2022 MLB announcer changes; Networks; All teams; Radio and TV; Play-by-play voices and analysts

It’s still a little nippy up north. Hardly ideal baseball weather! Yet the warm weather and summery days are ahead

Today, we feature the many changes over the off-season.

Tomorrow we’ll have the full team-by-team changes.

Network TV

• There won’t be an announcer named Joe Buck calling the World Series on television for the first time since 2000. After Joe left for ESPN in March, reports and conventional knowledge indicated his successor will be Los Angeles Dodgers TV voice Joe Davis, who has called Fox’ main Division Series and select Championship Series broadcasts, filling in for Buck. The son of Jack Buck had been Fox’s lead baseball voice since it gained MLB rights in 1996.

• ESPN has switched up their Sunday Night Baseball broadcast, moving the Baseball Tonight team of Karl Ravech and Eduardo Perez to the booth and adding New York Yankees analyst David Cone to the team. The Worldwide Leader will also have an alternate broadcast featuring Yankees play-by-play announcer Michael Kay and previous SNB analyst Alex Rodriguez on select games.

• ESPN will feature far fewer games than in previous years, though it will cover the first round of the new, expanded MLB playoffs.

• Ford Frick Award winner Bob Costas is the #2 play-by-play announcer for TBS’s new Tuesday night schedule, replacing San Diego Padres TV voice Don Orsillo.

• Apple TV and Peacock will feature a schedule of exclusive games this year, though announcers for those games have not been publicly announced. Apple TV is expected to utilize MLB Network talent.

• Matt Vasgersian, previously the voice of ESPN Sunday Night Baseball, will expand his schedule as television announcer for the Los Angeles Angels, though he will primarily call games from the MLB Network studio in Secaucus, New Jersey. Vasgersian will continue his work with MLBN.

• Brian Anderson, TBS’ lead baseball broadcaster, will limit his schedule with the Milwaukee Brewers to around 50 games to accommodate his national duties. He will be succeeded by Brewers radio voice Jeff Levering, who moves exclusively to TV this year. Levering’s role as secondary radio announcer (and Bob Uecker’s likely successor) will be assumed by tertiary radio broadcaster Lane Grindle, with AAA Worcester’s Josh Maurer taking Grindle’s spot.

LOCAL

• Kevin Brown will also expand his schedule with the Baltimore Orioles, moving exclusively to TV and becoming the primary voice there for the team. The ESPNer had worked a limited schedule the last three seasons, splitting between radio and TV. He replaces Scott Garceau, who will remain on the team’s TV and radio broadcasts in a variety of roles.

• St. Louis Cardinals radio announcer Mike Shannon, a former player who had been with the team in some capacity since 1958, retired following the 2021 season at the age of 82. #2 radio announcer John Rooney moves to the top job, with former Cardinal pitcher Ricky Horton moving exclusively to radio in Rooney’s previous role.

• The Washington Nationals made a change in the analyst chair, with F.P. Santangelo’s contract not being renewed. He will be replaced by former National Kevin Frandsen, who had worked for the last four seasons as the Philadelphia Phillies’ radio analyst for road games. Frandsen’s role in Philadelphia will be filled by committee, with a number of former players receiving a select amount of games, presumably as a tryout to fill the role full-time.

• The Miami Marlins let go of Todd Hollandsworth after last season and are filling the analyst chair by committee, with five different color commentators expected to get air time this season. However, the majority of home games will be called by longtime Marlins analyst Tommy Hutton, with Miami native and former MLB catcher J.P. Arencibia working most of the road games. Fifty-three year veteran Dave Van Horne retired from the Marlins radio booth.

• Ray Fosse, a two-time World Series champion with the Oakland Athletics who had been on the club’s broadcast team since 1986, died in October at 74 after a long battle with cancer. Former Athletics pitcher Dallas Braden will take on the bulk of the team’s schedule in the analyst chair.