Speaker 1: Let's talk about the sizzling Tampa Bay Rays. They've won
Speaker 1: nine in a row entering Friday nights, six and a
Speaker 1: half games up in the Division over the Yankees. Brian Anderson,
Speaker 1: Rays broadcaster does a great job on there, Brian, thanks
Speaker 1: for joining us, man. What are you seeing? What's looking good?
Speaker 2: Well, I'll get to that.
Speaker 3: I want to piggyback on you guys, your stories about
Speaker 3: the hit my pitch and you know who's doing you
Speaker 3: know who's angry who. When I was pictured for the Angels,
Speaker 3: we were playing the Tigers and they had come into
Speaker 3: town and just it was a weekend series and they
Speaker 3: had just wiped this out. And I don't remember if
Speaker 3: it was a three or a four game series, but
Speaker 3: they had come in in the first however many games
Speaker 3: they just smoked us. So I'm pitching the final game
Speaker 3: of that series, day game, and we've got a five
Speaker 3: to two lead, six to two lead, and hit a
Speaker 3: home run off of David Wells.
Speaker 2: I can't remember who hit the home run, but Wells.
Speaker 3: Then Drills our next hit her and our dugout went crazy,
Speaker 3: and of course word went out. When you get back
Speaker 3: out there, Travis Frieman, take him down. You're gonna drill Frieman.
Speaker 2: That's it.
Speaker 3: You know what he did, Bush lead, you know all
Speaker 3: the things. So I go up there the next half fitning. Now, meanwhile,
Speaker 3: Travis Fryman, I don't think he was up until third
Speaker 3: in that inning, and I'm like, okay, I've got to
Speaker 3: be able to get some outs here before I'm going
Speaker 3: to be hitting anybody.
Speaker 2: You end up with two.
Speaker 3: Guys on and I'm now going to hit a guy.
Speaker 3: You know, how's that going to work out? And I
Speaker 3: remember Tony Phillips lined out the third hard, and then
Speaker 3: finally Travis Friman came up and I put one right
Speaker 3: in the middle of his back.
Speaker 2: He didn't say a word, took his base. That was it.
Speaker 2: That was the end of the series. That was the
Speaker 2: last I heard of it.
Speaker 3: All of a sudden, word comes down from the visiting
Speaker 3: clubhouse kids. They said when that half fitting was over,
Speaker 3: Frieman went up into the clubhouse and went after David
Speaker 3: Wells and was like, you you were the reason that
Speaker 3: I got hit. And so they had a big thing
Speaker 3: up in their clubhouse. So, yeah, a lot of times
Speaker 3: guy gets hit. I'm not worried about the pitcher out there,
Speaker 3: he did his job. I'm going to go to the
Speaker 3: guy that got me hit. So I listen to your
Speaker 3: guys stories that that was perfect. That came to mind.
Speaker 3: I had to share it.
Speaker 4: It changed. It's changed, Brian, It's changed me as you know.
Speaker 4: It's changed. It's you can't do this anymore. You can't.
Speaker 4: You can't get mad at anybody no matter what anyone does.
Speaker 5: Everyone is happy and we're all hakuna matata, you know
Speaker 5: what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: So that's a great thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you what, you watch it all the time.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, And as someone who was hit many times by
Speaker 5: the Rays on purpose, I mean, you guys are dirty,
Speaker 5: dirty sons of guns down there. And let me tell you, Wagner,
Speaker 5: what are you doing. I don't know if you remember
Speaker 5: that one from Hawk.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, No.
Speaker 3: Listen with this team right now, I'm gonna tell you
Speaker 3: what I think that you know, having been around the
Speaker 3: league enough and having been around this team enough, it
Speaker 3: is the most well rounded team.
Speaker 2: In the America League, hands down. I think topped about them.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 3: You can argue maybe there are some factions of the
Speaker 3: team that you know, other teams are stronger. Maybe you
Speaker 3: know the Yankees starting pitching you could that argument, but
Speaker 3: I think when you go top to bottom and you
Speaker 3: look at starting rotation, bullpen, especially the back end, and
Speaker 3: then you get into the lineup, I don't think that
Speaker 3: there's a deeper, more well rounded team right now, and
Speaker 3: they're showing that. They showed that on this last West
Speaker 3: Coast road trip. It was the first time that a
Speaker 3: team from either the AL East or the NL East
Speaker 3: has gone out and played teams from the NL West
Speaker 3: or the AL West in a three city trip nine
Speaker 3: games and gone nine to zero since the nineteen seventy
Speaker 3: seven Red Sox did it, and they won games. The
Speaker 3: thing that was really interesting to me, and granted, you're
Speaker 3: playing at cors, you're playing in Sacramento, so there's going
Speaker 3: to be some offensive numbers that are inflated. But they
Speaker 3: had five games on that trip where they scored eight
Speaker 3: or more runs, and they had to win some shootouts
Speaker 3: because the pitching at times wasn't the best, but they
Speaker 3: went out did what they had to do to win.
Speaker 3: Then they had four games that they scored four runs
Speaker 3: or few or of course won all of those, and
Speaker 3: in those four games they only gave up four runs total.
Speaker 2: So you saw the pitching lockdown when it needed to.
Speaker 3: You saw the team be able to slug when they
Speaker 3: needed to, hitting, you know, some home runs, something that
Speaker 3: hasn't been a big part of their offense. In fact,
Speaker 3: I think their tenth in the American League in home runs. However,
Speaker 3: if you go back to the beginning of July, this
Speaker 3: is a team that's right at the top of the leaderboard.
Speaker 3: A couple days ago they had hit the most. They
Speaker 3: still may be up top there. So the home run
Speaker 3: has has come in to be a little bit more
Speaker 3: a part of this offense than earlier in the season.
Speaker 3: But it's the versatility it is. You know, you've got
Speaker 3: your big three, You've got Yondi Diez, You've got Jonathan Ronda,
Speaker 3: You've got Junior Cameron Aro. I think Liam Hicks was
Speaker 3: a big pickup at the trade deadline to kind of
Speaker 3: lengthen that lineup. As far as the power goes, He's
Speaker 3: a perfect fit to for this lineup.
Speaker 2: I mean Liam Hickson to this point in the.
Speaker 3: Season, you know, he has more walks than strikeouts, and
Speaker 3: since coming to the Rays hitting three on base of
Speaker 3: four p thirty eight couple of home runs, nine driven
Speaker 3: in all in eight games. But then you got guys
Speaker 3: like Chandler Simpson, Taylor Walls, Johnny DeLuca, all these guys
Speaker 3: that do a great job of finding a way to
Speaker 3: get on base, and even if they're not get a
Speaker 3: bunt down, they're very aggressive with the bunt as far
Speaker 3: as trying to bunt for hits, sacrifice bunts, hit and run.
Speaker 3: They play an old school style of baseball once you
Speaker 3: get out of the top three of that lineup, and
Speaker 3: it is really difficult. Been watching it all year long,
Speaker 3: Very difficult for teams and pitchers to defend because you
Speaker 3: never know when.
Speaker 2: They're going to do it.
Speaker 3: They don't play their version of small ball late in
Speaker 3: the game, when the game's close. They'll do it three
Speaker 3: hitters into a game. I mean, they have Chandler Simpson
Speaker 3: on this road trip hit in the three hole. He
Speaker 3: comes up in his first at bat, runners at first
Speaker 3: and second, lays down a bunch. It turns out to
Speaker 3: be a bunt for a hit, even though he was
Speaker 3: trying to sacrifice. This team is difficult to defend, and
Speaker 3: right now they're playing with a very, very very high
Speaker 3: level of confidence.
Speaker 5: Do you worry, BA you mentioned, you mentioned they're Big three.
Speaker 4: I guess you could make it big four.
Speaker 5: Now if you're throwing Liam Hicks there that they're so
Speaker 5: top heavy though they are so, I mean, because then
Speaker 5: you get down to like Walls and Chandler Simpson and
Speaker 5: some of the guys kind of towards the bottom. Do
Speaker 5: you worry that at some point if the top four
Speaker 5: don't do anything, that that bottom won't be enough.
Speaker 2: I don't, you know what.
Speaker 3: I think that that's always going to be a worry.
Speaker 3: But they do it a little bit differently. They're just scrappy.
Speaker 3: They find their way, you know, they find their ways
Speaker 3: to get on base.
Speaker 2: I mean, Chandler Simpson had a little bit of a
Speaker 2: rut in the middle of the year where he had
Speaker 2: like a.
Speaker 3: Four for forty five streak, But in the last I
Speaker 3: don't know, six seven weeks, he's got the top batting
Speaker 3: average in the in the American League.
Speaker 2: At least, you know he's doing a.
Speaker 3: Better job at getting on top of the ball. Ground
Speaker 3: balls and line drives are his game. He hits the
Speaker 3: ball in the air, it's an out, and so you
Speaker 3: do worry about that. But it's almost like the race
Speaker 3: have two lineups.
Speaker 2: In one.
Speaker 3: You've got your top three to four and then you've
Speaker 3: got that bottom half that just they're.
Speaker 2: A pain in the neck to deal with.
Speaker 3: And certainly it's tougher to score runs when you're trying
Speaker 3: to scratch across two to three hits, lay down a
Speaker 3: sacrifice bunt, have everything work out perfectly to score that
Speaker 3: run or two.
Speaker 2: But these guys have found a way to make it happen.
Speaker 3: I'll give you another name of a guy who has
Speaker 3: really come on for this team. Victor Mason Junior, is
Speaker 3: getting more opportunities to play out there in right field.
Speaker 3: He's an outstanding defender, gets great jumps, takes great routes,
Speaker 3: has a cannon for an arm, and he's hit ten
Speaker 3: home runs and one hundred and fifty five at bats,
Speaker 3: so he's been, you know, on the offensive side, he
Speaker 3: has been coming through in a big way.
Speaker 2: So they've got different guys that have been stepping up.
Speaker 3: But you're right, when you look at that top three,
Speaker 3: it does look top heavy, but that bottom five to six,
Speaker 3: they can find different ways to score and it just
Speaker 3: becomes a pain to deal with because it's literally like
Speaker 3: having two lineups in one.
Speaker 1: Let's talk fabletox, shall we They have apparel for every season.
Speaker 1: We're wearing it as we talk about it. It's soft,
Speaker 1: it's comfortable. I wear it on the show sometimes on FT.
Speaker 1: What else do you love about it? Krats?
Speaker 6: Well, I have it on right now and I'm all
Speaker 6: about quality. But you know what, you know how good
Speaker 6: your clothes are when you're a parent and your kids
Speaker 6: keep stealing all of it. My daughter stole the sweatshirt,
Speaker 6: my son sole one of my t shirts. So it's
Speaker 6: got to be nice looking.
Speaker 1: And if it gets a little bit chillier then it's
Speaker 1: layering season and they've got layers for the fall. Shop
Speaker 1: now at fabletics dot com slash foul to get seventy
Speaker 1: to eighty percent off everything when you sign up as
Speaker 1: a new VIP. Take a quick style quiz and be
Speaker 1: sure to select foul when prompted to unlock this offer.
Speaker 1: This is a limited time offer, so do not wait again.
Speaker 1: That's fabletics dot Com slash foul for seventy to eighty
Speaker 1: percent off everything as a new VIP.
Speaker 7: Now, I want you to divulge in this column that
Speaker 7: just came out about Yondi Dias in his leadership and
Speaker 7: on and off the field, because I got to play
Speaker 7: with him in Cleveland, a little bit, and he's as
Speaker 7: quiet as could be then, But obviously he was upcoming,
Speaker 7: and he was younger and all that, and yet I've
Speaker 7: never seen a bigger chest and biceps fit into a
Speaker 7: jersey in my entire life. That guy does not skipping
Speaker 7: an entire day. And I was always I disagreed with
Speaker 7: Cleveland a lot on this where they wanted him to
Speaker 7: try to lift the ball a little bit more. They
Speaker 7: wanted him to get into the air because they see
Speaker 7: this huge, massive being and they're like, the power's got
Speaker 7: to be there, and he certainly does have power. But
Speaker 7: this guy was born with a line drive swing that
Speaker 7: goes all over the field. And I just always watched
Speaker 7: him hitting be b and absolutely loved what I saw.
Speaker 7: But it sounds like he's turning into quite the leader too.
Speaker 2: Listen.
Speaker 3: He does so much for this team, yet you put
Speaker 3: him right up there at the top of the order.
Speaker 2: And that's the one thing that the Rays did.
Speaker 3: And to your point, not only did Cleveland want him
Speaker 3: to get the ball in the air more because of
Speaker 3: his size and strength, but he consistently hits.
Speaker 2: The ball hard.
Speaker 3: I mean, he gets the barrel to the baseball as
Speaker 3: well as any so you could see why you would.
Speaker 2: Want to turn him into that guy. The Rays they
Speaker 2: just let him go.
Speaker 3: And this is what I will tell you following him
Speaker 3: all these years, he has the most tried and true
Speaker 3: approach that I've seen that he does.
Speaker 2: Not deviate from.
Speaker 3: And so what Yondi does is he lets the fastball
Speaker 3: that's middle of the plate and away. He lets that
Speaker 3: fastball get deep into the zone and then shoots it
Speaker 3: back up the middle or hits it the other way.
Speaker 3: That's just his game. And then if you roll a
Speaker 3: braking ball and something hangs, that's when he'll get the
Speaker 3: barrel through the zone, catch it out front, and now
Speaker 3: he can put some backspin on it to left field
Speaker 3: for an extra base hit, maybe even a home run.
Speaker 2: And when he catches.
Speaker 3: Backspin on the fastball the other way, I mean he
Speaker 3: hits a you know, he'll hit a good number of
Speaker 3: home runs that way. The one pitch that Yondy concedes
Speaker 3: is the fastball in He doesn't like it, and because
Speaker 3: he likes to let the fastball travel, that's a pitch
Speaker 3: that can give him trouble. But he's smart enough to
Speaker 3: realize in today's game, where command is not the name
Speaker 3: of the game, like it used to be.
Speaker 2: He's betting. I know you'd like to. I don't think
Speaker 2: you can do it.
Speaker 3: If you can pop fastballs in there consistently, you might
Speaker 3: be able to get me. But I know that you
Speaker 3: can't number one, because you may not be comfortable pitching in.
Speaker 3: A lot of guys aren't comfortable pitching in. There's an
Speaker 3: art to do that. Aj you would know that better
Speaker 3: than anybody sitting behind the plate calling the pitches.
Speaker 2: So there's an art to do that.
Speaker 3: Some guys aren't comfortable doing that, and some guys that
Speaker 3: are aren't capable.
Speaker 2: And Yavi knows eventually, you're.
Speaker 3: Gonna pull one towards the middle, and I'm gonna line
Speaker 3: that one back up the middle. And he does not
Speaker 3: deviate from that approach, and it has been it has
Speaker 3: been so fun to watch because it's been year after
Speaker 3: year after year, and he doesn't deviate, he doesn't change,
Speaker 3: He does his thing. All he wants to know about
Speaker 3: a pitcher, what's his velocity, what's his top velocity. I'll
Speaker 3: take it from there.
Speaker 5: That's called hitting, Brian Anderson, that's called hitting. Just that's
Speaker 5: how guy, but that's how guys used to hit. That's
Speaker 5: what we always talked about, is hey, let the fastball
Speaker 5: get deep, hit the fastball the other way, and then
Speaker 5: if they hang a breaking ball, you're on time. I mean,
Speaker 5: that's how it wasn't Hey let me get out front
Speaker 5: and try to just back spin everything. I'll take my
Speaker 5: hits to ryfield as a right handed hitter, and especially
Speaker 5: when you're struggling, and then hey, they hang at breaking ball. Wow,
Speaker 5: I clipped it. That used to be hitting. It's not
Speaker 5: hitting anymore. So we don't have time to get into that.
Speaker 5: I want to know about Freddie Peek. Freddie p was
Speaker 5: a great clubhouse guy everywhere he's been Milwaukee, New York.
Speaker 5: Right he's come over to Tampa. He hasn't had great starts.
Speaker 5: How's he fitting in in Tampa Bay.
Speaker 2: He's fitting in flawlessly.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 3: You know Brian Anderson, the OGBA, if we want to
Speaker 3: go down that route as far as TV broadcasting, you know,
Speaker 3: he had him in Milwaukee. He was the play by
Speaker 3: play guy still is with the Brewers. And he reached
Speaker 3: out to me right away and said, I'm going to
Speaker 3: tell you right now, you're gonna love this kid, and
Speaker 3: he is going to fit into that clubhouse. It's going
Speaker 3: to be the perfect fit. And speak of that, guys,
Speaker 3: this is the other thing I'll tell you. All the
Speaker 3: years that I have been around teams down here with
Speaker 3: the Rays and even teams that I played on, this
Speaker 3: is the closest knit group that I can remember. You know,
Speaker 3: there was an off day we started the season in
Speaker 3: Saint Louis, and so the day before the game, the
Speaker 3: whole team went out to dinner. Okay, not not unheard of.
Speaker 3: Then we had the game, and then you had a
Speaker 3: Friday off. They had that built in potential weather day.
Speaker 3: On that Friday, the whole team meets in the lobby again,
Speaker 3: they go out to dinner.
Speaker 2: Fast forward to this last road trip.
Speaker 3: We have a day off in Seattle, finish up at
Speaker 3: cors fly into Seattle, have an off day down on
Speaker 3: the hotel lobby. Here come twenty twenty two of the
Speaker 3: guys all going out to dinner. It kind of unheard of.
Speaker 3: You get groups here there that go This team is
Speaker 3: as close as it gets. And when you see Freddy
Speaker 3: interacting with you know, his teammates already, You're like, yeah,
Speaker 3: they've already embraced him, and he is a complete fit
Speaker 3: for this team. And I think that that's why may
Speaker 3: the nerves of the first start in course Field for
Speaker 3: Freddy where it didn't go very well, Maybe that had
Speaker 3: a lot to do with it. But I do know
Speaker 3: that he looked much more comfortable his last time out
Speaker 3: in enough tough venue to another tough venue to pitch
Speaker 3: in in Sacramento and put up a quality start, you know,
Speaker 3: six innings, you know, the three earned runs, and look
Speaker 3: much more comfortable out on the mound than he did
Speaker 3: in Denver.
Speaker 2: So I think that he's gonna be fine.
Speaker 5: I mean, you guys couldn't have done him any favors.
Speaker 5: You make him start a Can we not start him
Speaker 5: in Seattle?
Speaker 4: Somehow? Give him a little bit of a soft landing spot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, throw him into the fire, Throw him into the fire.
Speaker 2: I get it. Those are two tough places, for sure.
Speaker 5: But they won. They won every game. Ye I'm gonna
Speaker 5: ask you this, and I know you you're raised guy.
Speaker 5: Is the division over is six and a half game lead?
Speaker 5: We're almost into September. Do the Rays have a big
Speaker 5: enough lead that we can say they're gonna win the
Speaker 5: Al East?
Speaker 2: You know what? No, I don't think that the Rays
Speaker 2: want to feel that way.
Speaker 3: And I certainly don't want to feel that way that
Speaker 3: Rays have a tougher portion of their schedule coming. I
Speaker 3: think their next four or five series are against teams
Speaker 3: that currently would be in the playoffs. And maybe that
Speaker 3: doesn't mean a whole lot, because you know, the American
Speaker 3: League is so down, but yeah, I don't think it's
Speaker 3: by any stretch over at all.
Speaker 2: But I will tell you this.
Speaker 3: If you get a six and a half a seven
Speaker 3: game lead, and a week from now we're having the
Speaker 3: same conversation, you start to get into that territory where
Speaker 3: you're like, you know what if you don't win this division,
Speaker 3: then the the C word, the collapse word, maybe starts
Speaker 3: to get dropped because now you've got to you're a
Speaker 3: week closer, you know, to the end of August.
Speaker 2: You've got this big lead, and you have to you know.
Speaker 3: That's that's where they're That's the position they're putting themselves in,
Speaker 3: which is a great position to be.
Speaker 2: In, to have that kind of a lead.
Speaker 3: But I think right now they are focused on the
Speaker 3: day to day. I mean, I'm not comfortable with that leads.
Speaker 3: It's a wonderful lead, but we've seen how quickly it
Speaker 3: can go. It wasn't that long ago. The Rays have
Speaker 3: been on a really good run obviously as of late,
Speaker 3: but coming out of the All Star Break when Boston
Speaker 3: was red hot. They Boston swept them in a four
Speaker 3: game series and outscored them twenty eight to ten. And
Speaker 3: then the team goes to Toronto and loses the first
Speaker 3: game up there, so that quick five games let New
Speaker 3: York you know, right back in it, and so something
Speaker 3: like that can happen, and then you double down the
Speaker 3: final week of the season. The Rays finished the season
Speaker 3: on the road at the New York Yankees, four game
Speaker 3: series in three days with a doubleheader, and then at Philadelphia,
Speaker 3: so they've got some tough games coming up. The Yankees
Speaker 3: may still have to say if they can get down
Speaker 3: to that final week of the season, they've got the
Speaker 3: We got an off day on Monday, doubleheader Tuesday, played
Speaker 3: them Wednesday, Thursday, and then and then move it along.
Speaker 3: So at that point the Rays want to be out
Speaker 3: of reach, no question about it. But we will see
Speaker 3: there's still a tough road to go.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I like this team. I think they'll be able to
Speaker 1: hand that. I loved the Liam Hicks addition two, which
Speaker 1: we can get into after. I had one question for
Speaker 1: you though, kind of relating back to the Yondi factor.
Speaker 1: How different is the mix this year compared to I
Speaker 1: don't know if it was last year or maybe the
Speaker 1: year before. They were public and vocal about how they
Speaker 1: didn't feel like they had the right mesh behind the scenes.
Speaker 1: We always debate that, like how much does it really
Speaker 1: matter versus the talent you have? But you follow the
Speaker 1: team every day, So can you take us through the
Speaker 1: timeline of how things changed in terms of who is
Speaker 1: running the ship from the player perspective and how that
Speaker 1: affects what you see on the field.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I mean I've heard the same whispers.
Speaker 3: Whatever they had was going on was something that was
Speaker 3: not I mean I never saw it. You know, you
Speaker 3: hear things, but I'm like, man on the plane of
Speaker 3: them downstairs out on the field, Yeah.
Speaker 2: You never saw that.
Speaker 3: But this iteration, and we've talked about it earlier, this
Speaker 3: team is as close. I'm telling you, I really haven't
Speaker 3: seen that for the Race. Just speaking of my time
Speaker 3: with the Race, I've never seen a more close knit
Speaker 3: team and certainly a guy that doesn't get a lot
Speaker 3: of You ask anybody around the team about who the
Speaker 3: leader of the team is and I think that it
Speaker 3: would be the guy that they nicknamed El Presidente. And
Speaker 3: and this is really strange too, because you don't typically
Speaker 3: find that kind of leadership for a team coming from
Speaker 3: a pitcher.
Speaker 2: But Nick Martinez is the glue on this team.
Speaker 3: Nick Martinez is the guy that gets all of the
Speaker 3: dinners put together, gets everything organized.
Speaker 2: He is the guy.
Speaker 3: And it was funny because he had an opportunity for
Speaker 3: his first nine inning complete game win his last time out,
Speaker 3: and after the eighth inning or after the seventh inning,
Speaker 3: Kevin Cash had gone to him and said, Hey, what
Speaker 3: do you think And He's like, do you even need
Speaker 3: to ask me?
Speaker 2: I'm finishing this game.
Speaker 3: And then after the eighth inning, you know when he's
Speaker 3: going back out there, it got a little bumpy in
Speaker 3: the ninth a couple of runs, some extra base hits,
Speaker 3: and you're thinking, oh my gosh, they're going to go
Speaker 3: get him.
Speaker 2: You're taking that shot down to the bullpen.
Speaker 3: And Kevin Kash had said after the game that that
Speaker 3: dugout wanted that complete game for him so badly. He's like,
Speaker 3: there's no way I could have gone and got him.
Speaker 3: That that's the kind of cachet that he has with
Speaker 3: his teammates where they they're gonna win the game a
Speaker 3: huge lead, but they want to see.
Speaker 2: He had one complete game in his.
Speaker 3: Career and it was the final start a couple of
Speaker 3: seasons ago when he was with Cincinnati. He lost a
Speaker 3: one nothing game in Chicago, so it was an eight
Speaker 3: inning complete game in a loss. So this was his
Speaker 3: first chance to get a nine inning complete game. Obviously
Speaker 3: with the win. And I guess that the buzz down
Speaker 3: in that dugout was he finishes, he finishes this game,
Speaker 3: and of course he did and he got it. But
Speaker 3: that is the kind of group that that has been
Speaker 3: a mass that right there, that guy right there, Nick
Speaker 3: Martinez is the un He may not even be the
Speaker 3: unherralded leader.
Speaker 2: Of this team at this point.
Speaker 3: Uh but but yeah, it's it's his close knit of
Speaker 3: a group.
Speaker 2: I think it does matter. I don't. It doesn't always
Speaker 2: necessarily have to matter.
Speaker 3: I'm sure there's lots of teams throughout history where that
Speaker 3: wasn't the case. You had twenty five players, twenty five
Speaker 3: cabs after a game. We've all heard the stories. But
Speaker 3: this team, they have a special, a special bond. It's
Speaker 3: it's apparent to anybody who spends a minute around them.
Speaker 7: I think that matters too. I think that's very important
Speaker 7: for teams that want to go deep into October. You said,
Speaker 7: this lineup I think is lengthier than we're giving a credit.
Speaker 7: I think they have speed. I think they play the
Speaker 7: right way. They lay the bunts down, So I love that.
Speaker 7: The pitching. Let's say things do stay the course. Let's
Speaker 7: say they make it into postseason baseball. What are you
Speaker 7: worried about for this team? What could be the one
Speaker 7: thing that does this team in that might be something
Speaker 7: that they face. What's maybe their weakness or what can
Speaker 7: they go up against that might be the trick to
Speaker 7: beat this hot team.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, the only thing that I see as
Speaker 3: an achilles heel, and this is, you know, paining with
Speaker 3: a broad brush, the huge strikeout team. As far as
Speaker 3: the pitching, you know, they're way down. They're thirteenth, fourteenth
Speaker 3: in the America League in strikeouts, and you know how
Speaker 3: important that is in the postseason.
Speaker 2: You've got to be able to miss bats.
Speaker 3: And they certainly can miss them when they need to,
Speaker 3: but that has not been something that has driven this
Speaker 3: pitching staff. They do a great job as a group,
Speaker 3: they do a great job of keeping the ball off
Speaker 3: the barrel of the bat, but they don't miss a
Speaker 3: lot of bats like other teams mighty, and so maybe
Speaker 3: that's something that you look at a big reason for that.
Speaker 2: And this is really interesting too.
Speaker 3: And you know the Rays, they don't do anything by happenstance,
Speaker 3: by chance, and so when you look at this pitching staff,
Speaker 3: because they don't have those overpowering, blow you away guys,
Speaker 3: especially in the starting rotation, they lean on the change out.
Speaker 3: Last year, the Rays used to change up a little
Speaker 3: over eleven percent of the time as a staff. This
Speaker 3: year they're up around twenty one percent. They've almost doubled
Speaker 3: their usage. And I think since all this stuff has
Speaker 3: been tracked by stat CAAT and all of that, they're
Speaker 3: using the change up more as a staff than any
Speaker 3: other team since it started being tracked like that. And
Speaker 3: so that's and it's funny because Nick Martinez kind of
Speaker 3: let the cat out of the bag earlier in the
Speaker 3: season when they were asked about that because the change
Speaker 3: up was playing such a big role. In fact, it
Speaker 3: was this, if you throw a change up, you're going
Speaker 3: to throw it more if you don't throw a change up.
Speaker 3: You're going to learn one and you're going to throw it.
Speaker 3: Drew Rasmussen, Kevin Kelly, those two guys. Kevin Kelly has
Speaker 3: taken his game to another level because now he's got
Speaker 3: two seam, sweep and change up, and he uses his
Speaker 3: change up as his second highest used pitch.
Speaker 2: And Drew Rasmussen has had.
Speaker 3: A ton of success with that change up, a pitch
Speaker 3: that he threw twenty eight total times last year. So
Speaker 3: of getting back to what Nick said, Nick was like,
Speaker 3: you know, as the league continues to search for velocity
Speaker 3: and spin and hitters do nothing but train for velocity
Speaker 3: and getting the bat out and for all the things,
Speaker 3: we're gonna be anti vlow and we're going to pull
Speaker 3: the string. And they have doubled their usage of that
Speaker 3: pitch as a staff and it has worked wonders. But
Speaker 3: going back to your point, it's not a big swing
Speaker 3: and miss strikeout staff, and so in the postseason you
Speaker 3: kind of need that. And again it's not like these
Speaker 3: guys can't go get it when they want to, but
Speaker 3: they're more than conten to go out and try to
Speaker 3: get a guy out and three pitches or fewer.
Speaker 8: I like it.
Speaker 1: I love the way they're running the misdirection be a
Speaker 1: great analysis on all of this. Great to catch up.
Speaker 1: Thank you for the time and keep watching and enjoying this.
Speaker 1: Love hearing you on there.
Speaker 2: Awesome boys. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you Brian Anderson here them on the
Speaker 1: Rays broadcast. And also, oh yeah, I forgot Junior Camonaro shirt.
Speaker 1: It's one of my favorites. The colors just popped sweet
Speaker 1: and now it's really nice. Foul Territory shop dot com.
Speaker 1: It's available, go get it. This is that time of year,
Speaker 1: aj It is Baseball's time to shine, and it is
Speaker 1: see geeks time to shine with MLB tickets and finding
Speaker 1: the best price seating and games that are even sold
Speaker 1: out available on Sea Geek.
Speaker 5: Absolutely if you want to go to the biggest matchups
Speaker 5: coming up. We have Yankees clubs coming up. Where's Yankees
Speaker 5: Red Sox? That means stuff Again, there's some big moments
Speaker 5: that are coming up here in the as the penachases
Speaker 5: really heat up. Go to seke can find those green
Speaker 5: tickets with the best deals and get yourself out to
Speaker 5: an MLB game.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they're straightforward with you They will actually put
Speaker 1: a red dot next to a ticket that they don't
Speaker 1: feel is your best look. Green dot means very good
Speaker 1: code for you. It's Territory ten ten percent off your
Speaker 1: next set of MLB tickets at Sea Geek. That's ten
Speaker 1: percent off MLB tickets when you use the promo code
Speaker 1: Territory one zero. Make sure you click the link in
Speaker 1: the description to download the app and have the code
Speaker 1: automatically added to your account so you can use it later.
Speaker 1: They are just bad for baseball. Cody Stavenhagen, Tiger Territory host,
Speaker 1: then covers the Tigers for the Joining US right now.
Speaker 1: They just did an episode on this topic, and AJ
Speaker 1: has been having spirited back and forth conversations with Tigers
Speaker 1: fans about this. Cody, great to have you on and
Speaker 1: to fill everyone in. I didn't realize how big this
Speaker 1: got in the Midwest. So let's talk through this and
Speaker 1: then you can get into the nitty gritty of the team.
Speaker 1: Why are some people so upset with AJ saying how
Speaker 1: it's not the best look to be right within a
Speaker 1: playoff spot and trade away two of your five starters.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I don't know. I'd stay away from some of
Speaker 8: that stuff.
Speaker 2: On line.
Speaker 8: People didn't like AJ's take. That's fine, And then I
Speaker 8: don't think anyone saw when you kind of tried to
Speaker 8: walk it back a little bit, right, And I just
Speaker 8: don't think anyone paid any attention to that.
Speaker 5: Cody, here's what I say. Here's you know what. I
Speaker 5: probably said it wrongly. It's a bad precedent. It wasn't
Speaker 5: about the Tigers. It wasn't about the and that's kind
Speaker 5: of what I wanted people to understand. It's just a
Speaker 5: bad precedent, right, And the Tigers did this a couple
Speaker 5: of years ago in twenty four were they traded away
Speaker 5: Flaherty and some others and they still win in the
Speaker 5: playoffs and had a night run. So it's just a
Speaker 5: bad precedent when you tell teams, hey, we're going to
Speaker 5: trade away a top five pitcher in baseball and trek school,
Speaker 5: well wherever you want to rank them.
Speaker 4: This year, he's still one of the.
Speaker 5: Top five best, okay, and a guy who you drafted
Speaker 5: one to one in case he mis. But then the
Speaker 5: American League is so crappy that they still have a
Speaker 5: chance to make it. My favorite part, though, is they're
Speaker 5: running this in Chicago radio and people were saying, Oh,
Speaker 5: AJ got the Tigers fired up. If it takes me
Speaker 5: to get your team fired up when you have the
Speaker 5: White Sox coming into town, then there's something wrong with
Speaker 5: you as a team.
Speaker 8: I'm sorry, Yeah, yeah, I don't know how much that
Speaker 8: made its way through the clubhouse. I'm gonna guess not
Speaker 8: a ton. I don't think the Tigers are bad for baseball.
Speaker 8: I think the expanded playoff is bad for baseball. The
Speaker 8: Tigers are operating within the structure of a sport that
Speaker 8: has made it a lot easier to get into the
Speaker 8: playoffs and has created a lot more teams that enter
Speaker 8: the trade deadline on the bubble. It's made the deadline
Speaker 8: a little less exciting. There's less buying, there's less selling.
Speaker 8: Their teams like the Tigers who said, Okay, we have
Speaker 8: a guy in schoobl who we can get a lot
Speaker 8: or we have to move them. We don't have to
Speaker 8: trade away our whole team. And if there were only
Speaker 8: two wild card spots, they might have been more incentivized
Speaker 8: to trade away their whole team. I mean, they weren't
Speaker 8: the only team that functioned like this. The Rangers were
Speaker 8: interested in trading away Jacob de Ground but he used
Speaker 8: as no trade clause, like this is how things go,
Speaker 8: and I think this is what the expanded Playoff has created. Unfortunately,
Speaker 8: there's money tied to it and TV deals tied to it,
Speaker 8: so I don't think it's going away, but it has
Speaker 8: created a structure where it's possible for teams to sell
Speaker 8: and still be right in it. The Tigers also play
Speaker 8: in a division that just doesn't have a clear front
Speaker 8: running team. It probably should have been the Tigers, but
Speaker 8: they underachieved so badly for the first half of this season.
Speaker 8: Now now they can still win the division, and I
Speaker 8: guess that will at least ease complaints about the expanded Playoff.
Speaker 1: So where's the team currently at?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: How and I'm with you that definitely can cause some
Speaker 1: of this where every team thinks they're, you know, in
Speaker 1: the fifty four percent range, everyone's favorite number. So where
Speaker 1: is this team currently at?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 1: How much damage can they do here to try and
Speaker 1: make a postseason spot? Right? And then even could they
Speaker 1: surprise some people in October without schoogle in mice because
Speaker 1: people are going to refall in love with Jackson Job
Speaker 1: and Dre Anderson.
Speaker 8: Yeah, we'll see right, I mean, I think they are
Speaker 8: a very real threat to make the playoffs. At the
Speaker 8: time we're talking about this, they are the owners of
Speaker 8: a wild card spot. They're playing their best baseball the year,
Speaker 8: and I think their rotation is for real. I think
Speaker 8: Troy Melton is for real. Cater Montero has been very good.
Speaker 8: Jackson job has nasty stuff we're talking about from Bravaldez
Speaker 8: is maybe their fourth best starting pitcher right now, and
Speaker 8: although he's been kind of a letdown, he's still capable
Speaker 8: of going in and giving you six or seven really
Speaker 8: good innings any time he steps on the mound. The
Speaker 8: lineup's been hot lately. There's been a big youth movement.
Speaker 8: You're seeing guy Max Clark and Wardo Valencia. How you
Speaker 8: Lee contribute. Riley Green just went to the IL, so
Speaker 8: that could be pretty costly. We'll see if they can
Speaker 8: stay hot. I think that's the one thing. If there's
Speaker 8: a cool down coming, that could hurt them. And then
Speaker 8: the bullpen's really interesting because you look at it and
Speaker 8: they have the sixth best bullpen in the ra in baseball,
Speaker 8: but you still don't feel a lot of confidence when
Speaker 8: you're navigating the seventh, eighth, ninth inning I think they
Speaker 8: still have the second most blown saves in the American League.
Speaker 8: There's some advanced metrics like when probability added that aren't
Speaker 8: aren't favorable of this bullpen. You don't have a lot
Speaker 8: of confidence. But yet they have managed to get out
Speaker 8: and do enough to win a lot of games here
Speaker 8: in recent weeks.
Speaker 5: All right, Cody, I'm going full Homer here. You know
Speaker 5: when they're hot, streak ends today because you know they're
Speaker 5: playing They're playing.
Speaker 4: The White Sox, so it's going to end today.
Speaker 7: Right.
Speaker 4: Here's my thing.
Speaker 5: Here's the other thing about the Tiger fans that they
Speaker 5: were telling And I want your I want your opinion.
Speaker 5: If I could be way off on this, and Kip,
Speaker 5: Kip and I have had this conversation.
Speaker 4: When you're a player, you play to win the World Series.
Speaker 4: Your whole goal is to win the World Series.
Speaker 5: And when Tiger fans have been coming at me, fine,
Speaker 5: bring it on, Tiger fans. I love Detroit. I actually
Speaker 5: love the Tiger. You know this, Cody, I actually do.
Speaker 5: I love Hinch, I love Scott Harris. I love going
Speaker 5: to Detroit. It's one of my favorite places, believe it
Speaker 5: or not, to actually go. I've spent so much time there,
Speaker 5: I know where to go. And I love Detroit, Okay,
Speaker 5: I love the Shinola Hotel, and I love all that downtown,
Speaker 5: the New area.
Speaker 4: It's awesome.
Speaker 5: Okay, But when you trade away Trek Scooble and Casey Mice,
Speaker 5: and I know all the guys Melton and all these
Speaker 5: guys job and Fromber and all these guys have been
Speaker 5: really good. But do your chances of winning the World
Speaker 5: Series actually improve by trading them away? Or if you
Speaker 5: kept them and you make the playoffs and you have
Speaker 5: schoobl and Mice, would it be better? And Tiger fans
Speaker 5: are like, We're so happy we got rid of schoobl
Speaker 5: He's a cancer, mys was always hurt.
Speaker 4: We're a better team. Now. Do you believe they're a
Speaker 4: better team without those two if they get into the postseason.
Speaker 8: No, they're not a better team without Trek's Scouoble, especially
Speaker 8: in the postseason. For anyone who's like, oh, well, they
Speaker 8: only threw ninety nine pitches in Game five, I don't know.
Speaker 8: Ninety nine pitches is a lot in today's game. Their
Speaker 8: odds of winning the World Series went down the moment
Speaker 8: they traded Trek Scooble, and the front office knows that,
Speaker 8: and they made a calculated decision. I think they said, Okay,
Speaker 8: we might not win the World Series this year, We're
Speaker 8: still give it our best college try. But they hoped
Speaker 8: trading him away improved their World Series odds for twenty
Speaker 8: twenty seven and twenty twenty eight and twenty twenty nine.
Speaker 8: That's the job of the front office is to balance
Speaker 8: the short term and the long term. They may not
Speaker 8: get everything right and that that was a hard decision
Speaker 8: with Scooble, and I think if they would have played
Speaker 8: even a little bit better, they wouldn't have traded him.
Speaker 8: But they ultimately viewed viewed it as it was probably
Speaker 8: irresponsible to keep Schooble for what especially at the time
Speaker 8: and even still now, it was like an outside chance
Speaker 8: of making a run, right, It would have been a
Speaker 8: big gamble to sacrifice part of your future. They chose.
Speaker 8: They chose to take the return.
Speaker 2: For the teacher.
Speaker 7: I'm gonna go Homer again here too, And it'd be
Speaker 7: a real shame if Cleveland caught both those teams and
Speaker 7: figured it back out instead of shooting themselves in the
Speaker 7: foot a little bit. But I'm just going through the
Speaker 7: injured list right now for you guys with Riley Green,
Speaker 7: the hamstring, Outman, Carpenter, Verlaine Flarity, who is eligible to
Speaker 7: come off their earliest and who do you want to
Speaker 7: see come back? Who's going to give this team the
Speaker 7: biggest jolt back? Where are they missing the most off
Speaker 7: of this right now?
Speaker 8: Yeah, we'll see. I'm not sure any of those guys
Speaker 8: are like knocking on the door of a return. James
Speaker 8: Outman's on the concussion, I l Jack Flaherty has been
Speaker 8: like increasing his throwing, but to my knowledge, not yet
Speaker 8: doing bullpens or anything like that. Riley Green is really
Speaker 8: the big loss, and he just went on the IL
Speaker 8: a couple days ago. We'll see. You know, it's a hammy.
Speaker 8: They think it's mild. Sometimes those things linger. You don't
Speaker 8: want that to become a thing where suddenly you're without
Speaker 8: Riley Green into September. That could be scary because he's
Speaker 8: still a huge part of this lineup. It'd be nice
Speaker 8: to get Kerry Carpenter back too, because your lineup just
Speaker 8: functions a little better when he's in there, and you
Speaker 8: can do the pinch hit and you can make decisions
Speaker 8: on the opposing manager hard, but he's got planar fasci itis.
Speaker 8: That's kind of a weird injury that you also never
Speaker 8: really know how long it's going to take. As of
Speaker 8: earlier this week, he wasn't running yet, So I don't
Speaker 8: think any of these guys are going to be back
Speaker 8: like within the week. Oddly enough, this is like the
Speaker 8: healthiest the Tigers have been all year, and they're still
Speaker 8: without maybe two of their better hitters. And Riley Green
Speaker 8: and carry Carpenter.
Speaker 1: Science experiment for the one minute, we have to tell
Speaker 1: you about why we love Quint's electrolytes, including watermelon salt,
Speaker 1: raspberry salt. And I'm holding a citrus salt, just opened
Speaker 1: it and pour some powder into my water, shake it up,
Speaker 1: and AJ, why do you love it?
Speaker 5: I love Quints because after a long night out, a
Speaker 5: long day at the gym, a long walk in this
Speaker 5: Florida humidity, it tastes great and it gives me all
Speaker 5: the electrolytes I need. Why sugar free steavy of free
Speaker 5: keto approve and taste sweet because of that delicious fermented rice.
Speaker 1: It does taste really good. I'm drinking it right now
Speaker 1: while we talking about it. It's also made in the USA,
Speaker 1: rigorously third party tested. Give your body what it really
Speaker 1: needs to stay hydrated. Go to quints dot com slash
Speaker 1: foul for free shipping on your order and three sixty
Speaker 1: five day returns. That's q u i ncee dot com
Speaker 1: slash fu l for free shipping and three sixty five
Speaker 1: day returns quins dot com slash foul. These statements have
Speaker 1: not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This
Speaker 1: product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent
Speaker 1: any disease.
Speaker 5: Hey, by the way, don't mess with the fast okay, Cody,
Speaker 5: because if you haven't never had it. I've had it free, yeah,
Speaker 5: and I don't want it the other day. It sucks, man,
Speaker 5: it absolutely sucks. You try different shoes, you try different everything,
Speaker 5: sleeping with boots on and all this different stuff, and
Speaker 5: it's like nothing. Every time you think you fixed it,
Speaker 5: boom it pops up again. So don't be making fun
Speaker 5: of Kerry Carboner for having Planner fasciiis.
Speaker 8: Oh, no way, don't. I don't mess with that stuff.
Speaker 8: I haven't had it and I do not want it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's awful. It's one of the worst things. Worth
Speaker 4: worst injuries you can have because you can't ever fit.
Speaker 4: It's like we never fixed, it never goes away. So
Speaker 4: I don't know, I don't know. I digress.
Speaker 5: I'm not going to get into injuries because can't you
Speaker 5: can't test anyone's playing Tallerance.
Speaker 4: He just never You never ever know where we're gonna go. Cody.
Speaker 5: What else in the offense? Torklesen, where's he at? I mean,
Speaker 5: Dylan Dingler has been a stud. He's put himself probably
Speaker 5: in the top two or three catchers in baseball at
Speaker 5: the years he year he's had this year? What about
Speaker 5: the offense? Hovey Bayaz has been quietly better? Right, So
Speaker 5: where does the Tigers offense? If these guys don't come back,
Speaker 5: where do they turn?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 8: I would say Dylan Dingler has been the top one
Speaker 8: catcher in baseball this year. He's been unbelievable. He has
Speaker 8: cooled off a little bit, you know, like one for
Speaker 8: his last twenty two, but he's having a phenomenal year.
Speaker 8: Torkleson's been really good lately, coming back since the All
Speaker 8: Star Break. He's kind of changed his approach. He's taken
Speaker 8: more singles. He only has like one holder in that time.
Speaker 8: But this is a guy with big natural power. I
Speaker 8: don't think anyone should be worried about his home run power.
Speaker 8: He is suddenly looking like the most complete, the most
Speaker 8: well rounded I've ever seeing him at the plate. He's
Speaker 8: using the whole field a little more. He's still covering
Speaker 8: the fastball, but he's saying curveballs. He's hitting off speed,
Speaker 8: you know, for bass hits. You look at the launch
Speaker 8: angle sweet spot. He ranks in the ninety ninth percentile,
Speaker 8: which basically just means he's hitting a lot of line drives.
Speaker 8: Like I said, using the whole field better than ever.
Speaker 8: It could be pretty huge if he could continue to
Speaker 8: do anything remotely like this, because he's a hitter who's
Speaker 8: been pretty boom or bust for most of his major
Speaker 8: league career, and suddenly he's looking like that more well
Speaker 8: rounded guy he was drafted to be. Kevin mcgonagall's just
Speaker 8: a tear guys. Kevin McGonagall leads the American League in
Speaker 8: war according to Baseball Reference. Like he is a rookie,
Speaker 8: he is twenty one years old. Not enough people are
Speaker 8: talking about that. He is one of those guys who
Speaker 8: comes up and it feels like every time he steps
Speaker 8: to the plate, He's going to hit the ball hard somewhere.
Speaker 8: Totally changes the complexion of the Tigers order and the
Speaker 8: contributions they've been getting from young guys. Max Clark has
Speaker 8: come up and held his own. This guy at Wardo Valencia,
Speaker 8: most fans probably haven't heard him. He has a twelve
Speaker 8: hundred ops through his first sixteen career games like he
Speaker 8: can hit the ball a long way. How you lead,
Speaker 8: and so it's become a younger lineup and we will see.
Speaker 8: I think the league is going to start adjusting. They
Speaker 8: already have to lee to Clark to Valencia. Can those
Speaker 8: guys hold their own once they start getting pitched a
Speaker 8: little bit tougher. I think that's a big question to
Speaker 8: watch for the next six weeks here now.
Speaker 7: As hitters, we're taught to put the ball in play.
Speaker 7: Good things happen when you put the ball in play.
Speaker 7: No strikeout, shutout done by you guys. That is impressive.
Speaker 7: That means twenty seven guys are putting the ball in
Speaker 7: play and nothing's happening from him. I didn't get to
Speaker 7: watch the game, but I mean obviously followed along. What
Speaker 7: was that like to see just where everybody's hitting it,
Speaker 7: but nothing's coming from it.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it was pretty interesting. I mean, there was a
Speaker 8: lot of weak context, so it didn't feel like complete luck.
Speaker 8: But then you look back, not only did the Tigers
Speaker 8: not strike anyone out, They're pitching staff induced only two whiffs,
Speaker 8: only two swings and misses the entire game. Cater Montero
Speaker 8: got them. Both batters swung thirty seven times against them,
Speaker 8: they only swung and miss twice. That's kind of a
Speaker 8: staple of this Guardenans lineup. They don't swing and miss
Speaker 8: a lot. They make it tough on you. I don't
Speaker 8: think you could replicate that. I mean, Montero did a
Speaker 8: good job being aggressive throwing strikes. Bopen came in and
Speaker 8: did their job, Tyler holding in Kinley Jansen, But I
Speaker 8: don't think that's the recipe you're really looking for. There's
Speaker 8: a reason no one had done that in baseball since
Speaker 8: twenty fourteen. It does require some pretty unreal badmitball luck.
Speaker 4: Cody.
Speaker 5: By the way, it's nice that you're talking about Kevin McGonagall,
Speaker 5: but too bad he's not gonna be.
Speaker 4: Rookie of the Year.
Speaker 5: It's fine so having a great year, though it's not
Speaker 5: gonna be Rookie of the year.
Speaker 4: That's it. You know who is? It's fine, we all
Speaker 4: know who's going to be the rookie the year.
Speaker 8: Look, Murray Comedy can hit the ball. A long wait
Speaker 8: there respect for that guy. Like Kevin McGonagall leads baseball
Speaker 8: in war at twenty one, Like, come on now, Hel, I.
Speaker 4: Know he Murk Comy's in the eighty Oh Scott, don't
Speaker 4: you know?
Speaker 1: I'm saying McGonagall doesn't leave baseball in war. PCA does
Speaker 1: as far as I know. Yeah, but markami is I
Speaker 1: think way behind McGonagall in that category. And guess what,
Speaker 1: aj he brings it up for good reason. Many of
Speaker 1: his colleagues in the BBWAA vote with War in mind.
Speaker 1: It is a very critical stat is it, not, Cody.
Speaker 2: It is.
Speaker 8: We may be at this rate, we may be going
Speaker 8: back to the Miguel Cabrera Mike Trout debate, because who's
Speaker 8: going to win the al the al MVP. We have
Speaker 8: jord On Alvarez, who might win the triple crown, all right,
Speaker 8: so pretty hard to knock that. But right now McGonagall
Speaker 8: and Dingler are right up there in War. There there
Speaker 8: will be a case. I think there will be at
Speaker 8: least one Tiger getting some serious MVP votes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, top three for sure.
Speaker 5: If jord On Alvarez doesn't win the MVP and you
Speaker 5: win the Triple Crown and they make the postseason, there's
Speaker 5: something wrong with all you BBWA people.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry.
Speaker 5: I'm sorry, there's some there's some wrong. I love you guys,
Speaker 5: but there's something wrong with y'all for sure. And by
Speaker 5: the way, Cooper Wallas has the same war as Kyle Schwarber,
Speaker 5: just saying I saw that tweet last night, so that's
Speaker 5: pretty pretty amazing that I don't know.
Speaker 4: Taylor Wall. Sorry, sorry, not Cooper Wall. Sorry Taylor Walls. Yeah,
Speaker 4: the same as the same war.
Speaker 8: That really was going to be amazing because I was like,
Speaker 8: I don't know who Cooper Walls is.
Speaker 4: Apparently neither do I, so it's fine.
Speaker 1: That is a crazy stat though, Cody, good stuff man,
Speaker 1: Thank you, and much more of course on the recent
Speaker 1: Tiger Territory episode, which I encourage everyone to check out.
Speaker 1: Also check out Cody's articles in The Athletic. But thank you, Cody.
Speaker 8: All right, thanks guys, appreciate it.
Speaker 1: And here it is Tiger Territory QR code on the screen.
Speaker 1: If you want to be lazy and just smack that
Speaker 1: and then it'll take you right to it.
Speaker 2: Go check it out.