watch on each team to their outlook on the season, and the all-important issue of St Louis pizza.

Tom, John, Russell and special guest Joey Bailey from Four Bases combine to run through the blockbuster Mookie Betts trade that took place last night. 20 minutes in, Tom's computer shits itself and he's gone from the pod. So stick with it, you won't hear his dull Brummie tones after just one third of an hour.

Darius and Russell team up to try and educate two simpletons on the advanced statistics within the game of baseball. Will John ever accept stats are good, will Tom manage to wrap his head around the concept of comparing yourself against yourself and will Russell accept the amazing new Pringle Immediate Stars System (P.I.S.S). Find out right now.

Craig Goldstein, Editor-in-Chief of Baseball Prospectus, joins Tom and Darius to discuss the 2020 BP Annual, from how the team of writers is assembled to the process of editing such a complex book.

Bat Flips and Nerds emergency pod. We don't want to spoil it here, but can the team recover from it? The gang talk Astros managerial replacements, Dustin Pedroia, more exciting news for the UK baseball community and finally...the news no-one wanted. Spoiler alert, John is hosting and DOESN'T swear. Listen now.

Tom, Darius and John rush through the latest good news baseball stories before going head first into the Astros bin bashing bonanza. Tom finishes with a quiz that the other two find utterly underwhelming. No one tracks the results, no one will revisit this episode. Still, it filled 5 minutes.

What a way to start the year! All Star closer, World Series champ and all round #gooddude Sean Doolittle, and his equally incredible wife Eireann Dolan join John to discuss the plight of Minor Leaguers, MLB London, and a little bit of Fernando Rodney. Get on it!

Darius and Tom discuss the suggestions the Twitter public made in how they would like to see baseball change. They discuss Minor Leaguers pay, divisional realignment, changing the all-star game and how often is too often for a hitter to adjust their gloves. Tom also goes full John McGee, with a sweary rant.

Tom, John and Darius discuss the really important news: which teas they like and Gerardo Parra moving to Japan. Oh, and there's the sign-stealing scandal, the drastic culling of minor league teams, a Premier 12 recap, the release of London Series tickets, and much more.

John is joined by three special guests to preview baseball's 'World Cup', the Premier 12, which is taking place right now! Japanese and Taiwanese baseball experts Kaz Yamazaki and Rob Liu give an insight into two of the highly fancied teams after P12 commentator and Minor League baseball guru Tyler Maun intros both the tournament and the firecracker USA squad. All P12 games are available to watch...

What!? ANOTHER World Series Preview being released on the night of the World Series? That's right, but this one is different because it features five British blokes all talking about baseball! Seth Bennett of BBC World joins Tom to talk all about the Stephanie Apstein article in SI and give some live updates from Houston. Then Tom calls in stalwart of the podcast, Darius Austin, alongside regular...

Tom returns! He's joined by the ever present Darius Austin and the young spunk, Ben Carter. Tom immediately takes them off track by discussing a twitter storm from the past 24-hours, then the latest mobile games available for Android, before finally switching to baseball. The guys talk about the postseason situation, World Series hopes, World Series predictions, before finally finishing with some...

Ben, John and Darius discuss the unjuiced playoff baseball and then break down all the Divisional Series action. They also hope that Tom's predictions don't come true, figure out which Yankees John doesn't hate, and try to decide which team to back the rest of the way.

John, Ben and Darius break down the playoff bracket, make some ill-advised predictions, and figure out if Kyle Garlick and Mike Leake have ever faced each other.

John is joined by GB Baseball's indefatigable coach Liam Carroll to discuss the national team's recent run at the European Baseball Championships. In Liam's own words 'a rather different 9th place than last time', as the side beat a Czech club who came in 3rd overall and were a couple of well timed hits away from beating two of the top ranked sides in Germany and eventual Olympic qualifiers Israel...

John and Darius look forward to the playoffs and digest the Ned Yost news. Mike Ivory of UK Cubs and Jen McCaffrey of The Athletic Boston drop in to offer hot takes on the Maddon and Dombrowski situations.

Tom and John are back! John isn't hosting, which means it's going to be...stupid. Darius and Ben try to bring some balance into the madness, but unfortunately they get wrapped into Tom's game of "League 2 footballer or September call-up bullpen piece" game. Darius asks us what we're still excited about. Tom learns what a Funko Pop is. John gets sweary (surprise surprise). Ben learns who Bob Carolg...

Robyn Davidson joins Ben, Russell and Darius to talk doping in baseball, covering cycling, the impossibly resilient Yankees and the playoff races, and they all try to figure out if there is anything nice to say about the Players Weekend jerseys.

Tracey Wilks of UKMetsOnline joins Ben and Darius to talk all things Mets, from their recent hot streak and playoff chances to Pete Alonso's Rookie of the Year candidacy, the masterful Jeff McNeil, and whether Brodie Van Wagenen is a genius or a lunatic (it's both).

Mexican Baseball legend Jorge Cantu, former slugger with the Rays, Marlins and Reds joins us to talk about his MLB career, the World Baseball Classic, and offers some great tales from the clubhouse.

Tom, Russell and Darius react live to all the trade deadline moves, from a rather underwhelming first hour to a wild 20 minutes after the deadline when they find out the Astros have acquired Zack Greinke, among many more deals.

The New York Times' Tyler Kepner joins John to discuss his brilliant recent book 'K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches' following a weekend in which three of its major characters headed to Cooperstown. They also stopped by Tyler's old beats to check-in on the 2019 Yankees and Mets.