“Run this!”
And with that, Mark DeRosa is off, standing there in his happy place, in front of the massive Skybox monitor on the set of Studio 21, home of MLB Network’s signature morning show, “MLB Central.” At least once per show, sometimes as many as two or three times, the ballplayer-turned-broadcaster stands on his stage and teaches baseball.
It’s a clinic.
MORE: The inspiring story of a baseball card shop owner and his mission to give back
The size of the Skybox monitor — an immense 13 x 17 screen — is matched only by the size of DeRosa’s energy and enthusiasm when he’s doing one of his breakdowns. And when he really gets going? Yeah, it’s a rapid-fire string of requests disguised as commands wrapped as requests: “Run that! Pause! Bring that back! Show me the board,” and on and on.
When I was watching one of those segments recently, I couldn’t help but wonder, who in the world has to, for lack of a better word, “deal” with DeRosa?
The short answer: A lot of people. And they love every minute of it.
The point man on DeRosa duty during the segments, making sure all the rewinding and pausing and shifting screens happens, is director Lucas Altman.
“We’ve gotten to know DeRo very well, and anticipate what he likes,” Altman told The Sporting News with a bit of a laugh. “He lays it out, but then it is sort of free flow when he gets live on the air. We try our best to anticipate what he wants. I’m directing the tape operator, and the camera that’s shooting DeRo. I think we’ve all gotten pretty good at anticipating him, but he’ll call for things in the spur of the moment.”
Nolan Gorman has evolved at the plate to the tune of a .961 OPS 👀@markdero7 breaks down how the @Cardinals infielder has gotten more comfortable inside the batter’s box.#MLBCentral | #STLCards pic.twitter.com/a7FAy7JpYg
— MLB Network (@MLBNetwork) May 18, 2023
I asked DeRosa whether he’s aware how much he’s doing up there.
“You know, it’s funny. For the last five years I’ve always said I kind of wanted my own clicker, to be able to just do it myself,” DeRosa said. “But my producer, Mark Capalbo, has always been like, ‘If we give you that we might never get to the end of the tape.’ And he’s right! So it’s by design that Lucas has control, because there will be moments where I have it in pause and it’ll just start running, and that’s usually my cue like, ‘Hey man, you’re getting a little heavy, let’s get the show on the road.’”
DeRosa’s always good with credit. Watch regularly and you’ll hear him shout out Capalbo and Altman, along with Eric Nehs and Jacob Bader. He’s also great with credit to writers who pen the stories that give him ideas for his breakdowns, which is appreciated.
In an effort to shine a bit of a light on the behind-the-scenes crew that makes DeRosa’s breakdowns such good television, let’s do a breakdown of DeRosa’s breakdown.
‘Let’s get into it. Here we go.’
By the time the breakdown segment airs — live, of course — DeRosa’s been itching to start for hours. The process typically starts the night before, when DeRosa has an idea and he texts Capalbo, the senior coordinating producer. They’ll hash out the basic idea, then Eric Nehs, the research guy, and Jacob Bader, the video guy, get looped into the plan.
“Eric does an amazing job putting together like a full, detailed outline, that DeRo can go off of with advanced numbers,” Capalbo said. “Then DeRo brings those numbers together with his analysis of (a) swing and style of play, and maps it all out for a segment that he’s going to do the next morning.
“Before he goes to bed at night, he’ll text Jacob, who edits all his tapes, text him a full, detailed step-by-step outline of how he wants to lay it out based on his video and the graphics that Eric has sent along. By the time everybody gets in at 6 a.m. the next morning, they’re off and running. They’re already ahead of game on the breakdown because of the work they put in at night.”
‘Bring up the first board for me’
Typically, before DeRosa launches into his video breakdown, he’ll offer up some statistics to support what he’s about to show. This is Nehs’ world. His official title is “editorial producer” but he’s basically “DeRo’s stat guy” for these Skybox breakdowns.
“Eric’s my muse, man,” DeRosa said. “We have built an awesome relationship. I trust him. He could run an analytical department for a big league club. That’s how I feel about him. When he brings stuff to my attention, I definitely dive in on it.”
The idea, Nehs said, is to take what DeRosa’s given him as far as an idea and find statistics to back it up. Statcast data is his friend.
“Sometimes I bombard him with too much, because there’s so many different angles to take, so I just try to give him as many different ways as I can,” Nehs said. “He might find something interesting about this guy one day but (use it later) in a different breakdown, so I just try to give him as much as possible.”
MORE: MLB pitch clock rules present challenges for broadcasters
The options are appreciated. A recent segment on Byron Buxton as an example:
“I like just looking at the swing, how the body works. What is Byron doing in that moment? What is he prepared for? Where’s he trying to get to?” DeRosa said. “And then I let the research department come to me with, ‘Hey, he’s killing breaking balls this year. Or, ‘He’s handling high velocity at the top of the zone.’”
“The power can’t be denied” 💪@markdero7 breaks down @twins slugger Byron Buxton after leaving the yard in both of his last two games. #MLBCentral pic.twitter.com/cm4gq2mmZH
— MLB Network (@MLBNetwork) April 28, 2023
‘Let’s get into the tape a bit.’
Like Nehs, Jacob Bader’s official title (segment producer) only partially tells the story of how he’s involved with DeRosa’s Skybox segments; he’s DeRosa’s video clip guy.
“He normally wants to get hitters doing well against All-Star pitchers. Or if it’s a pitcher breakdown, he likes pitchers striking out All-Star hitters and that kind of stuff,” Bader said. “We’ve been on the same page about it for a while now, that I kind of know exactly what he’s looking for.
“I’ve learned that the DeRo is very detail-oriented and very specific on things. So if we’re doing like Byron Buxton’s swing breakdown, I know he wants it from the exact same camera angle. So I’ll try to find a Buxton swing in Minnesota from last year versus a Buxton swing in Minnesota from this year to compare, because that’s the way he sees the little things that sometimes we can’t see.”
The comfort level together is key.
“Bader cuts my tape every day, and what I love about him, we’ve been doing it for years and he knows exactly what I want,” DeRosa said. “All I have to say is, ‘Joc Pederson’ and he knows I want a side angle, a side-by-side of him in the Dodger uniform versus now. … I don’t want anything to be skewed by different camera angles. Try to get a similar pitcher, similar pitch type and everything.”
‘Run this! Pause! Go! Pause! Run that back for me!’
The DeRosa Clicker isn’t happening anytime soon.
Because I know very little about being in a TV control room, I asked Altman how they control the rewind/fast-forward/pause thing.
“The machine is called the EVS. That’s the go-to play-out machine for most sports, for all games,” he said. “It’s got a little circular knob so you can shuttle things back, forward. … It’s very easy to do that with that machine. If it would be another machine, that would be very difficult.”
.@AdolisJose leads @MLB with 44 RBI in 41 games!@markdero7 breaks down the @Rangers slugger amidst his career-best season. #MLBCentral pic.twitter.com/93k48E5qUQ
— MLB Network (@MLBNetwork) May 17, 2023
Three tape operators share DeRosa duties, depending on the day: Dustin Robinson, Stephen Blum and Dan McAvoy. They have familiarity with DeRosa, too, which is neccessary considering how excited DeRosa gets during his breakdowns.
“It’s frenetic, but it’s organized. And it works. Everyone’s in sync,” Altman said. “He’s very in-the-moment. He’s got an outline, but then it comes to him in the moment, and that’s some of his best stuff.”
MORE: Diamond Kings artist Dick Perez chats about upcoming documentary on his life
The motivation behind the madness
The goal, as with most everything DeRosa does on MLB Network, is to entertain, while mixing in his unique delivery of information and his own knowledge. You’ll hear him talk often about his time as a ballplayer, often in context about his struggles.
“For me, I always felt that hitting was super difficult. I wasn’t the best hitter on my high school team. I wasn’t the best hitter on my college team,” DeRosa said. “It was something I had to work really hard at, a constant work in progress. I listened to a lot of the teammates I had, a lot of the coaches. It took me almost until I was 30 years old, after I met Rudy Jaramillo, my hitting coach in Texas, where I firmly walked up to the plate, every time up, knowing if a pitcher made a mistake, I was going to be in the right position to change the score.”
DeRosa said he never did the toe tap before a swing until he got to Texas, where he watched Michael Young use it during his string of productive years. He tried it, and that kicked off the most productive stretch of his career as a hitter.
With that always in his mind, his Skybox breakdown segments are geared toward teaching, no matter who’s listening — current big leaguers or current little leaguers.
“I love the game. I love the players. I know who I was as a player. I know how hard it is, so I want to love on them first,” DeRosa said. “And then I want to teach off of it. Like, I want some kid to run outside, put a ball on a tee and try whatever it is Byron Buxton’s doing, or whoever it may be that day. Go try it, and maybe that unlocks you.”
And if it doesn’t the first time, maybe Lucas can run the tape again.
