Rating MLB play-by-play and color voices: The AL East
The vast majority of MLB fans enjoy the sport through the eyes and lips of their favorite team’s play-by-play and color guy. Although this is particularly true in a Covid-driven era of limited in-stadium attendance, it’s really been substantially so since widespread access to televised games became available anywhere and any time through various media.
But that, in turn, means that a lot of the buzz we draw from a game hinges on the skill, passion, knowledge, and oratorical talents of each team’s telecasters. As in any field, some are better than others.
Ranking the MLB team broadcasters – the AL East
In the series that begins here, each team’s primary TV crew is rated based on six criteria that are important to fan enjoyment of a game. The criteria are:
1. Experience: How deep and constant is the attachment between the announcing crew and the team?
2. Likeability: Does the announcing crew genuinely come across as people a fan might enjoy spending an afternoon or evening with?
3. Knowledge: This criterion does not require description.
4. Humor: Does the announcing crew make an appropriate effort to entertain without being clownish?
5. Rapport: Do members of the announcing crew seem to get along easily with one another?
6. Oratory: Do members of the announcing crew evince a comfort level with proper techniques of English language delivery?
Focusing only on TV announcing crews – they’re the ones most readily available on more than a regional basis – the evaluation considers the main play-by-play announcer plus the principal color commentators or, if you prefer, expert analysts.
This analysis specifically does not consider pre-game or post-game personalities, or in-stadium interviewers.
We’re going to approach the task in six parts, one installment for each division. Announcing teams can receive a max score of five points in each category: with six categories that make 30 points a perfect score.
We begin today with the AL East
Boston Red Sox: Dave O’Brien, play-by-play, Jerry Remy and Dennis Eckersley, color.
O’Brien assumed play-by-play duties for the Red Sox in 2015 when Don Orsillo moved to San Diego. But his ties to the team reach far deeper; he began with the radio team in 2007. He, of course, has an even longer background that includes MLB announcing stints with ESPN and prior to that with the Atlanta Braves.
Remy’s tie to the Sox is virtually eternal; he played second base for seven seasons in the 1970s and 1980s. Like O’Brien, he is a native New Englander, his accent being a dead — and endearing– giveaway. Eckersley pitched for Boston both as a starter and teammate of Remy’s and then as a closer during his final active season, 1998.
Both color commentators rank high in insight, and Eckersley perhaps surprisingly speaks with a linguistic facility belying his predominant hippie jock image.
If the team has a weakness, it may be merely that they are so popular in New England that they seem to make only a modest effort to relate to fans that genre of fans tuning in to do something other than root the Sawx home.
Still, the obvious joy in what they do combined with their documented experience and subject-matter knowledge make the O’Brien-Remy-Eckerskey team a safe pick for first place in the AL East announcers race.
Experience: 5
Likeability: 4
Knowledge: 5
Humor: 4
Rapport: 5
Oratory: 4
Total: 27
Kay’s expertise on all things Yankee is unquestioned: He’s been a booth presence for nearly three decades, the last 18 years as the lead announcer for the Yes Network game telecasts.
In Cone, Singleton, O’Neill, and Flaherty, the Yankees have something akin to an MLB All Star team of color analysts. There are so many, in fact, that the team’s major weakness is keeping abreast of the lineup from day to day.
Having one color analyst is ideal; having two is handy in that it affords the main guy an opportunity for regular R & R. Having four, though, can create continuity issues, especially since each of the four brings his own areas of expertise.
If it’s Cone’s day off, the Yanks are likely to be short on pitching analysis. If it’s his day to work, the offensive analysis can suffer.
The other occasional problem is that the Yankee Way in the booth often seems to correspond to the Yankee Way on the field: it is business-like, efficient but not always fun or especially relaxed.
Having said that, both Kay and his phalanx of experts excel in oratorical presentation. The word ‘erudite’ could apply equally to Singleton, Cone, Flaherty, and O’Neill. They also seem to work well as a team.
Experience: 5
Likeability: 3
Knowledge: 5
Humor: 3
Rapport: 5
Oratory: 5
Total: 26
Toronto Blue Jays: Buck Martinez (Dan Shulman), play-by-play, Pat Tabler, color
Martinez is part of a select subset of the fraternity of MLB play-by-play guys. He’s one of only two active today who actually played in the major leagues.
A 17-year veteran with the Royals, Brewers, and Blue Jays, he caught more than 1,000 games before retiring to get into media and – in 2001 and 2002 – management. He had a 100-115 record running the Jays in 2001 and 2002 before returning to the broadcast booth. He became the Jays’ lead announcer 12 years ago and since 2016 has shared duties with Shulman.
Equally familiar to Jays fans, Shulman is a Toronto native who began doing play-by-play – with Martinez – in 1995. He left for ESPN in 2001 only to reunite and tag-team with Martinez 15 years later.
Tabler was a 12 year MLB veteran before getting into media. He has been the primary TV analyst since 2001.
The Jays team brings an obvious depth of knowledge to its duties, a trait that mixes easily with the natural likeability of both Martinez and Shulman. The fact that Martinez, Shulman, and Tabler have worked together over such a span is irrefutable proof of their obvious rapport.
Weaknesses? The Jays team is so coldly efficient and professional that their telecasts can from time to time lack something in the way of pure abstract entertainment value. And while Tabler is a fully competent analyst, his oratory is merely good; it does not reach the consummate levels or demonstrate the natural smoothness attained by the best in what he does.
Experience: 5
Likeability: 5
Knowledge: 5
Humor:3
Rapport: 4
Oratory: 4
Total: 26
Tampa Bay Rays: Dewayne Staats, play-by-play, Brian Anderson, color
Staats is very obviously the anchor around which the Rays’ TV presentation is built. There’s a reason for that: the guy’s been around. Starting out as a radio voice of the Houston Astros in the 1970s, he has worked for the Cubs, Yankees and in various network capacities before becoming the voice of the Rays when they were formed in 1998.
Save for the Covid-restricted 2020-21 seasons, there is literally nothing the Rays have done that Staats hasn’t seen in the flesh.
A 13-year veteran pitcher with four MLB teams, Anderson’s lifetime 82-83 record included a stint with the 2001 World Series winning Arizona Diamondbacks: He took the loss in World Series Game 3. Following his 2005 retirement, he worked for a time as an assistant pitching coach before joining Tampa Bay’s booth in 2011.
Staats’ experience easily gives the Rays team maximum marks in that category. In most other categories, however, their generally factual, straightforward approach destines Staats and Anderson for middle-ground marks.
To the extent anything is missing, it would be the fire, the joie de vivre that might attract viewers who need a measure of entertainment value to stay hooked to the game.
Neither Staats nor Anderson would wear naturally the label of ‘humorist, and while both their rapport and oratorical abilities are solidly professional, they don’t rise above that descriptor to the level of exceptional.
Experience: 5
Likeability: 4
Knowledge: 5
Humor: 3
Rapport: 4
Oratory: 4
Total: 25
Baltimore Orioles: Kevin Brown, play-by-play; Ben McDonald and Jim Palmer, color
The Orioles telecast team suffers from two concerns, one of which may be entirely remediable in time.
Kevin Brown, the lead play-by-play figure, is in only his third season behind the microphone, a duration of experience that simply puts him at a substantial disadvantage by comparison with his divisional peers.
The Orioles gig is Brown’s first stint at the upper levels of his profession. He’s also worked on high school sports at ESPN and in a Triple-A booth. He appears to have all the requisite skills needed to — over time – improve the booth’s profile within the division.
Palmer, of course, has extensive experience as a color commentator dating back to his days working a national booth in company with, among others, Howard Cosell. That experience doubtless prepared him for anything. But he is advancing into his 70s now and appears to be ceding responsibilities to the younger McDonald.
A sometimes celebrated starter for the Orioles and Brewers in the 1990s, McDonald was 78-70 with a career 3.91 ERA. That gives him a natural popularity with Orioles fans who presumably see him as something of a local hero.
What he lacks is a voice: it is scratchy, not smooth, and lacking the linguistic ease – a trait Palmer was famous for — that makes listening to Palmer — as opposed to McDonald — a pleasure.
Next. Best careers after age 35 in MLB history. dark
That is not to disparage McDonald’s knowledge of MLB. But knowing the game and knowing how to communicate the game are two entirely different things.
Experience: 3
Likeability: 3
Knowledge: 4
Humor: 3
Rapport: 4
Oratory: 3
Total: 20
Next: The NL East