52 dingers sounds good to us

Welcome! This is the very first issue of The Show Notes, a newsletter where we’ll break down baseball, the wider sports world, and Jomboy Media itself (yes, a breakdown of Breakdowns).

Scroll for more on how 52 homers just doesn’t cut it anymore, a look inside our cricket watchalongs, and the latest ski trick. Feedback? Just mash that reply button.

— Team TSN

Last season Eugenio Suárez hit 49 home runs in the regular season and added three more in the postseason, for a total of 52 between the D-backs and the Mariners. Among active players, just three have multiple seasons of 49+ homers: Aaron Judge (four), Shohei Ohtani (two), and Eugenio Suárez (two).

And last week Suárez signed a one-year deal with the Reds for $15 million.

Analytics win again: Geno’s shortcomings are well-known: he’s not a great defender, he has a high swing-and-miss rate, and he doesn’t walk enough. All baseball execs are running the same algorithms across the same datasets, so it’s not surprising that Suárez had two basically identical offers to chose from: one year for $15 million from the Reds or two years for $30 million from the Pirates.

What front offices are missing: In baseball history, here are the third basemen who have hit over 45 home runs in a season: Harmon Killebrew, A-Rod, and Geno. Now maybe Geno will be mostly DHing this season, but the Reds home run leader in 2025 was Elly with 22. Sticking a guy who simply mashes taters into that lineup could be absolutely transformative.

Have a season, Geno: The Talkin’ Baseball team loves this move for the Reds, and here’s to Suárez having a season so good that GMs actually look up from their spreadsheets when he hits free agency again next year.

Cricket, a live breakdown: Over the past few days we’ve gone live twice on YouTube with an alt-cast of the cricket T20 World Cup as the US took on India and Pakistan. Our That’s Cricket team (Adam, Liam, and Jimmy) provided explanatory insights and commentary as the underdog US team took on two giants. Across our network we drew over 2 million views for the event, which is a massive win for cricket in the US.

Why cricket: Our founder Jimmy spent three years of his childhood in Australia, where he was first exposed to cricket, and then he rediscovered it a few years ago when it was the only live sport on his TV at 3 AM while he was awake with his newborn son. Jimmy soon started doing cricket Breakdown videos, and as cricket grows in the US we’re leaning on Jimmy’s passion to introduce Americans to the game.

Bigger than the Super Bowl: The 2026 Super Bowl might have broken 200 million worldwide viewers. The most-watched cricket matches can top 500 million watchers. The sport is growing rapidly in the US, and we’re excited to introduce Americans to baseball’s older, weirder, but absolutely riveting cousin.

@DrummyMcDrumface said it best: A brilliant YouTube commenter summed it up thusly: “I would never have seen this without being a Jomboy subscriber and I would never have understood what was going on without their commentary. I cannot wait for the next game, I might be a cricket fan!”