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Rating the MLB TV booths: The NL West

By Bill Felber

SAN FRANCISCO, CA - OCTOBER 31: San Francisco Giants broadcast team of Duane Kuiper (L) and Mike Krukow (R) speaks to the fans during the Giants' victory parade and celebration on October 31, 2012 in San Francisco, California. The Giants celebrated their 2012 World Series victory over the Detroit Tigers. (Photo by Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images)
SAN FRANCISCO, CA - OCTOBER 31: San Francisco Giants broadcast team of Duane Kuiper (L) and Mike Krukow (R) speaks to the fans during the Giants' victory parade and celebration on October 31, 2012 in San Francisco, California. The Giants celebrated their 2012 World Series victory over the Detroit Tigers. (Photo by Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images) /
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Dodger telecaster Joe Davis. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images for Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation)
Dodger telecaster Joe Davis. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images for Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation) /

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.

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