Speaker 1: John's the Stage League bring.
Speaker 2: We will see you.
Speaker 3: To the Garner Welcome.
Speaker 4: One, hang out, absolutely loaded program for you here on
Speaker 4: this Friday, August fourteenth, Jackie Collin, Peter Raffle arm late
Speaker 4: you will join us for the back half of the program,
Speaker 4: and Peyton Genis is here for the whole darn thing,
Speaker 4: because of course he is. We are doing biggest surprises
Speaker 4: in the American League and in the National League. We're
Speaker 4: gonna start with the American League and then we go
Speaker 4: to give you a weekend preview, and then Arum jumps
Speaker 4: on to talk about his experience of the field of
Speaker 4: Dreams gave in Dyersville, Iowa. And then we talk about
Speaker 4: the hottest hitter going right now, and then we pivot
Speaker 4: to the NL surprises.
Speaker 5: It's a lot and it's all brought to us by
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Speaker 5: Jack and I even dabbled on a little NFL preseason
Speaker 5: action where that's really anywhere we can.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's great. I'm so happy for you.
Speaker 4: And you're reasoning behind the Falcons over the whoever they're
Speaker 4: playing is.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I took the Falcons plus four against the Denver Broncos.
Speaker 5: I noticed on bet MGM that the Denver Broncos were
Speaker 5: the most bet side and I kind of giggled because
Speaker 5: I was like, Okay, yeah, duh, the Denver Broncos are
Speaker 5: better than the Atlanta Falcons. Obviously. However, bo Nicks is
Speaker 5: not going to play. Sean Payton, the head coach of
Speaker 5: the Denver Broncos, basically came out and said that he's
Speaker 5: only going to play starters for the first fifteen snaps.
Speaker 5: And on the Falcon side, you got Kevin Stefanski making
Speaker 5: his debut at home. He wants to set the tone
Speaker 5: with a winning attitude in his first year, you know,
Speaker 5: coaching a new team, coming over from the Cleveland Browns,
Speaker 5: and while bo Nicks is going to play for Denver,
Speaker 5: Tua is going to play for Atlanta. But after Tua exits,
Speaker 5: Cooper Rush is a legitimate starting quarterback, Sam Ellinger who's
Speaker 5: coming in after Jared Stidham. He hasn't thrown a pass
Speaker 5: in a regular season game since twenty twenty two. So
Speaker 5: the assumption that just because the Broncos are better and
Speaker 5: everybody is better on them, I think it's silly. It's
Speaker 5: the preseason, it's gonna be backups. They're at home, and
Speaker 5: I am getting points Jack with the quarterback advantage. Yeah,
Speaker 5: I'm all over Atlanta for a half unit because it's there.
Speaker 4: I tuned, I tuned out the whole thing. All I
Speaker 4: saw was the comment here from a Zay Gooby on YouTube,
Speaker 4: and it asked, who's the guy that said the Padres
Speaker 4: bullpen is overrated? And that's all I could think of.
Speaker 4: So I didn't really care about what you were saying
Speaker 4: football wise, I was just thinking about that atrocious take
Speaker 4: you had last time out.
Speaker 5: Hey, Hey, you asked, you asked, and I delivered an incredible,
Speaker 5: incredible analysis and for all those listening, you know where
Speaker 5: my money's at. But yes, going back to the original
Speaker 5: point about the Padres bullpen, I do think they're overrated.
Speaker 5: Overrated doesn't mean they're bad, doesn't even mean they're pretty good.
Speaker 5: They are through seven.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you think through the twenty seventh best bullpen in baseball.
Speaker 5: See, that's what you do. That's what you spin my words.
Speaker 5: You spit out something nasty to miss represent my take.
Speaker 5: My take is the Milwaukee Brewers have a better bullpen
Speaker 5: in the regular season when you combine all of these
Speaker 5: openers at the bottom of the Padres bullpen. I'm talking
Speaker 5: about the totality of the bullpen. They have been a
Speaker 5: top five bullpen in baseball this season, but they are
Speaker 5: allotted as the best bullpen in baseball by far. That's
Speaker 5: my take and I am sticking to it no matter
Speaker 5: how many people ridicule me on the internet.
Speaker 4: So our YouTube and x crowd. You see me holding
Speaker 4: this pot right here with my right arm.
Speaker 1: This is me just stirring.
Speaker 4: Stir, stir, stir the pot.
Speaker 1: Stir the pot.
Speaker 5: I can respect some pot starring. I for myself, I
Speaker 5: can understand you love doing it. If you said that
Speaker 5: the Padres bullpen was overrated. I might even agree with you,
Speaker 5: but I would still call you out of the take.
Speaker 5: So I get where you're coming from. Of course, that's
Speaker 5: how that works, all right.
Speaker 4: So we're gonna do five surprises each in the American League,
Speaker 4: and then we're gonna do a quick weekend preview and
Speaker 4: then we'll get to the back half of the show.
Speaker 4: We can alternate. I can give you one, you can
Speaker 4: give me one. Then we can kind of go back
Speaker 4: and forth, back and forth. That's how I did it
Speaker 4: with arm earlier today. And you'll hear that conversation in
Speaker 4: just a matter of moments. But I do want to
Speaker 4: start and then I'll throw it your way. Does that work?
Speaker 5: That works for me?
Speaker 1: Okay?
Speaker 4: So there is a centerfielder that is bawling out and
Speaker 4: has quickly become, without a doubt, a top five center
Speaker 4: fielder in Major League Baseball. And I was thinking, this
Speaker 4: guy is so unbelievably flawed. He will always be fun,
Speaker 4: and he will always be a microwave, but he will
Speaker 4: never be a top five center fielder of this sport.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, was I wrong about said on Rafaela.
Speaker 4: He is an absolute electric factory man. Rafaela what he
Speaker 4: is doing at this very moment. I could have never
Speaker 4: have forecasted coming into this year. Sit on, Rafaela is
Speaker 4: eighth in all of baseball, tight for seventh in all
Speaker 4: of baseball with a four point two f four. It's
Speaker 4: a one seventeen WRC plus. Do you know how hard
Speaker 4: that number is to accomplis when you're walking at a
Speaker 4: clip under four percent. He's hitting two ninety, he's slugging
Speaker 4: four seventy. He's got sixteen homers, he's got sixteen bags,
Speaker 4: he's kept the ks in check under twenty percent. When
Speaker 4: he puts the ball in play, good things happen, and
Speaker 4: he is outside of Pete Crow Armstrong along with guys,
Speaker 4: and you'll hear you know Mi echo this sentiment in
Speaker 4: the back half of the episode, like, I think there
Speaker 4: are a lot of really good defensive centerfielders in the
Speaker 4: bigs right now. I think PCA is in a tier
Speaker 4: of his own, and Rafaela is in tier two in
Speaker 4: his own, and then tier three and they're still elite.
Speaker 4: I think guys like Ewing, I think guys like Jacob Marci,
Speaker 4: I think guys like Michael Harris, I think guys like
Speaker 4: Julio Rodriguez, But there's something to be said about PCA
Speaker 4: being the best we've seen since Andrew Jones, and then
Speaker 4: Rafaela being right there, and then everybody else is in
Speaker 4: the conversation. Rafaela is a I think he's made a
Speaker 4: superstar jump.
Speaker 5: I love this take. I wouldn't go as far as
Speaker 5: to say a superstar jump, but to be fair to
Speaker 5: that take, what else are you supposed to call a
Speaker 5: top ten player in the sport right now?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 5: But I think to establish yourself as a superstar, you
Speaker 5: just got to do it much more consistently. And this
Speaker 5: is the first season that he's posted in ops above
Speaker 5: seven to ten, but at the same time it's at
Speaker 5: seven ninety three. I think it's totally fair to call
Speaker 5: him like a poor man's PCA. And I don't mean
Speaker 5: that as a slight to sit on Rafaela at all,
Speaker 5: because they share similar qualities. PCA is just a better
Speaker 5: hitter at the plate, but speaking about their approaches at
Speaker 5: the plate, they're somewhat similar. Now. PCA just has just
Speaker 5: hits the ball a lot harder than Rafaela does, but
Speaker 5: they're both free swingers and they're both able to pull
Speaker 5: the fly balls. In the air, and they're not. While
Speaker 5: they are free swingers, they're not striking out like twenty
Speaker 5: eight thirty percent of the time like you mentioned with
Speaker 5: rafael which is below twenty percent. But the reason I
Speaker 5: make the comparison to PCA is not only about the
Speaker 5: approach at the plate, but it's also defensively. Pete Romstrong
Speaker 5: is the best defensive center fielder in all of Major
Speaker 5: League Baseball, so non Rafaela is on his tail right.
Speaker 5: So I agree with you. At twenty five years old,
Speaker 5: we expected Rafaela to be better. I did not expect
Speaker 5: him to be a top ten player in the sport
Speaker 5: by war, I think that's a great call out.
Speaker 4: I love it what you got.
Speaker 5: So I'm going over to the American League Central, and
Speaker 5: I think the White Sox in general are surprising. I
Speaker 5: think that could easily be put into this episode. But
Speaker 5: there's one particular player on the White Sox that I
Speaker 5: am genuinely surprised about because I remember watching him last
Speaker 5: year and thinking to myself, all right, he's got a
Speaker 5: couple pitches here and there, but is he really going
Speaker 5: to be a mainstay in this White Sox rotation? When
Speaker 5: you hear about Noah Schultz coming up, and we heard,
Speaker 5: you know, whispers about Hagen Smith performing. Was Grant Taylor
Speaker 5: going to be in the bullpen or was he going
Speaker 5: to be a starter? You already had Davis Martin, you
Speaker 5: brought in Fetti, you had Anthony k Was Sean Burke
Speaker 5: going to make an impact this year? Sean Burke over
Speaker 5: his last ten starts is the best pitcher in the
Speaker 5: American League over his last ten starts, sixty two winnings,
Speaker 5: a one six zero ERA with a seventy nine to
Speaker 5: eleven strike on minus walk ratio. He's got an ERA
Speaker 5: under three this year, and he has simply been phenomenal
Speaker 5: over the last two and a half months. Why has
Speaker 5: he been so great? I think it's because he unlocked
Speaker 5: two different variations of a fastball to pair with his
Speaker 5: four seam fastball. Now his four seemer is his best pitch.
Speaker 5: His knuckle curveball is a phenomenal secondary. But I think
Speaker 5: the ability to throw a sinker and a cutter this year,
Speaker 5: which he hasn't really outside of last year. I think
Speaker 5: he threw a sinker five percent of the time. Now
Speaker 5: twenty percent of his pitches are sinkers or cutters. I
Speaker 5: think it allows that breaking ball to play out, but
Speaker 5: allows that fastball to break out to play up. And
Speaker 5: we have an ACE right now for the Chicago White Sox.
Speaker 5: Like Davis Martin had that run at the beginning and
Speaker 5: has kind of slowed down, Sean Burke has taken that
Speaker 5: ACE roll and ran with it, and I think has
Speaker 5: looked even better than Davis Martin has looked at any
Speaker 5: part of the season. So I got a guy in
Speaker 5: Sean Burke who went from is he gonna make the
Speaker 5: rotation too? I'm putting him in conversations right now with
Speaker 5: Dylan season Cam Schlittler with the way he's pitching, obviously
Speaker 5: not over the full season, but he's not even that
Speaker 5: far off. He's been awesome.
Speaker 4: He's been outstanding, And I think Sean Burke is a
Speaker 4: perfect encapsulation. I think you could go with Burke, you
Speaker 4: could go with Martin, you can go with Murray Coami,
Speaker 4: you can go with a whole bunch of different White Socks.
Speaker 4: The White Sox are the clear cut biggest surprise in
Speaker 4: Major League Baseball team wise. If we were to make
Speaker 4: this a team conversation, the White Sox are so far
Speaker 4: and away number one and I think they trump anybody
Speaker 4: going in the National League right now. I think Sat
Speaker 4: Louis is probably number two.
Speaker 5: I was just going to say, they're three wins away
Speaker 5: from their opening win total on bet MGM from the
Speaker 5: beginning of the season, and it's August fourteenth. It's August fourteenth,
Speaker 5: and they're ahead in the division and they have a
Speaker 5: three game lead.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a huge piece of this. And I'm going
Speaker 4: to stay on the White Sox actually with my next one,
Speaker 4: because I've got two bats that are huge surprises for me.
Speaker 4: Murakami there was a chance that he could have done
Speaker 4: this right. Twenty six homers, he missed some time with injury.
Speaker 4: He was on a forty homer pace. He was on
Speaker 4: a pace that was pretty much leading Major League Baseball
Speaker 4: or near the top of the leaderboard in Major League Baseball.
Speaker 4: But everybody knew that he already had generational power. It
Speaker 4: was just a question of could he transition to major
Speaker 4: League baseball effectively from Japan. He's answered that yes, we
Speaker 4: saw traces of a breakout from one of these guys,
Speaker 4: and we saw an encouraging start to his career from
Speaker 4: the other one going back to twenty five, but the
Speaker 4: two offensive seasons and seasons in general that Mydrath and
Speaker 4: Vargas have put together is absolutely crazy. Miguel Vargas is
Speaker 4: at this point a legit star. Miguel Vargas has maybe
Speaker 4: the quietest twenty five homers that we've got. He was
Speaker 4: an All Star, he had a home run of the
Speaker 4: freaking All Star Game. He's got a one to twenty
Speaker 4: five WRC plus twenty five homers, He's scored near eighty runs,
Speaker 4: he's punching out eighteen percent of the time while walking
Speaker 4: thirteen percent of the time, and he's a three win player. Meanwhile,
Speaker 4: my Drath is one of the more underrated players in
Speaker 4: Major League Baseball. He's twenty five years old, He's got
Speaker 4: a three point four F four and a one.
Speaker 1: Twenty WRC plus.
Speaker 4: My Drath has been an unbelievable table seter for them,
Speaker 4: far beyond what I could have ever imagined him being,
Speaker 4: and Vargas is just a legit middle of the order
Speaker 4: star for them now. So Murakami is cool, but not
Speaker 4: as surprising as the continued ascension of Miguel Vargas and
Speaker 4: the true breakout of Chase Mydrath. In my opinion, Yeah, no, I.
Speaker 5: Think there's plenty of players that you could look at
Speaker 5: on the White Sox and be surprised about. And I
Speaker 5: think my draft and Vargas are incredibly pleasant surprises on
Speaker 5: that White Sox team. And I've talked about my draft,
Speaker 5: you know, in the past, because with the White Sox,
Speaker 5: if they really want to compete in October this year
Speaker 5: and moving forward, you need your studs in the middle.
Speaker 5: I think Vargas has established himself as that stud in
Speaker 5: the middle, with Murakami, with Colsa Montgomery. So you have
Speaker 5: the three guys in the lineup who can leave the
Speaker 5: yard at any given time, but the teams who win
Speaker 5: consistently have other guys in the lineup who can fill
Speaker 5: other roles. And I think my draft is the ultimate
Speaker 5: role filler, right. He's a good defender at second base,
Speaker 5: He's a good base runner, has excellent back to ball skills,
Speaker 5: can lean into a little bit of power. He's kind
Speaker 5: of your do everything type of player, similar to Sam Antonachi. Like,
Speaker 5: that's how you build consistent playoff lineups. It's not just
Speaker 5: relying on three guys waiting for them to hit homers.
Speaker 5: It's guys throughout the lineup that can fill a job,
Speaker 5: and my draft is the ultimate example of that. And
Speaker 5: then on the Miguel Vargas side, he has become the
Speaker 5: best hitter on the White Sox. Like I know, Murakami
Speaker 5: just came over and he's really, really exciting. And I
Speaker 5: know Montgomery has a ton of pop and even plays
Speaker 5: a really good shortstop, or at least a solid shortstop.
Speaker 5: But Miguel Vargas is one of the better bats in
Speaker 5: the American League this year. We remember when he was
Speaker 5: sitting in the dugout depressed when he came over. Now
Speaker 5: look at him. Awesome story, so cool. All right, you
Speaker 5: got three more? I got I got four more. I
Speaker 5: only did know four more. We've talked about this at length,
Speaker 5: but I'm not just gonna not talk about it because
Speaker 5: we've talked about it before. Vladimir grow Junior struggles and
Speaker 5: the Blue Jays fall from great. Now. I know the
Speaker 5: Blue Jays are playing better lately, right the Blue Jays
Speaker 5: have are one and a half games out of a
Speaker 5: wild card spot right now. But Peyton dropped this stat
Speaker 5: about Vladimir grow Junior a month and a half ago,
Speaker 5: Peyton saying that Vladdie's last regular season home run in
Speaker 5: Toronto at the Rogers Center was August seventeenth of twenty
Speaker 5: twenty five. It's August fourteenth, twenty twenty six, and that's
Speaker 5: I assume not counting the playoffs podcast p.
Speaker 4: But that's in the regular not counting the playoffs. Last
Speaker 4: home run at the Rogers Center was in the ALCS
Speaker 4: against US.
Speaker 5: Game six against Seattle. In the regular season, it has
Speaker 5: been basically a calendar year. He has an OPS below
Speaker 5: seven hundred and why his approach is horrible. The amount
Speaker 5: of abs that he's given away is just I mean,
Speaker 5: there's two oh pitches where he's singing, swinging at a
Speaker 5: slider in the dirt and grounding out pitches. He'll take
Speaker 5: one down the middle and then he'll swing at ball one.
Speaker 5: The fishing, the chasing outside the zone is already an
Speaker 5: enormous problem, and it's bleeding into his contact quality. Jack
Speaker 5: he has seen a twelve percent drop in hard hit
Speaker 5: rates since twenty twenty four. Fifty five twenty twenty four,
Speaker 5: that was one that led Major League Baseball, or at
Speaker 5: least was one of the league leaders. Now he's at
Speaker 5: forty two percent, slightly better than league average. A five
Speaker 5: hundred million dollar first base dh has above average back
Speaker 5: to ball or contact quality. Come on, and then the
Speaker 5: Blue Jays obviously falling off from going to the World
Speaker 5: Series is a surprise, even though they battled back.
Speaker 4: Sure, so, Laddie Junior is twenty seven years old and
Speaker 4: his per one sixty two pace in his career is
Speaker 4: twenty eight home runs per one sixty two. Peyton just
Speaker 4: told us that's a three hundred and twenty five played
Speaker 4: appearance regular season drop at the Rogers Center. It's so
Speaker 4: hard to fathom that. And if he were a defensive
Speaker 4: oriented shortstop, like I could understand that, but it's not
Speaker 4: that profile. Like if you told me that I'm just
Speaker 4: plucking a name out of thin air here, Like if
Speaker 4: you told me that Bryce and Stott had gone a
Speaker 4: whole calendar year without a home run it since at
Speaker 4: Citizens Bank Park'd be like, Okay, that's unfortunate, but like
Speaker 4: it's not crazy, but it would still be surprising, Like
Speaker 4: it'd still be surprising crazy, but it'd be surprising, Like
Speaker 4: that's where we're at. It'd still be surprising. But a
Speaker 4: guy coming off of five straight near twenty five homer seasons,
Speaker 4: including forty eight in twenty twenty one, should not go
Speaker 4: a whole healthy year without hitting a home run in
Speaker 4: his home ballpark. And everything is dropping off here when
Speaker 4: you take a peek at this, like average exit Vila
Speaker 4: dropping from ninety two to ninety point one is really
Speaker 4: hard to wrap your brain around.
Speaker 5: Did you see Spider Man Brand New Day?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 5: Well, I don't want to give any spoilers, but I
Speaker 5: assume everybody knows the Hulk is in it. So the
Speaker 5: Hulk is in it. I'll give you an example. So
Speaker 5: last year, during the regular season, Vladdie was Professor Hulk,
Speaker 5: which is still a very big version of Hulk. Some
Speaker 5: Marvel fans aren't the biggest fan because they want to
Speaker 5: see Buck Wild Hulk like they want to see Savage Hulk.
Speaker 5: Spider Man Brand New Day, you get Savage Hulk. And
Speaker 5: in the playoffs Vladdy went from Professor Hulk to Savage Hulk,
Speaker 5: and now in the regular season he has gone all
Speaker 5: the way back down to Bruce Banner. There's no strength
Speaker 5: at all, He's lost at all, and Marvel fans are
Speaker 5: already upset a perform as a Hulk. Imagine just a
Speaker 5: whole movie of just Bruce Banner. That's what we're getting
Speaker 5: from ladimirg Arao Junior this year. Do you like that analogy?
Speaker 4: I don't understand it, but I believe.
Speaker 5: Well, Peyton's giving me thumbs up, so I think somebody
Speaker 5: here at least gets it. What's your next surprise?
Speaker 4: All right, my next surprise here. I'm not pivoting to
Speaker 4: the negatives just yet. I've got two negative and I'm
Speaker 4: gonna stay on the positive and I'm going to keep
Speaker 4: my surprises in the American League.
Speaker 1: Central thought Parker Messick was fun.
Speaker 4: I didn't think he was.
Speaker 5: This a good call. I forgot about this one. That's
Speaker 5: so obvious, A great answer, dude.
Speaker 4: Like I thought he was like, oh, yeah, you know,
Speaker 4: that's plucky, Like he could probably be the five and
Speaker 4: that a slayed secone And it's like, no, he's an
Speaker 4: all star and a front line starter and along with
Speaker 4: Gavin Williams, that's one of the better one two punches
Speaker 4: in the American League. Yeah. I mean there's deception, there's Carrie,
Speaker 4: there's a secondary, there's command of everything that comes out
Speaker 4: of his fingertips. There's gump shit like there's there's some
Speaker 4: bizazz on the hill too. Like I just love watching
Speaker 4: Parker Messix starts and I was thinking like he was
Speaker 4: gonna be the Plucky five starter, but no All Star
Speaker 4: and maybe a Game one starter in the DS.
Speaker 5: I think deception is the name of his game. Like
Speaker 5: when I watch Parker Messix starts, I just have you
Speaker 5: can almost see it visually, And when I say almost,
Speaker 5: I feel like I am seeing it. Guys just can't
Speaker 5: pick it up. It's just on them too quickly, like
Speaker 5: the amount of ninety two min hour heaters I've seen
Speaker 5: blown pass guys. I'm like, I know the IVB is
Speaker 5: in twenty five inches where it's getting insane levels of ride.
Speaker 5: I know it's a solid fastball, you know, based on
Speaker 5: the metrics, but it's not so much to the sense
Speaker 5: where to the hitter they're acting like it's one hundred
Speaker 5: miles an hour at the top of the zune. I
Speaker 5: just think guys can't pick it up. So I and
Speaker 5: that is good moving forward for him, because I don't
Speaker 5: know when hitters are going to start to pick it up.
Speaker 5: I think that's just the level of deception that he
Speaker 5: brings to the He pounds the zone with strikes. He's
Speaker 5: not afraid of anybody. Really fun picture to watch, and
Speaker 5: on top of it, he's awesome. I think that's a
Speaker 5: great call out. He's almost kind of like McGonagall, but
Speaker 5: a lesser version of that, where they've just been so
Speaker 5: good all year that I kind of forgot that they
Speaker 5: weren't supposed to be.
Speaker 4: I can believe that because in the first couple of
Speaker 4: months we couldn't go an episode without talking about McGonagall
Speaker 4: or messic and it's like, Oh, these rookies are unbelievable.
Speaker 4: These rookies are unbelievable. And then all of a sudden
Speaker 4: it's like, oh, yeah, no, they're just really, really good.
Speaker 5: Yeah the whole time, which is a custimate to them
Speaker 5: that I forgot because of how good he's been. I
Speaker 5: forgot the great call out there. I guess I'll stay negative.
Speaker 5: I have two three negatives, two positives. We already went
Speaker 5: one over, one positive, Sean Burke, one negative. Laddie in
Speaker 5: the Blue Jays Fall from Grace is the biggest surprise.
Speaker 5: You mentioned that it was the White Sox negatively, the
Speaker 5: Seattle Mariners and Jack cal Rawley's got an O kiss
Speaker 5: below six hundred. Yeah, I've been you know, you see
Speaker 5: clips on the internet of you know, the best of
Speaker 5: the best when it comes to covering baseball. The guys
Speaker 5: who have been doing it for thirty years, you know,
Speaker 5: the Rosenthals, the bus are only the passings, the Tim Kirkchins,
Speaker 5: plenty of them. None of them are able to explain this,
Speaker 5: and they all say this is one of the most
Speaker 5: shocking dropoffs they've ever seen. And this comes to us
Speaker 5: from Mike Petriello. Cal Rawley is having the second biggest
Speaker 5: decline in MLB history in back to back seasons, minimum
Speaker 5: of three hundred and fifty played appearances in each year.
Speaker 5: Rogers Hornsby from nineteen twenty five to nineteen twenty six
Speaker 5: drop from a twelve forty five ops to an eight
Speaker 5: to fifty one OPS. That's okay, but dropping from nine
Speaker 5: to forty eight to five sixty four all the other players,
Speaker 5: I guess outside of Yasmani Grandhal from twenty twenty one
Speaker 5: to twenty twenty two, so it can happen to catchers.
Speaker 5: But this is shocking. I mean, there's how do you
Speaker 5: even put it into words? Everything is wrong with Kyle
Speaker 5: Rawley at the plate. So to talk about that everything
Speaker 5: is wrong, we'd be here for another thirty We could
Speaker 5: do a whole episode.
Speaker 4: On it, And what's tough is people are trying to
Speaker 4: diagnose what exactly has gone wrong mechanically, and people are
Speaker 4: trying to point to a slight turn of his belt
Speaker 4: where it's like, oh, well it was you know, flat
Speaker 4: even or at five degree turn, and now it's a
Speaker 4: ten degree turn. It's the same thing as looking at
Speaker 4: the landing for schemes to try and explain a five
Speaker 4: mile an hour decrease in velocity on his fastball. It's like,
Speaker 4: I just keep coming back to maybe they're just not
Speaker 4: physically right right now, and that's where I keep coming
Speaker 4: back to Raleigh. He missed a month with an oblique deal.
Speaker 4: It seemed brutal, and you just wonder if he's ever
Speaker 4: felt one hundred percent this year. Like I, there's no
Speaker 4: exploit nation here because it's so simple. There's nothing to
Speaker 4: mess up in is swinging. It is set up, There's
Speaker 4: there's nothing there. He's just off. He's just off at
Speaker 4: the moment, and it's amazing to see that drop off.
Speaker 4: So it's been so consistently bad this year that much
Speaker 4: like Messick, I pretty much forgot about Raleigh being a
Speaker 4: surprise too.
Speaker 5: The Mariners are eight games under five hundred. They went
Speaker 5: into the season with the best odds to win the
Speaker 5: Pennant in the American League. Over the Yankees, over the
Speaker 5: Blue Jays, who were just coming off going to the
Speaker 5: World Series, over any team in the Central, over the
Speaker 5: Red Sox, Astros, Rangers, you name it. They were number one,
Speaker 5: and now they have the third worst, the fourth worst
Speaker 5: record in the American League when the American League is
Speaker 5: at its lowest in a very long time. Yeah, that's
Speaker 5: not quite as shocking as Kyle Rawley, but it's all
Speaker 5: tied together.
Speaker 4: Yeah, do you want I armor my bat first? In
Speaker 4: terms of negative surprises.
Speaker 5: Uh, you're hot with the arms, give me the arm.
Speaker 4: This is kind of cheating because he's only been in
Speaker 4: the American League for two weeks. But Freddy Peralta stinks
Speaker 4: this year.
Speaker 5: That counts.
Speaker 1: I mean what.
Speaker 4: It was so hard to watch he pitched himself into
Speaker 4: a trade to Tampa for like it seemed like next
Speaker 4: to nothing, to be honest with you, and then I
Speaker 4: obviously it's a tough landing at Cores and it's Sacramento,
Speaker 4: but the fact that his first two starts were bombs
Speaker 4: away in Tampa at Cores and at Sacramento I get
Speaker 4: how hard that can be. I mean, he's got a
Speaker 4: five and a half ra in a walk year. I
Speaker 4: never once expected that fastball Freddy in a walk year
Speaker 4: from maybe the friendliest team contract in recent memory in
Speaker 4: Major League Baseball would result in one of the worst
Speaker 4: walk years that we've seen from a pitcher in recent memory.
Speaker 4: He's He's near the bottom of every single statistical category
Speaker 4: for starting pitchers right now. I loved when the Mets
Speaker 4: traded Form this offseason. That was a great addition. He's
Speaker 4: so consistent, so consistent.
Speaker 5: So consistent. Freddy is a callback for us. Remember when
Speaker 5: we were first starting and we were projected plate and
Speaker 5: Freddy Perlta was the first player that all of us
Speaker 5: lashed onto, where like the Brewers got something here, and
Speaker 5: then he just went on this run. We looked like
Speaker 5: the smartest people all alive. And then this year it's like.
Speaker 4: Oh shit, you know who he is.
Speaker 5: Jack unfortunately, or at least feels like it's trending this way.
Speaker 5: Zach Gallen, Well, Gallen was unbelievable, very consistent, and then
Speaker 5: fastball quality went down a little bit, had trouble locating
Speaker 5: his off speed and breaking balls, and then just gets
Speaker 5: shelled and Gallen really hasn't bounced back either. I'm very
Speaker 5: fascinated see what Freddy Pearlton gets on the open market
Speaker 5: next year. I think he'll probably get a prove it deal,
Speaker 5: and I think if he had really another great season,
Speaker 5: like another Freddy Pralta level season, he'd probably get the
Speaker 5: same contract Ranger did, maybe more. Yeah, and now it's
Speaker 5: a one year proven.
Speaker 1: Then I'd be a million yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 4: If this could be an one hundred million dollars swing
Speaker 4: season for him, yep, brutal.
Speaker 5: Brutal, It's been positive. Now Nick Martinez has a two
Speaker 5: seven four eer at one hundred and thirty eight ings
Speaker 5: at one hundred and thirty eight inggs. Everyone's talking about
Speaker 5: Drew Rasmussen, and deservedly so. He's third in ci Young
Speaker 5: odds on bet MGM. Nick Martinez should be fourth, but
Speaker 5: he's not because he's only stroking out seventy eight guys
Speaker 5: over his one hundred and thirty eight innings. He's only
Speaker 5: striking out five per nine. However, he's consistently in the zone.
Speaker 5: He stays off the barrel, and this is just a
Speaker 5: professional pitcher on the mount like almost like the way
Speaker 5: Luis to rise as a pure hitter. Nick Martinez this
Speaker 5: year is a pure pitcher. I even tweeted out your
Speaker 5: dad's favorite pitcher because the guy who he's not relying
Speaker 5: on shrikeouts, He's not at one hundred pitches after five innings.
Speaker 5: He cruises through games. He dares you to hit his stuff,
Speaker 5: hits his spots, sequences beautifully, can go to a bunch
Speaker 5: of different pitches and is a huge reason the Rays
Speaker 5: are in the spot that they are right. They lost Pepiote,
Speaker 5: mclenahan's been injured lately. You look at the rest of
Speaker 5: the rotation outside of Rasmussen, there's not a lot to
Speaker 5: grab onto right now except Nick Martinez, who has been
Speaker 5: one of the more valuable pitchers in all of Major
Speaker 5: League Baseball this year. When the Rays signment to that
Speaker 5: one year deal, I liked it. Right had another arm.
Speaker 5: He's been okay. In twenty twenty four, he was really solid,
Speaker 5: but she was three to one. ERA thought it was
Speaker 5: an underrated pickup. Did I expect this? No, I don't
Speaker 5: even think the biggest raised fan on Earth expected this.
Speaker 5: I don't think Eric Neander expected this. But it is
Speaker 5: a welcome surprise in Tampa.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I hear you, man, I totally hear you on that.
Speaker 4: Okay, I've got one more staying in the division, and
Speaker 4: I go bat in a negative surprise.
Speaker 1: You want to talk bad, walk here for a bet.
Speaker 4: The counting numbers are still fine because he's over thirty
Speaker 4: stolen bases, he's got seventeen homers.
Speaker 1: But it's a tough spot for.
Speaker 4: Jazz to put up the first season with a sub
Speaker 4: three hundred on base percentage, Jazz was hoping to get paid.
Speaker 4: But Jazz Chisholm at this point right now is sitting
Speaker 4: at a ninety one OPS plus. It's a six eighty
Speaker 4: seven ops. He's hitting a career wors two sixteen, getting
Speaker 4: on base at a career worst two ninety six clip.
Speaker 4: He's slugging a career worse three ninety one. It hasn't
Speaker 4: been good at all. And the War, dude, he's a
Speaker 4: sub one War player right now. He's zero point nine
Speaker 4: b War and he's two point four f F one.
Speaker 1: I don't know how.
Speaker 5: They're so far apart defense. It's the way each version
Speaker 5: of War is grading out the defense. Yeah, regardless, he's
Speaker 5: been a disappointment. I watch him every single day, and
Speaker 5: the at bats just get real bad. And the problem
Speaker 5: is when the Yankees are good and Jazz Chisholm was
Speaker 5: really playing, he adds such a dynamic factor to the
Speaker 5: Yankees that hasn't really been replicated by any player that
Speaker 5: I've seen in the last five years. The speed, the flare,
Speaker 5: the power that he brings. When he's good, he's real good.
Speaker 5: When he's bad, he's real bad. And he's been real
Speaker 5: bad for this entire season. Defensively, he's been pretty good. Offensively,
Speaker 5: he's been one of the biggest problems on the Yankees
Speaker 5: and a reason why the Yankees are in the bottom
Speaker 5: ten of ops this season.
Speaker 4: Peyton just dropted for US out's above average, He's plus
Speaker 4: ten defensive run safety's been minus seven. So it just
Speaker 4: depends what your flavor of the month is. But Jazz dude, like,
Speaker 4: I was just expecting a way better walk here, because
Speaker 4: as this guy was the type to play himself into
Speaker 4: a near two hundred million dollar contract.
Speaker 5: I was actually thought you were gonna when you were
Speaker 5: giving out the stats, I was like, Damn, does Jared
Speaker 5: Duran really have thirty stolen bases? Because Jared Duran is
Speaker 5: a sixty four WRC plus I don't mean to say
Speaker 5: that as a biasa Yankee fan, like, hey, look at
Speaker 5: the Red Sox player. No, I just feel like Duran
Speaker 5: being even worse is a little bit more surprising than Jazz.
Speaker 5: But at the same time, like Jazz Chisholm came into
Speaker 5: the season telling us he was going to go fifty
Speaker 5: to fifty, yeah, right, and that he was going to
Speaker 5: get a monster contract, Duran didn't do that, right. No.
Speaker 4: I think we thought Duran was going to be good,
Speaker 4: not great, and here he is being bad and Jazz
Speaker 4: we were expecting to be really, really good, one of
Speaker 4: the best in baseball. You had him as the second
Speaker 4: best second basement in the big leagues this here, and
Speaker 4: I believe that's just not the case.
Speaker 5: Not even close, maybe top twenty. I got the two, right,
Speaker 5: I just had to add another zero. That was why,
Speaker 5: all right? My last one is Jack. If I told
Speaker 5: you at the beginning of the season the Sacramento A's
Speaker 5: we're gonna be the worst team in baseball, you probably
Speaker 5: would have been like, that's a stupid take On Twitter.
Speaker 5: We would have ran with it and been like, Peter
Speaker 5: is such an idiot, And yet here we are and
Speaker 5: I'm not saying I had to take at the beginning
Speaker 5: of the season that the A's would be here. But
Speaker 5: they are forty seven and seventy four with a negative
Speaker 5: one hundred and eighty run differential. Both those marks are
Speaker 5: worse than the Rockies, is worse than the Angels. It's
Speaker 5: worse than the Royals, which is another surprise to me,
Speaker 5: how bad the Royals have been so far. But the
Speaker 5: A's came into the season with some hype, right, Yeah,
Speaker 5: had Luis Severino, you had Jeffrey Springs, you had a
Speaker 5: couple of nice young pitchers. You had to line up
Speaker 5: with Nick Kurtz and Tyler Soderstrom and Lawrence Butler and
Speaker 5: Brent Rooker and Jacob Wilson. They were one of the
Speaker 5: most bet teams to go over the win total of
Speaker 5: this season, and now they're the worst team in Major
Speaker 5: League Baseball. The lineup is Nick Kurtz and friends currently,
Speaker 5: and the rotation it's Gauge Jump, JT Gen and you
Speaker 5: and I and Arum. Yeah, and the bullpen's got nobody
Speaker 5: in it.
Speaker 4: Jack bulpens back Jack Perkins, I like, But what I
Speaker 4: mean Perkins is starting games for them exactly.
Speaker 5: He's been back and forth so it's just hard to
Speaker 5: believe they're the worst team in Major League Baseball, and
Speaker 5: how a lot of people have talked about how bad
Speaker 5: they've been lately, like lately, as the Red Sox are
Speaker 5: going thirty one and seven in their past thirty eight,
Speaker 5: the A's are on the complete opposite end of that spectrum.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Now, they have been absolutely decimated by injury. I'll
Speaker 4: give them that. Where like Kurtz, I saw his thumbs immobilized,
Speaker 4: they're the rest of August because he's got he got
Speaker 4: a PRP injection in his thumb or something like that.
Speaker 4: I just thought the word immobilized was crazy. But Kurtz
Speaker 4: has the thumb thing. He's probably out for the entire year.
Speaker 4: Langeliers is done, he had Nies had a scope done.
Speaker 4: What July Corona Grower he's out obviously, that was just awful.
Speaker 4: Denzel Clark he's been out. Brent Rooker he's out for
Speaker 4: the year. He had a scope done on his knee
Speaker 4: as well. So you're running out of lineup right now.
Speaker 4: Of Lawrence Butler's seventy eight WRC plus and if you
Speaker 4: were to highlight one guy that has been the key
Speaker 4: underwhelming aspect of that team, it's probably Lawrence Butler. Jacob
Speaker 4: Wilson is a close second, who's got a sub one
Speaker 4: hundred WRC plus it's it's just not going well. Like
Speaker 4: Donovan Walton's playing second base for them. Things aren't going
Speaker 4: right a lot, like he's always in the lineup. Yeah,
Speaker 4: always always, So those are my love it time for
Speaker 4: the weekend preview.
Speaker 5: Let's do weekend preview. So the weekend Preview is brought
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Speaker 5: let's get into our games. But I'm sure you want to, uh,
Speaker 5: you want to introduce them to me?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I got you. And then you give me a
Speaker 4: winner here and we will start with a hell of
Speaker 4: a pitcher's duel in Cincinnati tonight at six ten pm,
Speaker 4: Sandy al Contra on the Marlins against Chase Burns and
Speaker 4: the Cincinnati Reds. Burns is coming off of a tough start,
Speaker 4: but before that was awesome. Meanwhile, Sandy al Contract coming
Speaker 4: off of three straight scoreless starts.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I want to give the Reds a lot of
Speaker 5: credit they've been playing better baseball. They have clawed back
Speaker 5: in this thing, and they have Chase Burns on the mound,
Speaker 5: and it's at home. It's a tough opponent to go
Speaker 5: up against, but you already mentioned it. Sandy has thrown
Speaker 5: three straight scoreless outings, and he has sparkling numbers against
Speaker 5: the Reds current roster over eighty seven plate appearances, shrekking
Speaker 5: out twenty five percent of batters to twenty two opponent
Speaker 5: batting average with a two sixty one x WLOBBA, which
Speaker 5: is incredibly low, which basically means the quality of contact
Speaker 5: against Sandy is really really poor, as evidenced by the
Speaker 5: average eggs of velocity of only eighty five miles an hour.
Speaker 5: So I think Sandy's gonna shove Chase Burns probably has
Speaker 5: a nice start. I don't mind the under but if
Speaker 5: you're telling me the Marlins are plus money, that'd be.
Speaker 4: The side of them on okay seven to ten in Cleveland,
Speaker 4: Michael King and the red Hot Padres against an absolute
Speaker 4: stud in Gavin Williams and the Guardians.
Speaker 5: Shocking price here that the Padres would be plus one
Speaker 5: twenty or higher. But I kind of understand why, kind
Speaker 5: of feels like a letdown spot for the Padres. They
Speaker 5: have been playing excellent baseball, but what comes up must
Speaker 5: come down, and you have Gavin Williams at home. The
Speaker 5: Guardians need these wins. Not to say that the Padres
Speaker 5: don't either, but the Guardians are starting to fall kind
Speaker 5: of out of this. Not the best series against the Tigers.
Speaker 5: This is a focused spot for Cleveland, not saying that
Speaker 5: the Padres are better. If you're telling me is Michael
Speaker 5: King versus Gavin Williams. I'm choosing the Padres, but I
Speaker 5: really like the Guardians in this spot, which is why
Speaker 5: I'll go with them.
Speaker 4: Okay, last one that we've got on Friday at seven
Speaker 4: fifteen in Atlanta, Chris Sale against the red hot Brandon Fott.
Speaker 5: Fascinating matchup and another price that I'm just shocked by.
Speaker 5: You're telling me the d Backs are plus one eighty five.
Speaker 5: I get it. It's Sale. He's unbelievable. The Braves one
Speaker 5: of the best teams in baseball at seventy three and
Speaker 5: forty eight, but the d Backs are sixty four and
Speaker 5: fifty eight, and Brandon Fott has been pitching out of
Speaker 5: his mind and the d Backs opponent batting average against
Speaker 5: Sales two fifty five over one hundred and sixteen played appearance.
Speaker 5: It's not like Sale has absolutely obliterated them. I think
Speaker 5: the d Backs are gonna compete, So I'm gonna go
Speaker 5: big underdog hunting. Give me Arizona.
Speaker 4: Which game are you less interested in? Seth Lugo and
Speaker 4: Grayson Rodriguez in Royals Angels or Kyle Frieland and Landon
Speaker 4: Rupe and Rockies Giants.
Speaker 5: I'm just gonna go Angels Royals just because we're only
Speaker 5: five wins away from hitting my biggest MLB future Rockies
Speaker 5: over fifty two and a half wins. So I've been
Speaker 5: watching so much Rockies baseball, just kidding get fired up
Speaker 5: with all of our friends of the discord. It is
Speaker 5: actually so much fun because whatever they win, you could
Speaker 5: throw a parade, and whenever they lose, it's like, ah,
Speaker 5: it's the Rockies, let's get it tomorrow. Like so basically,
Speaker 5: no matter what, like you're having fun. So I'll be
Speaker 5: watching that game.
Speaker 4: I hear you two Saturday games that we got to
Speaker 4: give you here. First one is going to be in
Speaker 4: Pittsburgh between the Red Sox and the Pirates. Sonny Gray
Speaker 4: against Jared Jones, who had a rough start last time out.
Speaker 5: So I wanted to bring this one up too, not
Speaker 5: only because it's a great pitching matchup, but our friends
Speaker 5: of ballpark Pal again another reminder, go check out ballpark Pal.
Speaker 5: It's one of the best public models. Literally out does
Speaker 5: a great job with the weather and they make the
Speaker 5: Pirates a slight favorite here. Now it's closer to a
Speaker 5: coin flip, but they're banking on a Jared Jones bounce back.
Speaker 5: But Sonny Gray has just been too damn good. So
Speaker 5: for any betters out there, there might be some value
Speaker 5: on the Pirates when this line comes out. And I'm
Speaker 5: gonna trust our friends at ballpark Pal give me the
Speaker 5: Jared Jones bounce back and the Red Sox coming to
Speaker 5: Pittsburgh thinking they got an easy win. Nope, go Buckos.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 4: Brewers Dodgers the Series of the year at Dodgers Stadium
Speaker 4: at seven fifteen Eastern time on Saturday. Jacob Mizarowski against
Speaker 4: Justin Robleski.
Speaker 5: Well, last night I assume you saw this as well,
Speaker 5: and when Diaz blowing that save and you know who,
Speaker 5: what was funny? I feel like Cubs fans were more
Speaker 5: upset at Edwin Diaz online than Dodger fans were upset Edward.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I believe that the Cubs are trying to catch the Brewers,
Speaker 5: and I understand it. It's an awesome division race. Robleski
Speaker 5: is in big trouble in the second half. He's just
Speaker 5: completely fallen off a cliff as I thought was a
Speaker 5: was potentially going to happen if you looked at all
Speaker 5: of his underlying metrics. I just thought there was no
Speaker 5: way he could continue. And Misowski on the other side,
Speaker 5: I mean, good freaking luck. Give me the Brewers.
Speaker 4: Okay, now we got three more on Sunday to table
Speaker 4: on the weekend preview here, let's go to Toronto. Yeah,
Speaker 4: Toronto at one thirty seven Eastern on Sunday afternoon, Dylan
Speaker 4: Cease takes the ball in his home ballpark against lefty
Speaker 4: Ryan Weathers.
Speaker 5: Ballpark. Powell has the Blue Jays as minus one sixty
Speaker 5: one favorites. Love Ryan Weathers. I think he's been pitching great,
Speaker 5: But Cease is going for that cy Young. I think
Speaker 5: he's gonna dominate here. I'll take the Jays.
Speaker 1: If I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 4: Toronto has been one of the worst teams in baseball
Speaker 4: against left handed pitching. So something good underplay, good underplay.
Speaker 4: There you go. Okay, two more that we got to
Speaker 4: give you here, yep, late afternoon Eastern time in La
Speaker 4: Logan Henderson and the Brewers against Trek's Schooble and the Dodgers.
Speaker 4: I made the joke to you guys. I think the
Speaker 4: barber should call louis paying you up for this one,
Speaker 4: just like play the theorized package against Errek Schooble.
Speaker 1: I love that.
Speaker 4: I hope they do that they won't.
Speaker 5: Ballpark pal basically makes the Dodgers huge favorites sixty five percent,
Speaker 5: but I just got a gut feel that the Burers
Speaker 5: figure this one out. Scooble has not quite looked like
Speaker 5: Tik's Schooble. He's looked like Terrek Scooble, and I think
Speaker 5: you hear that. You kind of know what I mean.
Speaker 5: Still incredibly good, still awesome, but not at the peak
Speaker 5: of his powers. And the Brewers can beat anybody. And
Speaker 5: I like how their lineup matches up against left handed pitching.
Speaker 5: I obviously love Logan Henderson, and it feels like the
Speaker 5: Dodgers might get some revenge over the next two days.
Speaker 5: And then the Brewers close it out on Sunday. So
Speaker 5: I think if you're looking for a big time underdog,
Speaker 5: I like Milwaukee on Sunday cool.
Speaker 4: And then Sunday Night Baseball, Brian Wu on the road
Speaker 4: for the Mariners against Hunter Brown and the Houston Astros.
Speaker 5: Yeah, give me the Ashros. But Brian Will actually looked
Speaker 5: really good against the Yankees on the road. Maybe he's
Speaker 5: starting to figure out those problems. It is close to
Speaker 5: a pick and price. You know what, Let's fade that narrative.
Speaker 5: Give me the Mariners.
Speaker 2: Why not?
Speaker 5: Can they get it done? Probably not, but they need
Speaker 5: people back at them right now, and I'm willing to
Speaker 5: do so.
Speaker 4: Second half of the program is coming up in a moment. Again,
Speaker 4: we talked to arm Layton and Dyersville, Iowa. We also
Speaker 4: have Griffin Conine conversation, and then we get to our
Speaker 4: NL surprises. But before that, all right, nothing quite like
Speaker 4: a little line change here. Instead of Peter rappolet's Arm
Speaker 4: Layton for the back half of the program. Arm Layton
Speaker 4: from Dyersville, Iowa with a hoodie on with his USA
Speaker 4: Baseball hat that Lids was nice enough to ship us.
Speaker 4: That hat is absolutely sick I will be wearing at it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's got This is one of the most frequented ones.
Speaker 6: Also, mart no hoodie, dude, I have no temperature control
Speaker 6: of this Airbnb.
Speaker 2: Like I messaged the lady, I'm like, how do I
Speaker 2: make this warmer?
Speaker 6: She's like, you can turn the heater on that's separate
Speaker 6: and and it'll counteract it.
Speaker 2: It's not and also it smells weird.
Speaker 6: It stuck a sixty two pumping max effort, and I'm like,
Speaker 6: I've been freezing for three days straight.
Speaker 2: I'm looking forward to getting home.
Speaker 4: Though.
Speaker 6: It has been a very charming town here. I do
Speaker 6: really like. I do like it out here.
Speaker 2: I do.
Speaker 4: So you were at the Field of Dreams game, you
Speaker 4: were at the Field of Dreams Minor League game, and
Speaker 4: were you at the under Armer All American game as well?
Speaker 2: I skipped that.
Speaker 6: I went to Cedar Rapids to see the Wisconsin timber
Speaker 6: rat Words versus the Cedar Rapids Colonels. That was a
Speaker 6: good time, though two hour rain delay, but it was.
Speaker 6: It was a lot of fun just to see some
Speaker 6: more top prospects. Braykln Paine just got promoted Brewers, you
Speaker 6: know for first round picking record to double a so
Speaker 6: some one of his last HIA games.
Speaker 2: So that was fun. And uh yeah, so I got
Speaker 2: my two minor league games.
Speaker 6: One big league game works out nicely, and I thought
Speaker 6: about the All American Game, but I was like, I
Speaker 6: don't need to see kids throwing max efforts, spraying the ball.
Speaker 2: Might see a couple based knocks and call it a day.
Speaker 4: What do you mean you weren't fired up for a
Speaker 4: hunter Pentce's nephew, Striker. That's a stri name. It's a
Speaker 4: sick name, especially when you throw one hundred. That was
Speaker 4: the one thing I was kind of like, Man, I
Speaker 4: wish I was there for that, but I have a
Speaker 4: feeling we'll be seeing a lot more of striker pants.
Speaker 4: Also shout out Calvin, uh, broadcaster for the Colonels. Yeah,
Speaker 4: gave me a ton of awesome hospitality, got tour of
Speaker 4: the whole ballpark.
Speaker 2: It's historic, it's absolutely awesome.
Speaker 6: And you know, we kind of killed the Indela together,
Speaker 6: so and enjoyed that with him. He's a great broadcaster.
Speaker 6: Looking forward to seeing you know what's ahead of him too.
Speaker 4: Calvin Christophoro, who is the voice of the Cedar Rapids Colonels.
Speaker 4: Following a you know, great line of w A E.
Speaker 4: R Sports director since Syracuse, New York, that MPR station.
Speaker 4: So me and Calvin Christophoro have that in common. So
Speaker 4: it's fun. Man, I love it. So I want to
Speaker 4: hear a little bit more about Dyersville, Iowa, and then
Speaker 4: I've got something for you, and then we're gonna obviously
Speaker 4: pivot to the back half of this program and biggest
Speaker 4: all biggest surprises so far in the National League. But
Speaker 4: I mean, this is probably the longest you've ever been
Speaker 4: in Iowa in one single sitting.
Speaker 1: It's also like really cool. I think the.
Speaker 4: Dyersville thing was awesome again, and I think the I
Speaker 4: think the Kevin Costner stoic thing is is.
Speaker 1: A little overplayed.
Speaker 4: But I do love the corn element of all this.
Speaker 4: What did you make of the experience in Dyersville.
Speaker 6: I you know, I was wondering how much like Kevin
Speaker 6: Costner we were gonna get And I had nothing against him,
Speaker 6: but you know, I was like, we could do without
Speaker 6: maybe like the played out like movie scenes that they
Speaker 6: did a really good job of not doing that. It
Speaker 6: was you got the teams coming out of the corn
Speaker 6: that was awesome, you know. But I think then the
Speaker 6: hall of Famers coming out. No one was really expecting
Speaker 6: that unless I was totally had my head, you know,
Speaker 6: in the in the wrong area of the cornfield.
Speaker 2: It's like I had no idea. So that was really cool.
Speaker 6: And I mean to see twenty six Hall of Famers
Speaker 6: and I mean some of my all time favorites, some
Speaker 6: guys that I haven't thought of it a little bit,
Speaker 6: and everything in between was was absolutely awesome. The other
Speaker 6: part is I'm in like just outside of Dyersville and Farley.
Speaker 6: It's just one of those little talents where it's like
Speaker 6: one little mini main street where it's like two bars,
Speaker 6: a little bowling alley. You see like little girls running
Speaker 6: with their dog, like you know, by themselves.
Speaker 2: It's safe, like back from school.
Speaker 6: You see another little kid, you know, go into the
Speaker 6: bowling alley and they leave their bike outside and just
Speaker 6: run into the bowling alley. And I'm like in South Florida,
Speaker 6: that bike is snatched like quickly. So there's just so
Speaker 6: many little things like that. It's just like you feel
Speaker 6: like you're almost in a time machine. Everyone here is
Speaker 6: so nice. And then the field itself, I think the
Speaker 6: thing that stood out to me more than anything was
Speaker 6: like you know, it's a movie set at the end
Speaker 6: of the day, So I was like, I was kind
Speaker 6: of wondering if it was gonna teeter on gimmicky a
Speaker 6: little bit, and not even in an incredibly negative way,
Speaker 6: like it's it's just like you're building a stadium for
Speaker 6: major League Baseball players to be able to play in
Speaker 6: in Cornfield's next one movie set, Like odds are, it's
Speaker 6: gonna look a little bit out of place, And I
Speaker 6: thought they did a really good job of like making
Speaker 6: it feel really authentic, like it was Cornfields as far
Speaker 6: as I could see. The stadium obviously had the accommodations
Speaker 6: required for a major League Baseball game, but it also
Speaker 6: felt very like pure and and and like you know, simple,
Speaker 6: which I thought made the whole thing really really special.
Speaker 2: And I'm glad that they're gonna be doing this. It
Speaker 2: seems like every year moving forward.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it is cool.
Speaker 1: And I think baseball and baseball movies.
Speaker 4: In particular have this level of marriage that like the
Speaker 4: other sports just don't you know. I remember The Titans
Speaker 4: is a really good movie, and The Replacements is a
Speaker 4: really good movie, But like, I just don't think football
Speaker 4: movie when I think about football with basketball. I mean
Speaker 4: Thunderstruck that Kevin Durant. What is a Jim Belushi one
Speaker 4: at stunk out Loud? I'm thinking of the Common Queen
Speaker 4: Latifa just right. I think that's what that was called.
Speaker 4: Do you remember that one where Common.
Speaker 2: Was the better basketball movies than that?
Speaker 4: Yeah, like Mike obviously Coach Carter, Coach Carter.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: But like I'm just saying the marriage between the Baseball
Speaker 4: movie and Baseball itself. Like every person that has ever
Speaker 4: played baseball has watched The Sandlot. Every person that has
Speaker 4: ever played baseball has probably watched Field of Dreams. Like
Speaker 4: the natural Rookie of the Year, They're all up there.
Speaker 4: The rookie is up there with Dennis Quaid. I love
Speaker 4: bench warmers. A lot of young kids love Moneyball at
Speaker 4: this point too, so it's it's really cool to see
Speaker 4: them lean into the Baseball movie aspect of it. I
Speaker 4: think Rickwood Field is really important, and I hope they
Speaker 4: play a game at Rickwood every year.
Speaker 1: I think Williamsport is a cool dynamic.
Speaker 4: I thought the Bristol Motor Speedway was interesting, but I
Speaker 4: think if we had three specialty games every year, it
Speaker 4: should be Rickwood.
Speaker 1: It should be Williamsport and it should be Dyersville, Iowa.
Speaker 6: One hundred percent agree because this was the last thing
Speaker 6: I mentioned on this is like it was a reminder
Speaker 6: of like why we do this whole thing anyways, like what.
Speaker 2: Baseball is all about?
Speaker 6: As clichs it sounds like you took to exit the
Speaker 6: stadium all the fans, Like you go out through like
Speaker 6: this passageway, like that's cornfields on both sides.
Speaker 2: But then you walk you have to walk through a little.
Speaker 6: Bit of corner, little patch of cornfields, literally through the
Speaker 6: corn and you pop out into the movie set baseball field, right,
Speaker 6: and like when you pop out onto that field, you
Speaker 6: see the house, you see the baseball field, and you
Speaker 6: just see fathers and sons or even you know, mothers
Speaker 6: and sons or husband and wife playing catch and and
Speaker 6: just running around on the field. And it was just
Speaker 6: like this moment of holy crap, like this is the
Speaker 6: whole point of this whole thing. And you know, for
Speaker 6: it to be a major League baseball game where there's
Speaker 6: there's implications and like both teams are trying to make
Speaker 6: the playoffs blah blah blah, and they you know, played
Speaker 6: hard in their focus on that, but you still walk
Speaker 6: out and you see all these things as well.
Speaker 2: It was that was a really special moment, I.
Speaker 6: Think checking in and realizing like just just what the
Speaker 6: sport is all about.
Speaker 4: I thought it was really cool to see Roger and
Speaker 4: Cody Clevens play catch. Yeah, I thought that was awesome,
Speaker 4: so dark cool. We're going to get to the National
Speaker 4: League here in a moment. But before that, I want
Speaker 4: to do a dramatic reading of the of the top ten. Yeah,
Speaker 4: let's go, yeah, you know what, let's go top eleven
Speaker 4: because eleven is really good. The top eleven in terms
Speaker 4: of OPS and Major League Baseball.
Speaker 1: This year minimum one hundred and seventy played appearances.
Speaker 4: You ready, Yeah? At number eleven, Aaron Judge of the
Speaker 4: New York Yankees at number ten, Kyle Schwarber of the
Speaker 4: Philadelphia Phillies at number nine, Wilson Contreras of the Boston
Speaker 4: Red Sox at number eight, Pete Crow Armstrong in the
Speaker 4: Chicago Cups. Number seven is Junior coming Era of the
Speaker 4: Tampa Bay Rays. Number six shout out at Smerle Valdez
Speaker 4: the Pittsburgh Pirates. James Wood of the Washington Nationals is
Speaker 4: number five. Shoheo Tani of the Dodgers is number four,
Speaker 4: Griffin Conine of the Miami Marlins is number three, Juan
Speaker 4: Soto of the Mets is number two, and your Don
Speaker 4: Alvarez is number one. Griffin Conine is third in baseball
Speaker 4: minimum one hundred and seventy played appearances in ops.
Speaker 1: At nine forty four.
Speaker 4: He is hitting the absolute crap out of the baseball
Speaker 4: right now. It's been insanely, ridiculously fun to watch this
Speaker 4: guy do what he does. And as you sit there
Speaker 4: in Dyersville, Iowan, you watch this guy tack yet another
Speaker 4: baseball and even in an underwhelming day, he smokes in
Speaker 4: one hundred and five mile an hour single. How proud
Speaker 4: are you just as a friend of what this is doing.
Speaker 2: Dude, I'm fissed.
Speaker 6: I missed the homestand I mean it was it was
Speaker 6: fun to be out here, But I mean everyone says this,
Speaker 6: and obviously, like you're gonna see it more closely when
Speaker 6: it's somebody that you see more frequently and are are
Speaker 6: are I think more intertwined with. But like, I don't
Speaker 6: think there's a lot of guys, even in a big
Speaker 6: league clubhouse anywhere, that are that are working as hard
Speaker 6: as he does, and I mean like to see the
Speaker 6: success that he's having at the highest level. And now,
Speaker 6: like I've got a pretty good sample of him being
Speaker 6: aft being a really good Major League baseball player here,
Speaker 6: even with the two brief samples last year, you canbine
Speaker 6: last year in the year before you combine it. Now, No,
Speaker 6: we've got a decent amount of plate appearances here, about
Speaker 6: three hundred and fifty of him being thirty percent above
Speaker 6: league average thirty two if you want to be exact.
Speaker 6: And then this year finally playing every day, being healthy,
Speaker 6: you know, just putting up the video game numbers that
Speaker 6: that we've seen from him. He works his absolute butt off.
Speaker 6: He works on the physical side harder than anybody. The
Speaker 6: mental side. Uh, He's always trying to get better and
Speaker 6: better and better. And I think the biggest thing you
Speaker 6: know with him is you look at there was a
Speaker 6: point in double A where he was punching out forty
Speaker 6: percent of the time. I mean, in a forty two
Speaker 6: game sample in twenty twenty one, he struck up forty
Speaker 6: seven percent of the time. How many guys would have
Speaker 6: just said, no, that this is this is probably it.
Speaker 6: I'm not gonna be able to hit enough, like people
Speaker 6: aren't gonna believe in me whatever it may be. Nope,
Speaker 6: he's figured it out and just kept grinding and kept
Speaker 6: getting better and kept getting better and to now have
Speaker 6: it click this way at the highest level. Man Like,
Speaker 6: we're talking about bigger surprises in the National League, like
Speaker 6: this should be. And I wouldn't say I'm surprised that
Speaker 6: he's having success in the major leagues, but man, to
Speaker 6: be with those names over a decent sample size, I'll
Speaker 6: tell you, like, even I'm surprised, and I thought that
Speaker 6: this guy could do just about anything.
Speaker 4: It's unbelievable, like honestly, and I hate that word used
Speaker 4: so commonly, Like I hate how often the word unbelievable
Speaker 4: is thrown about. But the top four and ops again
Speaker 4: minimum one hundred and seventy played appearances, Jordon Alvarez, Juan Soto,
Speaker 4: Griffin con and Shoheo Tani. That's ridiculous to see his
Speaker 4: name in there with Jordon, Soo and Otani. But this guy,
Speaker 4: man Like, it's so much fun to watch him on
Speaker 4: a heater. And the coolest thing about Griff and Conine is,
Speaker 4: you know, we've got what like north of fifty games
Speaker 4: now as a sample. He missed about two months there
Speaker 4: with hamstring surgery. I'm pulling up the exact game total
Speaker 4: this year, Uh, griff has played fifty five games. Like
Speaker 4: we've got a sample here of a heater and a
Speaker 4: quote unquote like reactlimization where he was slightly cold at
Speaker 4: the outset. What's so cool about him is the cold
Speaker 4: spell quote unquote lasts three games instead of ten for
Speaker 4: other power bats. And he's still putting the ball in play,
Speaker 4: and he's still walking, and it's still a quality at beat.
Speaker 4: He has this marriage of grinding it bats and also
Speaker 4: hitting the ball one hundred and fifteen miles an hour
Speaker 4: that very few guys on the planet can do.
Speaker 2: I think his last eight batted balls are one oh
Speaker 2: three or higher.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think the.
Speaker 6: Hard hit rate is creeping towards sixty percent. And this
Speaker 6: has been in a stretch rights five games. It's not
Speaker 6: thirty games, it's fifty five. That's the craziest part in
Speaker 6: the stretch. Like through this stretch recently he told me
Speaker 6: he's like, I gotta be better with two strikes, Like
Speaker 6: I'm gonna try to take a little off it with two,
Speaker 6: and him taking a little off it with two has
Speaker 6: been like one O six is one O sevens with
Speaker 6: two strikes. So it's like that the power that he
Speaker 6: has and just being able to again like do these
Speaker 6: little things, to be able to chip away at the
Speaker 6: whiff because he was always gonna be a guy that
Speaker 6: could get away with because of the ridiculous, ridiculous power
Speaker 6: that he brings to the table, like eighty great row power.
Speaker 6: But just to see what he's been able to continue
Speaker 6: to do on that side is just amazing. So uh man,
Speaker 6: I again, I can't and the expectations to and like,
Speaker 6: you know the fact that it's with the Marlins and
Speaker 6: his dad and there's so many other pressures, and he's
Speaker 6: helped the Marlins with so many guys going you know,
Speaker 6: guys going down offense, sputtering a little bit, like help
Speaker 6: this team stay in it and help snap the losing streak.
Speaker 6: Like there's so many different, you know, special moments within it.
Speaker 6: And again, I'm just so happy for the dude because
Speaker 6: I don't know very many people that are working as
Speaker 6: hard as he is at anything, and he absolutely deserves it.
Speaker 1: He's amazing, man, just absolutely amazing.
Speaker 4: All right, without further ado, let's get into the national
Speaker 4: league side of our surprises here we each have five.
Speaker 4: I figure we can alternate, so I'll let you go
Speaker 4: first because you're the one in Iowa right now, and
Speaker 4: then me sitting in Cincinnati, I'll go second. So we'll
Speaker 4: go your surprise, my surprise, your surprised, my surprise, until
Speaker 4: we get to five each.
Speaker 2: Yep, let's do it. Let's do it.
Speaker 6: So, I mean, we kind of alluded to one, but
Speaker 6: I think, you know, a little bit larger of a
Speaker 6: sample he qualifies for. I think it's almost a lot
Speaker 6: large enough sample with the griff, But you know, I
Speaker 6: think I think in general, he could be a great.
Speaker 2: Shout for this.
Speaker 6: But I'll start with with some guys that you know,
Speaker 6: we've been watching since the start of the year, and
Speaker 6: Jordan Walker's got to be my first, you know, biggest
Speaker 6: surprise so far. Jordan Walker is another one where it's
Speaker 6: like the skill set is so is so good. I
Speaker 6: don't think anybody shocked that he figured it out, right,
Speaker 6: Like I'm not shocked that he's done this, but I
Speaker 6: think it's important to remember, like it was ugly for
Speaker 6: Jordan Walker, man, Like it was ugly, and I know
Speaker 6: that it didn't mean it was over for him. But
Speaker 6: I did think that maybe if he figured it out,
Speaker 6: it was going to be a change of scenery. It
Speaker 6: was going to be maybe a step in the right direction.
Speaker 6: And then we have the year that he's having this year,
Speaker 6: maybe next year, but to have the one thirty WRC
Speaker 6: plus twenty three homers. By the way, he's sixteen for
Speaker 6: twenty one on stolen basis, Like he's cut the strikeout
Speaker 6: rate by more than seven percent.
Speaker 2: He's walking a little bit more than he ever has.
Speaker 6: Really, this was a dude that is sixty six WRC
Speaker 6: plus and four hundred played appearances last year, like plenty
Speaker 6: of runway and just was not good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in trip play didn't even look very good at points.
Speaker 6: It was the seventy two WORC plus one hundred and
Speaker 6: seventy eight play appearance appearance is in twenty twenty four. Like,
Speaker 6: this is a pretty remarkable jump. And I know he's
Speaker 6: just twenty four years old. He was twenty three stone
Speaker 6: opening day, and so like everything makes sense, and you
Speaker 6: can absolutely be like, well, you should have been patient
Speaker 6: with them, Like yeah, and.
Speaker 2: I agree, we should be paid with him.
Speaker 6: And this is validating for all the people that didn't
Speaker 6: waiver in their belief in Jordan Walker. But when the
Speaker 6: sample size got that big for that bad, I thought
Speaker 6: there was still a path to being a good major
Speaker 6: League baseball player. I didn't even think there'd be a
Speaker 6: path to, you know, one of the premier young power
Speaker 6: bats right away in the game, who also won the
Speaker 6: Derby and just looks like this more complete hitter in
Speaker 6: general that I still think is only going to get
Speaker 6: better and better from here. Just the leap so significantly
Speaker 6: this year was a surprise for me.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I love that shout, and Walker was a guy
Speaker 4: that did cross my mind absolutely because it was good
Speaker 4: and that it was so bad and that it's good
Speaker 4: I highlighted, and my first two surprises really have to
Speaker 4: do with the ascension of guys like taking that next step.
Speaker 4: One of them is twenty five years old and one
Speaker 4: of them like just took that first step and it's huge.
Speaker 4: But the first one that I have for you that
Speaker 4: along a not entirely similar but somewhat similar line of
Speaker 4: thinking as CJ.
Speaker 1: Abrams.
Speaker 4: Abrams taking this step into superstardom for me was not shocking,
Speaker 4: but it surprised me because this guy was establishing consistency
Speaker 4: and Walker was unfortunately consistently unproductive for the Cardinals. Abrams
Speaker 4: was consistently like productive for the Washington Nationals and CJ.
Speaker 4: Abrams was the topic of interest for so many trade
Speaker 4: conversations and so many trade rumors that we discussed on
Speaker 4: the Just Baseball Show this offseason. It's like, Okay, is
Speaker 4: he going to go play second base for the New
Speaker 4: York Yankees? Is he going to go play second base
Speaker 4: for the Pittsburgh Pirates. We were having that conversation. It's like,
Speaker 4: what does the return look like? Is at the number
Speaker 4: ten prospect and the number four prospect? Now it's like,
Speaker 4: oh no, he's just a superstar and the biggest number
Speaker 4: that jumps out in twenty six games after the All
Speaker 4: Star break, he has transformed that narrative of slow finisher
Speaker 4: to an OPS over one thousand since the break this year.
Speaker 4: He's been one of the best players in baseball after
Speaker 4: the All Star break this season, when he was one
Speaker 4: of the worst over the last couple of years. Season
Speaker 4: long ops is first three seasons in Washington, first three
Speaker 4: full seasons, and again established consistency. He hit two forty
Speaker 4: five with a seven to twelve, and twenty twenty three
Speaker 4: he hit two forty six with a seven forty seven
Speaker 4: and twenty four. He hit two fifty seven with a
Speaker 4: seven forty eight and twenty five, and now he's hitting
Speaker 4: two eighty four within eight ninety eight. In twenty twenty six,
Speaker 4: he's already nine beyond his career high with twenty nine homers.
Speaker 4: He's leading Major League Baseball and RBIs. He's pacing for
Speaker 4: another thirty stolen bases. He's already a career high in
Speaker 4: walks drawn, and he's already at a career high in
Speaker 4: slug by over one hundred points. At five point forty one,
Speaker 4: he's forty points clear of any OBP number he's ever
Speaker 4: put up. It's amazing to watch what this guy has
Speaker 4: done in his age twenty five season. And again it's
Speaker 4: not shocking because it's always been in there, but there
Speaker 4: was a level of consistency, and it's like, you know,
Speaker 4: we might know who CJ. Abrams is, we didn't know
Speaker 4: who CJ. Abrams was.
Speaker 6: I'm with you one hundred percent on this one because
Speaker 6: the first half didn't surprise me. I think seeing him
Speaker 6: just keep it rolling here has been where it's just
Speaker 6: you're seeing him click it into another gear here and
Speaker 6: there's a lot of reason to believe.
Speaker 2: That it's just going to continue.
Speaker 6: And yeah, I think the defensive side of things is
Speaker 6: an interesting conversation eventually, but that's not what we're like,
Speaker 6: we're here to talk about right when you got a
Speaker 6: nine hundred oh ps, so you'll you'll, we'll figure it
Speaker 6: out defensively. But he has a shot at you know,
Speaker 6: like get close to forty here, Uh, he's going to
Speaker 6: steal thirty plus bags like to do that. And a
Speaker 6: year after we saw him take what it looked like
Speaker 6: a step forward, but then then you looked at the
Speaker 6: end of the year numbers and it was the same
Speaker 6: exact ops. So it was almost an identical slash line.
Speaker 6: So to see him now sustain that and take this
Speaker 6: big leap, like I continue to say, I think a
Speaker 6: big part of it is the improved infrastructure in Washington,
Speaker 6: Like I think Abrams has a lot more information at
Speaker 6: his disposal, and I'm sure that's helping him just be
Speaker 6: a more consistently solid and I'm sure the.
Speaker 1: Training practices are better too.
Speaker 4: I want to highlight a guy, Tyler Smarslock, who's their
Speaker 4: new field coordinator, who was the infield coach in Miami.
Speaker 4: He was a wizard last year. I bet he's like
Speaker 4: really helping out daily process for CJ.
Speaker 1: Abrams. So I just wanted to give him a quick shot.
Speaker 6: Yeah, one hundred percent, And I think that's It's just
Speaker 6: he has to be one of those surprises too, just
Speaker 6: because I even I never thought that the best version
Speaker 6: of him would be a guy that was flirting with forty.
Speaker 6: So I think even from that lens alone, it's just
Speaker 6: been really cool to see.
Speaker 1: Yeah, one hundred percent, what you got next?
Speaker 2: I gotta go with.
Speaker 6: Edward Rodriguez as as my other surprise, just because look,
Speaker 6: we've seen good e Rod before, but he was in
Speaker 6: the bucket for me of like, all right, this, this
Speaker 6: might be it, right, Like the best days might be
Speaker 6: behind this guy. That contract is not going to age well,
Speaker 6: like yeah, so on and so forth with Erod, and
Speaker 6: you know, you just don't really imagine that it's gonna
Speaker 6: be in Arizona where he gets that contract right and
Speaker 6: that he ends up figuring it out and making it happen.
Speaker 2: It kind of seemed like that would be the sunset
Speaker 2: for him.
Speaker 6: You know, when you look in the National League among
Speaker 6: pitchers with at least one hundred innings pitched. He's seventh
Speaker 6: in era and reminding you like he's doing that in
Speaker 6: Arizona and having to pitch a little bit, you know
Speaker 6: in some of these ballparks, like even cores a little
Speaker 6: bit more than the average pitcher or whatever it may be.
Speaker 2: He's been just as consistent as can be. The peripherals
Speaker 2: aren't great.
Speaker 6: They never really are that great sometimes with him that
Speaker 6: he's he's just been that executioner, that guy that just
Speaker 6: you expect to regress and hasn't regressed. Now over twenty
Speaker 6: four starts. It's a two point seven era. Yeah, he's
Speaker 6: only striking out six and change per nine. Doesn't matter.
Speaker 6: We're watching this guy go super deep into games. I
Speaker 6: just watched him the other day throw one hundred and
Speaker 6: fifteen pitches and retire. Show heo Tani for the third
Speaker 6: time on his one hundred and fifteenth pitch. The first
Speaker 6: two at bats, he punched him out and made him
Speaker 6: look silly, Like this guy has been a quality start
Speaker 6: for them, you know, consistently consistently all year. We have
Speaker 6: two eight plus inning you know outings already. Then we
Speaker 6: have one, two, three, four, five, six seven inning outings
Speaker 6: as well, and then another like seven or eight six
Speaker 6: inning outings like he has been someone that has preserved
Speaker 6: this bullpen. I think part of the reason why this
Speaker 6: bullpen has been so good this year is that they've
Speaker 6: you know, they've been insulated when Erod is on the
Speaker 6: mound through a lot of turbulence in that diamondback's rotation.
Speaker 6: And I don't know where the dbacks are without without Erod,
Speaker 6: who is nearly halved his ERA from last year five
Speaker 6: point h two, last year five point oh four and
Speaker 6: a smaller example of the year before, but two point
Speaker 6: seven zero this season.
Speaker 4: On the ra side, they're not close to where they
Speaker 4: are with uttered Wire Rodriguez, especially with Gallon being as
Speaker 4: underwhelming as he was for the front half of the year,
Speaker 4: Merril Kelly not being anywhere close to the Meryl Kelly
Speaker 4: that they were banking on. They needed Eduardo Rodriguez to
Speaker 4: step up in a big way, and at Water Rodriguez
Speaker 4: stepped up in a humongous way. So I love that shot.
Speaker 4: Pitching wise, I've got another pitcher for you, and it's
Speaker 4: a guy making the jump to stardom.
Speaker 1: Way way way way, way, way way quicker than I
Speaker 1: was ever anticipating.
Speaker 4: Him doing the Chase Burns ascension happened far quicker than
Speaker 4: I was anticipating it's to happen. Chase Burns like last
Speaker 4: year as a swingman, forty three innings at a four
Speaker 4: to six era, I understand that the fip looked really
Speaker 4: good at two six five. I understand that he caid
Speaker 4: sixty seven and walked sixteen. So those underlying numbers looked
Speaker 4: really darn good for Chase Burns. But the jump this year.
Speaker 4: No one should be putting up these kind of numbers
Speaker 4: this quickly a great American ballpark when you have a
Speaker 4: bottom five ground ball rate among qualified starting pitchers, Chase
Speaker 4: Burns one hundred and twenty four innings is thirteen and
Speaker 4: two with a two six And I just look at
Speaker 4: record in the ra and I'm like, holy smokes, you
Speaker 4: shouldn't be doing that this quickly. He was an all
Speaker 4: star punching out ten and a half per nine. He's
Speaker 4: walking fewer than three and a half per nine. And
Speaker 4: the big one that jumps out to me is thirteen
Speaker 4: homers in one hundred and twenty four innings when he's
Speaker 4: fifty percent four seem like he's keeping the ball in
Speaker 4: the ballpark. And it's a similar conversation to the Hunter
Speaker 4: Green breakout, because Green, when he broke out, it's like,
Speaker 4: how is he doing? How's he keeping the four seamer
Speaker 4: ballpark at that place? And it's just happening.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 4: It happens with flawless execution. This guy is putting it
Speaker 4: where he wants constantly. That slider is a top ten
Speaker 4: pitch in baseball by run value and burns like in
Speaker 4: terms of major League rank. So the fifty eight qualified
Speaker 4: starters in baseball again, the fourth lowest ground ball rate
Speaker 4: at thirty five percent, but he's tied for thirty and wins.
Speaker 4: He's trailing only Christopher Sanchez and Sonny Gray. He's top
Speaker 4: ten in k rate, he's sixth in batting average against.
Speaker 4: Opponents are rating two zero four against him. He's third
Speaker 4: and average fastball velocity at ninety seven to seven. The
Speaker 4: only two guys that are in front of him are
Speaker 4: Miserowski and Schlitler among qualified starters. He is dogging with
Speaker 4: the fastball and the slider's got a fifty one percent
Speaker 4: with rate. It's been incredible to watch this guy go
Speaker 4: to work this quickly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's another fun one where I just.
Speaker 6: On the pitching side, Like, do you feel like that
Speaker 6: some of the pitching performances this year have been more
Speaker 6: surprising overall or the hitting.
Speaker 1: I think pitching I find more.
Speaker 4: I find more surprises on the pitching front, Like I
Speaker 4: didn't think Miserowski could be this good, you know, I
Speaker 4: knew Sanchez was really good. I didn't know he was
Speaker 4: going to be this good, like Erod To your point,
Speaker 4: there are a lot of guys, even the Cardinals, Kyle Lahey, McGreevy,
Speaker 4: all these guys. Man, I think pitching has been better
Speaker 4: than hitting.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and that's another one, just when he starts to
Speaker 6: get it, like some of the whiff rates, where these
Speaker 6: are specific arms sometimes where you know exactly what they're
Speaker 6: going to attack you with, and even then you can't
Speaker 6: really do anything about it, Like you can try to
Speaker 6: cheat for it time it up, like you could try
Speaker 6: to prepare with traject if you're fortunate enough to be
Speaker 6: home when you play against him, and and it really
Speaker 6: there's certain arms like it just really does not matter
Speaker 6: and you're gonna with the majority. It's the time that
Speaker 6: you swing at it, which is just some remarkable stuff.
Speaker 2: I am skewing back to a hitter.
Speaker 6: Uh just because and I know this isn't like as
Speaker 6: relatively gaudy of the numbers as compared to some.
Speaker 2: Of the other guys, but I gotta go.
Speaker 6: Jake Bowers with Milwaukee another guy that I feel like
Speaker 6: when you're looking at the success of the Milwaukee Brewers,
Speaker 6: a thirty year old gonna be thirty one years old soon,
Speaker 6: Jake Bowers having a career year. He's gonna double up
Speaker 6: his career high in homers, which was twelve three times.
Speaker 6: He's always played in a more part time role, but
Speaker 6: with Bowers here, you get twenty one homers in one
Speaker 6: hundred and nine games, a one forty WRC plus. This
Speaker 6: is guy that's never put up more than a zero
Speaker 6: point eight four in a season. He's at two point
Speaker 6: five now this year, largely because he's absolutely mashing, but
Speaker 6: just to see what he has done at thirty years old,
Speaker 6: Like thirty one soon to be, Bowers is going to
Speaker 6: get close to thirty bombs after never putting up more
Speaker 6: than twelve. He's striking out really less than he ever
Speaker 6: has and has been thrust into a more consistent role.
Speaker 6: Like this is another kind of Brewers magic situation, but
Speaker 6: it would be less surprising if it was a player
Speaker 6: that they acquired from another organization. This is his third
Speaker 6: year in the Brewers organization, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 6: it's just clicking for Jake Bowers or who they like
Speaker 6: to call Rake Bauers out there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I dig that shout. He has turned into a master.
Speaker 4: And again, like that first base platoon that they've been
Speaker 4: running out, it's not sexy name value wise, but bowers
Speaker 4: on has been one of the better first base tandems
Speaker 4: in Major League Baseball. So Bowers is one of those
Speaker 4: guys that, like I think a lot of fan bases
Speaker 4: win their favorite team takes on the Brewers.
Speaker 1: Who is this guy in wise? Awesome?
Speaker 4: And they have guys like that, like a couple of
Speaker 4: years ago, is sal Frielich when Terrang was starting to
Speaker 4: show up, like it was Bryce Terrang, it was Joey
Speaker 4: Ortiz a couple of years ago as well, and now
Speaker 4: it's Bowers And I think Garrett Mitchell invokes that in
Speaker 4: some fan bases as well this year. So that's how
Speaker 4: you get to be one of, if not the best
Speaker 4: team in Major League Baseball, just having guys breakout. Hottest
Speaker 4: team in baseball one of that, they're not in Tampa.
Speaker 4: Tampa's the hottest team in baseball, hottest team in the
Speaker 4: National League. San Diego is being bullied by some superstars
Speaker 4: right now, right Merrill, no doubt about it, uh Tatis,
Speaker 4: no doubt about it. Machado has found his power stroke,
Speaker 4: no doubt about it. Ty France, Yeah, come on finding
Speaker 4: it again. Ty France has done this before. He hasn't
Speaker 4: done it to this degree. But Ty France had an
Speaker 4: eight to fifteen OPS in twenty twenty one. He had
Speaker 4: twenty homers and was an All Star in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 4: But Ty France, at his age thirty one season, after
Speaker 4: a bad year in twenty four and a bad year
Speaker 4: in twenty five, somehow finds the fountain of youth and
Speaker 4: in ninety six games is ripping off an eight seventy
Speaker 4: five OPS and just.
Speaker 1: Killing the baseball.
Speaker 4: I think it's three straight multi hit days, one of
Speaker 4: which had a homer. Yeah, two for three on the tenth,
Speaker 4: two for five on the eleventh, two for four on
Speaker 4: the twelfth. He's keeping the k's in check and he's
Speaker 4: swinging at everything like he's not walking much at all.
Speaker 1: No, but like it doesn't matter.
Speaker 4: He's playing the best defensi at first base in baseball too,
Speaker 4: Like he is everything to the middle of that padre
Speaker 4: lineup right now.
Speaker 6: What's really fascinating to me that the defense is nuts
Speaker 6: when you look at some of the metrics there, But
Speaker 6: the other side is, you know, unless he hits an
Speaker 6: absolute wall, and I know he hasn't been hitting another
Speaker 6: like a friendly environment either. His next best season from
Speaker 6: a home run output has been was in Seattle, so
Speaker 6: not not the best spots to have to hit there,
Speaker 6: but to hit your career high in homers in San
Speaker 6: Diego one of.
Speaker 2: The hardest places to go deep. He's on pace to
Speaker 2: do that.
Speaker 6: Read he already's at seventeen this year, career high twenty.
Speaker 6: Next most is eighteen, which he had the year before.
Speaker 6: He put up twenty in twenty twenty two and Seattle
Speaker 6: was crazy, and then he had the defensive side of things.
Speaker 6: I know it's first base, but we were just talking
Speaker 6: about it with him Bo, like first base defense might
Speaker 6: start might be starting to be underrated a little bit
Speaker 6: with how many lefties we've got just punishing balls down
Speaker 6: the line and to the right side and with limited
Speaker 6: shifts too, Like your first base range matters a little
Speaker 6: bit too, and just to be thirteen drs and six
Speaker 6: OAA is is nuts.
Speaker 2: He I've always loved to Tye France.
Speaker 6: Like, even back as a prospect, I just thought the
Speaker 6: guy was always going to hit. But for him to
Speaker 6: have back to back kind of disappointing years with multiple
Speaker 6: teams or just you know, I'm not totally disappointing, but
Speaker 6: just not great. I'd say one disappointing one kind of whatever. Uh,
Speaker 6: to then circle back on the other side of thirty
Speaker 6: and have the best year of his career when the
Speaker 6: entire offense, you know, it has a contagious like sputtering
Speaker 6: thing going on is the craziest part to me. And
Speaker 6: doing it in that ballpark like it's It's been one
Speaker 6: of the more I think, yeah, unexpected performances this year.
Speaker 2: Two more for you, right, Yeah, I'm going negative now
Speaker 2: me too.
Speaker 4: Actually, I've got one more positive than one negative.
Speaker 6: I get guy I just saw yesterday and I don't
Speaker 6: know if you had him as well, But like Trey Turner, man,
Speaker 6: Like the reason why Trey Turner is one of the
Speaker 6: most disappointing and just like kind of surprising for me
Speaker 6: is that last year was so damn good, and it's
Speaker 6: on multiple fronts right like I did.
Speaker 2: I was skeptical of.
Speaker 6: The massive defensive leap that he made last year, but
Speaker 6: even if you believed it by thirty percent, like he
Speaker 6: would have, implied that he's significantly better than he was,
Speaker 6: you know, the year before, where he was negative fourteen
Speaker 6: defensive run save and negative three outs above average. Right
Speaker 6: last year, so that was twenty twenty three or twenty
Speaker 6: twenty four, twenty twenty five, he's two defensive run saves
Speaker 6: and sixteen outs above average, So well positioned, but also
Speaker 6: still a lot better just with with you know, defending
Speaker 6: the position this year negative ten outs above average, negative
Speaker 6: six or sorry, negative six outs above average, negative ten
Speaker 6: defensive run saved, so kind of right back on track
Speaker 6: to be where he was before as that frustrating defender.
Speaker 2: The other side of it is.
Speaker 6: That I wouldn't care if he was the batter, the
Speaker 6: hitter that he's always been, and last year, with that
Speaker 6: defensive improvement, he was the same hitter that he's been
Speaker 6: for much of his career, a one to twenty five
Speaker 6: to rcplus that you could absolutely count on.
Speaker 2: This year, it's an.
Speaker 6: Eighty nine WRC plus, yeah, he's got the seventeen homers
Speaker 6: in the seventeen bags, but they're kind of empty because
Speaker 6: you know, he's not gonna walk, He's said in two
Speaker 6: forty seven, and so that results in a sub three
Speaker 6: hundred OVP. And when you combine the lack of defense,
Speaker 6: the complete step backwards offensively, he just hasn't been a
Speaker 6: very valuable player for a team that really needs him
Speaker 6: to be.
Speaker 4: So Bleacher Report be our walkoff is their baseball account,
Speaker 4: and I saw them. It was a fun exercise. They
Speaker 4: put together one sentence for all thirty teams to describe
Speaker 4: the season to this point, and their Philly sentence was
Speaker 4: the playoffs may be the ceiling. And I saw that
Speaker 4: and I was like, with Sanchez, Wheeler, Lozardo, why are
Speaker 4: they saying that? And I just started to like kind
Speaker 4: of run it through my brain and got the gears
Speaker 4: turning and they kicked the dust off in there.
Speaker 1: And I think that that sentiment.
Speaker 4: Is expressed and probably echoed by Philly fans because of Turner.
Speaker 1: Like Trey Turner and what he's doing at shortstop.
Speaker 4: Kind of caps their goals, kind of caps their ceiling
Speaker 4: right now. Turner, along with Boem along with real Muto
Speaker 4: along with the sputtering Marsh over the last month and
Speaker 4: a half. Like it's that, you know, Schwarber and Harper
Speaker 4: and Sanchez, Wheeler Lozardo can only do so much. You
Speaker 4: need other guys to step up. And when you got
Speaker 4: to October a couple of years ago, you knew Nick
Speaker 4: Castianos was gonna step up. But you also knew you
Speaker 4: had Turner in the back pocket, and you knew you
Speaker 4: had Gamer Marsh in the back pocket, and you knew
Speaker 4: that Boehm or.
Speaker 1: JT could deliver that big swing.
Speaker 4: And it just seems like none of the complimentary pieces
Speaker 4: are doing that consistently right now. But Trey Turner is
Speaker 4: not supposed to be a complimentary piece. He's paid like
Speaker 4: Harper and Schwarber. He's got to play like it, and
Speaker 4: he's just not right now. Yeah, I'll take you to
Speaker 4: my negative and then end on a positive along that
Speaker 4: same line of thinking. And it's funny, same position, same division.
Speaker 4: The Braves have a shortstop problem again. It might just
Speaker 4: be a cursed position since Dansby Swanson left and they've
Speaker 4: tried to find it in Orlando Arcia, in von Grissom,
Speaker 4: in Nick Allen in Hassan Kim and Jim Jarv. Kim
Speaker 4: not performing this year. And I understand that he's had
Speaker 4: finger issues the whole time, and he slipped on the
Speaker 4: ice over the offseason, and he's had injury issues throughout
Speaker 4: the course of the year, but it just seems like
Speaker 4: shortstops a little cursed for the Atlanta Braves right now.
Speaker 4: They try to not shoe Alvareza forgot that name as well,
Speaker 4: who's now with the La Angels. But you know, like
Speaker 4: they're turning to Jim Jarvis and he's a godsend for
Speaker 4: them with a six ninety ops. It's it's crazy that
Speaker 4: we're at that point here. They ran out Nick Allen
Speaker 4: every day last year and he didn't hit a homer,
Speaker 4: he didn't git one. They need to find a shortstop
Speaker 4: bad and I feel like Alexanthopolis thought that he found
Speaker 4: it in Kim, and again, injuries can hamstring a season,
Speaker 4: but Kim just has to be better when he's actually
Speaker 4: on the field. Atlanta needs to find a shortstop soon, man,
Speaker 4: And I don't know who it is. My mind keeps
Speaker 4: on going to Anthony Volpi here if his way is
Speaker 4: over in New York, I think up in Atlanta makes
Speaker 4: a lot of sense.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, it's weird.
Speaker 6: It has been, and Jarvis has been actually like a solid,
Speaker 6: huge internal plug in for them. But yeah, I keep
Speaker 6: going back to that thought too of Volpie seems like
Speaker 6: the perfect perfect fit there. It has been, you know,
Speaker 6: a pretty surprisingly frustrating season, but I yeah, the injury
Speaker 6: helped helps justify, But I still thought Cam like would
Speaker 6: would would fit perfectly there with that team, and unfortunately
Speaker 6: just just has not happened this year. I was gonna
Speaker 6: go negative. I had two, and I was gonna kind
Speaker 6: of decide light here. But like Brian Hayes, everybody knows,
Speaker 6: Like is not a very good hitter, but to the
Speaker 6: point that he's hitting like a a like not even
Speaker 6: a good I've watched and Tree willis put together much better.
Speaker 6: I've watched Josh Johnson put together better stretches than this,
Speaker 6: so play, but I don't want to.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Klay Snowden asked me to guess his WRC plus
Speaker 4: the other day.
Speaker 1: Is it still sitting at eleven?
Speaker 6: It's eleven. It's eleven and one hundred and eighty two
Speaker 6: played appearances. I don't want to pile on there too much.
Speaker 6: It's really tough to watch. I can't imagine when it
Speaker 6: feels like it. And I know he's getting.
Speaker 2: Paid at least, but like it's it's real.
Speaker 6: I've never seen a guy that bad offensively if he's
Speaker 6: not striking out forty percent of the time, like he's
Speaker 6: only striking out nineteen percent of the time, and he said,
Speaker 6: you're buck forty. You know how bad the quality of
Speaker 6: come And I've seen like watching the at bats of swings,
Speaker 6: he looks like a pitcher hitting.
Speaker 2: He really does. And it's really tough to watch.
Speaker 4: So real quick, can I can I give you some
Speaker 4: underlying numbers that are absolutely fascinating to me? Sure, and
Speaker 4: and it's really tough. Obviously, Key Brian Hayes is running
Speaker 4: a slash at this moment of two two thirty four.
Speaker 4: That's a four to twenty six OPS. But Ky Brian
Speaker 4: Hayes is running a career low and ground ball rate.
Speaker 4: He is running uh his best average exit velocity since
Speaker 4: twenty twenty three. He's hit the ball on average ninety
Speaker 4: point three miles an hour. But the big number that
Speaker 4: jumps out major league average batting average on balls and
Speaker 4: play is two ninety two. What do you think his
Speaker 4: babit is.
Speaker 6: It's got to start with a one, because he's hitting
Speaker 6: one forty.
Speaker 4: His babeb is one fifty two. Major league average is
Speaker 4: to ninety two.
Speaker 6: Like what's like, Okay, maybe he's a little unlucky. He
Speaker 6: should be hitting a buck eighty.
Speaker 4: I don't but like the most unlucky season we've ever seen.
Speaker 2: Now, there's just no way. But I'm watching. It's so
Speaker 2: many b stwins.
Speaker 4: Yes, I'm not satisfying it with babbit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I know, but that is crazy.
Speaker 6: I've never seen a babbit that low on almost two
Speaker 6: hundred plate appearance.
Speaker 4: Within average with an average exit velocity of over ninety
Speaker 4: miles an hour. Your babib should not be a buck fifty.
Speaker 2: No, that's that's a really weird situation going on there.
Speaker 2: That is really, really weird.
Speaker 6: I hope he figures it out because if you've even
Speaker 6: kind of see it seeping into the defense, but cheez, yeah.
Speaker 2: That is crazy.
Speaker 6: In on a quick positive, Yeah, Max Meyer, man, like,
Speaker 6: look cool. I knew Max Meyer was gonna fill a
Speaker 6: big leagu girl for a long time, but I'll be honest,
Speaker 6: I was one of the people that thought maybe it
Speaker 6: would be in the bullpen. I just didn't believe like
Speaker 6: that he could make all of the improvements across the
Speaker 6: board that he was able to make this year, and
Speaker 6: as an All star now and like Gheit A four
Speaker 6: to seven three UR and twenty twenty five, Yeah, it
Speaker 6: will be a small sample.
Speaker 2: And then he got hurt.
Speaker 6: But it was twelve starts before that, it was eleven
Speaker 6: starts at A five six eight.
Speaker 2: You've got twenty starts this year to two six eight.
Speaker 6: But it's not just the numbers, it's how much better
Speaker 6: he is across the board. The fastball shape improved. You
Speaker 6: have this shorter kind of gyro slider that is just disgusting.
Speaker 6: Then he's got this which has always been his pitch, right,
Speaker 6: but then he adds this more sweepy slider that is disgusting.
Speaker 6: Then you see the change up that has continued to
Speaker 6: come along, and you just see this expanded arsenal for
Speaker 6: a player in his age twenty seven season.
Speaker 2: It's one thing to add the secondaries.
Speaker 6: It's another thing to add the secondaries and improve your
Speaker 6: fastball and your execution and everything across the board. And
Speaker 6: I like again, I thought Max Meyer would be a
Speaker 6: big league pitcher in some capacity. I had admittedly, just
Speaker 6: speaking for myself, that the son had maybe set on
Speaker 6: him being able to reach this potential. And that's why
Speaker 6: the sport is so awesome because here he is, you know,
Speaker 6: doing it and hopefully he'll be back from injury soon.
Speaker 4: He's a fiery, fiery competitor, and I don't think that
Speaker 4: he was going to leave any stone unturned in hopes
Speaker 4: of maximizing his opportunity as a starting pitcher and a
Speaker 4: really good one. And Daniel Mosque is the pitching coach
Speaker 4: for the Marlins. When he joined us earlier this year,
Speaker 4: he said Max is one of the biggest proponents of
Speaker 4: pitch calling here. And the Marlins pitching infrastructure I think personally,
Speaker 4: and tons of bias included, I think the Marlins pitching
Speaker 4: infrastructure is up there with Tampa. I think it's up
Speaker 4: there with Cleveland. I think it's up there with the
Speaker 4: Yankees as the best in Major League Baseball. I think
Speaker 4: they know how to get the most out of the
Speaker 4: arms that they bring in. They gave John King a
Speaker 4: breaking ball that he never had before, and I was
Speaker 4: striking dudes out like they give guys sweepers.
Speaker 1: Ronnie and Riquez.
Speaker 4: They turned Ronnie and Riquez into Brian Abra you a
Speaker 4: month after he was DFA last year. It's it's incredible
Speaker 4: what they can do. And they took a guy with
Speaker 4: that much natural ability like Max and added two inches
Speaker 4: of carry to his heater and added a different break
Speaker 4: in ball shape and added a good change up. And
Speaker 4: you know Max always had like trace amounts of that
Speaker 4: in the arsenal, but they found it and they established consistency.
Speaker 4: And again Max was a proponent of the pitch calling.
Speaker 4: So now it's like they're pressing all the right buttons
Speaker 4: and it's really really cool to watch Max thrive. So
Speaker 4: I love that shout for you. Last one for me.
Speaker 4: I think we'd be remiss if we didn't hit on
Speaker 4: Youing and bench here. I'm going to frame this as
Speaker 4: a surprise. Who would have thought the best part of
Speaker 4: the Mets season would be two guys that weren't on
Speaker 4: the forty man roster in spring training like you were thinking, Oh,
Speaker 4: Lindor and Soto and Basheed and Alvarez has been really
Speaker 4: good when he's been on the field, but like benj
Speaker 4: had the sleeper opportunity to be the right fielder for them,
Speaker 4: Ewing was gonna be a Derek huse Met the whole year,
Speaker 4: and now you've got your outfield of the President and
Speaker 4: future with Ewing, benj and Soto, and that looks like
Speaker 4: one of the better outfields in Major League Baseball. Bene
Speaker 4: is a two and a half win player already, Ewing
Speaker 4: is approaching a two win season. Ewing is one of
Speaker 4: the better center field defenders that we have in Major
Speaker 4: League Baseball. And I don't know if the advanced metrics
Speaker 4: back that up, but I watch guys like Ewing and
Speaker 4: Marcy in Miami go after it, and I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 4: PCA's in a world of his own. Rafaela is in
Speaker 4: a world of his own in the American League, But
Speaker 4: these guys are the next too. Like Ewing is one
Speaker 4: of the better center field defenders in a sport, and
Speaker 4: I'm excited to watch him do it.
Speaker 1: Benge is really really talented.
Speaker 4: I think those guys are a redeeming quality of a
Speaker 4: brutal met season.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, and I think those are two of my
Speaker 6: favorite prospects in a little while.
Speaker 2: So see it.
Speaker 6: But even for me, like, I don't think I envisioned
Speaker 6: them both I Benj, yes, but both having the immediate
Speaker 6: success this year, like with it being a tough year
Speaker 6: for the Mets too, Like if they're hitting eight to nine,
Speaker 6: maybe it's easier. They've been hitten at the top of
Speaker 6: that order and grinding it out, and I've been some
Speaker 6: of the most productive guys that they've had, and then
Speaker 6: impacting on the defense and with their legs. And that's
Speaker 6: the exciting part I think for the Mets is you
Speaker 6: you have the outfield taken care of moving forward, which
Speaker 6: is at least a big help, you know, as you
Speaker 6: try to piece together the other parts of this team.
Speaker 6: But I think it's a surprise and the respect that
Speaker 6: the Mets are this bad and those guys have been
Speaker 6: this good. For me, the more surprising part, because Ewing
Speaker 6: was one of my favorites, and of course Bench too,
Speaker 6: is that how quickly they've translated that into big league success,
Speaker 6: which has been really cool to see a hundre percent.
Speaker 4: I think that's our program. I think ARM is a
Speaker 4: flight to catch to get the heck out of Iowa.
Speaker 4: So appreciate everybody, appreciate Peyton Genis as always, for Peter
Speaker 4: Apple for ARM late and I'm Jack mcmullind you got
Speaker 4: anything else or say so that's it.
Speaker 6: I appreciate you, you know, justin to my schedule year
Speaker 6: with the craziness and except for a normal week next
Speaker 6: week to get back on the JB Show more consistently.
Speaker 4: Have a great weekend, Pabe, We'll catch you