Under The Knife 9/19/25

They Call Me The Fireman

I have ranted about this long enough, but I’ve finally lost it: whatever happened to baseball nicknames?

We used to be great at this. Not good - flat out great. Dizzy Dean. Oil Can Boyd. The Mad Hungarian. The Say Hey Kid. Yogi. Catfish. Shoeless Joe. The Big Unit wasn’t that long ago. These weren’t just tags - they were characters in an epic, a mythology you could wear on your arm like a tattoo or hear echoing off a transistor radio in the middle of July. These names told stories. They made baseball feel like a novel instead of a spreadsheet.

Then we gave up. Or someone did.

We started naming players like ad agencies name reality shows. “A-Rod.” “K-Rod.” “J-Roll.” “B-Harp.” We stopped imagining and started abbreviating. Somewhere between the first “A-Rod” and the last flailing “J-Hey,” we forgot that nicknames are supposed to add something and not subtract.

Derek Jeter is an all-time icon. A Hall of Famer, five rings, first ballot. What did he get for his trouble? “Jeets.” That’s a noise, not a name. That’s what you say when you sneeze and drop a slice of pizza or look at yourself in the mirror. Late in the game, they started calling him “The Captain,” like they were reluctantly handing out a job title. Let’s be honest - that’s branding, not affection. That’s the Yankees trying to sell one more #2 jersey. #Re2pect?

Justin Verlander, generational ace, no-hitter machine, power pitcher aging like a Bond villain and what’s he got? Nothing. Not even a clever play on “Ver.” Kate Upton had better nicknames, few printable. Max Scherzer, with those two-tone eyes and that berserker mound presence? All he gets is “Mad Max,” which is about as lazy as calling Steph Curry “Three Guy.”

Because we failed for so long, because we let the nickname muscle atrophy into acronym soup, now we’re stuck with this: trying to explain “Big Dumper” to the tweens all October. Worse - worse! - we have to hear John Smoltz say it, over and over, in the slow, heavy voice of a man both confused by and vaguely judgmental of the entire generation. He doesn’t like saying it, we don’t like hearing it, and yet there it is, echoing across every ALDS telecast like a warning siren from the coming dark age, like watching Fifty Shades sequels with your stepmom. That’s what we’ve become. The sport of Rube and Duke and Rocket and The Wizard now has to explain Big Dumper to Grandma.

Where’s the weirdness? Where’s the dirt-under-your-nails poetry? We had “Charlie Hustle,” “The Splendid Splinter,” “The Human Rain Delay.” We had “The Big Hurt,” and “Crime Dog,” and “El Duque” not that long ago. Today’s players are more interesting than ever - cosmopolitan, media-savvy, stylistically wild - and yet we nickname like it’s a checkout lane at Target.

This isn’t just nostalgia. It’s a branding crisis. Baseball has spent the last decade panicking about engagement while doing nothing to give us something to connect to. Analytics are fine. Launch angle matters. But you can’t chant “Weighted On-Base Average with CONtact” in the bleachers. You need someone named “Cactus Jack” or “The Buzzsaw” or “Lighthouse” or “Captain Chaos.” (Points if anyone knew that’s Zach Neto. It hasn’t caught on. Yet.) You need the kind of name a bartender could mutter and get nods from the old heads. The kind of name a kid scribbles on the back of a glove because they believe.

We have the tools. We have the characters. We just need the guts to be interesting again. “Sho Time” is better, but still lazy. “All Rise?” That isn’t a nickname, it’s an interesting ballpark ritual, at best.

Call Elly De La Cruz “The Skyline Comet” even if it sounds like a threat to public bathrooms. Call Julio Rodríguez “La Tormenta.” Give Basallo a name that would scare catchers from 1967. Heck, bring back “Spaceman” - Bill won’t mind if it’s the right person. Call someone “Deepfake” because they just can’t be real. Just stop with the half-hearted Instagram handles.

If we can’t nickname our heroes, they’ll just vanish into the algorithm and you’ll never hear them echo back from the cornfields.

Call me Deacon Blues or the Tumbling Dice, but let’s get on to the injuries:

JOSE QUINTANA, SP MIL (strained calf)

Years ago, I stupidly made a comment to an active GM — ok, it was Doug Melvin — about not overpaying for average pitchers. He argued that eating innings at a league average pace was undervalued itself and his point was correct. I don’t know if in today’s market where even the best pitchers will be 25-50 innings down from where those league average pitchers were at that point.

The mistake most of us make when dismissing “just average” pitchers is confusing replaceable with reliable. A 100 ERA+ arm who takes the ball 32 times and clears 200 innings isn’t neutral, he’s a stabilizer. He’s the guy who prevents your bullpen from getting shredded, who keeps the fifth starter from turning into a shuttle between Triple-A and the taxi squad, who makes the back half of the rotation predictable rather than a revolving door. Randy Wolf logging 215 innings at league average run prevention wasn’t about the 4.10 ERA - it was about 215 innings you didn’t have to invent elsewhere.

That’s where the market distortion lives today. The very best pitchers are throwing less than they used to - the new ace season is 185 innings, not 250, which means that the innings gap between ‘ace’ and ‘average’ has shrunk, but the replacement gap between ‘average’ and ‘random seventh starter’ has actually widened. Paul Skenes might post an ERA+ over 200, but if he throws 185 innings, there are still 977 innings the staff has to cover. Having a Wolf-type soaking up his 215 of those at break-even value pushes your bullpen, your #6 starter, and your minor-league depth into roles they can actually handle.

Durable league-average pitchers function as load-bearing walls. They don’t win you a pennant on their own, but they stop the rest of your structure from collapsing when the elite guys inevitably miss starts or cap out early. The best version of a rotation is top-heavy and deep, but the hidden truth is that league-average innings eaters create the runway for your aces’ dominance to matter.

Which is a long way to get to Jose Quintana and his calf strain, which has pushed him to the IL. While the modern Brewers are overachieving from expectations and attention is rightly being paid to their young stars like Jacob Misiorowski and Jackson Chourio, a guy like Quintana has been exactly that quiet back end starter. He hasn’t eaten innings like Joey Chestnut, but 130 better than league average and cheap? That’s value.

The calf strain is mild, but he will go on the 10-day with the hope he returns as eligible on Sept 30th. Note the date - that’s the playoffs and we’ll see how Milwaukee constructs its pitching staff. They hold the #1 seed right now and the bye, but I have to think Quintana might end up something like the shadow for Misiorowski given both the construction and some limitations that could remain from the injury.

*I should mention here that much of this thought process was inspired by a piece from David Schoenfield. It’s just a brilliant look at how the term ‘ace’ is being re-defined, which got me thinking about Quintana beyond just the injury.

Yeah, I’ll address the whole Ohtani-as-reliever idea — I love it in ways — on Monday, as well as starting work on an appreciation of Clayton Kershaw. For those asking, I have no idea what I’ll do for the playoffs, other than make sure you’re informed. If you have ideas or suggestions, let me know.

And there’s a new Downstream out now!