Rating the MLB TV booths: The NL West
Although the San Francisco Giants have something to say about it, all the prognosticators are predicting a two-way battle in the NL West this season between the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres.
The battle for top honors in the division’s TV booths is just as intense with one exception: the Dodgers are not in the contest.
Rating the MLB broadcasts – the NL West
Rather, it’s the Padres and Giants telecasting crews that are clearly the class of the NL West booths.
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 crew. 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 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. Today’s subject is the NL West. Announcing teams can receive a max score of five points in each category: with six categories that makes 30 points a perfect score.
San Francisco Giants: Duane Kuiper, play-by-play; Mike Krukow, color.
The Kuiper-Krukow team is virtually unique in MLB; along with Buck Martinez and Pat Tabler in Toronto, it is the only telecasting team consisting entirely of former major leaguers.
That Kuiper was never professionally trained as a broadcaster makes the level of sophistication he has attained at the communicative arts more than mildly interesting. Maybe those tens of thousands of dollars spent in pursuit of a college degree in communication really aren’t of much value.
Over the course of more than a quarter century in the booth, he has developed a facility for language, for expression, and a touch for relating with his audience – over their mutual love of the Giants – that works effortlessly.
Krukow, whose skills mirror those of Kuiper so much that they could work interchangeably, also joined the Giants booth in 1994. A pitcher for 14 seasons mostly with the Cubs and Giants, he won 20 games in 1986, endearing him to San Francisco fans.
Like Kuiper, he has a naturally sophisticated delivery that mixes knowledge and humor often without appearing to even be aware of it. Their rapport flows from their mirrored skills.
This team’s era of telecast dominance within the NL West may be coming to an end. Over the past few years Krukow has gradually cut back his workload as a concession to age and infirmities, and since the duo’s greatness is mutually reliant the relative loss of one partner weakens the whole.
It is likely they will soon be overtaken in the NL West by the Padres’ team; indeed, many might argue that has already happened.
Experience: 5
Likeability: 5
Knowledge: 5
Humor: 5
Rapport: 5
Oratory: 5
Total: 30
San Diego Padres: Don Orsillo, play-by-play; Mark Grant, color.
Orsillo is every bit the match for Kuiper – minus the on-field credentials – and Grant may even be a funnier, more likable version of Krukow, if that is possible.
The only drawback to the Padres is the extensive residue of Orsillo’s experience in the Boston Red Sox booth. Although that experience ended five seasons ago, it must be kept in mind that Orsillo spent 15 seasons in the high-visibility role of calling Red Sox games, a duration that included World Series winners in 2004, 2007, and 2013.
Memories of that gravity don’t fade easily, and it remains ever so slightly difficult to relate to Orsillo cheering for Brown and Gold rather than Red and White.
If anyone can overcome that ‘flaw,’ it certainly is Orsillo, who has won multiple industry recognitions for his telecasting work.
Coming to the NL West and San Diego, he inherited the perfect partner in Grant, whose relationship with the team knows no bounds. A journeyman who played for six teams across 10 seasons, he found his calling shortly after retiring from active play, and by 1995 was working as a color analyst.
Grant’s strength is his easy going, naturally comedic mindset, which early on established him as entertaining. What he has learned over the years is how to meld knowledge into that wit, and how to balance the two appropriately.
Unlike many color analysts, he has a feel for when to insert himself into Orsillo’s call without either stepping on the game’s flow or disappearing into it.
Experience: 4
Likeability: 5
Knowledge: 5
Humor: 5
Rapport: 5
Oratory: 5
Total: 29
Colorado Rockies: Drew Goodman, play-by-play; Jeff Huson, Ryan Spilborghs, color.
One wishes that the Rockies had a better team narrative going on because that alone would expose casual MLB fans to the comfortably professional vibe in which Goodman operates.
If a major sporting event occurs in the mountains, Goodman has likely done it. He’s worked the Rockies mic for 17 seasons, he did Denver Nuggets basketball for a decade – and between 2002 and 2004 he somehow managed to juggle both assignments simultaneously.
He’s also done NFL and college football. He is a 13-time Colorado Sportscaster of the Year Award winner.
Huson is the primary color analyst, with Spilborghs filling in and/or supplementing as schedules require it. Of the two, Spilborghs is the wittier and more naturally communicative – he also has a regular show on MLB radio – and Rockies telecasts are well-served to the extent Spilborghs is available to be seen and heard.
Spilborghs is a Rockies lifer, having batted .272 in seven seasons as an outfielder including part-time duty with the 2007 National League champions.
Huson retired in 2000 after a 12-season career with seven teams. Although never a Rockie, he’s familiar to the team’s fans both from his college playing experience at the University of Wyoming and 16 seasons in the team’s booth.
Experience: 4
Likeability: 5
Knowledge: 5
Humor: 4
Rapport: 5
Oratory: 4
Total: 27
Arizona Diamondbacks: Steve Berthiaume, play-by-play; Bob Brenly, color.
From their founding, the Diamondbacks have latched on to comfortable, familiar faces and voices to drive their telecast motif. That trend began with Joe Garagiola, who delivered color commentary in the team’s early years, and continued with Mark Grace. Brenly, manager of the 2001 World Series winning team that included Grace, took over in 2014 when management dumped both Grace and play-by-play guy Daron Sutton.
Brenly’s actually in his second stint in the booth, having worked there from the team’s founding until being drafted to put on a uniform in 2001. Following his departure in 2004, he worked several years as a color analyst for the Cubs until returning to the NL West and the D-Backs in 2013.
His work tone is sharp and no-nonsense, precisely what one might expect of a former manager.
Berthiaume is a long-time ESPN guy who came to the D-Backs in 2014 after Sutton ran afoul of upper management. Technically, there is nothing to criticize in his work. What he and Brenly lack – Berthiaume in particular – is the magnetic personality that makes fans want to tune in to listen to him.
If going about one’s business can be said to be a criticism, then that is where the D-Backs crew would benefit from work.
Experience: 4
Likeability: 5
Knowledge: 5
Humor: 4
Rapport: 4
Oratory: 4
Total: 26
Los Angeles Dodgers: Joe Davis, play-by-play; Orel Hershiser, Rick Monday, color.
It’s not so much that Dodger telecasts are bad. They’re just sort of bland.
Whether this reflects a corporate policy or the individual choices of the telecast crew is hard to discern. The Dodgers certainly have plenty to cheer about. But watching the telecast of a Dodger game often comes across akin to watching the telecast of an IBM board meeting.
The color guys, primarily Hershiser and Monday, are both team legends. Monday has worked the color side for more than a quarter-century, while Hershiser is aboard for a fifth season.
Both obviously know what they’re talking about, and both take a professional approach to their jobs. What sometimes seems to be lacking might best be described as chemistry.
Davis is not likely to be the guy to fill that void. He’s in his third season as the voice of possibly the most prestigious team in American sports — certainly in the NL West — yet it’s likely that even a minority of Dodger fans – much less casual fans – could tell you a lot about him or identify him from the sound of his voice.
Next. Rating the broadcasters of the AL West. dark
Again, that’s not necessarily an indictment, especially in a very large, very successful market where the operational directive probably is “don’t’ rock the boat.”
But if it makes for safe TV, that is not necessarily good TV.
Experience: 3
Likeability: 4
Knowledge: 5
Humor: 3
Rapport: 4
Oratory: 4
Total: 23