The Barbecast (cespedes family barbecast)

Hey! Welcome to Part 2! We talked to the ORIGINAL GUEST OF THE BARBECAST, Craig Goldstein. It was a disaster. Then, we talked to the official minor leaguer of CFB, Kieran Lovegrove, about his off-season habits. And finally, Tales from Logdog with Lana Berry was spent reflecting on the ridiculous number of Barbecasts we've made her do. It got pretty emotional. IT'S BARBECAST 25; the most absurd podcast we’ve ever produced. Thanks for listening <3

Direct download: pod-25-part-2.mp3
Category:Cespedes Family Barbecast -- posted at: 4:38pm EDT

Episode 24 is here and is significantly less exciting than any episode of "24″. Our special guest this week is Doug "The Thug" Thorburn, pitching guru and Ubaldo Jimenez hater. Doug writes for Baseball Prospectus about pitching mechanics and he is the best of the best of the best at it. We talked to him for about an hour about his favorite and least favorite deliveries in baseball, as well as some ridiculous analysis on Jake’s pitching mechanics. Tales from Logdog with Lana Berry was actually pretty decent; we talked about Richard Sherman and why more athletes should take credit for their awesomeness. We had a particularly impressive crop of e-mails this week that covered Barry Bonds as a fetus, walk-up music, Eric Sogard, and Big Poop with another legendary piece of poetry. Our musical guest is DJ YRS JERZY for reasons that we cannot possibly explain. Next week is going to be CRAZY. Thanks for listening <3

Direct download: pod-24.mp3
Category:Cespedes Family Barbecast -- posted at: 12:30pm EDT

We've only been back in school for two days but Episode 23 simply couldn't wait. Our very very very special guest this week is Fred Claire, former General Manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers. We talked to him about his extensive career in the Dodgers organization, spanning from his beat writer days to his 1988 World Series Championship. We discussed some of his biggest transactions and how they look in retrospect (including trading away Pedro Martinez). Claire also talked about how international scouting has changed, the progression of advanced statistics, and of course, we asked him about Puig and Kershaw...and Vin Scully. Our SECOND special guest is professional baseball player Matt Ball, a right-handed pitcher in the Chicago White Sox organization. He was also born in 1995. We talked to Matt about the process of being drafted in 2013 as well as what it's like playing in the rookie-level Appalachian League. And yeah, we talked to Lana Berry again. We asked her a bunch of rapid fire questions and briefly discussed how she's coping with this dreadfully boring time of the baseball offseason. Our B-ref showdown/throwdown/skirmish was solid, and our e-mails included another ALL TIME GREAT from OBP. Our musical guest is THE SPACE JAM. Thanks for listening <3

Direct download: pod-23.mp3
Category:Cespedes Family Barbecast -- posted at: 9:24am EDT

Episode 22 of this ridiculous podcast has arrived. Our special guest this week is prospect enthusiast and plus-plus human being Chris Crawford of ESPN and MLBDraftInsider. We talked to Chris for close to an hour about the upcoming college baseball season, who to watch for the 2014 Draft, and his time as an employee at BestBuy. And yeah, we talked about our crappy baseball throwing best friend, Carlos Rodon. He sucks. Our baseball-reference name skirmish/showdown was a good one #Toots. After being the guest on this week's PRODcast (click here to listen), we recorded a quick segment with the Productive Outs dudes showcasing Riley's ability to come up with unbelievably insane fake minor leaguer names. He's a talented individual. Tales from Logdog with Lana Berry was another sub-par segment of messiness. Oh, and our musical guest this week is the Powerpuff Girls theme music. Thanks for listening <3

Direct download: pod-22.mp3
Category:Cespedes Family Barbecast -- posted at: 12:53pm EDT

It's the 21st edition of the Barbecast so grab an alcoholic beverage, sit back, and enjoy this AUSSIE of an episode. Our special guest this week is JAKE FROM THE FUTURE. Sorta. It's our first guestless episode since Episode 4 but we still managed to talk for a long time. Our e-mails included a lot of questions regarding Jake’s trip to Australia as well as some fantastic material from the regular e-mail superstars like Napolean and OBP. After that, we did another battle of amazing baseball names and then talked about Jake’s trip a little more extensively. We DID manage to have Lana Berry on for the 13th consecutive episode (oh my god Lana I am so sorry) and we talked about her favorite things from 2013. Oh, and our musical “guest” is the sounds of a didgeridoo because duh. Thanks for listening <3

Direct download: pod-21.mp3
Category:Cespedes Family Barbecast -- posted at: 10:44am EDT

lol we've literally done twenty podcasts. Our special guest this week is male human being Jason Parks, who knows a bit about baseball and slightly more about what's wrong with Jeff Passan. You know who Jason Parks is. Prospect wise, we talked Bundy/Gausman, Bundy's cutter, Lucas Giolito's magical powers, Jason's earliest scouting memory, and OBVIOUSLY Victor Sanchez. Duh. We also touched on a few topics with PG-13 floors and NC-17 ceilings. Our baseball-reference war of Negro League names got pretty intense as usual. Our second special guest was our good friend Sara from high school. We talked about Matt Wieters for about 90 seconds. Tales from Logdog with Lana was a rapid fire edition where we asked her a bunch of pointless questions. It was basically what we usually do except even more random and irrelevant to baseball. Our e-mails were solid-average with plenty of room for improvement but Napolean and OBP came through and that's what matters. Thanks for listening <3 (Rate and review us on ze iTunes!)

Direct download: podcast-20.mp3
Category:Cespedes Family Barbecast -- posted at: 9:05am EDT

Our special guest this week is longtime friend of the blog/Twitterz, and one of the better Craigs out there, Craig Calcaterra of NBC's HardballTalk. He was at the Winter Meetings so we talked to him about the craziness of the meetings and discussed the nature of reporting baseball rumors nowadays. Craig dished a lot of dirt because Craig is dirty. We love Craig.

To celebrate the podcast turning 19, we brought back THE OFFICIAL MINOR LEAGUE PITCHER OF CESPEDES FAMILY BARBECUE right-hander Kieran Lovegrove, who happens to be 19 years old. Kieran just spent a month in South Africa. Kieran was also born in South Africa. Kieran was there when the legendary Nelson Mandela passed away. We talked to him about that. We also quizzed him on which free agents signed where because he hasn't had internet for a while. If you aren't following Kieran yet, go do that please @Lovegrove19.

We had a plus-plus crop of e-mails this week including a discussion on an All-Retired team, Gizoogle, and a somber life lesson from Big Poop.

AND YEAH WE TALKED TO LANA BERRY. We briefly discussed where Matt Kemp is going to not get traded to and some other stupid stuff because that's what Tales from Logdog is at this point.

Thanks for listening <3 Rate and review us on iTunes!

Direct download: pod-19.mp3
Category:Cespedes Family Barbecast -- posted at: 11:10am EDT

  Yeah, it happened. We made it to our age. It's the 18th Barbecast featuring Scott Weber of Lookout Landing and some variation of Jedd Gyorko. We talked to Scott about HOLY SHIT THE MARINERS ARE GONNA SIGN ROBINSON CANO and then spent too much time on Justin Smoak and the rest of the Mariners team. We also interviewed Mark Ling for the second time, the mastermind behind the Sacramento RiverCats Twitter account. He PWND the Reno Aces earlier this week so we asked him about being soulless and awesome. Tales from LogDog with Lana Berry covered Lana's Hall of Fame Ballot but not THAT Hall of Fame Ballot. E-mails were above-average and that's all you get to know. And OF COURSE we had another baseball-reference name war IN WHICH WE BOTH PICKED A TURKEY. Thanks for listening <3

Direct download: pod-18.mp3
Category:Cespedes Family Barbecast -- posted at: 4:17am EDT

WARNING: This is probably our messiest Barbecast yet...but it's a fun one. We literally lit the Hanukkah candles on the podcast. What more do you want? You can blame the weird audio quality on Jake's microphone this time, and NOT on my internet.  Anyway, our special guest this week is Matt Sussman, one of the 38 funniest people on Twitter. We talked to him about a bunch of Detroit Tigers related stuff and his first ever joke. After that, Amanda Rykoff came on to talk about her ridiculously awesome experience in Curacao and how legendary Wladimir Balentien is. We recorded the e-mail segment with Jake's mother and she provided plus-plus motherly commentary throughout. Tales from Logdog with Lana Berry covered some FOOTBALL YES FOOTBALL as well as where the hell Shelby Miller has been (SPOILER ALERT: HE GOT MARRIED). Oh, and of course we had another ridiculous baseball-reference name war. Sorry about the ending. Thanks for listening <3

Direct download: pod-17.mp3
Category:Cespedes Family Barbecast -- posted at: 6:42am EDT

It's the Barbecast's Sweet 16 and we celebrated by talking to an entire Triple-A baseball team...kinda. Our special guest this week is the MASTERMIND behind the Sacramento RiverCats' Twitter account, Mark Ling. Mark turned out to be significantly cooler than Daric Barton and gave some great insight on what it's like to work in minor league baseball. No baseball talk this week because I, Jordan, is/was deathly ill BUT we managed to include another war of old baseball player names found in the depths of baseball-reference. Tales from Logdog with Lana Berry was all about Jake going to the SMARTEST SCHOOL IN AMERICA. Another solid crop of e-mails this week; my 12-year old brother made another appearance and Big Poop let us know how much he misses baseball. Thanks for listening <3

Direct download: pod-16.mp3
Category:Cespedes Family Barbecast -- posted at: 7:21am EDT