The Voice of the Turtle, Episode 12: The dark, cold baseball offseason

While the Detroit Tigers haven't been playing baseball for weeks now, we've still had other baseball -- yes, even the National League counts -- to fall back on. Until today. Baseball's offseason officially began on Monday, when the Kansas City Royals beat the New York Mets in the wee hours of the morning to take home their first World Series title since 1985.

Because of that, we're a little bored.

On this week's episode of The Voice of the Turtle, Rob and Hookslide discuss the news of the first few days of the offseason, break down what the Tigers should (and should not) do over the course of the winter, and vent their frustrations over the loss of yet another awesome thing on the internet: Grantland.

Our hosts are also joined by special guest Meg Rowley, a very talented writer who can be found at Lookout Landing, Baseball Prospectus, and Just a Bit Outside. Meg offered up her unique opinion on being a female in a male-dominated sports industry, discussed the strides baseball is making to better integrate its game, and whether she would ever get to see a female player or coach in a Major League Baseball game in her lifetime.

Topics in this week's episode include:

• The savior of the pitching staff is here!
• Just kidding, we don't know what a pitching coach actually does
• Daniel Norris is cancer-free!
• Shane Greene is throwing again
• The offseason is here, and we need new players
• Joe Nathan is no longer a Tiger
• Were the Kansas City Royals actually a great team?
• Grantland is no more, and it's all because the internet sucks
• Listener questions!
• Which Tigers would be great Big Lebowski characters?
• The importance of ESPN's Jess Mendoza
• Life as a female sportswriter on Twitter
• The importance of gender integration in baseball

Contents:

• 2:56 - Rounding the Bases: changes for the 2016 pitching staff
• 20:03 - Warming in the Pen: really, that guy might be back in 2016?
• 36:02 - High and Tight: the Kansas City royals are still a fluke, right?
• 56:42 - Into the Mob Scene at Home: the offseason – what’s the worst that could happen?
• 1:10:13 - The 7th Inning Kvetch: who doesn’t want women involved with sports?!

Click below to listen to the podcast. Click here to download the podcast as an .mp3 file.

Once again, a big thank you goes out to our guest, Meg Rowley of Lookout Landing, Baseball Prospectus, and Just a Bit Outside. You can find Meg's amazing work at those sites and follow her on Twitter at @megrowler!

Be sure to send us your thoughts, suggestions, and questions for next week's show. We're on Twitter at @blessyouboys, @BYBRob, and @HookSlideBYB, on Facebook at BYB.Tigers, and can also be reached at bybtigers@gmail.com!