Speaker 1: Hey, this is Kyle Stowers and you're listening to Fish
Speaker 1: on First. Welcome back to Fish on First Live, part
Speaker 1: of the Fish on First podcast presented by Jessica Rensels
Speaker 1: of South Florida, part of the Foul Territory Network. I'm
Speaker 1: Eli Sussman, the founder of f o F. I have
Speaker 1: good news and bad news. So we'll start with the
Speaker 1: good news, which is we're back to our regularly scheduled programming,
Speaker 1: you could say, having these live streams after every Marlin
Speaker 1: series finale, which we did most of the first half
Speaker 1: of the season. The schedule got a little wonky surrounding
Speaker 1: the All Star break, but now we're back to having
Speaker 1: these twice a week at pretty expected times, and we're
Speaker 1: glad that you guys could tune in for those live
Speaker 1: if you're able to. And the bad news is everything else.
Speaker 1: If you're a Marlins fan. Everything else is pretty pretty
Speaker 1: pretty bad for this team, most recently this weekend against
Speaker 1: the Brewers getting swept in three in a row with
Speaker 1: a particularly dramatic ending to this three game series. We're
Speaker 1: gonna start right there with the man on top of
Speaker 1: everybody's mind, I think right now, Pete Fairbanks. The Marlins
Speaker 1: leading one nothing heading into the bottom of the ninth today,
Speaker 1: trying to salvage a single game from the series. Coming
Speaker 1: into this in the midst of a five game of
Speaker 1: losing streak, which had matched their longest losing streak of
Speaker 1: the season, and Fairbanks immediately you kind of knew things
Speaker 1: were going off. The rails allows a leadoff hit, a
Speaker 1: hard hit ball up the middle, then a walk, gets
Speaker 1: one out and then serves up an absolute cookie to
Speaker 1: William Contreras for a walk off, three run home run
Speaker 1: that sunk the Marlins overall. And yeah, so the now
Speaker 1: find themselves having lost six in a row, and it
Speaker 1: feels a lot longer than that, doesn't it, Because you
Speaker 1: have the All Star break in the middle. The Marlins
Speaker 1: have not won a game in eleven days, and it's
Speaker 1: going to be at least twelve days in between wins,
Speaker 1: of course, because they don't play again until Monday. So
Speaker 1: to have that kind of streak in the middle of
Speaker 1: the season is excruciating for a team that actually has expectations,
Speaker 1: for one that has performed so well for so much
Speaker 1: of the season, and then to have this abrupt change
Speaker 1: in performance level is understandably pretty jarring. If you are
Speaker 1: a long time Marlins fan. Though it feels kind of familiar,
Speaker 1: doesn't it, Because the last time the Marlins had expectations
Speaker 1: deep into the season was twenty twenty three, and that year,
Speaker 1: almost perfectly in sync, they had a massive losing streak.
Speaker 1: That one was coming directly out of the All Star Break,
Speaker 1: and this one is, you know, wrapped around the All
Speaker 1: Star break, having been swept by the Guardians heading into
Speaker 1: the break, and now three straights so far since then.
Speaker 1: But wow, So that kind of shows you it's an
Speaker 1: interesting it's an interesting, you know, comparison between those two
Speaker 1: years that had quite a bit in common to this point,
Speaker 1: and the Marlins hope that by the end of the year.
Speaker 1: It's a reminder that this is still such a long season,
Speaker 1: with so much time ahead, that there's still time to
Speaker 1: right the ship and to get back and to establish
Speaker 1: themselves as firm contenders before the trade deadline, to make
Speaker 1: moves at the deadline that make this team better, and
Speaker 1: to hold off and make it back to the postseason.
Speaker 1: But understandably, there's a lot to pick apart about what
Speaker 1: the Marlins are are are like right now and things
Speaker 1: that are going bad. I didn't notice this, as Brian
Speaker 1: points out that Marlins Man was at a Marlins game
Speaker 1: during it must have been during that final home stand
Speaker 1: before the break, and since then they have they've been winless.
Speaker 1: I guess that was the first Guardians game of that
Speaker 1: series that he showed up in the stands. I don't
Speaker 1: think he's to blame for this, And I brought up
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty three losing streak as well, because I think,
Speaker 1: just like that, it's not like the Marlins were getting
Speaker 1: blown out during that stretch either, like there were a
Speaker 1: lot of close games that were not going against them.
Speaker 1: I remember against it was a road trip against the
Speaker 1: Orioles and against the Saint Louis Cardinals, and similar to
Speaker 1: this series against the Brewers, losing two to one in
Speaker 1: extra innings the first game, second game eight to six,
Speaker 1: although that one was more lopsided than final score indicated,
Speaker 1: and then this one, having taken the lead a few
Speaker 1: innings in, won nothing throughout pretty much the entire contest
Speaker 1: until the bottom of the ninth. So that's kind of
Speaker 1: that's a good and the bad of it, the fact
Speaker 1: that they're losing all these games, but most of them
Speaker 1: going back to that Guardian series, have been competitive for
Speaker 1: the most part, they just ended up getting beat by
Speaker 1: teams that they themselves have winning records. The Brewers, I think,
Speaker 1: anyway you slice it, they are a top two team
Speaker 1: in all of Major League Baseball so far this season. Like,
Speaker 1: there's no shame in losing a road series against the
Speaker 1: team that is this complete and this well rounded, the
Speaker 1: one that led major League Baseball and wins last season.
Speaker 1: That would be totally unsurprising if they did it again
Speaker 1: this year. So them and the Dodgers kind of neck
Speaker 1: and neck for that honor, and they Yeah, they're just
Speaker 1: a really well rounded team that you can see in
Speaker 1: moments in this series that their level of execution, attention
Speaker 1: to detail, and just overall talent level two is a
Speaker 1: step above where the Marlins are. So there's no shame
Speaker 1: in losing this kind of series. It's just that losing
Speaker 1: all three and then to lose it some of the
Speaker 1: mistakes of the Marlins made on their end to make
Speaker 1: up the difference when it came down to this. That's
Speaker 1: really what bothers you as somebody that's following this team
Speaker 1: and worried about whether this is actually going to be sustainable.
Speaker 1: If this is the signal of bigger issues going on.
Speaker 1: But we do have to talk quite a bit about
Speaker 1: Fairbanks himself, because, yeah, Fairbanks in the middle of this
Speaker 1: final loss. This is kind of the He's the poster
Speaker 1: child for why saves and blown saves aren't really a
Speaker 1: useful stat never really have been, but certainly not now anymore.
Speaker 1: This is only Pete Fairbanks's third blown save of the
Speaker 1: entire season. If you can believe that a guy that
Speaker 1: has been an unmitigated failure in that role this season
Speaker 1: has only blown three saves by the definition of that,
Speaker 1: of course, that doesn't come close to really encapsulating how
Speaker 1: much Fairbanks has struggled, especially relative to expectations this season.
Speaker 1: It's been bad. The numbers have been ugly all season long.
Speaker 1: But I think my self, a lot of our fof staff,
Speaker 1: a lot of neutral observers would say that for a
Speaker 1: lot of April, a lot of May this there were
Speaker 1: signs of him being unlucky, that this stuff was going
Speaker 1: to even out with a larger sample size. This was
Speaker 1: a guy that was thrown quite a bit of strikes,
Speaker 1: and that was the distinction between his run prevention and
Speaker 1: his actual underlying peripherals. Showed that that was going to
Speaker 1: close at some point if he was continuing to execute
Speaker 1: his pitches the way that he had been early in
Speaker 1: the season, things were going to even out. There's like
Speaker 1: this really brief stretch where that may have been happening,
Speaker 1: and then you have this most recent streak that really
Speaker 1: it's back almost a full month at this point, where
Speaker 1: he has been worse than at any other point this
Speaker 1: season in terms of any way you want to slice it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so the numbers themselves kind of speak volumes about that
Speaker 1: on Fairbanks. I can pull some of them up on here,
Speaker 1: and I'll take a picture of his savants sliders that
Speaker 1: people love to look at that tell an interesting story
Speaker 1: of a guy who still has pretty great raw stuff
Speaker 1: overall and that is still striking out batters at a
Speaker 1: rate as awfully close to his career averages. The thing
Speaker 1: is that there are still uncharacteristic struggles going on with Fairbanks,
Speaker 1: Like in this case, I'd say this game was a
Speaker 1: great encapsulation of what has been so poor about Fairbanks
Speaker 1: here in twenty twenty six. It ends in a way
Speaker 1: that speaks to his vulnerability to home runs and his
Speaker 1: vulnerability to balls in the air in general, Like of
Speaker 1: all those sliders. His biggest weakness right now is not
Speaker 1: getting balls on the ground whatsoever. This is a guy
Speaker 1: for his career has been decent at getting grounders, Like
Speaker 1: a career ground ball rate of forty five percent is
Speaker 1: a little bit higher than average. This year, it's sliced
Speaker 1: in half twenty four percent by Baseball Savants measurements, twenty
Speaker 1: two percent by fangrafts. He's one of the most extreme
Speaker 1: flyball pitchers in all baseball. And the thing is, a
Speaker 1: lot of those flyballs are going for home runs this year.
Speaker 1: Today was the eighth home run he's allowed this season.
Speaker 1: That's already a new career high for a guy that
Speaker 1: has been in the league for parts of eight seasons.
Speaker 1: Set a career high this early in the year speaks
Speaker 1: to the fact that this is such a different, different
Speaker 1: type of player than he was his previous few years.
Speaker 1: To be that vulnerable, to be hit that hard. It's
Speaker 1: not only the home runs. Average exit velocity in the
Speaker 1: second percentile in all of baseball, one of the very
Speaker 1: very worst, meaning he's lying some of the very hardest
Speaker 1: hit balls on average, not just the homers. And today
Speaker 1: was again not only the home run by contraras, but
Speaker 1: also the leadoff single by Cheerio that ended up getting
Speaker 1: that rally started in the ninth inning. Hitters are just
Speaker 1: getting a really they're getting their a swings off against Fairbanks,
Speaker 1: and when they're when he's not in the zone, then
Speaker 1: they're drawing their walks too, So he's been walking batters
Speaker 1: a little bit more often than he has previously as well.
Speaker 1: It's just a guy that's not an effective picture right now.
Speaker 1: His commands in general has been just really bad, like
Speaker 1: a guy that it's not only the strike throwing, it's
Speaker 1: that when he does throw strikes, it's a lot of
Speaker 1: cookies down the middle of the plate that are getting
Speaker 1: absolutely demolished for a guy that there was an excitement
Speaker 1: of course heading into this year, not only about his
Speaker 1: track record but the fact that he was expanding his
Speaker 1: pitch mikes a little bit. He was going to try
Speaker 1: to become a four pitch pitcher this season, and you
Speaker 1: can see he's sorta has been this year. Occasional change
Speaker 1: ups in there, but he has settled into more of
Speaker 1: a three pitch guy, a fastball, a cutter, and a slider.
Speaker 1: The cutter was supposed to be an interesting wrinkle in
Speaker 1: here to help him, especially against left handed hitters, and
Speaker 1: hasn't really made much of an impact in this particular
Speaker 1: game though. It was the slider that ends up allowing
Speaker 1: the home run to Contreras, and it's been the fastball
Speaker 1: overall this season that's just posted some really gruesome numbers
Speaker 1: against it. It's a guy that still throws hard. He
Speaker 1: still has an average fastball well, i'll say a ninety
Speaker 1: seven point three. That's as high as any pitcher on
Speaker 1: this marvelin staff. And it doesn't really matter if you
Speaker 1: have all these other shortcomings in various other parts of
Speaker 1: his game. You can see the fastball value there minus
Speaker 1: ten runs of run value on his fastball. That's one
Speaker 1: of the very worst fastballs in all baseball, despite throwing
Speaker 1: it as hard as he does, and you could watch it.
Speaker 1: You can just tell by watching it like you don't
Speaker 1: need him. He don't really need the stats and measurables
Speaker 1: behind it to know that it's an ineffective pitch for him,
Speaker 1: despite how how hard that he throws. So I think
Speaker 1: we'll touch briefly before going to break about Clayton McCullough's
Speaker 1: role in this, because Fairbanks has been the Marlins essential
Speaker 1: full time closer for this season. He missed a little
Speaker 1: bit time due to injury, but that was a minimum
Speaker 1: il sent. He missed a few days when he was
Speaker 1: on the paternity list earlier in the year. Outside of that,
Speaker 1: he's been the go to option as long as he's
Speaker 1: been on decent amount of rest. He's been in there
Speaker 1: for all these safe situations or even all these tide
Speaker 1: games that are also where you call upon your highest
Speaker 1: leverage reliever. And he's not only has he been the
Speaker 1: closer throughout all this, but he has the vote of
Speaker 1: confidence from Clayton McCullough moving forward. That it was a
Speaker 1: question that had to be asked postgame. Who was Stephen
Speaker 1: Strom of Marlins Radio that at least broached the topic
Speaker 1: For a guy that is so out of sync, he's
Speaker 1: still the guy in safe situations, and McCullough said that
Speaker 1: they still have a lot of belief in him. At
Speaker 1: the same time acknowledging that it's more than bad luck,
Speaker 1: that this is a guy that has a bit out
Speaker 1: of sync, that he needs to go back to the
Speaker 1: drawing board with their pitching coaches, and so that to
Speaker 1: me is a contradiction, like to say, that your utmost
Speaker 1: belief in the guy, but at the same time you
Speaker 1: feel like he needs some sort of intervention with the
Speaker 1: coaches to actually figure out what's going wrong. That would
Speaker 1: tell you that he's not in He's not necessarily on
Speaker 1: the cusp of flipping the switch and becoming a reliable
Speaker 1: option for this team right now. The other side of
Speaker 1: it is that if you take him out of that role,
Speaker 1: who do you put into it? Right now? This is
Speaker 1: Marlin's bullpen that we shouldn't have super short memory for
Speaker 1: the month of June in particular, I think the biggest difference.
Speaker 1: It was really a lot of things going right for
Speaker 1: this team, just going back a few weeks, but a
Speaker 1: big part of it was the bullpen. At a time
Speaker 1: when their rotation was super thin due to injuries at
Speaker 1: times going with like a two and a half man rotation,
Speaker 1: they were filling it with bullpen games. They were leaning
Speaker 1: so heavily on their relievers, and a bunch of different
Speaker 1: guys were doing really well in those positions, including Fairbanks
Speaker 1: in his that was I guess his best stretch of
Speaker 1: the season the early part of June. So how does
Speaker 1: that go from a strength to all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: this big point of concern. I think that is just
Speaker 1: the way baseball is. Sometimes there is that unit in particular,
Speaker 1: you can go from one high to an extreme low
Speaker 1: in terms of your confidence level over a period of time,
Speaker 1: just because the samples are really small. And with this
Speaker 1: Marlin's bullpen right now, like there's not an obvious place
Speaker 1: to go when it comes to who would be the
Speaker 1: better option as a as a closer. You could go
Speaker 1: through the list right now. Due to injuries. Anthony Bender
Speaker 1: I think would have been the next name to come
Speaker 1: to minds if he was healthy, but he's been out
Speaker 1: for several weeks due to a shin injury and the
Speaker 1: Lays update on him it's going to be several weeks
Speaker 1: more until realistically has a chance to return. So with
Speaker 1: him out, it's been a lot of la like Baker
Speaker 1: in a variety of roles, including as an opener, and
Speaker 1: that's a guy that's he's been up and down, and
Speaker 1: you know, there's there's a lot of consistencies with him,
Speaker 1: especially with his strike throwing in general. Calvin Fouche is
Speaker 1: somebody that he is probably thinking in the back of
Speaker 1: his mind, thinking banks for blowing up today's game, because
Speaker 1: Fouchet was the culprit in the middle game of this
Speaker 1: series on Saturday when they had I believe it was
Speaker 1: a three to two lead when he came in into
Speaker 1: the sixth thenning, and he allowed a crooked number in
Speaker 1: that performance. Chet has been a huge disappointment for a
Speaker 1: guy that also had relatively high expectations coming into the year.
Speaker 1: His ERA is now north of five. It's been a problem,
Speaker 1: the same combination of bad control and getting hit harder
Speaker 1: than you would expect from Fouche. Aside from that, yeah,
Speaker 1: like you're not expecting much from Ryan Gusto of course,
Speaker 1: or Tyler zuperg has been somewhat of a bright spot
Speaker 1: to this point as a guy that was called up
Speaker 1: right around that June point when they just needed as
Speaker 1: many arms as possible out of the pen. But injuries
Speaker 1: again are taking a pretty big role here when it
Speaker 1: comes to William Kempner going down with an elbow injury
Speaker 1: just as he was having a promising starts to his
Speaker 1: major league career. John King has looked great this season
Speaker 1: for the most part, and then had a pretty fluky
Speaker 1: ankle injury that he's not quite ready to come back
Speaker 1: from yet. So The next man up, realistically is Michael Peterson,
Speaker 1: somebody that just barely made the opening day roster in
Speaker 1: the first place for this team through another score to
Speaker 1: ending in a third in the series finale to drop
Speaker 1: his ERA below three. He does have the power fastball,
Speaker 1: his control has improved. He's like there are some actual
Speaker 1: profile similarities between Peterson and Fairbanks, except Peterson's been a
Speaker 1: much more effective version of him. But it's a guy
Speaker 1: without much of a track record at all. He's almost
Speaker 1: as old as Fairbanks at thirty two years old, and
Speaker 1: he's basically done nothing at the big league level prior
Speaker 1: to this year. So like he somebody that is steadily
Speaker 1: earning higher leverage opportunities. But if that's the best option
Speaker 1: you have in your bullpen, I think that just speaks
Speaker 1: about the bullpen thing in a really unfortunate spot right now.
Speaker 1: Something I'd like to see you see Tyler Phillips. He's
Speaker 1: on the major league roster right now. He's lined up
Speaker 1: to make another start during the s upcoming series against
Speaker 1: the Astros. He felt like such an obvious thing to
Speaker 1: me to move him back into the bullpen and to
Speaker 1: give somebody else a chance to start. Whether that being
Speaker 1: an internal option or to make a trade, and I
Speaker 1: still think that is coming. I think you're going to
Speaker 1: see Phillips back into this bullpen between now in early August,
Speaker 1: which is a matter of time. But all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: that doesn't feel like it's going to be enough, right
Speaker 1: like just having one good arm rejoined this bullpen from
Speaker 1: a different role. Increasingly, I'm starting to think of that
Speaker 1: going outside of the organization and require requiring a reliever
Speaker 1: is going to be pretty high on the Marlin shopping lists,
Speaker 1: assuming that they even stay in firm contention for these
Speaker 1: next couple of weeks between now in the deadline. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a pretty rough outlook. I just want to remind
Speaker 1: you guys that this stuff is cyclical, even in the
Speaker 1: course of a middle of the season. As low as
Speaker 1: things seen right now for this bullpen, it was in
Speaker 1: a great spot in just a few weeks ago. It
Speaker 1: was such a central reason for why they were doing
Speaker 1: so well on the overall performance side when it came
Speaker 1: to that month of June. So it's still possible for
Speaker 1: them to bounce back, but they're going to need a
Speaker 1: little bit better luck when it comes to the health side.
Speaker 1: They're going to need to get some combination of King Bender,
Speaker 1: even josh Acknes he's been out with injury for a
Speaker 1: while and getting relatively close to return. You need most
Speaker 1: of those guys that come back, and you need to
Speaker 1: hope that nobody else gets hurt. Right now. To me,
Speaker 1: I think that you just prepared to be frustrated with
Speaker 1: this next step of these Pete Fairbanks situation as this
Speaker 1: team remains committed to him. They're only invested in him
Speaker 1: for this year, and you think that this might be
Speaker 1: somewhat of a breaking point when it comes to their
Speaker 1: level of trust in him. But he's not going to
Speaker 1: get released anytime soon. I think he's still going to
Speaker 1: get opportunities relatively high, high leverage situations for the time being.
Speaker 1: And uh, it's I can't say for that. I have
Speaker 1: a whole lot of confidence in him turning things around,
Speaker 1: but the stuff is still there, and it's it's still
Speaker 1: a long season. So it's it is unquestionably, as the
Speaker 1: thumbnail for a Zeppso says like the moments have to
Speaker 1: take an l on this as a signing as a whole,
Speaker 1: like it has there's nothing he's going to do the
Speaker 1: rest of the season. That is going to make this
Speaker 1: look like it was worth the cost. There's nothing that
Speaker 1: he's going to do in terms of adding win probability
Speaker 1: the rest of the stretch that is going to cancel
Speaker 1: out all the damn that he's done so far. But
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean he can't be some part of the
Speaker 1: solution down the stretch if he continues to get some
Speaker 1: sort of opportunities. It's going to just take a whole
Speaker 1: lot of elevated performance from his teammates in order for
Speaker 1: the Bullpens to become somewhat of a strength of this
Speaker 1: team again. But it's still possible that they get to
Speaker 1: that point. So yeah, we're going to take some final
Speaker 1: thoughts about this Brewer series. I'm going to take a
Speaker 1: much closer look at the live chat as well, and
Speaker 1: a whole lot more to get to here on FLF
Speaker 1: Live when we come back from break. But first a
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Speaker 1: I want to highlight this sentiment that I've seen plenty
Speaker 1: of times in the chat and I'm sure I'm going
Speaker 1: to continue to see over these next two plus weeks
Speaker 1: until the actual trade deadline about why don't the Marvels
Speaker 1: make trades now? And the simple answer is it takes
Speaker 1: two to tango, at least two. Sometimes it takes even
Speaker 1: more than two. Teams to make a trade get done,
Speaker 1: and there are a lot of teams out there that
Speaker 1: are still on the fence about whether they want to
Speaker 1: buy or sell. That's the reality of living in this
Speaker 1: world with three wild cards in each league is that
Speaker 1: twenty plus teams are still relatively close to either the
Speaker 1: wild card spot or to contending in their division. There
Speaker 1: are several divisions this year that are very muddled and
Speaker 1: don't have a single grade team at all involved with them,
Speaker 1: which means that at this stage of the season, there
Speaker 1: are only a small number of sellers that are clear
Speaker 1: sellers that are willing to proudly stand up and make
Speaker 1: moves now. And from the buying team standpoint, why do
Speaker 1: you want to limit yourself to us reduced market until
Speaker 1: the actual full market materializes. Like maybe if even the
Speaker 1: Marlins do find somebody on one of these poor teams, well,
Speaker 1: one of these like selling teams that they think is
Speaker 1: a significant boost to what they're doing if they're making
Speaker 1: a trade with incomplete information, because it could only just
Speaker 1: be a matter of days later that another team that's
Speaker 1: sort of on the fence right now struggles enough that
Speaker 1: they go into selling mode and there might be a
Speaker 1: better deal available to them, there might be a player
Speaker 1: that is even more appropriate for their needs. And also,
Speaker 1: just most importantly, the is going to go down teams
Speaker 1: that because it is a at this moment, it's always
Speaker 1: a seller's market several weeks before the deadline. Due to
Speaker 1: those limited number of teams that are willing to sell,
Speaker 1: They're not going to set reasonable prices until it gets
Speaker 1: much closer to the deadline. That is just the way
Speaker 1: that this market functions year in and year out. Like,
Speaker 1: they have the leverage and they know it, and they're
Speaker 1: not going to make a decision yet unless another team
Speaker 1: is going to overpay for them. So I understand from
Speaker 1: what a Marvelin's fan might be thinking that, Like if
Speaker 1: they Marlins have already identified weaknesses on their team that
Speaker 1: need to be addressed one way or the other, an
Speaker 1: extra loss or two between now and the deadline could
Speaker 1: ultimately make the difference between making the playoffs or not.
Speaker 1: So I do understand that argument where it's like, so
Speaker 1: what if you're not getting a great value with this
Speaker 1: particular trade, that may be the difference between saving your
Speaker 1: season or not. All I can tell you is that
Speaker 1: both this front office and I would say the vast
Speaker 1: majority of front offices in baseball are going to operate
Speaker 1: on the idea that getting good value is paramount, like
Speaker 1: that is the main motivation and a lot of the
Speaker 1: things that they try to do, they're not going to
Speaker 1: make it a deal if they don't feel that it's fair,
Speaker 1: regardless of whether they think it's like a necessity to
Speaker 1: actually win and accomplish it a larger goals, like every
Speaker 1: single decision they make, they have to point to something
Speaker 1: that supports it. Otherwise these guys, like the jobs are
Speaker 1: in jeopardy, Like if you are making decisions that aren't
Speaker 1: based on actually data driven decisions these days, then and
Speaker 1: they go wrong for you, then your job is on
Speaker 1: the line. So I think that's the other perspective to
Speaker 1: show for it is that, to put it bluntly, this
Speaker 1: is a way of covering your ass if you're in
Speaker 1: these decision maker positions, like you make a decision that
Speaker 1: you can actually point to the specific reasons why you
Speaker 1: made it when you made it, so that whether it
Speaker 1: works out or not, you can actually show the thought
Speaker 1: process behind it in hindsight and keep your job. And
Speaker 1: all these guys to vary six sens are in the
Speaker 1: job preservation mode, even somebody like Bendix who has a
Speaker 1: strong amount of security. I can tell you that Bruce
Speaker 1: Sherman reiterated when he was on the pod with us.
Speaker 1: I can't believe that was earlier this week. That feels
Speaker 1: like an eternity to go right, But he was on
Speaker 1: Unfiltered with US earlier this week. Even even for somebody
Speaker 1: in Bendix's position, even for a team that is playing
Speaker 1: above its head to this point in the season, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're still gonna make these calculated decisions. So you're just
Speaker 1: not gonna see a trade quite yet when it comes
Speaker 1: to that. And this is a good question from Deefcat.
Speaker 1: If it's a one run game tomorrow, does Fairbanks come
Speaker 1: into that? And despite the public comments, you know, I
Speaker 1: kind of get a feel that probably not. Like he's
Speaker 1: far enough away from being the best version of himself
Speaker 1: that I don't think he's There are a couple of
Speaker 1: schools of thought about whether you want to throw a
Speaker 1: guy back into the fire after getting humiliated in those
Speaker 1: kind of situations, or you want to give him some
Speaker 1: time to breathe. And my read on this is that
Speaker 1: he's gonna get some time to breathe, Like unless they
Speaker 1: really just run out of arms in a close game tomorrow.
Speaker 1: I think they're gonna give him time to go back
Speaker 1: to the drawing board and try to figure something out.
Speaker 1: But that's that's a good question and something that I
Speaker 1: think for from an entertainment standpoint, that would be fascinating
Speaker 1: to see how that plays out if they find themselves
Speaker 1: in a situation against Houston on Monday. I just wanted
Speaker 1: to show you guys a peak behind the scenes. That
Speaker 1: this is uncharacteristic in me, but I had our designers
Speaker 1: put together a thumbnail for this episode before the game
Speaker 1: was actually over. This is the draft lost to history,
Speaker 1: not I guess it would have been lost to history
Speaker 1: if I didn't show it right here. This is what
Speaker 1: I was intending to use as the thumbnail for this episode.
Speaker 1: It says Streak snapped with the photo of Uri. I
Speaker 1: thought that was gonna be the main takeaway from today
Speaker 1: until as of the seventh ending, when the martinsar head
Speaker 1: one nothing. Yury had just come out of the game
Speaker 1: and he had gone through another awesome start for him,
Speaker 1: which has been the vast majority of the time dating
Speaker 1: back to the middle of May. Uri has been incredible.
Speaker 1: So they did not snap their streak as I hope
Speaker 1: that they would, And hopefully this thumbnail is never used
Speaker 1: because if I have to use it on a stream,
Speaker 1: what five six days from now, that means that the
Speaker 1: Morderlins kept losing between now and Yeari's next start. But yeah,
Speaker 1: he was awesome in this particular game, six shutout endings,
Speaker 1: only allowed one hit against the Brewers, a team that's
Speaker 1: such a pesky team just one hit, three walks, nine strikeouts,
Speaker 1: which was his second highest total of the entire season.
Speaker 1: I was so high on Yuri entering twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1: For our staff round table, I picked him as the
Speaker 1: team MVP. I thought he was gonna be the best
Speaker 1: pitcher on this team and their most valuable player overall.
Speaker 1: Like his immense ceiling is obvious, and I thought he
Speaker 1: was going to take steps forward from where he was
Speaker 1: a previous couple of years, and that age pretty poorly
Speaker 1: the first couple months of the season. I mean, we
Speaker 1: had conversations on this show in like early May about
Speaker 1: whether he should be considered for a demotion to the Miners,
Speaker 1: like a brief reset, just because he was allowing a
Speaker 1: lot of small setbacks to snowball into big rallies, he
Speaker 1: wasn't throwing strikes the way he's capable of. He was
Speaker 1: really underperforming deep into the season, and then since then
Speaker 1: he's been awesome. It's a one point two four ERA
Speaker 1: over the last five starts, it's a one point one
Speaker 1: to two ERA over the last seven going back to
Speaker 1: right before his injury, and to me, like that is
Speaker 1: an obvious price spot from the series. Sandy was good
Speaker 1: in his start too, Like Sandy allowing just one run
Speaker 1: in six innings during the first game of that series,
Speaker 1: he continues to leave the league in endings pitch and yeah,
Speaker 1: even Max Meyer where he didn't have it at all
Speaker 1: from the beginning and is able to limit the Brewers
Speaker 1: to just two runs while he was in the game.
Speaker 1: So overall, can you believe that they had three earned
Speaker 1: runs total allowed by their starting pitchers in a three
Speaker 1: game series and ended up losing all three games. You're
Speaker 1: not going to see that very often, And if they're
Speaker 1: able to do that moving forward, then I think you're
Speaker 1: going to be relatively satisfied with the results that come
Speaker 1: from that. So that made this series somewhat of an anomaly.
Speaker 1: But yeah, just to finish off on Yuri the way
Speaker 1: he used his change up. He didn't use it all
Speaker 1: that much in this game, but what stuts me is
Speaker 1: when he used it like it was actually really valuable
Speaker 1: pitches in this one. For the first time this season,
Speaker 1: he got a strikeout against a right handed batter with
Speaker 1: his changeup, but pitch that's usually reserved for lefties. And
Speaker 1: just in general, a trend that I wanted to see
Speaker 1: from him, and it ties in a little bit to Fairbanks,
Speaker 1: is that, like Fairbanks has been such so flyball dependent
Speaker 1: this year, and that's how Yuri was even when he
Speaker 1: was having success as a rookie as recently his last year,
Speaker 1: he was also very extreme when it came to allowing
Speaker 1: fly balls, and this year as a whole has been
Speaker 1: a really big step forward when it comes to that,
Speaker 1: like now, including today, Today was one of his heavier
Speaker 1: ground ball games of the season, and it means his
Speaker 1: ground ball rate overall is at like thirty eight percent,
Speaker 1: which is, you know, within spitting distance of league average,
Speaker 1: and I think that's very important. Like he's a guy
Speaker 1: that is a power pitcher when he's at the peak
Speaker 1: of his career. Whenever he gets there, he's going to
Speaker 1: be very high up there in terms of just missing
Speaker 1: bats in general, but it's also important to get balls
Speaker 1: on the ground because of how much those are more
Speaker 1: likely to turn into outs, how much less likely they
Speaker 1: are to culminate into extra base hits. And that's a
Speaker 1: really positive development for him. So at this point, including
Speaker 1: a start today, he's now down to a three to
Speaker 1: five to three ERA. If you said Uri heading into
Speaker 1: this year is gonna have a three to five to
Speaker 1: three like, that was pretty close to what the average estimate.
Speaker 1: I think he's capable of even more, and I mean
Speaker 1: the way he's looking, it seems sustainable that he's going
Speaker 1: to continue to be Like I don't know if this
Speaker 1: is a bold statement, but to me, Uri is going
Speaker 1: to be their best pitcher the rest of the season.
Speaker 1: I know that Max is an All Star. We know
Speaker 1: that Sandy continues to be really important to this team
Speaker 1: because he's able to eat innings and he has generally pitched.
Speaker 1: It's been a good stretch for him lately as well
Speaker 1: in terms of overall effectiveness. But I think Uri is
Speaker 1: the talents has always has been there throughout and I
Speaker 1: think he made the right subtle adjustments when he's coming
Speaker 1: off the il throwing just a little bit harder, of
Speaker 1: course helps, but as I mentioned with the changeup, that's
Speaker 1: important just generally throwing strikes. And there was that moment
Speaker 1: in this game where it looked like it was going
Speaker 1: to be one of those prototypical collapses from him, where
Speaker 1: he was carrying that shutout into the sixth. He allows
Speaker 1: a leadoff single and then it was an immediate stolen
Speaker 1: base that Yelich takes against him. He hits a batter
Speaker 1: and then it was a double steal, right, I think
Speaker 1: it was three. It was just that one stolen base,
Speaker 1: that's right. It was a one stolen base and then
Speaker 1: hit by pitch and then yeah, what what was it? It
Speaker 1: was that error. Yes, it was a throwing air. It
Speaker 1: wasn't a stolen base. It was essentially a double steal
Speaker 1: because it was a pickoff error on you're trying to
Speaker 1: get the runner out of second base, allowed both arms
Speaker 1: to advance. It was second and third, nobody out, and
Speaker 1: he got help from his defense ultimately to get out
Speaker 1: of the ending. But he did pick up a huge
Speaker 1: strikeout after that. And then it was the double play
Speaker 1: that turned by Snoha that on a hard hit ball
Speaker 1: that was hit to the right spot was able to
Speaker 1: get him out of the ending. But that's one of
Speaker 1: those subtle differences when it comes to the angles of
Speaker 1: the batted balls, Like that's a fly ball hit that hard,
Speaker 1: it's probably an extra base hit. It's at the very
Speaker 1: least to sacrifice fly But because it's a low line
Speaker 1: drive off of the bat, it was able to stay
Speaker 1: in the infield and get turned into a double play.
Speaker 1: So it's a little things like that being able to
Speaker 1: live lower than his own for a guy that I
Speaker 1: think we always thought that like his formula for success
Speaker 1: is going to be elevated fastballs. Elevated fastballs. Noways going
Speaker 1: to be able to hit it when it's elevated like that,
Speaker 1: that's gonna be the formula. That's a lot of the
Speaker 1: times for missing bats. But in order to actually get
Speaker 1: balls in play that are limited damage that are more
Speaker 1: likely to be turned into out, you got to be
Speaker 1: lower in the zone. You got to use the rest
Speaker 1: of your pitch mix that the inclusion of his sinker
Speaker 1: has been big. I think that's an adjustment that we
Speaker 1: noticed right before his injury. Is not only relying on
Speaker 1: the four seamer, but also having that secondary fastball and
Speaker 1: moves in a different way and is able to stay
Speaker 1: away from the barrel. So yeah, I think this is legit.
Speaker 1: Like I didn't need to be sold on Yuri at all,
Speaker 1: as I say, like, coming into this year, I thought
Speaker 1: he was going to be an All Star caliber pitcher
Speaker 1: for this team, and I think he can be the
Speaker 1: rest of this year. I think he could be their
Speaker 1: second half All Star pitcher, if if there was such
Speaker 1: a thing, And I think that is something to be
Speaker 1: excited about, even as rotation depth as a whole continues
Speaker 1: to be a concern for the Marlins. Just some final
Speaker 1: thoughts on this series before we look ahead a little
Speaker 1: bit is, Yeah, we'll see where Max goes from here.
Speaker 1: I don't want to overreact to a shaky Max performance,
Speaker 1: but it always did seem difficult to believe that he
Speaker 1: was going to pitch at that level the entire season.
Speaker 1: So that's an issue. And as Beefcat brings up, but
Speaker 1: some of the others brought up as well, they are
Speaker 1: missing Casey right now. Owen Casey, who was quietly playing
Speaker 1: very good baseball for an extended stretch. He'll be back soon,
Speaker 1: though it doesn't look like that'll be the case. Before
Speaker 1: the end of the month, we should be seeing Owen
Speaker 1: Casey back from the il. That will help offensively. Ultimately.
Speaker 1: That was a big reason why they lost the series,
Speaker 1: because they score eight total runs, and three of those
Speaker 1: runs at the very end of the middle game were
Speaker 1: pretty much in garbage time, facing a lower leverage reliever.
Speaker 1: In the ninth inning when they were down by five,
Speaker 1: Gryffin Conine hits a home run, So that's a good
Speaker 1: segue to just bring up Gryffin Conine really quick. He
Speaker 1: had two home runs in the series. He'd also homered
Speaker 1: in the final game before the All Star break. Statistically,
Speaker 1: Conine has been their best hitter this entire season when
Speaker 1: he's been healthy. Now it's been a very limited sample
Speaker 1: because of that injury that cost him several months. But
Speaker 1: he's now been available for what thirty three games, I
Speaker 1: want to say, and let me pull up the stats here.
Speaker 1: He got a rare start against a left handed pitcher
Speaker 1: today that was good to see. And as a whole
Speaker 1: thirty three games, he's slashing two seventy six, three sixty four,
Speaker 1: five sixty three. So that's an ops of nine to
Speaker 1: twenty seven for Conin. That's the best on the team
Speaker 1: of anybody that has played at all this season, Well,
Speaker 1: it's that's awesome to see for a guy that I
Speaker 1: think has really for the short term, he should be
Speaker 1: in the line of pretty much every single day for
Speaker 1: this team, especially that Kyle Stowers has almost exclusively been
Speaker 1: moved to first base DH. There's plenty of playing time
Speaker 1: available in this outfield now as long as Casey's out,
Speaker 1: and then even when Casey returns, I think Conin is
Speaker 1: a guy that is a half step ahead of him
Speaker 1: on the depth chart when it comes to making those
Speaker 1: who to start, who to sit, who to If they're
Speaker 1: both on the bench against a very tough left to
Speaker 1: who's going to be first in line to pinch hit?
Speaker 1: And uh yeah, Conine, I can't release say enough positive
Speaker 1: about how effective he has been. And yeah, and to
Speaker 1: be fair, and with somewhat of a garbage time home run,
Speaker 1: as Tony brings up here and compares it to Stanton,
Speaker 1: Conin shid some important home runs for this team as
Speaker 1: well this year, So not all garbage time ones when
Speaker 1: it comes to him, but it's been yeah, good to
Speaker 1: see him do that. And when it comes to the
Speaker 1: rest of the position player corps, yeah, Leo he Menez
Speaker 1: is now kind of he's under the microscope a little bit.
Speaker 1: They did call up Graham paul A today and they
Speaker 1: sent down Reese Higins like resigns to me, I didn't
Speaker 1: understand why he was on the Marlins roster in the
Speaker 1: first place, to be honest with you, and he just
Speaker 1: got sent down a Triple A Jacksonville. So now it's
Speaker 1: Layohi Menez kind of under the microscope for them to
Speaker 1: He's got to earn his spot, especially now that Casey
Speaker 1: when he's close to coming back. And as we covered
Speaker 1: on Fish Unfilter that episode dropped on the same feed
Speaker 1: earlier today about who else they have left in Triple
Speaker 1: A Jacksonville. It's getting harder to make the case that
Speaker 1: him Mena should be on this active roster. And even
Speaker 1: if he's just limited to the bench most times, they
Speaker 1: have other intriguing bats, especially right handed bats at the
Speaker 1: Triple A level, that I think are better than humendous.
Speaker 1: So I think his seat is getting a little bit hot,
Speaker 1: even though his production has been better lately. He had
Speaker 1: an RBS single in this series, etc. Yeah, and then
Speaker 1: the last thing to get to with this team would
Speaker 1: have to be Otto Lopez because he missed today after
Speaker 1: injuring his finger on Saturday on a ground ball that
Speaker 1: kind of hopped got him on a bad hop and
Speaker 1: day to day status right now. For Atto Lopez, a
Speaker 1: guy that, as I've highlighted so often this season, has
Speaker 1: been absolutely incredible in terms of the consistency his offensive
Speaker 1: impact while playing a premium defensive position. He's been one
Speaker 1: of his team's best base runners. He's been this team's
Speaker 1: most valuable overall player this season. So missing him for
Speaker 1: any stretch of time, even a single game today against
Speaker 1: the lefty, when he is the very best hitter in
Speaker 1: baseball against lefties today, like he could have made a
Speaker 1: difference in the outcome of this game. He could have
Speaker 1: given Fairbanks a bigger cushion. Maybe they have a big
Speaker 1: enough cushion. That's not even a safe situation, and they
Speaker 1: don't go to Fairbanks. And then if Auto is in
Speaker 1: the line up the entire game, so we're gonna be
Speaker 1: watching his status of his ring finger on a day
Speaker 1: to day basis, and even if he is able to
Speaker 1: play in the very next game, we just hope it
Speaker 1: doesn't affect him moving forward. This is kind of why
Speaker 1: these little things happen so almost every player, especially if
Speaker 1: you're playing practically every game the way that Otto has.
Speaker 1: He's only missed maybe three games this entire season. And
Speaker 1: when you're on the field so much and so many opportunities,
Speaker 1: both offensively and defensively, there are chances for a ball
Speaker 1: to bounce the wrong way, and if it to cause
Speaker 1: even a minor injury, that alters what you do mechanically
Speaker 1: and gets you out of your rhythm. So this is
Speaker 1: something to definitely be on our radar, even if he
Speaker 1: returns to the lineup immediately on Monday. That this is
Speaker 1: the sort of thing that if you're not super duper careful,
Speaker 1: that it could dramatically affect a player's performance and how
Speaker 1: well they perform moving forward. So he has just some
Speaker 1: final injury updates before we go to break on Bender
Speaker 1: and on King. Yeah, King is closer to coming back.
Speaker 1: He's ready throwing some pitches on sessions. Benders in the
Speaker 1: middle of a throwing progression, but not yet off of
Speaker 1: mound if I saw that correctly. So, yeah, King is
Speaker 1: closer to coming back than Bender is. I think there's
Speaker 1: hope that both of them are going to come back
Speaker 1: this season. Is just the bender of the scary part
Speaker 1: is that the injury is somewhat familiar to the one
Speaker 1: that ended his last season prematurely. So with that, then
Speaker 1: take a little break and then briefly look ahead to
Speaker 1: the next series, go through the rest of your questions
Speaker 1: that are coming in here and between now and then,
Speaker 1: of course we've got to go. Give a word to
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Speaker 1: booking Again that's three oh five nine nine to oh
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Speaker 1: dot com. Back here on fof Live, getting ready looking ahead,
Speaker 1: Marlins in the midst of a six game losing streak
Speaker 1: and trying to snap that against Houston. Making the trip
Speaker 1: to the Astros to the newly named dike In Park,
Speaker 1: first time that the months have been there since the
Speaker 1: rebrand from Minute made three game series coming up to
Speaker 1: continuing this road trip Mark We're gonna have boots on
Speaker 1: the ground for this series, Kevin Barrall, our Globe trotter.
Speaker 1: He's gonna be there at Dyke and Park covering this
Speaker 1: series in person, so looking forward to that aspect of it.
Speaker 1: UH series opener Jansen Junk versus Ronald Blanco. Blanco making
Speaker 1: his season debut after missing all this year due to injury,
Speaker 1: and the Astro is an interesting team, one that at
Speaker 1: times this year has been one of the very worst
Speaker 1: in baseball, but as of late are they've climbed close
Speaker 1: enough that they're like trending towards being buyers as we
Speaker 1: move forward in a pretty weak American League West Division,
Speaker 1: and so these games are really important to them, even
Speaker 1: as they're missing several key players Carlos Korea already ruled
Speaker 1: out for the entire season, most notably offensively, being carried
Speaker 1: pretty heavily by Jordan Alparez having the best year of
Speaker 1: his career and one that is probably gonna make him
Speaker 1: the front runner at this point for American League MVP,
Speaker 1: if not in the very inner circle of contenders for that.
Speaker 1: So we'll see what Janson Juncast offer. This is only
Speaker 1: his second star coming back from the IL, and his
Speaker 1: first one being fully stretched out as a starter, So yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know exactly what to expect from him, but
Speaker 1: this is an important audition from him, just because this
Speaker 1: rotation as a whole, like if somebody gets hurt at all,
Speaker 1: where do they go from there? And even outside of injuries.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of you are on the same
Speaker 1: page with me on this that Tyler Phillips is best
Speaker 1: utilized moving forward as a reliever, So who would fill
Speaker 1: in if he's the one that moves to the pen?
Speaker 1: Him and Junker are definitely gonna be under the microscope
Speaker 1: this moving forward because Junk we saw in a small
Speaker 1: sample last year as a reliever he was pretty awesome,
Speaker 1: So like that's another possibility for this Marl and seems
Speaker 1: to consider with Junk if he has any sort of
Speaker 1: issues as a starter moving forward. Second game of the series,
Speaker 1: Tyler Phillips is going to start at least one more time,
Speaker 1: and Tatsuya Emi the Japanese right hand or he's gonna
Speaker 1: be going for the Astros in the middle game. So
Speaker 1: with Phillips, yeah, I don't know exactly what the Marlins
Speaker 1: are waiting for at this point. Maybe they're just waiting
Speaker 1: for a trade that they like to present itself and
Speaker 1: that will take I'll probably take two more full weeks
Speaker 1: for them to be in that trade mode to acquire
Speaker 1: somebody else that they trust more than Phillips. But he
Speaker 1: weirdly made just a one ending appearance on short rest
Speaker 1: on the Sunday before the All Star break. He helped
Speaker 1: out with a bullpen game himself, even though he wasn't
Speaker 1: on regular starters rest and there was alt to have been
Speaker 1: up and down as a starter. He's shown he's been
Speaker 1: able to give length when when possible. I think there
Speaker 1: was one outing where he worked into the eighth inning,
Speaker 1: and there have been several others, so that, yeah, just
Speaker 1: having been good with him overall. A lot of balls
Speaker 1: in play allowed by Phillips, that's one of the deficiencies
Speaker 1: going on there that I think it's gonna limit his
Speaker 1: ceiling in that particular role. And then the serious finalitey,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be another Sandy start is second one on
Speaker 1: this road trip coming out of the break. And then
Speaker 1: who does Houston have for that final game? It will
Speaker 1: be Pete Lambert, who has had a pretty jarring career
Speaker 1: year almost out of nowhere as a guy that had
Speaker 1: essentially no value entering this season and has emerged as
Speaker 1: the most consistent member of the entire Astros rotation this season.
Speaker 1: This is a pretty big drop off in quality from
Speaker 1: what the Marlins saw as a whole compared to the Brewers.
Speaker 1: So that's a reminder of these last few games, as
Speaker 1: ugly as it went for Miami, like they were going
Speaker 1: up against the best, arguably the best team in baseball.
Speaker 1: It's the one or two team. The Dodgers are really
Speaker 1: in a tier all by themselves this year, and the
Speaker 1: Brewers did the little things to win those games. Like,
Speaker 1: one thing I didn't even cover is the amazing defense
Speaker 1: they got from Garrett Mitchell in center field. A lot
Speaker 1: of good defense across the board. Their base running was
Speaker 1: pretty awesome. So that's the base running in particular. I
Speaker 1: guess this one last thing I can touch on the
Speaker 1: fact that the Marlins were so good at throwing out
Speaker 1: runners for so much of this Joe mack era, and
Speaker 1: then all of a sudden, during this losing streak they've
Speaker 1: allowed I want to actually count the number here because
Speaker 1: it was just such an extreme number that they haven't
Speaker 1: thrown out a runner during this entire losing streak, and
Speaker 1: as a whole, the volume of based steelers that they've allowed,
Speaker 1: most of which was with Mac behind the plate, has
Speaker 1: been like back to where they were early in the
Speaker 1: year before he was called up. That's, of course just
Speaker 1: as much on the pitchers as it is on Mac,
Speaker 1: but it is something to follow because that has been
Speaker 1: such a big development for their run prevention is deterring
Speaker 1: runners from even trying to steal in the first place,
Speaker 1: and this is a Milwaukee team that was totally unfazed
Speaker 1: by that. The Astros as a hole pull up real quick.
Speaker 1: I don't think the Astros as a team are one
Speaker 1: that are really going to push their buttons when it
Speaker 1: comes to the running game as a whole. The Astros,
Speaker 1: my instinct was right. They have thirty four stolen bases
Speaker 1: on the entire season. Houston does not a single player
Speaker 1: with double digit steals at all this year. Cam Smith
Speaker 1: is their team leader in that regard. So that is
Speaker 1: one elements of the Milwaukee's game that was pretty important
Speaker 1: over the course of this this weekends. That is not
Speaker 1: going to rear its head at all, you would think
Speaker 1: over the course of these few games in Houston. But yeah,
Speaker 1: as throwing out a runner today, did the moments actually
Speaker 1: throw out a runner trying to steal? That might be right?
Speaker 1: Was it late in the game that they did that? Oh,
Speaker 1: that is true? Yeah, Liam Hicks, thank you for the correction, right,
Speaker 1: Tony in the comments that laid in the game when
Speaker 1: Michael Peterson was on the mountain, and that's seventh inning
Speaker 1: they did finally break that streak. So interestingly, that wasn't
Speaker 1: with Mac behind the play. That was with Liam Hicks
Speaker 1: find the plate, who himself is usually so ineffective at
Speaker 1: throwing out runners. So the streak itself has been broken by.
Speaker 1: I think the point stands that overall the Marlins haven't
Speaker 1: been doing well at that over the course of this
Speaker 1: losing streak ins that'd be helpful to turn things around
Speaker 1: if they're that element of their fielding is able to
Speaker 1: pick itself up. So with that thing said, go to
Speaker 1: the final segments of the show as usual. This is
Speaker 1: prediction time. This is prediction time. That's my prediction, but
Speaker 1: who knows? All right, let me pull up the leaderboard
Speaker 1: for prediction time this season. We'll see here our FLF
Speaker 1: staffers are super subs, livestream guests. We keep track of
Speaker 1: your serious predictions all year long. How many games the
Speaker 1: Marlins will win, who will be the series MVP as
Speaker 1: a term by win probability added To give you an
Speaker 1: idea of how this works, you could check out this
Speaker 1: most recent series against Milwaukee the way that we graded it.
Speaker 1: Several people had the Brewers winning the series, and myself
Speaker 1: included had them sweeping the series. But the MVP honors
Speaker 1: when to William Contrez on the strength of his walk
Speaker 1: off home run. So no perfect scores, but a lot
Speaker 1: of people picked up points of some kind over the
Speaker 1: course of this and that's how it affected the overall
Speaker 1: leaderboard for this season, where it still Jeremiah Geiger, our
Speaker 1: usual fof live host, seven points clear of everybody else
Speaker 1: so far in the standings, and there's myself slowly improving
Speaker 1: but in a tie for technically a tie for thirteenth
Speaker 1: place when it comes to total predictions. Still so much
Speaker 1: of the season still to go, and we do appreciate
Speaker 1: all the board of our super subs. So even if
Speaker 1: you haven't been making predictions at all this season, or
Speaker 1: consistently you haven't signed up yet, there's still time to
Speaker 1: do so and support us that way. If you go
Speaker 1: to fish on first dot com slash subscriptions, you'll get
Speaker 1: the details there, and you could just click on the
Speaker 1: leaderboard article on our side and has the details about
Speaker 1: how it works and how to sign up so that
Speaker 1: you can play along with us, win or lose. It's
Speaker 1: always fun to manage this contest every single season. We've
Speaker 1: been doing it a bunch of years in a row,
Speaker 1: and there's always a climactic ending by the end of
Speaker 1: the season to see who finishes on top, even though
Speaker 1: it's very unlikely to be me here in twenty twenty six,
Speaker 1: so serious predictions for this Astro series, I think the
Speaker 1: Marlins do get back on track here, and you know,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty loath to pick the Marlins to win a
Speaker 1: series on the show, but I do feel like they
Speaker 1: are relatively close to breaking through and that this is
Speaker 1: going to be the weakest opponent that they've played in
Speaker 1: a while in the Houston Astros, despite some of the
Speaker 1: brand names that they have, despite the fact that the
Speaker 1: Astros are at home, I think the Marlins do win
Speaker 1: two out of three in Houston. And for my series
Speaker 1: MVP pick, I will go with Exavier Edwards, a nice
Speaker 1: safe pick who should be in the lineup for all
Speaker 1: three games of this series, and especially with the potential
Speaker 1: that Auto might miss part of these next few games.
Speaker 1: I think Act is going to be hitting sometimes at
Speaker 1: the very top of the order for this team, if
Speaker 1: not always in the top three or four, so we'll
Speaker 1: get a lot of played appearances. I think he's going
Speaker 1: to make the difference. I think overall that offensively, the
Speaker 1: Marlins will pick it up enough so that their bullpen
Speaker 1: is not going to be able to undo all that effectiveness.
Speaker 1: As when you're playing super close games, occasionally you have
Speaker 1: stretches like this where the bullpen repeatedly slips up, but
Speaker 1: when you're able to put up some crooked numbers the
Speaker 1: way that this Marlins offense did for quite a bit
Speaker 1: of the season until this most recent skid put those
Speaker 1: games out of reach, it then all of a sudden
Speaker 1: that bullpen vulnerability doesn't really matter too much. So the
Speaker 1: Marlins are going to win a series and finish off
Speaker 1: this road trip on a relative high note. I think
Speaker 1: that'll do it for our show here on fof Live.
Speaker 1: Thank everybody for joining us, and yeah, excited to see
Speaker 1: your serious predictions. You have twenty five hours or so
Speaker 1: to make predictions on the site if you haven't already,
Speaker 1: and either that or in our discord channel on the
Speaker 1: Marlins discord server. We have our own channel committed to
Speaker 1: our super subs. So yeah, let us know what you think.
Speaker 1: Just two weeks ago until the deadline, and that is
Speaker 1: increasingly going to be our focus. I don't think the
Speaker 1: Marls are that far away from really honing in on
Speaker 1: what they need to improve, but they are gonna have
Speaker 1: to win some games in the meantime in order to
Speaker 1: still be on the aggressive front when it comes to that.
Speaker 1: So yeah, as long as they don't lose out these
Speaker 1: next couple of weeks. It's gonna be a riveting stretch
Speaker 1: of time heading into that important deadline. So we hope
Speaker 1: you keep following us here on fof we'll have another
Speaker 1: stream for you on Wednesday at the end, maybe you
Speaker 1: know Wednesday or Thursday. I'll have to get back to
Speaker 1: you on the timing of the stream because the Astro
Speaker 1: series is gonna end very late at night on Wednesday,
Speaker 1: so we might have that stream on Thursday's off day instead.
Speaker 1: We'll keep you posted on that. But yeah, a whole
Speaker 1: lot of coverage on our podcast channel, part of the
Speaker 1: Foul Territory Network and presented by Jesskei Rentals of South Florida.
Speaker 1: For a full complete coverage, checkout Fish on first dot com.
Speaker 1: So again, thank you for the support and go Fish.