Speaker 1: Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Hammer Territory podcast.
Speaker 1: This is episode four two six. It's a post deadline
Speaker 1: edition of the podcast, and I'll warn you right now
Speaker 1: it won't be a positive one. My name is Brad Rowland.
Speaker 1: I'm joined by Scott Coleman. Scott, it's Monday, it is
Speaker 1: after six pm Eastern time, and the Atlanta Braves did
Speaker 1: not add a frontline starting picture. How are you my friend? Hello, Brad.
Speaker 2: You know, we've done a lot of podcasts over the years,
Speaker 2: and I think the most frustrated I have ever been
Speaker 2: recording a podcast was probably after the NLDS a few
Speaker 2: years ago in Philadelphia. You may may remember they sent
Speaker 2: Bryce Elder out to the Wolves. They left Bryce Elder
Speaker 2: out to the Wolves. They lost Game three, the season
Speaker 2: was over about twenty four hours later. I cannot recall
Speaker 2: a moment of frustration at that level as where I'm
Speaker 2: at right now, to not add an impact starting pitcher
Speaker 2: when you have known it is a massive hole in
Speaker 2: your roster. For this isn't a new problem. This didn't
Speaker 2: it wasn't like the Braves lost two starters over the
Speaker 2: weekend and they've had to scramble and try to fill it.
Speaker 2: They have known about this four months, going back to
Speaker 2: the offseason. They knew this was a problem with the roster.
Speaker 2: They did not get it done. This is an unquestionable
Speaker 2: failure for alex Entthopolis in the front office. Just incredibly
Speaker 2: frustrated right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and look, we've teased this a few times on
Speaker 1: the show. We might have new listeners today, if it's
Speaker 1: your first time joining us, will probably be a little
Speaker 1: bit more ranty than usual, So just know that going in.
Speaker 1: But also we've been saying this for weeks, and in
Speaker 1: our case, I mean, it was more divisive over the winter.
Speaker 1: I would say there were more people on the side
Speaker 1: of probably telling us that we were being overly precious
Speaker 1: about wanting more starting pitching. We heard that a lot
Speaker 1: from fans. That's okay. It was more more controversial anyway,
Speaker 1: at least more up in the air back in the winter.
Speaker 1: Now it's not I think everyone. I've talked to people
Speaker 1: that I agree with on a lot of things, people
Speaker 1: that I agree with on very little things about baseball.
Speaker 1: Everyone that I would deem to be somewhat credible on
Speaker 1: the Braves has talked about the need for a starting
Speaker 1: pitcher who could pitch a playoff game, at least in
Speaker 1: the last couple of months. Like once the issues happened
Speaker 1: with Schwellenbach and Schreider. Down the line, it went from hey,
Speaker 1: we always wanted another starter, we thought it was a
Speaker 1: big need this winter. We said that over and over again.
Speaker 1: It went from we were on that side already to
Speaker 1: not everyone was on that side apparently except for alex
Speaker 1: and toopless and this is not a show that fires
Speaker 1: people like, We're not going to go I'm not going
Speaker 1: to say fire Alexan Pop will say, maybe you will, Scott,
Speaker 1: but no. It's one of those things where I'm kind
Speaker 1: of in awe. To be honest, I think you may
Speaker 1: have a little bit of that too, Like there's some surprise.
Speaker 1: I know there's the contingent of people that just expected
Speaker 1: nothing to happen because they're maybe doomerism, and I get it.
Speaker 1: And when that I would put this and I talk
Speaker 1: to you about this before we started recording. The Braves
Speaker 1: made five trades this week. Five trades this week. I
Speaker 1: literally would have done all five of them. They're not
Speaker 1: home run trades, but they're all deals that made total
Speaker 1: sense to me. Five trades all that makes sense, and
Speaker 1: I still would just absolutely say this is a deadline
Speaker 1: failure and like that. That's kind of insane when you
Speaker 1: think about it, to make five trades that are like
Speaker 1: reasonable and still like clearly fall short of what you
Speaker 1: had to do with the deadline. And it was because
Speaker 1: the Bravees had other needs. We've talked about Lane Thomas
Speaker 1: already on the podcast. We'll probably do more of that today.
Speaker 1: They added other guys. We'll break those trades down later
Speaker 1: on in this episode. But there was one need above all,
Speaker 1: one need above all, and they plugged the secondary hole
Speaker 1: of that need. They needed to get a playoff starter
Speaker 1: and an innings filler. But the playoff starter was number
Speaker 1: one on the agenda by a lot. They had the
Speaker 1: money to spend as well. Jerson profile got suspended. Alex
Speaker 1: always saves money to spend. They had the money to spend,
Speaker 1: they held all that, they did not address the need.
Speaker 1: And when you went by the way we'll talk about this,
Speaker 1: there were a dozen starting pitchers that could at least
Speaker 1: credibly be called like top three guys. Not all of
Speaker 1: them are the same, not everybody's tick, Schoogle, I get that,
Speaker 1: But there's probably a dozen guys who moved in the
Speaker 1: last few days that Brad's got none of them. And
Speaker 1: that's just it's really hard to swallow, no matter where
Speaker 1: you come from, no matter how like fire you are
Speaker 1: as a fan, or how doomer you are, how much
Speaker 1: you like Alex, how much you don't like Alex. I
Speaker 1: feel like everybody kind of agrees, except for the team
Speaker 1: that like, this is a major failure. Like this, you
Speaker 1: couldn't you can't sell this. This is the one thing
Speaker 1: you couldn't sell to me, to you, like, you could
Speaker 1: not go into Monday, August third at six o'clock and
Speaker 1: not acquire a starting pitcher that moved the needle, and
Speaker 1: they didn't do it.
Speaker 2: Quite literally, everybody other than Alex Andthopolis agreed the Braves
Speaker 2: had to go add an impact starter. I was just
Speaker 2: looking through Twitter to see what other reactions were. I mean,
Speaker 2: there were Yankee fans poking fun at the Braves. They're like,
Speaker 2: does do the Braves realize what their rotation currently is?
Speaker 2: Like this is not some like niche weakness where it's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, we'd really like to add this because the
Speaker 2: Braves struggle against left handed pitchers with whose names begin
Speaker 2: with Elle.
Speaker 1: Like, no, this is a massive hole.
Speaker 2: This is the kind of problem that ends seasons way
Speaker 2: prematurely from where they should end in short of a
Speaker 2: World Series. I have no way of defending Alex, not
Speaker 2: only for his decisions this weekend, but it's been pretty
Speaker 2: bad for Alex and Thopolis for a while now. Like,
Speaker 2: go look at all of the moves Alex has made
Speaker 2: since the end of the twenty twenty three season. The
Speaker 2: Chris the Sale trade was amazing ten out of ten
Speaker 2: no notes, but there have been a ton of bad
Speaker 2: decisions and land mines from Alex since then. In sure,
Speaker 2: he has a great core. Alex inherited a once in
Speaker 2: a generation corps when he took over this team before
Speaker 2: twenty eighteen. Freddy Freeman, Dansby Swanson, Max Freed, Austin Riley,
Speaker 2: Ronald Acunye Junior, Ozzie Alby's, Mike Soroka, you had all
Speaker 2: the AMMO in the world. Insure Alex does get credit
Speaker 2: for winning divisions and winning the World Series. But the
Speaker 2: last twenty four months of Alex and Thoppolis have been
Speaker 2: flat out bad. And I know this team is twenty
Speaker 2: two games above five hundred, and that's great.
Speaker 1: Awesome.
Speaker 2: They should win the division, but this deadline was not
Speaker 2: about winning the division. It was about winning a playoff
Speaker 2: series for the first time since twenty twenty one. They
Speaker 2: have won two playoff games since they won the World Series.
Speaker 2: And their answers when they have the third best record
Speaker 2: in baseball today was to get Lane Thomas, who's a
Speaker 2: fine right handed bat. He'll do some things well for
Speaker 2: this team, but he's not star Tyler Mallee, who might
Speaker 2: be able to unlock a few things and be a
Speaker 2: serviceable middle of the rotation guy for this team. And
Speaker 2: then Brent Suter, who is a thirty seven year old
Speaker 2: reliever who throws slower than like genuinely some kids in
Speaker 2: high school throws.
Speaker 1: That's his answer.
Speaker 2: That was al Alexonthopolis, who had eighteen million dollars freed
Speaker 2: up from jerks and profar getting suspended, and a farm
Speaker 2: system that is the healthiest it has been in a
Speaker 2: long time. That's his answer to this. Lane Thomas, Tyler Mallee,
Speaker 2: Brent Suitor, and nothing else. On a day when a
Speaker 2: dozen starting pitchers moved and there were others who were
Speaker 2: really good who didn't move, That's that's what Alex is doing.
Speaker 2: There's no way to spend this. There's truthfully no excusing
Speaker 2: what Alex has done to this team.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I'm probably higher on him than you,
Speaker 1: and then the consensus and even I can't do it.
Speaker 1: I just said this, but I can't. There's no defense
Speaker 1: for this. This is indefensible. There are a lot of
Speaker 1: things that I've done this for a long time. I've
Speaker 1: covered I've covered different teeth for a long time. I
Speaker 1: could spin something up I wanted to. Usually, even if
Speaker 1: I don't agree with something, I can give you the
Speaker 1: I can give you the argument for it, right, and
Speaker 1: I'm a big fan of giving the people the whole picture.
Speaker 1: There is no argument for this. I don't have one,
Speaker 1: Like you can't do it, and I look, we don't.
Speaker 1: Alex is talking as we are talking, and he's I'm
Speaker 1: sure gonna say what he always says is when he
Speaker 1: doesn't do things, and then that they try to get close.
Speaker 1: There was already a question I'm seeing on Twitter now
Speaker 1: about he got asked if there was a no trade
Speaker 1: clause that came into play, and he kind of sigh
Speaker 1: stepped that. Everyone is wondering if Jacob de gram was
Speaker 1: was a target and Apparently the Rangers were approached about
Speaker 1: Jacob de Gram, and de Gram said, I'd like to
Speaker 1: stay with Texas. Maybe that's the brace, maybe he's not.
Speaker 1: They probably will never say that. We'll find out regardless,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. Like here are the names, just there's
Speaker 1: this is a selection of names. But Terra Scoogle on
Speaker 1: the high side. Obviously Casey Mais got moved today. Clay Holmes,
Speaker 1: Dustin May, Kevin Gosman, Freddy Peralta, Ode Soriano Post Griff
Speaker 1: and Robbie Ray, all those guys moved. The Braves could
Speaker 1: have won a beating war for any of them. And
Speaker 1: we're not saying they go crazy, Like at no point
Speaker 1: where we're saying you have to trade Hartman and Cammanity
Speaker 1: and everything for you don't have to do that. But
Speaker 1: you're telling me they couldn't put a package together to
Speaker 1: win a bidding war for any of those any dozen names,
Speaker 1: any or Trevor Rodgers who didn't get moved. I know
Speaker 1: that Readever's didn't get moved. The Gram I get it,
Speaker 1: but like I just there's no way of selling that
Speaker 1: they couldn't have done something to outbid someone for someone.
Speaker 1: They're just and it's funny. Tyler Maley was a guy
Speaker 1: that I argued for in November on this podcast or December,
Speaker 1: whatever whatever time it was, but not as the number
Speaker 1: two starter on a playoff team. It was like, Hey,
Speaker 1: the Brads need some need some depth, go get him
Speaker 1: and look, if you want to be as charitable as
Speaker 1: humanly possible, which I know we're not in the move
Speaker 1: to be, and I'm not even in the mood to be.
Speaker 1: I know you're even less than I am. You could
Speaker 1: say that the Braves have had worse than average pitching
Speaker 1: luck this year, given Schwellenbach, even Strider, given a Waldrop,
Speaker 1: you could argue that I would probably agree with you.
Speaker 1: But that argument goes out the window when there were
Speaker 1: a lot of people, including us, saying in November and
Speaker 1: December and October and January that they had to ad
Speaker 1: starting pitching, and the one way to explain around that
Speaker 1: would have been to Okay, Alex loves to say and
Speaker 1: has done it before to his credit, but loves to
Speaker 1: say that they want to have wiggle room around the
Speaker 1: deadline to add to the roster financially. They didn't. They
Speaker 1: used a little bit of it. I mean they took
Speaker 1: on some money with Bailey Falter, but like, come on, guys,
Speaker 1: like they they also didn't spend the money like they
Speaker 1: they literally I think they're gonna end the season with
Speaker 1: a lower payroll in miss Art with yes guaranteed, given
Speaker 1: the prof given the profile suspension, Like I haven't done
Speaker 1: the numbers, but like it's got to be so No,
Speaker 1: it's it's wild. I mean, we can talk more about this.
Speaker 1: We will, uh in a second. I just I guess
Speaker 1: we agree here, Scott. You can tell me if we're wrong.
Speaker 1: It's more I'm more baffled. You might be on the
Speaker 1: angrier side. I'm on the baffled side, but we come
Speaker 1: down in the same place. It's like this, there's no
Speaker 1: diff this. This is indefensible to not come away with
Speaker 1: the starry picture this week. And maybe it wouldn't have worked,
Speaker 1: Like maybe would ever guy that they traded for wouldn't
Speaker 1: have worked. It's never fool proof. It never is. But
Speaker 1: have you seen the rotation?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean, has anybody seen the rotation of this team
Speaker 1: right now? And yeah, maybe there's a world cross your crush,
Speaker 1: your fingers and your toes. The Spencer swallow Bach is
Speaker 1: like prime Schwallen bach in a month, I doubt it,
Speaker 1: man like, And once that happens, they don't have anybody.
Speaker 1: He's the only living, breathing chance at a guy who
Speaker 1: could pitch the game two of a playoff series on
Speaker 1: this roster right now, right, And that's not that's really
Speaker 1: a thing, like.
Speaker 2: Come on, that's the problem, man Like, Okay, And first
Speaker 2: of all, if Chris Sale gets hurt, the season's over, Like, well,
Speaker 2: I mean legit, Well, I want to say this for
Speaker 2: a second, is I want to talk about this exact
Speaker 2: thing in a moment, like what the team actually looks
Speaker 2: like we're gonna do that? But you're right, I mean
Speaker 2: that's Chris Sale is already indispensable. It's beyond indispensable now,
Speaker 2: like there is no alternative, Like, if Chris Sale is
Speaker 2: not able to throw two and a half times in
Speaker 2: every playoff series, you're not gonna win.
Speaker 1: That's just what it is. Well, you can win games
Speaker 1: without Chris Sale because it's it's baseball. There's noise in
Speaker 1: guy's not good games. But like, I have a hard
Speaker 1: time seeing the Braves winning the World Series this season
Speaker 1: without Chris Sale being like the super human version of
Speaker 1: himself for a full month like, it's hard to see.
Speaker 2: That, and then okay, great Chris Sale. Game one, Game two,
Speaker 2: a J. Smith shover rehabbing off of Tommy John. Is
Speaker 2: it maybe Spencer Schwellenbach, who hasn't fired a competitive pitch
Speaker 2: in a game by fifteen months at this point? Is
Speaker 2: it Bryce Elder? Is it thirty five year old Martine Perez?
Speaker 2: Is it currently injured Rinaldo Lopez? Is it can't get
Speaker 2: through a lineup more than one time? Grant Holmes? Is
Speaker 2: it a rookie? And Jr?
Speaker 1: Ritchie or Owen Murphy? Like what are we doing?
Speaker 2: This is non sensical and you're right, Brad, there's no guarantee.
Speaker 2: The Braves could have traded for Jose Soriano and he
Speaker 2: could have blown up or he could have gotten hurt.
Speaker 2: Or they could have traded for Robbie and his you know,
Speaker 2: regression could have hit hard, or they could have traded
Speaker 2: for Dustin May or whoever. But to not even try
Speaker 2: when it was kind of a buyer's market for starting
Speaker 2: pitching is inexcusable. Just it is inexcusable malpractice, Just another
Speaker 2: bad decision from a baseball executive who has had quite
Speaker 2: a few bad decisions and no, no GM is going.
Speaker 1: To bat one thousand.
Speaker 2: Alex is not gonna be perfect. Nobody is perfect, even
Speaker 2: the Dodgers who have unlimited budget and unlimited payroll and
Speaker 2: unlimited everything. They miss all the time. Right, They have
Speaker 2: guys injured, they have guys been performed. Kyle Tucker is
Speaker 2: making like ninety million dollars this year and he sucks, right,
Speaker 2: But to not even try, to not try with Casey
Speaker 2: Mize who went to the Padres, who have like the
Speaker 2: worst farm system in baseball. I fully get that Casey
Speaker 2: Mis's velocity was down a little bit, but to not
Speaker 2: even try, Like, I am at a loss of words,
Speaker 2: So we will move on from my ranting. I could
Speaker 2: probably rant for another hour, but it's yeah, we could
Speaker 2: do the whole show like this, and it'd be bad radio.
Speaker 2: Probably we could do that, and it's not about one pitcher.
Speaker 2: Like you can go one by one and I'm sure
Speaker 2: I should say, I'm sure I suspect at some point
Speaker 2: Alex might even he won't do it with an aims,
Speaker 2: but like that's probably how they do explain away. They
Speaker 2: go one by one and say, Casey miss velocity was down,
Speaker 2: the price was too high for so and so Clay
Speaker 2: Holmes was with with the Mets, it's hard to make
Speaker 2: trades of the division, like you can do it, but again,
Speaker 2: you can't do it when there's twelve of them. Like
Speaker 2: at some point you got to be the team that
Speaker 2: does the thing. And that's always But even when Alex
Speaker 2: is riding high, which he has they won the World Series,
Speaker 2: even when he was riding high, his unwillingness to go
Speaker 2: the extra five percent to get a trade done has
Speaker 2: always been a questionable thing with him, Like maybe maybe
Speaker 2: the number one thing that he's been criticized for. Either
Speaker 2: that or bullpen spending has been the two things that
Speaker 2: Alex gets criticized the most for. And he did he
Speaker 2: clearly didn't do it here well, And is Alex the
Speaker 2: worst negotiator in the world, like clearly other.
Speaker 1: Teams had no mean he does things. It's just made
Speaker 1: I think he just draws the lines in the sand
Speaker 1: and he's just like, I'm not crossing this line. It's
Speaker 1: like okay, man, but at some point you have to
Speaker 1: cross the line.
Speaker 2: Right then, don't draw the line.
Speaker 1: Don't draw the line in the sand. It's easy, you know,
Speaker 1: Like I don't know, man.
Speaker 2: It's it's just it's infuriating. And look, it is this.
Speaker 2: At the end of the day, it's baseball. The sun
Speaker 2: will come up tomorrow, we'll all go to work, we'll
Speaker 2: eat all eat breakfast, we'll all go to school, whatever
Speaker 2: it is you do. Are the Braves still a good team? Yes, unquestionably,
Speaker 2: Yes this is a good team. But when the calendar
Speaker 2: flips to October and the games change and the strategy changes,
Speaker 2: and everything kind.
Speaker 1: Of goes out the window.
Speaker 2: I just don't see a world where they have the
Speaker 2: starting pitching to go head to head with the Dodgers
Speaker 2: or the Brewers, or the Cubs or the Phillies. And sure,
Speaker 2: maybe they'll surprises, maybe they'll win a couple of games,
Speaker 2: maybe they'll advance a couple of rounds. But to not
Speaker 2: even try to add one of these guys is just
Speaker 2: mind numbing to me.
Speaker 1: Leave it there for now. We'll come back in a
Speaker 1: second and talk much more about what actually happened as
Speaker 1: well as what you just referred to. It's a good
Speaker 1: kind of teaser for a second. It's like what the
Speaker 1: other contenders did, because spoiler alert, the top three or
Speaker 1: four teams the nationally not in the Braves all did
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Speaker 1: All right, Scott, let us continue talking about this maddening
Speaker 1: week of Atlanta Braves baseball. Some updates as we are
Speaker 1: talking that we could just knock out real quickly. Hori
Speaker 1: Mateo has been dfaed a Corey dalyx N thoughtless. Not
Speaker 1: a huge surprise. We thought about that you and I
Speaker 1: last night as a somewhat expected out come as they
Speaker 1: clear the way for Hassan Kim to return. That's number one.
Speaker 1: Number two is according to Why, a sophomore bowman who's
Speaker 1: on the coal with Alex, the plan is that Jim
Speaker 1: Jarvis will be the shortstop still moving forward, Not Dubon,
Speaker 1: not Kim, Jim Jarvis. So they are still writing the
Speaker 1: I almost at hot hand, the slightly warmer than lukewarm
Speaker 1: hand of Jim Jarvis. Any reaction to that before we
Speaker 1: dive in back to traded line stuff. That's what's going
Speaker 1: on right now.
Speaker 2: Only shortstop thing I really care about is if has
Speaker 2: On Kim gets to play. Does Kim show you anything
Speaker 2: at all, and kind of based on these comments today
Speaker 2: and some of the moves they made, you know they
Speaker 2: have cleared some room on the roster, but they are
Speaker 2: apparently committed to Jarvis and then Dubon is also in
Speaker 2: the mix.
Speaker 1: So doesn't make a.
Speaker 2: Whole lot of sense to me if they're gonna just
Speaker 2: sit Kim on the bench and not at least try
Speaker 2: to see if there's anything there. But at the same time,
Speaker 2: this team hasn't done much that's made a lot of
Speaker 2: sense lately, so well, I guess we'll see that is
Speaker 2: right as a transition.
Speaker 1: Danzeborski, who has long been a comment or at Battery Power,
Speaker 1: when he was talking Chop Dan's a great job. He
Speaker 1: created Zips works at fangrabs one of the smart baseball
Speaker 1: minds in all of baseball, in my opinion. He wrote today,
Speaker 1: before the Braves didn't do anything that basically, if anything
Speaker 1: happened to Chris Sale, his projections will have the Braves
Speaker 1: as the worst rotation of any playoff caliber baseball team
Speaker 1: in the majors. Does that sound right to you? It's
Speaker 1: all right to me. What the Braves have so we
Speaker 1: alluded that a second ago. Now we'll talk about the
Speaker 1: one pitcher they did add. His name is Tyler Matley,
Speaker 1: but first let's mix it up engineered by our friends
Speaker 1: at fasten All. Okay, Scott. There will be more time
Speaker 1: for more rants later on in the episode. But since
Speaker 1: our last episode on Sunday, the Braves didn't make a
Speaker 1: I would say substantial trade, not major, not super duper minor.
Speaker 1: They made two pretty minor trades. Tyler Mawley's a real
Speaker 1: trade that we would have talked about. Have we not
Speaker 1: already recorded two hours before it actually happened yesterday? And
Speaker 1: that leads this segment. So I don't know about you.
Speaker 1: I thought of you right away because of all of us,
Speaker 1: I think you've said this maybe the most. It was
Speaker 1: usually Robbie Rays for example, but you were arguing the
Speaker 1: Braves needed the kind of second starting pitcher, basically as
Speaker 1: the guy to get through the season. Inning's a healthy arm,
Speaker 1: somewhat proven, not sexy. That is Tyler Malley for me.
Speaker 1: You can argue whether that's the player that you wanted
Speaker 1: or not in that role. He was never going to
Speaker 1: be the number one guy in any of our minds.
Speaker 1: But I feel like, and I wrote this in the
Speaker 1: notes before we knew that we're gonna do anything else.
Speaker 1: He kind of fits exactly that they didn't do the
Speaker 1: big thing, but Tyler Malley is like, we kind of
Speaker 1: wanted a Tyler Malley was that did Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Look if kind of the theme carrying over from
Speaker 2: the beginning of the show, if they would have acquired
Speaker 2: an impact starter, then all the other moves make a
Speaker 2: lot more sense, you know.
Speaker 1: But they didn't.
Speaker 2: So all you add is Tyler Malley, And look you
Speaker 2: see Tyler ma Maali. On the surface is e Ray
Speaker 2: is upwards of five on the season. But if you
Speaker 2: dig in a little bit more, there are some interesting
Speaker 2: things with his profile since he so he missed basically
Speaker 2: most of June, but since coming back from that hamstring injury,
Speaker 2: he's been like legitimately pretty good with the Giants. A
Speaker 2: three point seventy nine ERA and a three point six
Speaker 2: two fielding independent pitching FIP.
Speaker 1: Over seven starts. That's good man like.
Speaker 2: And he's also worked into the six or seventh inning
Speaker 2: in most of those starts, and we know how desperately
Speaker 2: the Braves need innings in the rotation. Malley also had
Speaker 2: a good year last year too, so there's there's things
Speaker 2: to like with him. No one's gonna plan the World
Speaker 2: Series parade because they got Tyler Malley, but he should
Speaker 2: represent something of a stabilizer in the middle of the
Speaker 2: rotation for you know, whether it's Jo Richie who gets
Speaker 2: sent out, or if they move Grant Holmes to the bullpen,
Speaker 2: or you know, whatever they ultimately do. You know, in
Speaker 2: a vacuum, Mally was type of arm that made sense,
Speaker 2: although he was the only arm they added instead of
Speaker 2: adding two of them.
Speaker 1: I would say it's somewhat similar to our reactions about
Speaker 1: Leadon Thomas, where it clearly makes the team better. That
Speaker 1: is not us saying that that is all they should
Speaker 1: have done. I think we've probably earned that bonafied so
Speaker 1: far on this podcast, we're pretty clear about what they
Speaker 1: should have done. It's not one thing or the other, right,
Speaker 1: it's like, hey, you're allowed to make the team better.
Speaker 1: In this way, this deal made the team better. Tyler
Speaker 1: Mallley is an upgrade on the current version of JR. Richie.
Speaker 1: In my opinion, Tyler Maalley is a veteran who isn't
Speaker 1: going to change your life, but can pitch credibly in
Speaker 1: Major league games Right now. Last two seasons combined, he
Speaker 1: is a three point seven TV and a three point
Speaker 1: eight nine FIP. If you have a FIP and ERA
Speaker 1: in the threes over thirty four starts in two seasons,
Speaker 1: you are a competent major league starter. That's just what
Speaker 1: you did. Yeah, are you sexy?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: Is he is? He extremely boring? Yes? But that's I
Speaker 1: made the same pitch for him on this podcast in
Speaker 1: January's I had this guy's really boring, but he'll probably
Speaker 1: eat some manangs for you, and he does. It's a
Speaker 1: one year deal, it's expiring contract. Doesn't spend a didn't
Speaker 1: spend a lot of money, thirty one years old.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: He even with a like as you mentioned, he has
Speaker 1: kind of a rough ur right for the season. Even
Speaker 1: with that and his early struggles he has He's been
Speaker 1: worth zero point eight Fangrafts war this season, which isn't great,
Speaker 1: but it's Uh. I'll just say this, that only would
Speaker 1: trail Chris Sayle and Bryce Elder among all Braves pitchers starters.
Speaker 1: I should say the bullpen guys have better, but he
Speaker 1: might have been the number two starter right now, but
Speaker 1: he's in the top four. So Tyler Mallley pretty boring.
Speaker 1: Oh one thing I do want to note he kind
Speaker 1: of he kind of has a little bit of Grant
Speaker 1: Holmes in him in this way, he doesn't have the
Speaker 1: Grant Holmes arsenal. To be very clear, he is a starter.
Speaker 1: Tylly Malley is a starter. Like he's not a reliever
Speaker 1: guy that could go over. He doesn't have that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. But he has the time three order splits
Speaker 1: that you don't want to see deep in the game.
Speaker 1: For his career, he has a two point nine ERA,
Speaker 1: the first off through the order very good, second time
Speaker 1: through four point zero one, which is actually totally fine
Speaker 1: for a starting pitcher, third time seven point one, six RA.
Speaker 1: So I don't think you're gonna see Tyler Mallley going
Speaker 1: in the seventh inning in some high leverage games very often.
Speaker 1: But he is a starter. We'll save some of this
Speaker 1: stuff for later when we have more to talk about.
Speaker 1: You mentioned it briefly earlier. I think that the addition
Speaker 1: of Tyler Mallley could be what sends Grant Holmes to
Speaker 1: the bullpen once and for all. That actually might happen.
Speaker 1: Grant Holmes profiles is a reliever that I could use.
Speaker 1: But regardless, man, we'll spend time on this, but like
Speaker 1: they do need more Ammo in the rotation. Alex talked
Speaker 1: about I think last night how the Braves believe that
Speaker 1: he'll be better against Righty's where they tweak a his
Speaker 1: pitch mix. He's been better against them already, so it's
Speaker 1: not sexy. We totally understand that. But I think that
Speaker 1: this is one of the five trades that I thought
Speaker 1: were all like totally logical trades. I think giving up
Speaker 1: what they gave up for him, which was, by the way,
Speaker 1: only Anthony Malina, who they've already defayed once he's spend
Speaker 1: most of the year. He's like a quad a guy
Speaker 1: by all accounts. It seems like that price for a
Speaker 1: guy who's like a real major leak starter made total
Speaker 1: sense to me. And in a vacuum, I liked it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: in a vacuum, not a vacuum, Scott, not a vacuum.
Speaker 1: In a vacuum, I liked it.
Speaker 2: Right someone like Tyler Mallee, someone like Lane Thomas. These
Speaker 2: are the types of additions that a contending team should make.
Speaker 2: They represent upgrades, small upgrades, but they are upgrades nonetheless
Speaker 2: by themselves not gonna move the needle A whole lot,
Speaker 2: and sure they'll they'll probably have moments. I would like
Speaker 2: to think Tyler Mallee, when he gets with Jeremy Hefner
Speaker 2: and the Braves get to work with him a little bit,
Speaker 2: he will give this team solid innings down the stretch.
Speaker 2: Is he going to strike out twelve hitters over its
Speaker 2: next five innings? Probably not, But I do think he's
Speaker 2: gonna bring some stability to the rotation, just like with
Speaker 2: Lane Thomas. I think he's gonna bring some thump from
Speaker 2: the right side chi against left handed pitching. But to
Speaker 2: be clear, there's only you can only get so excited
Speaker 2: about about Tyler Malley being your loan starting pitching edition
Speaker 2: when we know everything about this rotation.
Speaker 1: Yes, I don't know. We can probably leave it there
Speaker 1: on Tyler Malley. It's it's a guy that makes it.
Speaker 1: It's gotta makes sense. He makes the better And shout
Speaker 1: out to the rotation upgrade that happened on this on
Speaker 1: this weekend.
Speaker 2: I can I should have you know, I should have done.
Speaker 2: I should have gone to Walgreens before this episode and
Speaker 2: got like a blood pressure monitor and hooked it up
Speaker 2: and then like put a camera on it so you
Speaker 2: could see it rising in real time on the screen.
Speaker 2: That would have been some good content. It would have
Speaker 2: been good content. We threw around today behind the scenes
Speaker 2: whether we should go live during the deadline. I'm glad
Speaker 2: we didn't do that. I think there was been a
Speaker 2: decent chance that someone would have got us fired. Don't know,
Speaker 2: I'm gonnaname any names. I mean pretty much anyone could
Speaker 2: have even me, like everyone's going, you know, it's funny.
Speaker 2: I found myself it was about thirty minutes before the
Speaker 2: deadline ended, and a couple of starters had just come
Speaker 2: off the board, and I found myself not even like voluntarily,
Speaker 2: just involuntary, sitting at my desk watching the updates stroll in,
Speaker 2: and I was shaking my head at just how frustrated
Speaker 2: I was at it all. And it was like I
Speaker 2: was trying to do it or I wasn't recording myself.
Speaker 2: I just I caught myself just shaking my head in
Speaker 2: disgust at the strategy and the plan of this deadline
Speaker 2: from Alex and the team. It's just it is what
Speaker 2: it is. Let's hope for the best. With Tyler Malley,
Speaker 2: We'll talk about Brent Souder here in a minute, and
Speaker 2: a couple other minor deals, but just just so underwhelming,
Speaker 2: so interwhelming.
Speaker 1: It's not Tyler Malley's fault. I kind of feel bad
Speaker 1: for Tyler Malley because people are getting mad at him
Speaker 1: when he's just a mid starting pitcher. That's what he is.
Speaker 1: He's not going to tangel life and it won't be
Speaker 1: his fault. Just saying that out loud. All right, Scott,
Speaker 1: We'll move on to the rest of this post online conversation.
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Speaker 1: Scott Before we move on to uh, Brent Suter and
Speaker 1: betray that the braves made for him, I have to
Speaker 1: you know where I'm going about you. You know where I'm
Speaker 1: going to you right already we have an alex Antopless
Speaker 1: quote from Gabe Burns of the AJAC Cover your ears,
Speaker 1: Scott quote, be a Gabe. We said no to a
Speaker 1: lot of things. That's not easy to do, but you
Speaker 1: have to do what you feel is right for the organization.
Speaker 1: End quote.
Speaker 2: Uh moving right along, time out, time out. If that
Speaker 2: is what's best for the organization, then it's time to
Speaker 2: have a serious conversation.
Speaker 1: It's not it's not not a great and granted that's
Speaker 1: that's only one tweet of one quote. We don't know
Speaker 1: the whole quote, but it's not I I had to
Speaker 1: share it because I knew you were gonna love it
Speaker 1: so much. Other nuts and bolts that have leaked out
Speaker 1: since Alex started talking. He said there was never a
Speaker 1: discussion about not bring haus On Kim back. Obviously he's
Speaker 1: going to say that they're not going to say, well, well
Speaker 1: we thought about cutting him, so that's kind of an
Speaker 1: auto answer. But just want to say, and also we'll
Speaker 1: talk about Joey Bart in a second.
Speaker 2: But I was gonna say, I mean, when you hand
Speaker 2: a guy a twenty million dollar contract, you're kind of
Speaker 2: obligated to stick with him at least for a little bit, right, Like, look, Brad,
Speaker 2: there's no money to acquire like a Dylan C's when
Speaker 2: you have to pay Hassan Kim twenty million dollars a year.
Speaker 1: That was one and hey, raise my hand. I liked
Speaker 1: that contract. It didn't didn't go well so far. Also,
Speaker 1: I know our guy at Capitol Avenue for a Braves
Speaker 1: blogger lined up what was spent on Jacob de Gram
Speaker 1: the season, and what was spent on some of the Braves'
Speaker 1: bullpen arms, that the Alex is a spending spree in
Speaker 1: the bullpen. Anyway, more, one more.
Speaker 2: Thing on that I made this point earlier. I got
Speaker 2: to get all my points out and then I.
Speaker 1: Promise we are free flowing on this Monday evening. I
Speaker 1: promise you that we're free flow.
Speaker 2: So here's the one of the craziest parts of this.
Speaker 2: About a week ago, Alex went on local radio in
Speaker 2: Atlanta and said when they were pressing him about adding
Speaker 2: a starting pitcher, he said, he kind of sidestepped it
Speaker 2: and said, well, you know, the game changes in October,
Speaker 2: so maybe we'll just go out and add a couple
Speaker 2: of relievers to give you the best bullpen that you
Speaker 2: can have.
Speaker 1: And there might be some truth to that. He didn't
Speaker 1: even adds. But he didn't even add a good reliever.
Speaker 1: He threw it.
Speaker 2: All he did was add a lefty who throws eighty
Speaker 2: seven mile an hour fastballs. And sure, Brent Suter is
Speaker 2: gonna have a role as like the seventh guy in
Speaker 2: the bullpen, but Brent Suter is not an impact reliever.
Speaker 2: He didn't go out and try to acquire someone who's
Speaker 2: actually good, like genuinely a difference maker, the way that
Speaker 2: like Dylan Lee or Diddy or Fwontes or right to
Speaker 2: the Glacias.
Speaker 1: He didn't even do that.
Speaker 2: No starting pitcher other than Tyler Mallley, and no reliever
Speaker 2: other than thirty seven year old lefty Brent Suter with
Speaker 2: a thirty or with an eighty mile an hour sinker.
Speaker 2: That's sorry.
Speaker 1: My blood pressure just went back up again. I get
Speaker 1: a we're allowed. It's gonna be happening throughout the podcast.
Speaker 1: I just saw another other quote from Mark Bowman via
Speaker 1: Alex about how disappointing it was. Somebody asked, my disappointment
Speaker 1: was not at a playoff caliber starter, and he said
Speaker 1: that this is a Alex quote now quote. We didn't go
Speaker 1: in the deadline with the thought that we have to
Speaker 1: get this or have to get that. We're just trying
Speaker 1: to make the team better. And he goes on to
Speaker 1: say something about Drake Baldwin going out the door in
Speaker 1: a previous trade if they had gotten a deal done
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago. Uh, and then you know,
Speaker 1: on and on and on. It is that what you thought?
Speaker 1: What you think it would be checked out. Mark Mark
Speaker 1: Twitter if you want to find.
Speaker 2: More players as talented as Drake Baldwin two years ago.
Speaker 2: We're not traded this deadline. There was no crazy asks.
Speaker 2: This was not even from whether it's Trek Scoogle who's
Speaker 2: at the top of the market, or like Robbie Ray
Speaker 2: who was probably at the bottom of the market. There
Speaker 2: were not some insane prospects flying around at this deadline.
Speaker 2: That's what's so frustrating. If you got to trade Owen
Speaker 2: Murphy to give yourself a chance at a World Series,
Speaker 2: then trade Owen Murphy, like what are you doing?
Speaker 1: God strongly agree. It wasn't like they had to trade
Speaker 1: Hartman to do whatever they wanted to do.
Speaker 2: No be asked to get whoever was not was not
Speaker 2: our five best prospects that that did not happen anywhere.
Speaker 2: So either he's the worst negotiator on the planet when
Speaker 2: it comes to acquiring starting pitching or what, or he
Speaker 2: has a blind eye to adding stortage. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't know, Brad.
Speaker 1: It's okay. I I thought that might do it. I
Speaker 1: wasn't trying to lend you up. I thought we might
Speaker 1: get there. I'm just passing along the news. Guys, it's
Speaker 1: coming in during the podcast. That's all. I just I'm
Speaker 1: responsible to pass along the news to the people. I
Speaker 1: also let people know what we know when we know
Speaker 1: it's other things going on. We'll talking about this in
Speaker 1: a second. Sean Murphy's officially back. That's been announced. They
Speaker 1: optioned Karen Zack and Richie to Gwinnette. No surprise there,
Speaker 1: and then they added, of course Thomas Mallley and Suitor
Speaker 1: to the roster and dfade MATEO. Okay, Brent Suitter, you
Speaker 1: just made this point to some degree, everyone's made that.
Speaker 1: We've done it one hundred times. I'm kind of doing
Speaker 1: it as a joke right now. But one of the
Speaker 1: tribute questions about the Playoff Run in twenty twenty one
Speaker 1: was Dylan Lee starting a World Series game. They did.
Speaker 1: They did do a lot of the Playoff Run twenty
Speaker 1: one with their BULLPP. Now, what they did have was
Speaker 1: Max Freed, Charlie Morton, and the best version of Me
Speaker 1: Anderson that ever that ever happened. Yes, they had three,
Speaker 1: they had two, they had two and a half. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they had two and a half starters. They didn't have one.
Speaker 1: Uh I know, I know, Morton got hurt in the
Speaker 1: World Series. That happened too, but he did. He was
Speaker 1: on the mound. He was pitching in the World Series
Speaker 1: when he got hurt. So anyway, he's not It's not
Speaker 1: totally insane. It suggests that you can win playoff baseball
Speaker 1: games with a great bullpeny in a great lineup. That
Speaker 1: is very reasonable to say. It's harder when you don't
Speaker 1: have a one starter and that starter is thirty seven,
Speaker 1: thirty eight years old, who we love. Chris Sale is
Speaker 1: our guy forever, Okay, Brent Suiter, this is what Alex does.
Speaker 1: So we laughed about this already. I'm going to tweet
Speaker 1: about this jokingly, back when I had optimism in my
Speaker 1: heart about something else happening today. This is hours and
Speaker 1: hours ago. I was like, the one thing we always
Speaker 1: knew is that Alex was going to trade for a
Speaker 1: reliever on deadline day. He just always does this. It
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. Would have been better to have a better
Speaker 1: one than Brent Suter, Yes, but it's a guy that
Speaker 1: they were always going to do something because Alex always
Speaker 1: trades for a reliever. It just was going to happen
Speaker 1: at some point. Brent Suter's fine. Another one of the
Speaker 1: five trades that I thought was totally fine. They gave
Speaker 1: up Natcho Alvarez. I know Nacho was once one of
Speaker 1: their top five ish prospects a couple of years ago.
Speaker 1: That was when they had a bad system at that point,
Speaker 1: and I was never super high on Nacho. He was
Speaker 1: not good in the majors when he showed there. Maybe
Speaker 1: he finds his way to the majors an a utility
Speaker 1: role at some point. That's very possible. He's still twenty
Speaker 1: three years old. I'm not saying he's a total zero,
Speaker 1: but trading Nacho Alvarez at this point where he had
Speaker 1: nowhere to go in the organization for a guy who
Speaker 1: can help you now, yeah, totally fine. Yeah, and Britz
Speaker 1: Rogoitch Like again, he's not gonna supplant Iglesias or Fuentes
Speaker 1: or Lee or hopefully, hopefully, hopefully Robert Torres, but he
Speaker 1: can be the sixth guy in your bullpen, seventh guy
Speaker 1: in your bullpen and help you. That's my That's my
Speaker 1: almost my entire statement on the matter for right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Brent Sooter is an interesting reliever of veteran He's
Speaker 2: a Harvard graduate, supposed to be a really smart guy,
Speaker 2: has been around forever and has been durable the whole time.
Speaker 2: You mentioned pretty good numbers with the Angels, you know,
Speaker 2: a three point six fip with the Angels, and with
Speaker 2: their awful defense, you would like to think that's going
Speaker 2: to continue with Atlanta. Very slow fastball and sinker hovers
Speaker 2: around eighty seven eight but first percentile fastball of plosity
Speaker 2: this season. Yeah, first percentile, but has ninety ninth percentile
Speaker 2: extension where which means that hitters just don't pick up
Speaker 2: the ball for whatever reason, it gets on him quickly.
Speaker 2: They don't hit it hard, they don't barrel him. They
Speaker 2: ninety fourth percentile hard hit rate allowed. Doesn't really walk
Speaker 2: people either, gets a lot of ground balls, which should
Speaker 2: play pretty well with a good Braves infield defense. So yeah,
Speaker 2: like Brent Suter is the sixth or seventh guy in
Speaker 2: your bullpen, makes a lot of sense. I'm not a
Speaker 2: big believer in Danny Young. I think he certainly is
Speaker 2: better than Danny Young and kind of gives you another
Speaker 2: option alongside Dylan Dodd and of course Dylan Lee as
Speaker 2: kind of your big three lefties in you know, when
Speaker 2: the games really do become important in September and October.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he does. He's not traditional lefty, like, he
Speaker 1: doesn't have great almost almost reverse platoon splits. He's not
Speaker 1: like a dominant lefty versus lefty reliever, but having another
Speaker 1: option there, like you can go to how they a veteran.
Speaker 1: I agree with you. He's better than Danny Jung. So
Speaker 1: even if it's just an upgrade on that spot, like,
Speaker 1: that's not a bad thing to have in the organization.
Speaker 1: So I thought it was fine. We'll see how he looks.
Speaker 1: And I'm glat you pointed out the defense of the
Speaker 1: Angels that this is the kind of picture that you
Speaker 1: need a defense behind you. He's not going to fool.
Speaker 1: He doesn't. I shouldn't say that. In the full hitters.
Speaker 1: He doesn't miss bats. He gets soft. He's a soft
Speaker 1: contact guy, and you need defense when you're that kind
Speaker 1: of pitcher. And he has better defense now than he
Speaker 1: had before. Elsewhere on the trade stuff, eli White is
Speaker 1: no longer remember of the Braves. He was traded to
Speaker 1: the Red Sox today for Tyler Eberstein. You know the
Speaker 1: addition of of Laine Thomas. We didn't talk about Eliab
Speaker 1: being like a straight DFA candidate that much on our
Speaker 1: show last night. But I am not surprised with this
Speaker 1: at all because there wasn't a huge role left for
Speaker 1: Eli White. You could argue like pinch running would have
Speaker 1: been his role basically, especially if they were going to
Speaker 1: DFA Mateo would have been like, all right, maybe you
Speaker 1: want either Mateo or White on the ross. Now they
Speaker 1: have neither, but you can find that. And crucially, Eli
Speaker 1: White as older, the people realize he is he's been
Speaker 1: around for a long time in the majors or fringe
Speaker 1: in the majors, and he is out of options. So
Speaker 1: like it was either keep him on the roster or
Speaker 1: DFA him or trade him. Like they couldn't option him
Speaker 1: down to the minors. Which are the people like, why
Speaker 1: are they traded stuff? Just well, no, because they couldn't
Speaker 1: set him down. He was out of options, and they
Speaker 1: traded for you, for you Ristine, who may not be
Speaker 1: a thing, but he has minor league options. And it
Speaker 1: seems to me this is the kind of deal that
Speaker 1: you do when you're thinking about dfing Eli White and
Speaker 1: you're like, hey, can I can we trade him before
Speaker 1: we have to before we just cut him? That's that
Speaker 1: was my worad. They didn't say that, but I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: if they traded him for this, for this return, they
Speaker 1: at least wanted to make sure that they basically there's
Speaker 1: a market before they could move on from him some
Speaker 1: other Sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you if the Braves make the decision to
Speaker 2: move on from Eli White, you might as well try
Speaker 2: to get something for him. And you mentioned how that
Speaker 2: you were. Steine twenty seven years old, has been pretty
Speaker 2: good in the minors. I think, only made one or
Speaker 2: two appearances with Boston this year and then got hurt,
Speaker 2: but has been throwing the ball well in his rehab.
Speaker 2: So I think there's a chance we might see Uberstein
Speaker 2: at some point in these final two months. But at
Speaker 2: the same time, as you, as you alluded to, if
Speaker 2: you're twenty seven years old and you have not made
Speaker 2: an impact, a continued impact in the majors, generally the
Speaker 2: odds are are pretty low. But you know what, Eli
Speaker 2: White seemed like a good dude, had some nice moments
Speaker 2: for this team, but you know, he did become a
Speaker 2: bit redundant with some of the other additions they've made.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean we talked about last night, but yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, Layne Thomas is just like the better version
Speaker 1: of Eli White, and that's that's bad news for Eli White.
Speaker 1: As soon as Laine Thomas came either for either either
Speaker 1: for them moving on from him or him just playing
Speaker 1: way less, one of those is gonna happen as soon
Speaker 1: as they got Lane Thomas, and it ended up being
Speaker 1: moving on from him. And just to say it out loud,
Speaker 1: Eli White's thirty two. I think if you polled Braves
Speaker 1: fans and asked how old Eli White was, they did
Speaker 1: not know. He's thirty two years old. I think people
Speaker 1: think he's like a twenty five year old.
Speaker 3: He's not.
Speaker 1: He's thirty. So to your point, very beloved player. Like
Speaker 1: some bench guys just get very popular. He became one
Speaker 1: of those guys. I mean, I know you joked about
Speaker 1: setting thoughts and prayers to the Braves twitter handle administration.
Speaker 1: Today when they announced daylight White was, they kind of
Speaker 1: gave their farewell tweet and people were very very unhappy.
Speaker 1: A granted part that's probably because they didn't make a
Speaker 1: trade for a picture, but yeah, people did not want
Speaker 1: you that White to be gone either. So it was
Speaker 1: a rough day for the folks behind the social media
Speaker 1: accounts for the Braves.
Speaker 2: You know, the other move that was not a giant surprise,
Speaker 2: but you know, trading Joey Bart to the White Sox,
Speaker 2: I think even lesser of an arm came back for
Speaker 2: Joey Bart. Yeah, it was, of course, I've just lost
Speaker 2: his name.
Speaker 1: It's Duncan David, thank you, and that as soon as
Speaker 1: that happened. Look, we talked about this for a long
Speaker 1: time already, with Murphy getting close, Sean Murphy coming back
Speaker 1: from rehab assignment now official, it's been announce as of
Speaker 1: twenty minutes ago. But he was always going to be close,
Speaker 1: and there was a world in which they might keep
Speaker 1: Joy Bart. But they don't similarly want to carry three catchers.
Speaker 1: They don't like to do that. It seems like if
Speaker 1: you follow him for years and years and years now
Speaker 1: and Bart wasn't so good where you couldn't move on
Speaker 1: from him, and to me this felt like even more
Speaker 1: so than eli White thing, it's like, oh, we're going
Speaker 1: to have to cut Joey Bart today if we don't
Speaker 1: trade him, because Duck and Davitt got DFAD I think
Speaker 1: two days ago or yesterday, So like this is a
Speaker 1: DFA for DFA trade. This is a and I get it.
Speaker 1: Joey Bart is a big a bigger name as if
Speaker 1: Worri he was drafted, and I think he's a major
Speaker 1: leagu back up catcher. I mean, I don't think he's
Speaker 1: some great player, but he's a number two catcher on
Speaker 1: a team that's he's fine. But spoiler, folks, they were
Speaker 1: never going to get anything back for Joey Bart in
Speaker 1: a trade, like I'm sorry, Like if you were holding
Speaker 1: out for some great return for Joey Bart, like that
Speaker 1: was never happening. So they got a flyer on a
Speaker 1: monor league arm. That's all it is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And look, I think it would be in an
Speaker 2: ideal world you would have held on to Joey Bart
Speaker 2: as catcher insurance on the chance that Drake Baldwin gets
Speaker 2: hurt again or Seawan Murphy gets hurt again. Murph has
Speaker 2: a long injury list at this point. But from a
Speaker 2: roster perspective, you know you can only carry well twenty
Speaker 2: six players in total and thirteen position players, so it's
Speaker 2: gonna be tough just to make the math work. I
Speaker 2: know a few people pointed that out today, and I mean, truthfully,
Speaker 2: go look at the active roster and say who would
Speaker 2: you boot out after the couple of moves this weekend,
Speaker 2: like you know who getting rid of? I mean, I
Speaker 2: guess if you wanted to say, like Dominic Smith could
Speaker 2: go and then you keep three catchers, But that feels
Speaker 2: a little silly to me. And there really just wasn't
Speaker 2: a ton of other options at least for the next
Speaker 2: month until rosters expand by two and on September first.
Speaker 2: So yeah, now we just hold our breath, hope that
Speaker 2: that John Murphy can give this team something obviously, hope
Speaker 2: that Drake Baldwin continues to be awesome. But yeah, as
Speaker 2: soon as I saw Joey Bart was getting traded, I
Speaker 2: was not expecting a top prospect by any means.
Speaker 1: No, it leaked out with like, oh Bart's been traded.
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, this is going to be unwhelming, and
Speaker 1: it was, but we'll see. And look, this is not
Speaker 1: a semur if your Reaction podcast. Murphy looked pretty good
Speaker 1: in Winnette by all accounts in the last week or two.
Speaker 1: I think he's underrated right now, but he also might
Speaker 1: get hurt any day. So that's I am the Sean
Speaker 1: Murphy defender until the end, I think. But uh, I
Speaker 1: am realistic about what he is and what he isn't.
Speaker 1: We'll find out, all right, Scott, do you want to
Speaker 1: talk briefly before we get out of here. I don't
Speaker 1: want to make you do your twelfth rant of this podcast.
Speaker 1: I feel like we should. I feel like we should
Speaker 1: kind of take stock a little bit. We've done a
Speaker 1: little bit already on the podcast. But everybody got better
Speaker 1: in the National League. Like, the Braves are probably gonna
Speaker 1: win the in at least I didn't say definitely, they're
Speaker 1: probably gonna win the in. At least they have an
Speaker 1: eight game lead on August second or August third, Like
Speaker 1: they're probably gonna win the division. But the Dodgers got
Speaker 1: Tarek Scuble, and yes, they paid a real cost for him.
Speaker 1: We never really did the post Schooble discussion because he
Speaker 1: got traded in a weird spot for our podcast. Is
Speaker 1: were I don't know. I don't know if they were
Speaker 1: gonna on him or not. I probably guess not based
Speaker 1: on what happened Lucky, Yes, But I mean I didn't
Speaker 1: have a problem with the Braves not beating what they
Speaker 1: what what the Dodgers paid. There's a whole discussion. We
Speaker 1: won't have today about the Dodgers being able to pay
Speaker 1: a prospect cost because they don't have to worry about
Speaker 1: the money. They just don't care about the money, so
Speaker 1: they could just do whatever they want. There was comparisons
Speaker 1: made about what it would have been for the Braves,
Speaker 1: whether it would have been Hartman and something else or
Speaker 1: Candated or something else and whatever. But the Dodgers got
Speaker 1: Terra Schoubel and Chris Boubach. I don't know why they
Speaker 1: are Chrispoobach. They don't they don't need Chrispoombach. The Brives
Speaker 1: could use Chris boob Wich right now and they didn't
Speaker 1: get him. He's see better than Tyler Mallley. I don't
Speaker 1: really know. There's probably he's hurt right now.
Speaker 2: So I mean the Dodgers acquired someone who's hurt to
Speaker 2: maybe pitch in September. But I mean, I don't But
Speaker 2: compare that, Compare that to what Alex and Thopolis just
Speaker 2: said about our rotation and the Dodger rotation. It could
Speaker 2: not be any any different.
Speaker 1: No, it's insane, and they're and they're hurt. I know,
Speaker 1: no one's in the mood to defend the Dodgers, including me.
Speaker 1: They have a lot of injuries, which is I'm assuming
Speaker 1: why they're doing this. But still I brastill to get
Speaker 1: mad at me because I kind of just mention sometimes
Speaker 1: the Dodgers are kind of in their own stratosphere because
Speaker 1: they are guys. I'm sorry, they just are their rosters.
Speaker 1: But everybody else's roster. It already was, it's even better now.
Speaker 1: And for the Braves to win the World Series or
Speaker 1: make the World Series, they got to either get lucky
Speaker 1: to beat the Dodgers or have somebody else beat them,
Speaker 1: because the Dodgers are the best team. But it's baseball.
Speaker 1: You can still lose. But Scott, not Scott, I know
Speaker 1: you're old enough to remember, like I am. You remember
Speaker 1: the Dodgers were the team that could never win the
Speaker 1: Big One, because I do. I do. That's been forgotten
Speaker 1: the last couple of years. But they were the best
Speaker 1: team in the league several times, didn't win the World Series.
Speaker 1: Like that happens.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's based on and then you know it helps
Speaker 2: do when you then spend five hundred million dollars a
Speaker 2: year and you have I mean.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be a labor issue. It already is a
Speaker 1: labor issue. Like that's a different special day. But anyway,
Speaker 1: the Dodgers were already the favorites. They have got better.
Speaker 1: They're even bigger favorites now. That's unfortunate, but just worth
Speaker 1: saying out loud. The Brewers, who are the second best
Speaker 1: team in the National League this year, even ahead of
Speaker 1: the Braves, got Dustin May and Jojo Romero. Dustin May
Speaker 1: is a polarizing figure. I don't think he's some great pitcher,
Speaker 1: but he helps them. He's The Braves could use us of
Speaker 1: May right now, and they didn't get him. So the
Speaker 1: Brews got better. The Cubs got Kevin Gosman and Clay Holmes.
Speaker 1: Kevin Gosman and Clay Holmes today.
Speaker 2: That would have been, I mean, a perfect deadline for
Speaker 2: the Braves. If they could have done that, what the
Speaker 2: Cubs did today, I would be I would be thrilled
Speaker 2: if the Braves could have done what the Cubs did today.
Speaker 1: The Potterys I wasn't even like thinking about because they
Speaker 1: were They're not even in They're not even in the
Speaker 1: wildcardsmar right now. They are in the their fourth in
Speaker 1: the wildcard race right now. But the Potterys went and
Speaker 1: got two star pitchers today too. They did the rob
Speaker 1: they did the Robbie Ray thing. We were talking about
Speaker 1: the Braves doing as the number two guy that they
Speaker 1: and got and they used a bunch of money, like
Speaker 1: they they upgraded. I'm not scared of the Padres, but
Speaker 1: they got better today. And then the Phillies fans are
Speaker 1: mad like Braves fans are mad right now because they
Speaker 1: also they also wanted a starting pitcher and didn't get one.
Speaker 1: They did get Luisa Rice is kind of a big name,
Speaker 1: and Brooks Raley. But I mean everybody, and look, the
Speaker 1: brains got better too. Did they get better enough? No,
Speaker 1: we were annoyed by that. Obviously, the Braids got better too.
Speaker 1: But I say that I'll just say, let's be sober
Speaker 1: for like one second here, Scott. I'll ask you this
Speaker 1: because I feel this way. The Braves World Series odds
Speaker 1: or National League Pennant odds went down today right like that.
Speaker 1: I mean, they got they got better in the last
Speaker 1: few days, and they still lost ground in that war. Correct.
Speaker 1: Do we agree on that?
Speaker 2: I would say with a straight face. August third is
Speaker 2: we're recording this. If the Braves see the Dodgers in
Speaker 2: the playoffs, the Dodgers would be the favorites. I would
Speaker 2: expect the Dogs to win. Could the Braves win, Sure,
Speaker 2: but yeah, the ploffsies right, they could, they could win.
Speaker 2: No one's picking them right against the Brewers. I think
Speaker 2: the computers would pick the Brewers. I think, in my
Speaker 2: true heart of hearts, I think the Brewers are a
Speaker 2: better team now than the Braves. Maybe not over a
Speaker 2: one to sixty two sample, but in a best of
Speaker 2: five or a best of seven now with the top
Speaker 2: of the Brewers rotation, I would lean.
Speaker 1: Towards the Brewers.
Speaker 2: The Cubs, I mean, the Cubs are a weird team.
Speaker 2: They run either super hot or super cold. But now
Speaker 2: that they add Gosman and Holmes to their rotation, they're
Speaker 2: a whole lot better, a lot more dangerous. They have
Speaker 2: a great offense, especially against left handed pitching, so the
Speaker 2: Cubs are scary. I still think I would lean the
Speaker 2: Braves over the Cubs, but that would be like a
Speaker 2: fifty five forty five type of series. And then the Phillies,
Speaker 2: while they have all these issues. One, the Luisa Rise
Speaker 2: trade was very weird, and they're not only Louisa Rise,
Speaker 2: and they're gonna move people like Bryce Harper's going to
Speaker 2: the outfield and they're moving players, don't the Phillies are
Speaker 2: all over?
Speaker 1: I don't know. Listen listen to the Phillies show on
Speaker 1: our network if you want more on the Phillies. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I I don't believe in the Phillies. I don't think
Speaker 1: they're particularly good, but they did get a little better.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's weird. I this is not this show.
Speaker 1: But uh, what are the Red Sox doing? Would be
Speaker 1: a question I'd asked, just as a baseball fan, what's
Speaker 1: going on? They traded Marcella Meyer for like a weird reliever. Like,
Speaker 1: I don't know what the Red Socks were doing in general.
Speaker 1: They didn't sell, but they also like Sunny Gray was
Speaker 1: clearly not available unfortunately.
Speaker 2: When they gave a fortune to get Adley Rushman.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they've made a million. Yeah, it's what a
Speaker 1: weird day, weird week. But look, I'm not trying to
Speaker 1: doom er. You said it earlier, even in the midst
Speaker 1: of a ramp, and I think you're right. The Atlanta
Speaker 1: Braves could still make the World Series. We're saying out loud,
Speaker 1: as mad as we are, as annoyed as we are,
Speaker 1: as baffled as we are as frustrated as we are.
Speaker 1: Pick whichever word you want, Scott, maybe you have a
Speaker 1: different one that's more less than less PG than what
Speaker 1: I've use on the podcast. As bad as we are,
Speaker 1: they can still win the World Series, they can still
Speaker 1: make the World Series. Are their odds great to do that?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: I mean that it's not. It's not great right now.
Speaker 1: God help us if Chris Sale gets hurt, as we
Speaker 1: already knew, but it's even more pronounced now than it
Speaker 1: was then. And I do have one thing that I
Speaker 1: want to just say before I forget to say it.
Speaker 1: And I know you back me up on this one
Speaker 1: reason that I am as annoyed as I am, and
Speaker 1: I'm I'm probably two level to a fault. Listeners for
Speaker 1: a lot of the time know that I don't get too
Speaker 1: high or too low very much. One reason I'm even
Speaker 1: more annoyed than I would have been is that the
Speaker 1: Braves are not young anymore. They're just not, and they're
Speaker 1: operating like they are. Chris Sale is not quite He's
Speaker 1: older than you, isn't he. I think Chris Sale's older
Speaker 1: than you. Chris Sale's older than Scott Coleman, which is
Speaker 1: all you need to know about his life and future.
Speaker 1: But Ronald A Queen Junior is only on a contract
Speaker 1: for two and a half more years, Like Austin Riley
Speaker 1: is already a disaster contract right now. As good as
Speaker 1: Matt Olsen is, he's not getting younger. Ozzie Alby's is
Speaker 1: not getting younger, and might be might not be on
Speaker 1: the team all that much longer given his age contract
Speaker 1: stuff like, yeah, they had Drake Balwin. Great to have
Speaker 1: Drake Balwin, but he's the only he's the only guy.
Speaker 1: Michael Harris has been great this year, so we could
Speaker 1: shot him out too. Maybe he's on that timeline. But
Speaker 1: all the guys that we used to be young five
Speaker 1: years ago aren't young anymore. And when you're as reliant
Speaker 1: as the Braves are on Chris Sale and Ronald A
Speaker 1: Queen Junior, but even Chris Sale right now, you got
Speaker 1: to be trying to win right now. Man, this might
Speaker 1: be if Chris Sale he's not gonna retire after the season,
Speaker 1: I don't think. But like, there's a decent chance this
Speaker 1: is the best is ever gonna be again, and they're
Speaker 1: they're not pushing chips in, so that's it's something I
Speaker 1: know that like orials fans dealt with when they were
Speaker 1: like they rebuilt for a long time, they never got
Speaker 1: they never like pushed all our chips in, and now
Speaker 1: they're selling out of the Richman, which reminded me to
Speaker 1: talk about this. The Brands obviously won their World Series.
Speaker 1: They did. They won the World Series. We were there,
Speaker 1: we covered it was fun, but like, what was the was?
Speaker 1: What was then? A young team is not a young
Speaker 1: team anymore, man, and it's it's maddening. I don't mean
Speaker 1: to like bring the spirit down at the end of
Speaker 1: the podcast, but like through we go through the exercise
Speaker 1: of hey, the Breads could still win the World Series.
Speaker 1: I do mean that, I do believe it. The playoffs
Speaker 1: are pretty darn random in baseball, and the twenty twenty
Speaker 1: one team wasn't the best team in baseball. I always
Speaker 1: say that. I don't mean it's not me pouring cold water.
Speaker 1: They still won the games. That's all that matters. Then
Speaker 1: the benter Flies, it will always fly. They weren't the
Speaker 1: best team, so I hope they won the World Series.
Speaker 1: They still could. But one reason I personally am like
Speaker 1: even more annoyed is that this could be their best
Speaker 1: chance with this crew.
Speaker 2: This was unquestionably their best chance since twenty twenty three, which,
Speaker 2: funny enough, looking back, twenty three was also a pretty
Speaker 2: subdued deadline. They did not do a whole lot to
Speaker 2: improve that history work offense, and a pitching staff that
Speaker 2: you'd probably get to use some help. We know how
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three went. Twenty twenty four they had all
Speaker 2: the injuries. We know how the wild card went. It
Speaker 2: was over in about twenty four hours. Last year was
Speaker 2: a disaster. In this year, despite all the things that
Speaker 2: have gone wrong, despite all the injuries, they're having a
Speaker 2: great season. They're twenty two games above five hundred, there
Speaker 2: are eight games ahead of the Phillies in the division.
Speaker 2: Almost certainly going to win the East. Maybe not a guarantee,
Speaker 2: but very likely to win the East. They're really in
Speaker 2: the mix for one of those top two protected seeds
Speaker 2: in the national leagues. You don't have to play in
Speaker 2: the wild card round. There were so many reasons to
Speaker 2: push in some chips and to give yourself a chance,
Speaker 2: and to add another starter, and to do the things
Speaker 2: we talked about. They also didn't add a bat other
Speaker 2: than Lane Thomas, and we talked about that on the show, like, hey,
Speaker 2: Dominic Smith has really been struggling for like three months now,
Speaker 2: and there's no guarantee that Ronald Acuney Junior is going
Speaker 2: to stay healthy or that anybody's gonna get hurt, and
Speaker 2: they didn't do that either. It's just so frustrating. It's
Speaker 2: a good roster, but I think in October the whole
Speaker 2: on this roster are really going to rear themselves whenever
Speaker 2: it comes to playoff time. I sure hope I'm wrong.
Speaker 2: I hope we can look back on this and laugh.
Speaker 2: I genuinely, Brad, in three months, I hope we're talking
Speaker 2: about the Braves won the World Series and we can
Speaker 2: look back at this episode and laugh at ourselves for
Speaker 2: all of the concerns and my fifteen rants that I've had.
Speaker 2: But I am just so concerned about the way the
Speaker 2: playoffs play out. The Braves are not well set up
Speaker 2: for how the postseason typically goes, and there was a
Speaker 2: chance over the last couple of weeks to change that
Speaker 2: and to address it, and they did not, And that
Speaker 2: is incredibly frustrating as a fan, as somebody who does
Speaker 2: multiple podcasts a week, I don't give my money to
Speaker 2: the Braves.
Speaker 1: I'm not local.
Speaker 2: I don't spend my hard earn cash on tickets, but
Speaker 2: if you're a season ticket holder, it's kind of a
Speaker 2: smack in the face to you. You pour your thousands
Speaker 2: of dollars into this team with tickets and merchandise and parking,
Speaker 2: go to the battery before and after? What did they do?
Speaker 2: They pocketed the jury and profile money. More or less,
Speaker 2: they have not spent it in any way. They didn't
Speaker 2: add anybody in February. They didn't really add at the deadline.
Speaker 2: Everybody they acquired makes a couple million dollars with their
Speaker 2: pro rated salaries, but they didn't go out and add
Speaker 2: an impact guy who was owed a lot of money.
Speaker 2: It's just it is such a shame. And I over
Speaker 2: the weekend, I just kept telling myself, they're gonna add
Speaker 2: They're gonna do it, They're gonna give this team a chance.
Speaker 2: And do they still have a chance, yes, but damn it,
Speaker 2: it would be so much better if they would have,
Speaker 2: Like why, Alex, why would you not go and add
Speaker 2: one starting pitcher to this team? Better than Tyler Malley
Speaker 2: and this entire podcast, the entire feel around the fan
Speaker 2: base would be one point eighty if you would have
Speaker 2: gone out and acquired anyone.
Speaker 1: He didn't do it, didn't do it. That's true. I
Speaker 1: am local. I don't go to Tonning games anymore because
Speaker 1: we covered the team and it's easier to be home.
Speaker 1: But yeah, everything you said right is right. And somebody
Speaker 1: will undoubtedly say that we're not yelling enough because we're
Speaker 1: not just saying the F bomb for an hour, because
Speaker 1: that would be a bad podcast. We get probably get fired.
Speaker 1: I think we're pretty I think it's pretty clear refrustrated. Uh,
Speaker 1: And I do approach it differently. I've always say that.
Speaker 1: But people that know, like I cover the Hawks like
Speaker 1: professionally in Atlanta Hawk Like I cover the Hawks basically
Speaker 1: full time, and the Braves are a little bit different
Speaker 1: than that. I'm still much more of a fan of
Speaker 1: the Hawk, of this the Braves than I am of
Speaker 1: the Hawks. The Hawks is a job at this point,
Speaker 1: but we do this. We try to be responsible, but
Speaker 1: we're we're still invested in the team, and we act
Speaker 1: like it on the podcast. So we may not always
Speaker 1: agree with everything, even with each other, like we disagree.
Speaker 1: It's that's part of the fun. Yeah, But yeah, I think,
Speaker 1: but we're all we're all maddened by what happened and
Speaker 1: really what didn't happen here, and uh, I mean we're
Speaker 1: all still hoping that we feel not dumb. I think
Speaker 1: everything we said here I stand by and will stand
Speaker 1: by whether the Braves when the World's Series or not.
Speaker 1: If the were't win the World Series in three months,
Speaker 1: I will still believe they had a bad they had
Speaker 1: a bad headline, of course. And then yeah, and then
Speaker 1: and then one'll get yelled at because they'll be like, oh,
Speaker 1: Alex is a genius. He knew he didn't need it.
Speaker 1: The Braves just won the World Series anyway. And that's
Speaker 1: the part that's so fun because I remember, like you do,
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty one, people weren't very happy with Alex
Speaker 1: and then they won the World Series because everything went right.
Speaker 1: And it's part of the fun.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 1: It's a results based business, all right, Scott. We will
Speaker 1: have more on this feed, I guarantee everyone, not only
Speaker 1: from us, but I'm sure we'll get a Steven Tolbert
Speaker 1: Sean Coleman response to the deadline as well. It probably
Speaker 1: will have some crossover to this one. But they have
Speaker 1: their own thoughts that they'll be sharing. And then as
Speaker 1: we always do. We'll cover the games, we'll cover the injuries,
Speaker 1: we'll cover the news. We'll be here all the way through.
Speaker 1: So please subscribe to Hammer Territory and we might have
Speaker 1: some new listeners today. If this is your first podcast,
Speaker 1: welcome aboard. It's a bit of an odd time to
Speaker 1: join us, but we definitely appreciate it, so stick around Apple, Spotify, YouTube,
Speaker 1: et cetera. If you want more rants from Scott, it's
Speaker 1: at Scott Colon fifty five on Twitter, where I just
Speaker 1: saw you tweeted during the podcast. Shame on you. We're
Speaker 1: trying to do a podcast here. I'm Caring for Fashion podcast. Same.
Speaker 1: I was tweeting too, I was I was actually in
Speaker 1: a mat. I was actually at a Twitter fight with
Speaker 1: someone during the podcast because I'm professional like that. I'm
Speaker 1: at bt Roland, follow Stephen at be Oderscore Outliers, follows
Speaker 1: Sean at Stat's SAC. I got all those on the
Speaker 1: first try, and one more time. Subscribe, Tell your friends,
Speaker 1: join us, and let's hope that we'll be covering a
Speaker 1: lot of wins over the next two months into October
Speaker 1: and beyond. Expos to everybody. We definitely appreciate it and
Speaker 1: we'll see everybody next time.