Mike Schmidt Chimes In With A Flaming Hot Take: Odubel Herrera Is Not A Player The Phillies Can Build Around Because He Speaks Spanish
Prepare yourselves — you have now entered the Hot Take Vortex. Phillies baseball analyst and Baseball Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt did a radio appearance this morning in which he was asked if 25-year-old Odubel Herrera, an All Star a year ago, is a player that the Phillies could build their team around. His response…was something.
“My honest answer to that would be no because of a couple of things,.” Schmidt said. “First of all, it’s a language barrier. Because of that, I think he can’t be a guy that would sort of sit in a circle with four, five American players and talk about the game. Or try and learn about the game or discuss the inner workings of the game. Or come over to a guy and say, ‘Man, you gotta run that ball out.’ Just can’t be — because of the language barrier — that kind of a player.”
Hey, ‘preciate the honesty. I really do. It’s not often that you can get somebody of that stature to avoid giving a wishy-washy answer on a subject where they don’t have something team-friendly to say. The only problem with this take is that it sucks. Why? Because Herrera SPEAKS FUCKING ENGLISH. It might not be great English, but an English-speaking person can make out what he’s saying. If you want to say that you wouldn’t build a team around him for other reasons, then we can have that discussion, but leading with the language barrier thing was a wild move.
It’s even more wild when you consider how many players around the league are leaders on their own team who don’t speak English as their first language. Ken Rosenthal pointed out a few like Jose Bautista, Albert Pujols, Robinson Cano, Adrian Beltre, Carlos Beltran, Salvador Perez, Yadier Molina, Miguel Cabrera, and up until last year, David Ortiz. So, again, if you think Herrera isn’t a player that you should build a team around, then I’m not gonna say you’re flat out wrong for believing that. But if your main reason is because his first language isn’t English, then get the fuck outta here with that.