Bat Flips And Nerds

Episode 100 - The B&N Christmas Party

Christmas is here! John is joined by Tom 'Jingle', Darius and Ben for a live Christmas special, complete with mince pies, mulled wine, silly jumpers and secret santa.
They go over listeners Christmas wish lists, deciding whether santa will be naughty or nice, and conduct some live present unwrapping that reveals some truly extraordinary eBay finds - although one poor member of the team is left giftless. There's always 2019...

Episode 99 - Mike Petriello Joins the Show

MLB.com's Mike Petriello is the special guest this week, joining Russell and Darius to talk about Statcast, from what to look for when using the data to what might be coming in the future. They also discuss Mike's experience with bringing Statcast to a TV broadcast, the impact of advanced stats on Hall of Fame voting, and his discovery of the UK's baseball fan community.

Episode 98 - MLB London Belongs To Me?

John and Darius are joined by MLB Community's Dave Shaw to discuss MLB London's ticket prices and taking a positive from a negative through fan owned events, plus some hot stove chat and listener Qs.
Episode title c/o Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs.

Episode 96 - The Adventures of Baseball Brit

John talks to Joey Mellows aka 'Baseball Brit' about his 75 game baseball adventure. Joey shares his favourite spots, meetings and experiences of the trip, a few scrapes and wild stories and tips for planning your own baseball pilgrimage.
Strap in, this is quite a ride!

Episode 94 - Championship Series Roundtable

Four teams are still in with a chance to win the World Series. Darius talks to representatives of all four, starting with Leon Boyne (Dodgers) and Charlie Batho (Brewers) ahead of the NLDS, before bringing on George Martin (Astros) and some guy called Tom Pringle (Red Sox). They discuss the Divisional Series results, the most nervous and confident moments, the prospects for the Championship Series, and predict each team's unlikely hero.

Episode 93 - Playoff Prediction Pod

It's playoff season, and that means it's time for some more ill-advised predictions from the gang. Russell, Ben, and Darius go through the entire playoff bracket and put together the official Bat Flips and Nerds predictions, with some pre-recorded input from Tom and John. Will Rocktober last more than three hours? Can the Brewers overcome their thin rotation? Is anyone good enough to beat the Red Sox? Will Aaron Boone use himself to pinch-hit? It's all here, and much more...

Episode 91 - NL West Round(ish)table

Tom and Darius talk their way through the race for the NL West and the NL Wildcard.
Tom waxes lyrical about the Padres future, Darius has little gloom for the Giants future, then the guys work together through the rest of the NL West.
Tom once again makes a stupid bet, offends the Astros fanbase and laughs at his own idiocy.
Darius refuses to offend fanbases and continues to convince Tom into his way of thinking (Kershaw).

Episode 90 - Ben's DMs Are Open

With the announcement of David Wright's impending retirement, John quizzes Ben and Darius about Wright's career and whether the Mets third baseman will end up in the Hall of Fame. They debate the likely Rookie of the Year, Cy Young, and MVP winners, allowing John to make his Shohei Ohtani case for RoY. Questions follow on the worst deadline trade, where the Nationals will go from here, the most depressing team to follow next season, which unique team rules they'd impose, and much more.

Episode 88 - Johnny Hates Yaz

John and Darius discuss the storming Oakland As, the end of the affair in Washington and the latest on MLB London. John also finds time for another rant, this one focussed on Red Sox all-timer and awful human, Carl Yastrzemski.

Episode 87 - I Predict A Rant

The guys revisit their pre-season predictions to find only one of them knows anything about baseball. Unfortunately, it's the one who did a live bat flip during the podcast...
They also ponder precisely who David Bote was apologising to, with a side order of 19th Century French literature. Just another normal podcast.