Rating the MLB TV booths: The NL Central
Among NL Central TV booths, there is more talent homogenization than probably any other division. That’s especially true at the bottom end. All five of the booths’ MLB crews could plausibly be argued to be among the division’s best.
In the final analysis, though, one booth does stand out. More on that momentarily.
Rating the MLB television broadcasters – the NL Central
Play-by-play and color analysts are important because the vast majority of baseball fans enjoy the sport through the eyes and lips of their favorite team’s announcing booth. 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.
In the series that enters its fourth installment here, each team’s primary TV booth 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 booth 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 booth make an appropriate effort to entertain without being clownish?
5. Rapport: Do members of the booth 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. You can find the first three installments, dealing with the AL East, NL East, and the AL Central, at the accompanying links.
Today’s subject is the NL Central. Announcing teams can receive a max score of five points in each category: with six categories that make 30 points a perfect score.
Milwaukee Brewers: Brian Anderson, play-by-play; Bill Schroeder, color
This Brian Anderson, no relation to the Brian Anderson who does color for the Miami Marlins, has handled Brewers TV play-by-play since 2007. His smooth, easy oratory translates well; Anderson is a frequent pick for MLB postseason play-by-play coverage, and he can be heard on NCAA basketball as well.
Like many good play-by-play guys, Anderson performs so smoothly that he easily disappears into the fabric of the telecast. That leaves plenty of space for Schroeder to operate, which is a good thing.
Drollness is one of the peculiar specialties of NL Central color guys, but nobody on TV does droll better than Schroeder. Perhaps he learned that hanging around his journalistic godfather and fellow former catcher, Bob Uecker.
By now Schroeder has little more to learn. He’s been doing color commentary on Brewers telecasts for more than a quarter century. Like Anderson, his style is highly relaxed, a fact demonstrated by his creation and promotion some years ago of the ‘Buckhead Brigade’ in the left field seats.
The fan section, which may not have been named as an illusion to Schroeder’s own physical features, illustrated the enduring relationship between the booth and the fans.
Schroeder may not be the smoothest talker, but his fans don’t hold that against him.
Experience: 4
Likeability: 5
Knowledge: 4
Humor: 5
Rapport: 5
Oratory: 4
Total: 27
Pittsburgh Pirates: Greg Brown, play-by-play; Bob Walk, John Wehner, color
Like Schroeder, Walk’s specialty is droll, with more than a hint of self-effacement. In reality, he was an above-average MLB pitcher for 14 seasons for the Phillies, Braves, and Pirates. Until the retirement of Steve Blass, Walk was a junior partner on the analytical side of telecasts, but his understated style works well in the chief color slot as well.
Brown, with more than a quarter-century as the voice of the Pirates, is part of a diminishing breed of telecasters today. In the tradition of Harry Caray, Ken Harrelson, and Ernie Harwell, he is one of the few today to nurture ‘signature’ calls. ‘Clear The Deck, Cannonball Comin’’ denotes a Pirate home run, and ‘Raise the Jolly Roger’ signifies a victory.
Catch phrases are cute accessories, but Brown’s telecasts rate highly because he brings an informed, articulate, reassuring voice to his work. With the exception of a few seasons doing minor league play-by-play, Brown has spent nearly his entire 42-year career with the Pirates in some capacity.
Wehner is the Pirates’ secondary color voice on days when Walk is unavailable. The differences lay in their approach, Wehner being the more substantive but less colorful.
Experience: 5
Likeability: 4
Knowledge: 4
Humor: 5
Rapport: 5
Oratory: 4
Total: 27
Cincinnati Reds: John Sadak, play-by-play; Chris Welsh, color
While the three remaining TV booths have unique strengths and weaknesses, they weigh out so evenly that it is pointless to choose among them. The three deserve to exist in an effective tie for the third spot.
The Reds telecast efforts were hampered abruptly last summer when long-time play-by-play voice Thom Brennaman was fired over his utterance of a gay slur. Brennaman was perhaps the most outspoken person at what he does, and his replacement, Sadak, has not had enough time to establish his own identity.
Whether Sadak will in time do so obviously remains to be seen.
By contrast, Welsh may have the strongest off-field identity of any color analyst. He is a nationally acknowledged expert on MLB’s rules, an operator of the Baseball Rules Academy website, and often sought out by his fellow commentators to provide clarity when such questions arise.
Although a former player – Welch pitched five seasons for four teams – he approaches his color assignment as very much a technocrat. His discussions of pitching performance frequently focus on mechanics, thus coming across as instructional.
But that is a sharp and often pleasant contrast with the ‘one of the boys’ approach taken by several of his peers.
Experience: 4
Likeability: 4
Knowledge: 5
Humor: 4
Rapport: 4
Oratory: 4
Total: 25
Chicago Cubs: Jon Sciambi, play-by-play; Jim Deshaies, color
Hired over the winter to replace Len Kasper behind the Cubs microphone, Sciambi’s technical credentials to handle that assignment are unquestioned. He’s a veteran of many national performances for ESPN who has won raves for his delivery and knowledge.
What he has not yet established is that he can make the transition from easy-going but objective MLB voice to team mouthpiece. That’s not easy in Chicago, whose parochial fan base expects the same from its voice.
To date, in fact, Sciambi has actually taken the opposite approach, in early telecasts emphasizing his lack of Midwest roots, talking about his recent move from the New York area, and generally self-labeling as an outsider.
Deshaies knows that transition because he made it when he came over from Houston, his long-time home as both a player and analyst, in 2013. Listening to Deshaies, it’s evident that he both understands the game’s mechanics and is comfortable communicating them.
Over time he has come to be accepted as a Northsider, and the guess is Sciambi will in time as well.
For Cubs fans, however, that moment will probably come only when the perception takes hold that Sciambi might lose a few hours’ sleep over a Cubs defeat. As yet that perception has not developed.
Experience: 4
Likeability: 4
Knowledge: 5
Humor: 4
Rapport: 4
Oratory: 4
Total: 25
St. Louis Cardinals: Dan McLaughlin, play-by-play; Rick Horton, Jim Edmonds, color analyst
If you are a fan of vanilla ice cream, you probably like Cardinals telecasts.
McLaughlin is a fully competent telecaster. An area native, he’s respected enough to have regularly gotten the call to work weekend network games.
Horton, and Edmonds, both come across as professional analysts who – if you didn’t know better – you might be surprised to learn that they were ever jocks. Horton, of course, had a seven-season career as a reliever on two Cardinal division champions, while Edmonds was a four-time MLB All Star across a 17-season career.
They function articulately as a team in the same way the management of IBM probably functions. It is a booth without weaknesses.
But it is also a booth without particular strengths unless you count fealty to the Cardinals, usually a given among home TV booths. While Horton and Edmonds routinely hit the expected color points – Edmonds is particularly good at analyzing defense – they will rarely offer much in the way of game analysis that the regular fan hasn’t heard before.
It’s the same story on most of the other considerations. Humor? Cardinals telecasts will never be mistaken for a laughfest. Rapport? Just the requisite amount that binds all Redbird fans. Likeability? That’s not something they seem to strive to try for. Oratory? McLaughlin gives the solid professional performance you would expect.
dark. Next. Five worst MLB umpires
In short, there’s nothing to criticize here, but nothing much to highly recommend, either. Vanilla.
Experience: 4
Likeability: 4
Knowledge: 5
Humor: 4
Rapport: 4
Oratory: 4
Total: 25