Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Batflips and Nerds, the Baseball Podcast
Speaker 1: with a British twist. I am your host this evening,
Speaker 1: Ben Carter, and I am joined by the one and
Speaker 1: only Russell Eason, who I don't think has been on
Speaker 1: the pod since he got back from his WBC adventures. Russell,
Speaker 1: have you recovered? Give us a download on Yeah, how
Speaker 1: that experience was and what life's like now you're back
Speaker 1: at Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think after let's say two weeks of pretending to
Speaker 2: be a journalist, the comdown can be can be pretty high.
Speaker 2: The obvious prosa being back with with with with with
Speaker 2: my partner and our house and not having to worry
Speaker 2: about those sorts of things.
Speaker 3: But no, it's an amazing two weeks.
Speaker 2: Their time out in Houston is really interesting because you
Speaker 2: don't have many press out there for some of the games,
Speaker 2: like the US games have a lot of press, and
Speaker 2: the Mexico games have like a lot of press associated
Speaker 2: with them. But for the games when it was like
Speaker 2: Brazil versus Italy and GB versus Italy, like there wasn't
Speaker 2: much there and so it was like I got the
Speaker 2: chance to meet and chat to a lot of major
Speaker 2: league players, A lot of minor league players who were
Speaker 2: I think, are gonna really do something good in the future,
Speaker 2: and then it ends in Miami and it didn't let it.
Speaker 2: It wasn't a let down compared to like last time around.
Speaker 2: From an atme atmosphere perspective, like the three games I
Speaker 2: saw in Miami last time around were electric, and the
Speaker 2: Venezuelan fans were just unbelievable. Like any time that I'm
Speaker 2: going to be at a baseball game now and someone's
Speaker 2: on two strikes, I'm going to be sat there going
Speaker 2: pnche paunch, pawnche. That is like ingrained in my brain
Speaker 2: now of like whatever a fan must do. It was
Speaker 2: utterly unbelievable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, looked insane from I mean, obviously we were just
Speaker 1: watching our home on TV, but the optiosode, it is
Speaker 1: unbelieva when I think people pointed it out. Almost a
Speaker 1: shame just seeing the stadium in Miami rocking like it
Speaker 1: hasn't rocked in maybe ever, certainly ten plus years. But
Speaker 1: amazing to see how many baseball fans are in that market.
Speaker 1: And yeah, obviously the Latin American countries especially are represented,
Speaker 1: and awesome to see Venezuela put out the bag but
Speaker 1: also a reminder that if the Marlins could just put
Speaker 1: a decent team on the field, they probably would have
Speaker 1: a pretty good atmosphere themselves if they wanted to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's one of those difficult ones where you're always
Speaker 2: just like, yeah, you know what, there's a lot of
Speaker 2: passionate baseball fans out there, but probably like half of
Speaker 2: them are Yankees fans or.
Speaker 1: The Marlins don't have quite the same pole, do they?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 3: Not quite?
Speaker 1: But there we go. But though we are obviously back
Speaker 1: to talk Major League Baseball now season is underway, I
Speaker 1: was saying before we started recording it, it felt like it
Speaker 1: came pretty hot on the heels of WBC caught us
Speaker 1: all a bit by surprise. We obviously did our Late
Speaker 1: Predictions podcast last week, so apologies at that one's a
Speaker 1: little bit later than planned. But now we're going to
Speaker 1: get into chatting through some of the early season action.
Speaker 1: We're still only what fifteen or so games in, so
Speaker 1: hard to draw any major conclusions from what's been happening
Speaker 1: so far. But that doesn't mean we aren't able to
Speaker 1: start firing off and takes, and one of my favorite
Speaker 1: parts of the baseball seasons being as long as it
Speaker 1: is is being able to massively overreact to the first
Speaker 1: ten to twelve games of the season and decide which
Speaker 1: teams and players are good, which ones are cooked, and
Speaker 1: then be proved extremely wrong a matter of weeks or
Speaker 1: months later, when you know, all the things that take
Speaker 1: months to stabilize catch you out a little bit down
Speaker 1: the line. So we're going to do a little bit
Speaker 1: of that tonight. I think what we've our plan is
Speaker 1: to each take it in turns a little bit to
Speaker 1: throw out a take. And this can be a super
Speaker 1: hot take, it can be more of a mild take.
Speaker 1: It can be about any you know, team player moment
Speaker 1: of the season so far, so ross maybe after it
Speaker 1: to you first, are you coming to us with the
Speaker 1: heat s raight off the bat? Or where do you
Speaker 1: want to take this one for your first twenty twenty
Speaker 1: six MRB season take?
Speaker 2: Yeah, my my, let's start relatively hot.
Speaker 3: I think that's the good way to go for I
Speaker 3: think that.
Speaker 2: The New York Yankees are going to have the best
Speaker 2: pitching starting era in franchise history this season. I think
Speaker 2: that they've obviously started off particularly well. Max Freed has
Speaker 2: looked back to his best Cam Shitler, is looking like
Speaker 2: everything that people wanted after like the prefappearance to be
Speaker 2: saw us in Will Roarren has dominated as well at
Speaker 2: the start of season, and don't even have Garett callback yet,
Speaker 2: which isn't going to be particularly long, but like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm starting out bold, but I'm kind of thinking that
Speaker 2: kind of given what the way things are going.
Speaker 3: Let's let's say, yeah, Yankees' best era ever?
Speaker 1: Wow, I love it. I mean even Ryan Weathers last
Speaker 1: night was and then they lost one Noel didn't they
Speaker 1: that he was outstanding for eight inning? So it does
Speaker 1: feel like they've got serious depth to that rotation. They were, yeah,
Speaker 1: remarking last week, how great shit alurked, And yeah, Max
Speaker 1: Free is just dominant week in week out at this point.
Speaker 1: So I like that, take what is a number to beat?
Speaker 1: Do you know?
Speaker 3: So if we go like.
Speaker 2: All stats, their best era is two fifty seven from
Speaker 2: nineteen oh four, which feels a little a little hard
Speaker 2: to go for. So I might kind of push myself
Speaker 2: to kind of like like an era kind of like
Speaker 2: minus equivalent to kind of at least kind of like
Speaker 2: set it to kind of like the the standard of
Speaker 2: what is out there in that case, that's still seventy
Speaker 2: four from nineteen thirty nine. Probably the most actual recent
Speaker 2: one is in back in nineteen eighty one where that
Speaker 2: was like a one when they had a two point
Speaker 2: ninety or a so like I'm like, I'm basically saying that,
Speaker 2: like they gotta go sub three, wibble at you to
Speaker 2: as the starters for the season.
Speaker 1: That's hard to do. Well, you think about all the
Speaker 1: great Yankees pictures of seasons past as well, and I
Speaker 1: don't know how well the full rotation are stacked up
Speaker 1: in those years, but certainly some of those dominant teams
Speaker 1: at the late nineties, ninety two thousands, it's yeah, amazing
Speaker 1: to think that this year's might be even stronger. I
Speaker 1: like it. How are we going to do this? So
Speaker 1: we're going to rank each other's takes on us a scale?
Speaker 1: Is that what we mean?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I think so you can we go for all
Speaker 2: want one to five or if you even want to
Speaker 2: go one to ten of how hot do you think
Speaker 2: this is?
Speaker 1: Okay? Sort of Nando's Piri Pirie rating of heat.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: I like this.
Speaker 1: So it's a nerdy stat which I like as well,
Speaker 1: but I'm going to give it. I think you're going
Speaker 1: to go hotter as we get going here, someone going
Speaker 1: to go too hot too early. But I think that's
Speaker 1: a solid seven out of ten. Yeah, that's at a
Speaker 1: tough bar to clear, but having him as one of
Speaker 1: the best rotations in baseball, I think is certainly not
Speaker 1: going to be wrong. And I'm excited to see, yeah,
Speaker 1: once cold comes back, how it might look when it's
Speaker 1: when it's fully fledged. So seven out of ten as
Speaker 1: a starter.
Speaker 3: I'll take that. I'll take that you got for me then, Ben.
Speaker 1: Okay, I this one's a little bit tongue in cheek,
Speaker 1: but I'm gonna go with it, and it's gonna stick
Speaker 1: it in the same division. Let's just go ahead and
Speaker 1: call it the Red Sox season is over. Thank you
Speaker 1: for coming out, Boston. But based on a lot of
Speaker 1: the things I was seeing on social media articles from
Speaker 1: Boston media, that's how most of the fans seem to
Speaker 1: feel anyway. So I'm probably not breaking new twenty of them,
Speaker 1: but there are a lot of head and hands from
Speaker 1: and hand ringing from Boston fans. After their start to
Speaker 1: the season, they were two and eight. I think they've
Speaker 1: now won a couple of games back to four and eight.
Speaker 1: But obviously still below five hundred, and I guess the
Speaker 1: tongue in cheak part of this is like everyone gets
Speaker 1: off to bad runs during the season, and the fact
Speaker 1: that they had a bad ten game run at the
Speaker 1: start of the season doesn't really make it any more
Speaker 1: statistically significant than if they did this in July. So
Speaker 1: it's a little bit silly to watch ten games of
Speaker 1: baseball and decide that a team isn't good anymore. The
Speaker 1: not so tongue in cheap part, I guess is that
Speaker 1: there are some potential red flags with this team. You know,
Speaker 1: I think the rotation. The aenny of the year we
Speaker 1: thought was going to be super super strong hasn't impressed
Speaker 1: quite as much so far. You know, I think we
Speaker 1: know what we're going to get from Garrett Crochet. He's awesome.
Speaker 1: Sonny Gray may be showing signs that he's not going
Speaker 1: to be quite as consistent as he has been in
Speaker 1: years past. Range Suarez struggled a little bit in a
Speaker 1: couple of his early starts. Ryan Beo's looked I think
Speaker 1: pretty awful. I hope I'm not getting that wrong, but
Speaker 1: I feel like he's not had a great start to
Speaker 1: the year, possibly going to lose his rotation spot, so
Speaker 1: that's a little bit concerning. And on the hitting side,
Speaker 1: you know, stories looked dreadfully. I know he's bounced back
Speaker 1: a little bit in the last few days, but that's
Speaker 1: a worry. There's a lot on the shoulders of Rome
Speaker 1: and Anthony, who I think is awesome, but if you
Speaker 1: need him to be your best bat, that's a lot
Speaker 1: to put on the shoulders of a second year guy.
Speaker 1: So I think just think there's signs that maybe things
Speaker 1: are going to be tougher than we initially thought they
Speaker 1: were going to be. Given literally a week ago we
Speaker 1: predicted they're going to win this division. I realized I'm
Speaker 1: sounding slightly reactionary here, but that's the other part of
Speaker 1: it is this is a really hard division and actually,
Speaker 1: if you fall four or five games behind, now, that
Speaker 1: becomes quite a hard mountain to climb when all these
Speaker 1: other teams you're playing are really, really good and can
Speaker 1: beat up on you on a given day. So do
Speaker 1: I really think that season's over? No, obviously not. Do
Speaker 1: I think Red Sox fans are freaking out and maybe
Speaker 1: have slight reason to freak out, I'm gonna say yes,
Speaker 1: But that's no fun. So my hot take is season
Speaker 1: over see you in twenty twenty seven, Boston Red Sox fans.
Speaker 3: It's an interesting one because, like.
Speaker 2: You say, like it's two weeks, so it's like you
Speaker 2: can't really take anything from it because it's just like,
Speaker 2: you know what, every team will go through a spell
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 3: But you should be concerned.
Speaker 2: But we know that, like concern in Boston is only
Speaker 2: heard fire like shouting at like what I'm trying to think,
Speaker 2: Dan Lay, Baitad or whatever are any of the talk
Speaker 2: show hosts that are out there to listen to the
Speaker 2: to the whatever is the sixth or six equivalent in Boston,
Speaker 2: Like that's all you're going to be getting right now.
Speaker 3: Because they.
Speaker 2: Affect traded their way and then gave some contracts, they
Speaker 2: decided not to really buy anybody big in the free
Speaker 2: market obviously with the exception of like Rancho Suarez and
Speaker 2: kind of go go that way around and getting rid
Speaker 2: of Devas, bringing in Bregman, not locking Bregman down because
Speaker 2: of supposedly a no trade deal park cause that he wanted,
Speaker 2: and now having Caleb Durbin the three legend Caleb Durban
Speaker 2: now kind of like playing as your everyday shortstop.
Speaker 3: It may be the third basement.
Speaker 2: Done things that if it doesn't go well, they can
Speaker 2: easily be lambastard for those decisions.
Speaker 3: And so right now they are getting ambastard.
Speaker 2: I think Boston's only hope and this is one that
Speaker 2: we might get it might might get into a little
Speaker 2: bit later on, is that I don't think beyond the
Speaker 2: Yankees there might be any good teams in the ALE
Speaker 2: this year really, so like they could sneak into the
Speaker 2: playoffs with like eighty two to eighty four wins, because
Speaker 2: there's right now just kind of a lot of the
Speaker 2: tunes who thought we're going to start do okay have
Speaker 2: not done okay. And there's quite a few of the
Speaker 2: teams that have started okay are not the ones to
Speaker 2: be with the start would do it okay. And so
Speaker 2: it's like, hmm umm, what's going on here?
Speaker 1: There? No, I like it. That's like a little secret
Speaker 1: hot take you've thrown in there that you know, age
Speaker 1: two or eight three wins will be enough for a
Speaker 1: playoff spot in the vaunted American League. But yeah, you're right,
Speaker 1: some of the teams that we thought were going to
Speaker 1: be good have been poor. It's not just the Red
Speaker 1: Sox who struggled. The Tigers aren't after a great start. Likewise,
Speaker 1: the Mariners. Interesting to see how that changes in the
Speaker 1: next few weeks. I think I read this was the
Speaker 1: worst start the Red Sox have had since twenty eleven,
Speaker 1: and people might remember that season as the one where
Speaker 1: the Red Sox were terrible to start the year, unbelievable
Speaker 1: through the middle of the year, and then completely bottled
Speaker 1: their division lead in September, at ending with that incredible
Speaker 1: last year of the season where the race stole it
Speaker 1: from them. So if anything like that can happen again,
Speaker 1: neutral fans will be happy. Red Sox fans maybe less so.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's my take. I'll throw it back to you.
Speaker 1: What's your what's your second? No, sorry, you need to
Speaker 1: give be a score first thing.
Speaker 3: I need to give you a score.
Speaker 2: It's an interesting one because I'm like, I don't think
Speaker 2: it's that hot. I think it's hot to say that. Actually,
Speaker 2: like they're because you think they're just not gonna make
Speaker 2: the playoffs like whatsoever, and so like this this season
Speaker 2: is already done, which I think is is like going
Speaker 2: from they're going to win the division too, they're going
Speaker 2: to basically not make the playoffs in two weeks is
Speaker 2: quite a hot take. But I also think it's a
Speaker 2: it's a very vocal take, which I think is then
Speaker 2: like it brings it down like a couple of notches.
Speaker 2: So I'm gonna I'm gonna sit this one at a
Speaker 2: four out of ten because I think it's like it's
Speaker 2: the it's a it's it is a hot take, but
Speaker 2: it's it's a well known hot take.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's more of an idiotic take from me, But
Speaker 1: you're judging the art, not the artist, so I appreciate that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll throw it back to.
Speaker 2: You, Okay, I'll go do a player individual one.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: Looking at the list that I had before, from this,
Speaker 2: I think, uh consumer Okamoto is probably the third best
Speaker 2: Japanese hitter will have ever seen.
Speaker 3: Basically, I think that like behind.
Speaker 2: Behind Eachiro, behind showy Otani, I think basically that like
Speaker 2: he is gonna come out and show that basically like
Speaker 2: he's hitting for power already, which he weren't one hundred
Speaker 2: and certain he was going to be able to do
Speaker 2: expecting a good average and elite defense.
Speaker 3: I think he's come out showing like he's he's.
Speaker 2: Phenomenal and I think come the end of this season,
Speaker 2: like people are going to be like, oh, like he is.
Speaker 2: He is phenomenal, and we're going to people are going
Speaker 2: to be thinking about going like, okay, where does he
Speaker 2: sit amongst kind of like the Japanese players that have
Speaker 2: come across into into Major League Baseball, And I think
Speaker 2: he's going to be one of these ones where people
Speaker 2: are just like, he's theoretically eligible for the Rookie of
Speaker 2: the Year award, and I think he might have to
Speaker 2: give some some poor BBWA writers Paul's have thought about
Speaker 2: whether they actually should classify him as a rookie or not.
Speaker 1: It's always hard, but as older Japanese players, isn't it.
Speaker 1: We've seen that a few times in recent years. That
Speaker 1: is a spicy take. I'll hold my hands up and
Speaker 1: say I've not had a chance to see him play
Speaker 1: myself yet. I've not got around to watching the Blue Jays,
Speaker 1: so I can't speak from having watched him hit. Obviously,
Speaker 1: know that his reputation coming from MPB was as a
Speaker 1: ya an elite hit to one of the best they've
Speaker 1: had in e le for for a long time. And
Speaker 1: the numbers look pretty good to start the year. As
Speaker 1: you say that the power seems to be there, I'm
Speaker 1: looking at a thirty nine point two percent strike up rate,
Speaker 1: which is high. Yeah, that would be the course. That
Speaker 1: would be the course for concern right it, And that
Speaker 1: is one of that is one of the first stats
Speaker 1: to stabilize it. It's what creating a strike up rate. Again,
Speaker 1: we're probably still too early to look into anything like that,
Speaker 1: and I think we've seen players struggle to make that
Speaker 1: adjustment coming from MPB, right, So I think we should
Speaker 1: give him time to see what it's like facing major
Speaker 1: league pitching really before we make a full decision on yeah,
Speaker 1: whether this guy's the greatest, third greatest Japanese hitter ever
Speaker 1: or you know, a bust. But I like that you're
Speaker 1: putting putting yourself out there, setting yours so all out early.
Speaker 1: So this is spicy to me.
Speaker 2: It's personally spicy given the fact that like Monottaka Morikami
Speaker 2: has basically been my f player for quite a long
Speaker 2: time from from MDB and he's come along and he's
Speaker 2: he's flirting with that Mendoza line but also has an
Speaker 2: eight hundred and fifty o BS, which is like he's
Speaker 2: doing everything that I thought he would do, but I'm
Speaker 2: just like, I just still don't know which way that's
Speaker 2: actually gonna go.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so. He might even be the third
Speaker 1: best Japanese hitter in the league this year. Never mind ever,
Speaker 1: Muraka'm be giving him. Yeah, I run for his money
Speaker 1: for that sort of older Rookie of the Year award.
Speaker 1: But I'm going to give this an an eight point five,
Speaker 1: maybe even a nine. I'm gonna give myself room to
Speaker 1: give you a ten, but I think that's a nine
Speaker 1: that's hot. But look, if if Okamsa can keep it up,
Speaker 1: that's that would be huge for the Blue Jays. I
Speaker 1: felt like having an extra right handed bat in a
Speaker 1: lineup that has pot and can help fill some of
Speaker 1: the voids of guys that like the Shet that left
Speaker 1: over the off season would be would be massive. I
Speaker 1: hope you're right. Uh okay, My next one is actually
Speaker 1: gonna be tangentially related to that. I haven't put down
Speaker 1: a ways for us to measure this if I'm going
Speaker 1: to be right or not, which is a great way
Speaker 1: to never be wrong. I think we are in store
Speaker 1: for a historically good rookie class this year, and part
Speaker 1: of that is the older rookies like Murakami Nakamoto who
Speaker 1: are coming over from Japan and hitting the ground running.
Speaker 1: Part of that is that there are a bunch of
Speaker 1: young players who have looked really really good in the
Speaker 1: first two weeks of the season. Chased the latter, obviously
Speaker 1: from your team has called off a little bit since
Speaker 1: being Barry Bond for the first four days of the season,
Speaker 1: but still looks like being immediately one of Cleveland's best hitters.
Speaker 1: Oh in case, he has been fantastic for the Marlins.
Speaker 1: Kevin McGonagall has slotted in as one of the Tiger's
Speaker 1: best hitters. JJ Weatherholt has been awesome for the Cardinals,
Speaker 1: and now obviously Conni Griffin, who was down in the
Speaker 1: miners for all of what three days, has come up
Speaker 1: signed his long term deal with the Pirates and looks electric.
Speaker 1: No again, I went back to have a look at, like, well,
Speaker 1: what was some of the best rookie classes ever, and
Speaker 1: basically the answer is to have been really really good
Speaker 1: Bonds recently. Let's see if I can put up the article.
Speaker 1: But I think even in twenty twenty three or twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four, the year when what's his name, Jackson Merrill
Speaker 1: and Yama went head to head for Rookie of the Year.
Speaker 1: That was like an unbelievable rookie year as far as
Speaker 1: production goes. So that's one that that stands out. I think,
Speaker 1: let me see I can find it here. I think
Speaker 1: there was another year recently. Yeah, So twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: there's one hundred and thirty eight point three Rookie war
Speaker 1: according to fangrafts, and yeah, driven by those two guys.
Speaker 1: And the year before that, twenty twenty three was also
Speaker 1: an unbelievable rookie war year thirty four point eight. So
Speaker 1: I guess those are the thresholds we're trying to clear here.
Speaker 1: And now I'm looking at those numbers. Hi, so that
Speaker 1: I might have shot myself in the foot a little
Speaker 1: bit here. But before that twenty fifteen, which I guess
Speaker 1: would have been maybe is that for Chris Bryant year fifteen.
Speaker 2: From the hitter's perspective, it is probably like the biggest
Speaker 2: one like quite a while. But a lot of that
Speaker 2: was like coming through looking at it, it's like it's
Speaker 2: defensive war and you have so much of a When
Speaker 2: you total of the war, you end up being like, oh, like, well,
Speaker 2: who was the how much are the bottom Like, excuse
Speaker 2: it back the other way. I think were you and
Speaker 2: you were talking about like twenty twenty four, the thing
Speaker 2: was like, I'm just looking at like the hitter side here,
Speaker 2: Like there were fourteen guys who got to War as
Speaker 2: a rookie, which is basically saying that like you are,
Speaker 2: you are a starter, And there were like above average
Speaker 2: Rockyl five the like above three from a hitting perspective
Speaker 2: with Merrill Calser, Turio Mason Willen, and Austin Wells from
Speaker 2: Joey your teas as well. So you're like, these are
Speaker 2: all guys that are.
Speaker 3: Still around today.
Speaker 2: If you jump back to twenty fifteen, it was Chris Bryant,
Speaker 2: Matt Duffy, Francis skilnd or A Dubal Herrera, Carlos Carreer,
Speaker 2: Josh Pederson, Randall Gritchuk.
Speaker 3: So that's eight guys who got three or.
Speaker 2: More war from a from a hitting perspective.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, that's no belief for rookie class. I guess.
Speaker 1: An interesting part of this too, is that four of
Speaker 1: the top ten seasons ever have all been since twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: which I think goes to show that teams are playing
Speaker 1: rookies a lot more now than they ever have. Partly
Speaker 1: and credit to him, I'll be on this incentivized by
Speaker 1: the fact that you no longer have the reason to
Speaker 1: keep rooies down for quite as long in the minors
Speaker 1: for service time, manipulation purposes, or at least you're incentivized
Speaker 1: to bring them up at some point if you think
Speaker 1: they're good enough earlier. But I also think teams are
Speaker 1: just more likely to trust in rookies to be their
Speaker 1: starters now than they were maybe even ten years ago,
Speaker 1: where you kind of came up and you'd platoon for
Speaker 1: a bit, or you come off the bench for a bit,
Speaker 1: and you know, guys would their rookie edgibility, you would
Speaker 1: really stretch out, whereas now I think when you're ready,
Speaker 1: teams think you're ready and they're going to give you
Speaker 1: a good run in a team. So that's probably been
Speaker 1: a part of it as well. And there are other
Speaker 1: guys I didn't mention who either have found their way
Speaker 1: into starting roles already this year for teams or are
Speaker 1: like for you to come up and have an impact.
Speaker 1: I think, especially on the pitching side, you'll probably see
Speaker 1: more guys get called up as teams get picture injuries
Speaker 1: and contribute to that. But I think certainly at the
Speaker 1: top end, it feels like this compared to last year,
Speaker 1: is a really great rookie class. And I'm high on
Speaker 1: a few of those guys you mentioned to be you know,
Speaker 1: immedia allstar level players and some of them you know
Speaker 1: for fan bases that could really use a new name
Speaker 1: to cheer for, which is always exciting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, where do where do I put this? I think
Speaker 2: like if we're saying it's going to be like the
Speaker 2: best ever, like it's definitely like it's a bold statement.
Speaker 2: I think kind of that once again, like we've got
Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty twenty five years of baseball or whatever,
Speaker 2: so basically saying something is the best in that time
Speaker 2: period is like that's immediately going to give you more
Speaker 2: than five out of ten in my opinion, because it's
Speaker 2: just like there's a lot of history to go against,
Speaker 2: a lot of modern history to go against where those
Speaker 2: kind of people being used. But you are right that,
Speaker 2: like you've got that, and you are also slightly skewed
Speaker 2: by a few of the Japanese players coming across the
Speaker 2: like technically rookies but aren't really so you can put
Speaker 2: it out there, so I'll give this six out of ten.
Speaker 2: I think it's I think it's fairly spoicy. I think that,
Speaker 2: like because you're hoping on some of the guys who
Speaker 2: haven't even like come up yet, like having good seasons,
Speaker 2: like obviously, like as a Cleveland fan, I'm hoping that
Speaker 2: Chams Bizana comes up fairly shortly and plays a massive
Speaker 2: impact into that as well. But like a lot of
Speaker 2: these guys can equally absolutely suck, like we've seen a
Speaker 2: few of the other like top prospects do, or we
Speaker 2: know with some of these guys that they can be
Speaker 2: found out fairly quickly. Although I find that there's enough
Speaker 2: data on players nowadays that I feel we don't have
Speaker 2: as much of a sophomore slum from a hitting perspective
Speaker 2: as we used to. I might have to look into
Speaker 2: that see if that's the case or not, because it's
Speaker 2: just like, you know what, everybody has all your triple
Speaker 2: A data, so all your double A data, so they
Speaker 2: can pretty much know what to do to you anyway.
Speaker 2: So we'll see how that kind of comes through. But no,
Speaker 2: I like the spiciness of that.
Speaker 1: Ben Yeah, long left the rookies.
Speaker 3: The Rookies.
Speaker 2: So to take the end my segue from Rookies to Rockies,
Speaker 2: Oh I love that is is the cause effect finally
Speaker 2: going to work in the Rockies favor That is my
Speaker 2: That is my thing that I'm going to say, And
Speaker 2: again not quite certain how we're going to like measure this,
Speaker 2: but my hotcakes basically is that like like Zach Viene
Speaker 2: and Cam Smith, one of those two players will get
Speaker 2: close to basically like the course field like home run record,
Speaker 2: basically like for the single season. I think that like
Speaker 2: Colorado finally potentially has might have a couple of sluggers
Speaker 2: who could do something in that canvas park and actually
Speaker 2: kind of like do the damage themselves instead of having
Speaker 2: the damage inflicted on them.
Speaker 1: Okay, I like this. Well, I can't believe you're the
Speaker 1: one who came up with a Rockies prediction and not me.
Speaker 1: So hang on, who do you think do you think
Speaker 1: someone's gonna set the single season cause field home run record?
Speaker 1: Is kind of your prediction?
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, interesting, Yeah with me saying probably Zac Viene
Speaker 2: or Cam Smith? Cam Smith of well, yeah, what I
Speaker 2: was saying with Cam Smith is like obviously I was
Speaker 2: that was that was a bit of a joke.
Speaker 3: More that like obviously having.
Speaker 2: The whole number of games they he's played there, the
Speaker 2: like absolute moonshot, the like he's going to play like
Speaker 2: eight games the other this season and we'll score.
Speaker 1: I think it's I think I would like this prediction.
Speaker 1: If you predicted that a non Rocky full stop is
Speaker 1: going to hold the record for most time runs of
Speaker 1: course field this year, I might like that. Certainly com
Speaker 1: Smith looked that, Yeah, the better hitter than anyone that
Speaker 1: the Rockies have. Okay, well, this is a fun one.
Speaker 1: I wish I shared your optimism. Yeah, it's definitely hot,
Speaker 1: maniacts are good. He's hit for you home runs already,
Speaker 1: and some one called t J. Brumfields look good and
Speaker 1: Hunter Gibb will hit some home runs. I just don't
Speaker 1: believe in the Rockies at all. But so spicy, I
Speaker 1: guess is the conclusion I'm coming to here. Do you
Speaker 1: know what the record is? No, this is just this
Speaker 1: is this one I made up just for you. One
Speaker 1: of the guys in the early two thousands, hasn't it
Speaker 1: corse Field, like Vinnie Castea or something like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I imagine thing.
Speaker 2: It's probably somewhere in the thirties, which is probably actually
Speaker 2: fairly difficult to get at.
Speaker 1: But the Rockies and their opponents combined for three hundred
Speaker 1: and three home runs in nineteen ninety nine. That's awesome.
Speaker 1: The average score, of course, was eight seven. That freaking
Speaker 1: rules anyway. I can't really find a number, but I
Speaker 1: like this is hot. I will give it an eight
Speaker 1: out of ten. I cannot see a world in which
Speaker 1: this is true, because I do think it, despite the
Speaker 1: fact they've actually brought themselves back to five hundred, that
Speaker 1: the Rockies are terrible still, But I will give it
Speaker 1: a seven out of ten for spice.
Speaker 2: And will be is seemingly suggesting that Mary Walker and
Speaker 2: Todd Hilton have hit forty night home runs. No, that's
Speaker 2: the whole season record, not by what they actually did at.
Speaker 2: I hate that you can't find these things easily. We'll see.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm terrible looking up these kind of stats.
Speaker 3: I'll get it. I'm looking stat head and see if
Speaker 3: I can find it while we chatting away.
Speaker 1: While we chat well, pivot, I have a somewhat Rockies
Speaker 1: tangential hot take, which I don't know. It's another one
Speaker 1: I'm not sure I believe in myself, but I think
Speaker 1: it's worth bringing up. Is it possible that no one
Speaker 1: stinks this year? And that, however much we thought there
Speaker 1: were still a lot of really bad teams in baseball,
Speaker 1: maybe even the bad ones aren't that bad now. Because
Speaker 1: the Rockies, as I said, got back to five hundred.
Speaker 1: I think they lost yesterday, so they're back below five hundred.
Speaker 1: But they've looked competitive so far this year. I think
Speaker 1: they possibly even still have a positive run differential, which
Speaker 1: is not something that you can usually say about the
Speaker 1: Colorado Rockies. White Talks have got Mura kamei and have
Speaker 1: won a few games of baseball and don't look horrendous.
Speaker 1: The Nationals have had some fun games, and you know
Speaker 1: C J. Abrams Lo that's great, and so does Wood
Speaker 1: and maybe some of the younger guys will keep improving.
Speaker 1: And who else do we think we're going to be terrible?
Speaker 1: Like the Guardians have been great, The Twins have been fine,
Speaker 1: The Marlins a the top of the l East. Is
Speaker 1: it impossible Nationals or your are your black sheep so
Speaker 1: far team? But this is this is actually something that
Speaker 1: more like I think lines up with my little, my
Speaker 1: little snippet one that I said, when you were talking
Speaker 1: about the Blue Jays. Is that I genuinely think that
Speaker 1: like the Dodgers will get up two one hundred, and
Speaker 1: I probably think the Yankees will get into the mid
Speaker 1: nineties or high nineties. I'm not certain basicky on anybody
Speaker 1: else actually getting there being some top top teams, which
Speaker 1: means that also that mosto means the pregeneral you don't
Speaker 1: have bad bad teams to go with it.
Speaker 3: So yeah, like team nobody give.
Speaker 2: But I think the line to maybe take is how
Speaker 2: many teams get sixty something or or like does everybody?
Speaker 2: I guess, does everybody get to seventy wins?
Speaker 1: Is your I'm not going to make my heart take
Speaker 1: that hot, but I'm going to say no team loses
Speaker 1: one hundred games.
Speaker 3: I was given that we've had probably.
Speaker 2: We've had a couple for the last like two or
Speaker 2: three seasons that like regularly somebody has so somebody has
Speaker 2: been actively like properly asked tanking.
Speaker 1: They only had two one hundred game losers last year,
Speaker 1: but one of them did lose one hundred and nineteen.
Speaker 1: The price is for guessing which team that was. Obviously
Speaker 1: the year before that, the White Sox literally set the
Speaker 1: single season lost record, So maybe the least, at the
Speaker 1: very least, we're not going to have one and twenty
Speaker 1: lost team this year, which would be a step forward.
Speaker 1: But I think, yeah, I think maybe this is the
Speaker 1: year that you know, the very bottom rises ever so
Speaker 1: slightly off the off the ocean floor.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh, that would be amazing if we could actually
Speaker 3: get to that. I think it would be uh, I
Speaker 3: think it would be much It would be an interesting position.
Speaker 1: Two.
Speaker 3: Then for MLB to go like competitive ballops is an issue,
Speaker 3: it's a good.
Speaker 1: Point, can make things interesting in that conversation.
Speaker 2: It's like, oh, yeah, it's really a big issue when
Speaker 2: actually like no one has stanking or maybe they can
Speaker 2: be like, look, we're all the same, and the Dodgers
Speaker 2: they're just they're just so good. We can't catch to them.
Speaker 1: I mean, they'll just do still look like a level above,
Speaker 1: don't they, which is just boring at this point. Out
Speaker 1: of yourselves, but everyone else, yeah, it's all pretty close.
Speaker 1: I mean, a worse run of frenchial and baseball belongs
Speaker 1: to the White Sox, no surprises. They're the second worst
Speaker 1: the Blue Jays, which backs up your argument. But you know,
Speaker 1: for the most part, it's been a lot of competitive
Speaker 1: baseball so far, which which we love to see.
Speaker 2: Yes, well, I'll i'll I like it, Ben, I do
Speaker 2: like it. I think it's it's solidly in there again
Speaker 2: as something that's like not having one hundred lost team
Speaker 2: is I think just someone will do that, which means
Speaker 2: that once again, it's like it does go above that.
Speaker 2: Like at five mark for me would have kind of
Speaker 2: like saying that, like I think that it is sliding
Speaker 2: more more unlikely than likely. So I think I'm gonna
Speaker 2: give you another six out of ten. I think it
Speaker 2: is solidly like it's a good take. It's a good
Speaker 2: hot with that, like just like singles out here, you know,
Speaker 2: I know there.
Speaker 3: So I'll drop off the back a little bit of
Speaker 3: what you said.
Speaker 1: Like it.
Speaker 3: I'm going to go tell you one.
Speaker 2: So I'm going to have Andy Paters as the highest
Speaker 2: war for a LA Dodgers outfielder come the end of
Speaker 2: the season for.
Speaker 1: An l A Dodgers outfield Okay, I thought you're going
Speaker 1: to go super spicy and just position player, but outfielders
Speaker 1: tempering it a little. He's off to a great start,
Speaker 1: so lead effectively, is he going to out is the
Speaker 1: real bet to it, and basically, as he's given himself
Speaker 1: for almost a one war head start, it's like, how
Speaker 1: long is the other one?
Speaker 2: Is it?
Speaker 1: I guess yeah?
Speaker 3: Basically it's effectively out of those three.
Speaker 2: I thought about going Mike for whole positional player, and
Speaker 2: I was like, I think that's probably too I don't
Speaker 2: think that's that's actually going to happen. So this one
Speaker 2: might might come down on the hot take regard, but
Speaker 2: it's because it's a little bit too likely to happen.
Speaker 1: I like it, spicy, you know, don't call me a
Speaker 1: status nerd, but a five thirty three babbit feels tough
Speaker 1: to sustain for a full season. What what?
Speaker 3: What? But he's one of those guys, isn't he that?
Speaker 3: Like it's so annoying with the Dodgers.
Speaker 1: They just find these dudes that are like any other
Speaker 1: team would be a bench bat and wouldn't go anywhere
Speaker 1: and would end up kind of in that quada bouncing
Speaker 1: around position, and the Dodgers turned them from those players
Speaker 1: into like genuine, legitimate everyday players who contribute with the
Speaker 1: glove and the bat. And he's just the next one
Speaker 1: in that in that line, isn't he?
Speaker 2: Do?
Speaker 1: I think he's going to keep this up all yet, No.
Speaker 2: For me, he's a hilarious one because last year a
Speaker 2: when I went to went to with my partner and
Speaker 2: we saw a couple of Angels games against the Pirates
Speaker 2: and Dodgers game against the Pirates, and we watched Schemes
Speaker 2: versus Yamamoto at which the Pirates actually won three nil
Speaker 2: in Dodger Stadium, and Poe has got three hits of
Speaker 2: schemes and like no one else got like more than one.
Speaker 3: So it got me checking.
Speaker 2: We had the chat on the podcasts where I'm just like,
Speaker 2: if you were to just go to baseball games and
Speaker 2: we didn't have the Internet, you've come back being like
Speaker 2: this guy's great, Like he got like three hits against
Speaker 2: like the best the best picture in baseball. But you
Speaker 2: kind of just have those singular moments and I'm just like, again,
Speaker 2: it's almost like does he like April, Like is this
Speaker 2: just his time of the year where he's like this
Speaker 2: is when he actually gets on form before everybody else
Speaker 2: kind of warms back up and the season slowly kind
Speaker 2: of slides off him.
Speaker 1: So you've had this take marinating for about a year.
Speaker 1: Then you you were convinced at that point, Pathez is,
Speaker 1: you know, he's the best player on the Dodges. I
Speaker 1: just need time to work out how it happens. And
Speaker 1: here it is. This is yeah, this is hot. I
Speaker 1: mean really, it's just is Pat has a better baseball
Speaker 1: player than car Tucker this year, which is probably a no,
Speaker 1: but I I think it's possible. So I'm going to
Speaker 1: bring it down to a five out of ten. All
Speaker 1: he needs is a couple of hot months and for
Speaker 1: Tucker to you know, get injured or be rubbish, which
Speaker 1: hopefully isn't the case, but it could happen. Could happen.
Speaker 1: I'll take that fine. My next take where I'm I
Speaker 1: going to go with this, Let's keep it in the outfield.
Speaker 1: I think we have to discuss this game on the
Speaker 1: podcast at some point. So my take is pretty simple,
Speaker 1: and I don't think this is hot. Honestly. Joe Adell
Speaker 1: had the best single game defensive performance in Major League
Speaker 1: Baseball history when he robbed three home runs for the
Speaker 1: Angels last week in a one nil game against the Marinas.
Speaker 1: There's literally no way to quantify this because the defensive
Speaker 1: metrics we have just aren't built to measure single game value.
Speaker 1: When it comes to robbing home runs. So I don't
Speaker 1: really know how you approve this, but I just think
Speaker 1: based on what we know about previous games and amazing
Speaker 1: defensive performances, I can't see how anyone can compete with
Speaker 1: what he did. So probably not a hot take, but
Speaker 1: I think we just have to mention the fact that
Speaker 1: that was the most insane thing I've ever seen an
Speaker 1: outfield to do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know if there's a way of getting
Speaker 2: like DRS or efens or like or any of like
Speaker 2: the outfield above average, like a feeling above average metrics
Speaker 2: for a singular game, but like I haven't looked to
Speaker 2: see like what the catch probability of those things work.
Speaker 2: But there anytime you rob something like that, it's pretty
Speaker 2: it's pretty ridiculous. And to do it like three times
Speaker 2: in very similar ways, it's like every single one of
Speaker 2: them is him running to his left like taking it
Speaker 2: basically like at the fence. I think they're within like
Speaker 2: I want to say, like twenty feet of each other,
Speaker 2: like on the fence as well, So.
Speaker 1: Identical, weren't they. Then I'll see the third one he
Speaker 1: ends up in the crowd, which, if anything, added to
Speaker 1: the drama of it.
Speaker 3: Also tangential hot take that should be a home run.
Speaker 1: I knew you're going to bring this up. Disagree.
Speaker 2: That is an opinion that I've had and I wrote
Speaker 2: an article about probably like five years ago now. But
Speaker 2: JBJ did what did it? Once at in at Fenway.
Speaker 2: But I'm like, if you don't maintain the ball in
Speaker 2: the field, it's left the field, like I'm sorry.
Speaker 3: The ball like that.
Speaker 1: Everything you're saying makes total sense. I don't agree, But
Speaker 1: how cool is it when a guy dives into the
Speaker 1: stands and then just stands up like a del did
Speaker 1: glove in the air.
Speaker 2: It's made by the girl who took the photo like
Speaker 2: behind it, but you have that like you have to
Speaker 2: shot in glove in hand like almost like Rocky power posse.
Speaker 2: I'm like, there should be a joyed Ell statue of
Speaker 2: that by the end of the season as far as
Speaker 2: I'm concerned, Like they they've got a deal or they
Speaker 2: should be a joy A Dell bobble head with that
Speaker 2: of that pose of the season, like because you got
Speaker 2: to live on it like it is right now, like yeah,
Speaker 2: it's it's undeniable, like a yeah, it's not a particularly
Speaker 2: hot take. To suggest that there would be a better
Speaker 2: defensive performance than that in the season best defensive performance. Ever, honestly,
Speaker 2: we don't see enough defensive highlights to basically be like
Speaker 2: to actually see what's happening in the past. There's probably
Speaker 2: be some old timers who will be telling us about
Speaker 2: like well the attack and other things like that, where
Speaker 2: you plays that saved a perfect game or whatever to
Speaker 2: do to do those sorts of things, or but an
Speaker 2: assisted triple plays and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: But yeah, like.
Speaker 2: It's it's phenomenal and in our day and age, where
Speaker 2: like you, it's like I think we probably all woke
Speaker 2: up and saw all three and saw basically I saw
Speaker 2: the highlight of basically like Adele Rob's three home runs
Speaker 2: and basically kind of like happen, so kind of it
Speaker 2: was lost a little bit on us, but like the
Speaker 2: it's just how it happened to the people who were
Speaker 2: there or the people who watch it watch it live.
Speaker 3: I just can't think of anything that would be like
Speaker 3: it'd be more ridiculous.
Speaker 2: So you have watched something that probably hasn't happened in
Speaker 2: the one hundred thousand baseball games that have happened in
Speaker 2: Major League history.
Speaker 3: So it's just like, yeah.
Speaker 1: A lot of it is like luck because they're three
Speaker 1: amazing catches, but like to have three balls that were
Speaker 1: all basically a foot above the fence hit to the
Speaker 1: exact same part of the park is super like. The
Speaker 1: reason that you don't see many home run robberies is
Speaker 1: that there aren't very many opportunities generally home run robberies.
Speaker 1: So to have three balls all hit to his side
Speaker 1: of the field and foot above the fence that he
Speaker 1: could rob obviously just takes just an insane stroke of yeah,
Speaker 1: luck or variants to to make that happen. But the
Speaker 1: fact that he caught all three, the fact it was
Speaker 1: a one nil game, Yeah, it's just nuts, isn't it.
Speaker 1: And you know what could be more high leverage than
Speaker 1: you know, the Angels winning one of their sixty six
Speaker 1: wins this year in April against the Mariners. That's that's
Speaker 1: the stuff of dreams.
Speaker 2: The true Angels aspect of it. It should have been
Speaker 2: a one nil loss. It should have been a freaking
Speaker 2: tungsten armord oyl.
Speaker 1: Like, that's true, that's very true.
Speaker 2: The hottake of saying that this is the defensive formance
Speaker 2: of the season one at zero.
Speaker 1: Maybe yeah, ahull time two.
Speaker 2: I've got to give it a three or a four
Speaker 2: because it's just okay, honestly, like I haven't watched there
Speaker 2: are so many baseball games out there that like, we
Speaker 2: could put this out on the internet and somebody or
Speaker 2: go ask like some of the baseball historians and they'll
Speaker 2: like give us snippets of some games where somebody did X, Y,
Speaker 2: Z and and kind of happened.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I think that was funny. You mentioned Jason
Speaker 1: Starke did an article where he tried to prove whether
Speaker 1: it was the best Frien's Points all the time, and
Speaker 1: he basically o cocclusionally came to us impossible to know,
Speaker 1: but probably yes, because he did talk to historians, and
Speaker 1: he talked to broadcasters, and he even asked chat gpt
Speaker 1: who were useless, and basically it's like, look, there were
Speaker 1: other games where players did really great made really great plays,
Speaker 1: but nothing that was like quite as obvious run value
Speaker 1: worthy as robbing three home runs is. So he decided
Speaker 1: it was. But like you say, if you talk to
Speaker 1: someone who you know vaguely remembers to nineteen twenty eight
Speaker 1: whatever game, then they might disagree.
Speaker 2: So the thing is Ben you've just talked to me,
Speaker 2: like back down, basically saying down to a one. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: this isn't a hot take basically because it's just the
Speaker 2: freaking truth.
Speaker 3: I'll give you a two.
Speaker 2: Because there's like there's a potential like something else out
Speaker 2: there that like could have happened that we just don't
Speaker 2: know about.
Speaker 1: I'll take it. The better hot take, I guess would
Speaker 1: be that he should get exactly one win above replacement
Speaker 1: given to his stats for winning the game for them,
Speaker 1: But we'll save that conversation for another time. Over to you.
Speaker 2: Okay, I think this is quite my This is my
Speaker 2: fun and spiciest one.
Speaker 3: I think that.
Speaker 2: Fans love the ABS system right now, but I think
Speaker 2: in two months time they're going to realize that all
Speaker 2: this is actively doing is basically giving more strikes than
Speaker 2: it is balls, and it's actually suppressing run values. So
Speaker 2: it's basically making the game lower scoring game. And we
Speaker 2: might get to this point because it's been a lowers
Speaker 2: starting score that was scoring to the season. Maybe not
Speaker 2: enough to actually kind of say anything definitive because it's
Speaker 2: April and it's always LOWC dead of temperatures, but I'm
Speaker 2: going to say, like by June or July, you're going
Speaker 2: to start to hear rumblings of some anti anti ABS
Speaker 2: sentiment more on the basis of the fact that it's like
Speaker 2: it's it's actually a run suppressing change.
Speaker 1: This is a great take. I like it because everyone
Speaker 1: is so pro ABS right now, and obviously the fans
Speaker 1: seem to be enjoying it. That credits MLB. They've got
Speaker 1: the process down to a ta haven't They wear it
Speaker 1: so quick to come up with a decision, and there's
Speaker 1: a sort of drama and theater of watching it on
Speaker 1: the big screen, and the ball comes in and shung
Speaker 1: and then you know.
Speaker 2: It's They've taken the best elements of like hawkeye and tennis,
Speaker 2: which I think, as far as I'm concerned, is the
Speaker 2: gold standard for you're using basically something to measure something
Speaker 2: which you basically should empirically be able to and basically
Speaker 2: give a result quickly like it's there. The fact that
Speaker 2: it's within generally like five ten seconds, the crowd gets
Speaker 2: to have its Oh well, you've already basically had had
Speaker 2: phenomenal moments of like Carl Schwarber basically walking to first
Speaker 2: base even though like the strike was called because he's
Speaker 2: just like that mat like there's nowhere near like and
Speaker 2: we we are seeing some amazing things about it. Seeing
Speaker 2: there were Genio Suarez called to be struggling, but yeah
Speaker 2: twice and having them like both overturned and so you're
Speaker 2: just like consecutive pitches.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's brilliant.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's pure entertainment, and I absolutely love it from
Speaker 2: that perspective. Like I think that I was somebody who
Speaker 2: was one hundred percent on like, if you're going to
Speaker 2: do this, make it like purely robo lamps and just
Speaker 2: move it aside and move on. But I do think
Speaker 2: that if you think about this, I think now that
Speaker 2: if you think about basically more of an as an
Speaker 2: entertainment product than just the other parts of just getting
Speaker 2: everything right, this does actually do that, and I think
Speaker 2: that it's been introduced like brilliantly. I'll also be on
Speaker 2: the fact the window seeing that like some players are
Speaker 2: like three inches shorter than they that they were, which
Speaker 2: is absolutely hairs. I think, like, is it Bregman who's
Speaker 2: gone from being above six foot to below six foot?
Speaker 2: There's quite a few players that have dropped below six
Speaker 2: foot now that they've been measured and told basically that
Speaker 2: their height being too tall is actually will give them a.
Speaker 3: Higher strike zone.
Speaker 1: Suddenly it's beneficial to be five foot nine, so they're
Speaker 1: all quite happy to be.
Speaker 2: There'll be some scandals that people are now too short,
Speaker 2: probably at some point, but yeah, no, I think what
Speaker 2: happened this is what happened in Triple A last year.
Speaker 2: There were more more balls were overturned to strikes, and
Speaker 2: strikes were overturned to balls.
Speaker 1: So that's interesting.
Speaker 2: This was like forty five ratio, and it's sat a
Speaker 2: little bit higher than that right now in NMLB. But
Speaker 2: I think people I don't know whether people will pick
Speaker 2: this up of any broadcaster will ever talk about it,
Speaker 2: but I think some people might start to not like
Speaker 2: it because of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think obviously it's a bit too
Speaker 1: soon to start drawing conclusions from the results, but I know,
Speaker 1: even after the first weekend, it was instantly clear that
Speaker 1: the best people at getting successful challenges were catchers, who
Speaker 1: have a much better understanding and obviously site of the
Speaker 1: strike zone crouch back there and hitters do and pictures,
Speaker 1: which inturitively makes sense and then intuitively would mean that
Speaker 1: more balls becomes strikes because that's the ones. Those the
Speaker 1: ones that they're challenging, So that is interesting. I hadn't
Speaker 1: considered that it might be run to pressing in the
Speaker 1: long run. Obviously. I love the fact that it's so
Speaker 1: universally liked right now, that you are one step ahead
Speaker 1: saying let's be the first to hate it. That's great.
Speaker 1: I enjoy that a little bit like when Tony Romo
Speaker 1: first did play by play or color commentary, sorry, and
Speaker 1: you know now everyone hates him. If you were the
Speaker 1: first to say, actually, Romeo's rubbish, that was like, you know,
Speaker 1: something you could look back on proudly. So maybe maybe
Speaker 1: we can be the first to say, actually, AVS is crap,
Speaker 1: but yeah, this is spicey. I don't see it happening.
Speaker 1: I think because it's it's been instituted so well, it
Speaker 1: adds a layer to the game, and even though there
Speaker 1: you know, as a whole, it may end up being
Speaker 1: run to pressing. I think the calls that we want
Speaker 1: overturned are those ones where batters get wrung up on
Speaker 1: pictures outside in a bit spot and they have no exactly.
Speaker 1: So I think the public perception will still be we
Speaker 1: overturn that massive strikeout, which is good for my team
Speaker 1: and then you know we've got a hit or whatever.
Speaker 1: So even if the data bears out that it's bad
Speaker 1: for runs, it might be that public perception is different.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I like to take a lot. Maybe it'll
Speaker 1: take a couple of years. I could see you being right.
Speaker 1: The other thing I think is a shame about abs.
Speaker 1: We're going to get fewer rejections now, right because magers
Speaker 1: can't argue with science. You know, they used to be
Speaker 1: able to run out the dug out and scream at
Speaker 1: an umpire for getting a call wrong. Well, now the
Speaker 1: umpire can be like, shouldn't challenged it, mate? You know
Speaker 1: there's no there's no drama in the ball strike calls anymore.
Speaker 2: I think you are right, but I think we're going
Speaker 2: to see the glorious ones where like you're either going
Speaker 2: to get somebody ejected for still disagreeing with what the
Speaker 2: fresh shown, or you're going to get people objecting that
Speaker 2: either someone took too long to challenge and it was
Speaker 2: excepting was not didn't challenge fast enough and didn't get
Speaker 2: it accepted. Because there was I think there was one
Speaker 2: in like spring training where like I can't remember who
Speaker 2: it was, but basically they were basically they took the
Speaker 2: pitch and were going to they're basically taking their stuff
Speaker 2: off to go to first and the un called it
Speaker 2: a strike and they were just like what, oh, I
Speaker 2: do this? And then I was like, now you wait
Speaker 2: too long, and I was just like, well, I didn't
Speaker 2: think you were going to call it like a strike,
Speaker 2: so I wasn't even thinking about asking for it.
Speaker 3: So well, that was a great one. Only a couple
Speaker 3: of days ago.
Speaker 1: Now Otani was pitching Will Smith catching I say if
Speaker 1: you saw this, but Attani threw a pitch that was
Speaker 1: called a ball. It was right to be close, but
Speaker 1: not super close, and he went to adjust his hat
Speaker 1: on his head after the pitch, and will Smith thought
Speaker 1: he was tapping his head to say challenge it. So
Speaker 1: then will Smith challenged it because he saw the sign
Speaker 1: from Ottani as being challenged that pitch for me, and
Speaker 1: it was a ball, So the challenge failed. But because
Speaker 1: o'tanni had gone to disadjust his hat, it got misconstrued
Speaker 1: as a challenge signal. So I could definitely see a
Speaker 1: jack because a player says, oh, no, no, no, I
Speaker 1: was just adjusting my helmet or I was just doing
Speaker 1: this and that could quite easily get complicated, but that
Speaker 1: probably is more a growing pain as people get used
Speaker 1: to the new system.
Speaker 2: Well, something that's probably only may may impact us and
Speaker 2: a few of our listeners. In British baseball, we've been
Speaker 2: informed that touching your cat will be treated the same
Speaker 2: as drawing a line in.
Speaker 1: The dirt, so we'll get an ejection.
Speaker 2: I'm waiting for people in British baseball to get ejected
Speaker 2: by tabbing the helmet or in your case, so you're
Speaker 2: saying someone might just be genuinely like adjusting their helmet
Speaker 2: and then it's just like yoga.
Speaker 1: If you can't see that as just being funny, then
Speaker 1: I think you need to send to a human check.
Speaker 1: But god lesson about that. The better right do I
Speaker 1: give you a number? I'm going to give you a seven.
Speaker 1: I think that's spicy. I can't see it coming true,
Speaker 1: but I like that you're getting ahead of the abs.
Speaker 1: Is bad. Actually take seven out of ten. So for
Speaker 1: my next one, I am going to I'm going to
Speaker 1: go with another moment that I felt like we have
Speaker 1: to discuss at some point. That's happened in the first
Speaker 1: couple of weeks. So my hot take is this Walt
Speaker 1: Weiss might be the most likely sixty two year old
Speaker 1: in the world to kick your ass, because for those
Speaker 1: who missed it, he managed to get quite quickly into
Speaker 1: the middle of the brew haha. The fracas that took
Speaker 1: place in the Angels Braves game a few days ago
Speaker 1: when Jejge Celaire charged the mound because he felt Ronaldo
Speaker 1: Lopez was throwing at his head. And it was a
Speaker 1: weird charge of the man, wasn't it, because it like,
Speaker 1: there's the ball got away, the player stole second. I
Speaker 1: went second on the pass ball, and then they sort
Speaker 1: of stared at each other for a few seconds, and
Speaker 1: then Celair charged the mound, but it took a weirdly
Speaker 1: long time for it to get broken up, and obviously
Speaker 1: on the replay it turns out it was Walt Weiss
Speaker 1: in the middle of it who went low in the tackle.
Speaker 1: We managed to bring Celaire down, which a bit embarrassing
Speaker 1: for the raised players that you have to have your
Speaker 1: manager step in there to end things. But also credit
Speaker 1: to what Wise who is, as I said, sixty two
Speaker 1: years old, but is a black belt in taekwondo practices,
Speaker 1: practices mixed martial arts and I think even has other
Speaker 1: like interesting karate or some other martial arts areas which
Speaker 1: I had no idea about, but maybe explains why he
Speaker 1: was so keen to get involved. The jury is obviously
Speaker 1: still out on how successful he will be as a manager.
Speaker 1: I didn't have a great stint with the Rockies, and
Speaker 1: you know he's ay ten games in with the Brats.
Speaker 1: I won't judge you much on that, but the jury
Speaker 1: is not out on whether he can stand up for himself.
Speaker 1: He will kick your ass. He to give him a
Speaker 1: chance to. And I think you know that that's my
Speaker 1: hot take. Do not mess with wart Wise. He will.
Speaker 1: He'll beat you up, put you in a pretzel.
Speaker 2: Okay, we'll gonna give it to you here, We're gonna
Speaker 2: give it to you. No like that whole thing like
Speaker 2: you as you described it is just it's just beautifully
Speaker 2: hilarious because it's like Solair has Lopez's number, like you like.
Speaker 2: The small amount of stats you have in baseball actually
Speaker 2: from an individual versus like a pitcher is generally not
Speaker 2: enough until they've probably faced each other like sixty times
Speaker 2: before you can actually say someone is just better or
Speaker 2: worse or where it's still random variance, but Celaire is
Speaker 2: strongly on the way to basically being just knowing exactly
Speaker 2: what Lopez does. He'd already hit him with a home hit,
Speaker 2: a home run against him in the game, He'd already
Speaker 2: been hit by pitched I'm just amazed that I just
Speaker 2: that ball just had to be so wild that a
Speaker 2: play happened that Celi didn't go immediately like I don't
Speaker 2: know how like a ball going behind your head after
Speaker 2: you've already been hit once didn't set him off already.
Speaker 2: And then he's like, it's just just it's a beautiful
Speaker 2: moment in baseball where you're just like it looks like
Speaker 2: everything is like you're gonna calm, nothing's gonna happen you
Speaker 2: thought could happen, And they're just jarring at each other
Speaker 2: saying stuff, and then they come out. It gets some swings.
Speaker 2: Freaking Lopez punches him with like the ball, takes a
Speaker 2: swing with the balls still in his hand. Love that,
Speaker 2: and like, I think makes reasonable contact, and you're then
Speaker 2: you're just like, oh, so seven games each and I
Speaker 2: was just like okay, sure, like you I feel like
Speaker 2: they're definitely trying to stamp it out a little bit
Speaker 2: more than they used towar. I swear like when a
Speaker 2: miner Garrett went basically just by himself against the Pirates,
Speaker 2: he goingly got like four games for that or something
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 3: Might be completely nothing wrong, but.
Speaker 2: It definitely feels like they're trying to stamp this thing
Speaker 2: out of baseball. But yeah, wallow man, that is just
Speaker 2: like I didn't see that like what I saw the
Speaker 2: first time round, but I saw a comment that somebody
Speaker 2: had put on on a post a picture about it,
Speaker 2: and it'd just been like, dude, I am fighting with
Speaker 2: the Braves this season. The unwritten rules are not going
Speaker 2: to be enforced against the Braves.
Speaker 1: Now he got out there forced. Yeah, don't mess with him.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I think obviously, as a sixty two year old
Speaker 2: in baseball, I think that's probably like a non particularly
Speaker 2: hot take. I think there are probably are some some
Speaker 2: other jacked and ripped sixty two year olds that can
Speaker 2: easily put us both to shame. With you. No, it's
Speaker 2: not saying much, but I'm saying within seconds will be
Speaker 2: like we'll be crying on the floor in an arm
Speaker 2: bar in like two seconds flat. So yeah, I think
Speaker 2: if we're saying like the sixty two year old in baseball.
Speaker 2: It's it's a one out of a one out of ten,
Speaker 2: but it's a as a sixty two year old you
Speaker 2: probably don't want to meet in a in a bar fight.
Speaker 3: It's it's still probably up there as a two or
Speaker 3: three out of ten.
Speaker 1: I'll take it. Put some respect on my mom. Walt's name.
Speaker 3: Cool.
Speaker 2: I've got one one more than I think is spicy
Speaker 2: enough to discuss. I think case is Riano more finished
Speaker 2: top three in the sy Young, Like which is this?
Speaker 3: This comes?
Speaker 2: I had written this one down before we will get
Speaker 2: to a second. Weally ask some of our our listeners
Speaker 2: in one of the chats to come up with some
Speaker 2: of their own and Nick right Ara, resident Angels fan
Speaker 2: was was up there saying that I think did he
Speaker 2: say he was actually going to win it? Or he
Speaker 2: said they actually win the sy Young So it can's
Speaker 2: come a little bit further than I will. But like
Speaker 2: he's three games in like twenty innings, pitched one run,
Speaker 2: like conceded.
Speaker 1: You know what, that's good?
Speaker 3: Like it's not bad.
Speaker 2: Like you're getting to the point where you're just kind
Speaker 2: of like, okay, sixty six percent ground bor eight is
Speaker 2: not like particularly sustainable, but like, okay, like we have
Speaker 2: now tilted our heads to you and been like, you've
Speaker 2: done ten percent of the season, and you're in a
Speaker 2: pretty stellar position after ten percent. So yeah, I think
Speaker 2: I think he's uh, he's putting his name in in
Speaker 2: in the hack pretty strongly.
Speaker 1: I like it. He definitely deserves recognition, doesn't he. I
Speaker 1: think he was good last year, but you you're average
Speaker 1: fan myself included, probably didn't really care because he played
Speaker 1: for the Angels and you know, the the I guess
Speaker 1: numbers that your eyes in me to gravitate to, like
Speaker 1: ERA weren't amazing, so you kind of were like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, who cares? But this year he's taken it
Speaker 1: to another level. Obviously, strikeouts up, walks down, which again
Speaker 1: to the pretty quick metrics to stabilize, and you know,
Speaker 1: is he going to have an ERA below one all year?
Speaker 1: Probably not? But is he going to be legitimately an ace?
Speaker 1: I think signs point to probably yes, and you know,
Speaker 1: not just an ace in the angel sense, which you
Speaker 1: know would just be someone with a working right arm.
Speaker 1: So do I think he's gonna win some young no
Speaker 1: or compete for it? Still probably no? But do I think, Yeah,
Speaker 1: do I think that this is a legitimate like maybe
Speaker 1: the number one starting pitcher? Kind of hard to argue
Speaker 1: based on my results so far this year. And again
Speaker 1: it's another fun reason to have to tune into Angels
Speaker 1: baseball because he throws hard, strikes guys out and is
Speaker 1: really good. So so this is spicy, give it like
Speaker 1: a seven. I mean, we see guys have good starts
Speaker 1: every year, you know, and it just happens to be
Speaker 1: Hosy this year and good for him, but always going
Speaker 1: to take his one blow up start, and those numbers
Speaker 1: start to look a bit more, a bit more down
Speaker 1: to earth, don't they.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well he's three and oh through three games. Think
Speaker 2: he's the only player.
Speaker 1: So we're doing it about wins now while we rustle
Speaker 1: tune has changed.
Speaker 2: The difficulty more is Cam shit lerg Kevin Gausman, Taj
Speaker 2: Bradley even obviously like Max Fried and Tighter and Derek
Speaker 2: Schoolball have all looked particularly good. Not even to say
Speaker 2: like Joe Ryan and Dylan Cees have all looked pretty
Speaker 2: good as well. Yeah, good pictures in the aar on
Speaker 2: the al side, I think you've had a lot of
Speaker 2: a lot of top pictures.
Speaker 1: But no, I mean, look, I hope I'm proven wrong.
Speaker 1: He's yeah, he's been awesome and yeah, he's definitely put
Speaker 1: his hand hat into contention early doors, and we'll see
Speaker 1: if they continue to see I'll give that a I'll
Speaker 1: give that a seven. One of my I've got two left.
Speaker 1: One of mine is related to one that we got
Speaker 1: in in the WhatsApp, so I'll save that and we
Speaker 1: can talk about it then when we go through those
Speaker 1: quickly so well, lots of one is related to the
Speaker 1: newser came out. I want to say yesterday, which is
Speaker 1: that eight teams are going to have new City Connect
Speaker 1: uniforms coming this year. And my hot take up, I
Speaker 1: guess is kind of lukewarm if that when you think
Speaker 1: about it, is that all eight are just good. They're
Speaker 1: good uniforms, like Seey Connects. He's been around for a
Speaker 1: little while. Now this is the fourth Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: of of teams getting the uniforms, and they've obviously had
Speaker 1: one version. Now we're kind of onto that the second
Speaker 1: round of teams getting follow up uniforms, and arguably it
Speaker 1: could start to get a little bit stale because the
Speaker 1: whole point of the City Connect was like a really cool,
Speaker 1: unique uniform that connects a team with a city, and
Speaker 1: it's kind of like, well, once you've done it once
Speaker 1: and then you try and do it again, does it
Speaker 1: not make it not unique anymore? But I think they've
Speaker 1: they've nailed it on this occasion. You know. The Rangers
Speaker 1: and Pirates ones I think are a bit boring, but
Speaker 1: generally speaking would wear and that's just all you need
Speaker 1: from a new spinoff uniform. They're all, you know, somewhat unique,
Speaker 1: look cool. They're the kind of thing that you can
Speaker 1: wear to a ball game but also just wear for fun,
Speaker 1: which I think is always a good box at the
Speaker 1: city connect uniform should tick. A lot of the hats
Speaker 1: as well, are really fun, so you know, I'm sure.
Speaker 1: And then, look, fashion is subjective. People going to call
Speaker 1: me an idiot for liking some of them, but that's
Speaker 1: my view that they're all like really nice uniforms that
Speaker 1: build off the original versions that each team had, and
Speaker 1: so it's a tick from me.
Speaker 2: So I think I mostly agree with you. I fall
Speaker 2: on the Cincinnati one as probably the one that like
Speaker 2: just makes it not a complete It's a bit boring
Speaker 2: in sweep of Okay, ones like to me like there's
Speaker 2: two things that I would like them really to do.
Speaker 2: One basically is either you've got to go completely different
Speaker 2: colors to like your normal things, to basically like bring
Speaker 2: a different vibe, bring something in, kind of throw it
Speaker 2: out there. Or it's got to like really show off
Speaker 2: something kind of either specifical or unique about the city
Speaker 2: that for some of all the places. Some as we
Speaker 2: don't really know this, Like I know some people haven't
Speaker 2: particularly liked the Boston ones, but I actually think the
Speaker 2: Boston ones have been really good. The obviously the the
Speaker 2: Marathon colors which they use with that yellow and blue
Speaker 2: one to start off with, and then the green one
Speaker 2: which is all around kind of like Fenway Park and
Speaker 2: the Monster. I think they all really work. They're different
Speaker 2: to kind of like what they normally are, but they
Speaker 2: also kind of tick that one off. You're wearing the
Speaker 2: Rockies one like right now, which like if it was
Speaker 2: just that top jersey, I would have loved the same
Speaker 2: reason why I'm going to have a go at like
Speaker 2: the Cincinnati one basically like colored pants, looks like college
Speaker 2: or like company softball level sort of like look like
Speaker 2: just the.
Speaker 1: Police.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the city they've.
Speaker 2: Gone basically just like full red, and I'm just like,
Speaker 2: it's the one thing that I'm just like, it just
Speaker 2: doesn't work for me personally. And then you can say
Speaker 2: that I think even a little bit about like the
Speaker 2: Pirates one as well, going like going like full black.
Speaker 3: It kind of it does give like the college feel.
Speaker 2: And I'm not saying whether that's a good or a
Speaker 2: bad thing, but like I think that kind of like
Speaker 2: it doesn't quite work the same way for the Cincinnati one,
Speaker 2: but like the rest, Like I actually quite like the
Speaker 2: Texas one, Like it's a it feels like a it's
Speaker 2: a it's a nod in a in a good direction
Speaker 2: when it's coming to things like Texas and everything else. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Like the San Diego one is like, okay, cool, fine,
Speaker 2: it is what it is, Pirates one or maybe I
Speaker 2: like the cap Okay, the font looks kind of cool,
Speaker 2: but there isn't really anything that new one. It a
Speaker 2: bit like they already have black jerseys that they only
Speaker 2: seem to wear and Pol's games are playing and and
Speaker 2: and all of that stuff. We saw it in our
Speaker 2: in discussions in our little chat group about whether what
Speaker 2: is whisker and if it's actually anything to do with
Speaker 2: like and it seems like it's a it's a phrase
Speaker 2: for the young uns, not not for a for as
Speaker 2: older millennials or above. I actually really like the Royals one.
Speaker 2: I saw it like a discussion about like where like
Speaker 2: the specific colors come from, and like the stylization they
Speaker 2: all like the Fountain City and stuff like that. Like
Speaker 2: I wasn't wasn't too sold on it when it was
Speaker 2: just like originally white, but kind of like actually kind
Speaker 2: of seeing it and seeing like where it comes from,
Speaker 2: like it does actually look quite nice, and I think
Speaker 2: the cap is actually like it's pretty nice. So as
Speaker 2: someone who was prepared to hate all of these, because
Speaker 2: I'd thought that like most of the teams have basically
Speaker 2: there was a few hot ones to come out to
Speaker 2: start out the blocks, but it got pretty kind of
Speaker 2: like tepid sense of like a lot of ones that
Speaker 2: were just like the team colors, just with a slightly
Speaker 2: different variation and a slightly different font and and all
Speaker 2: that sort of stuff. No, I think they're they're all, yeah,
Speaker 2: they're all pretty good this year. So it's I think
Speaker 2: I think it is a hot tape bend because I
Speaker 2: know that people a lot of people don't like them.
Speaker 3: I agree with your take, which.
Speaker 2: It's gonna it's gonna come down, and like it's probably
Speaker 2: only like a four out of ten, I think, because
Speaker 2: like some people do like them. But yeah, I'll take
Speaker 2: it cool. So, as we both kind of briefly mentioned,
Speaker 2: we just have some takes from our listeners, so we're
Speaker 2: just gonna quickly jump through those.
Speaker 3: Too, basically go through.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So we'll start off with Jason, who's a much
Speaker 2: maligned Pirates fan. He said that a traffic cone is
Speaker 2: the Pirates single biggest sack of position since Lashes traded dabline.
Speaker 2: If you've seen their kind of like celebration of scoring
Speaker 2: home runs, they basically just kind of like have taken
Speaker 2: a traffic cone from somewhere and that's now what they
Speaker 2: use for their home runs celebration. Love it, which is
Speaker 2: just like it has very student vibes.
Speaker 1: I don't know university.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know how much it is a vibe
Speaker 2: in the US compared to what it is a vibe
Speaker 2: in the UK, But putting putting traffic ouns on statues
Speaker 2: is put parful of being a student. As far as
Speaker 2: I'm concerned.
Speaker 1: I like this take the only thing I'll say, I
Speaker 1: didn't hear as part of it, you know, in some
Speaker 1: way belittle Rhino'hearn, who, by the way, is raking as
Speaker 1: a pilot so far. I don't know if his point
Speaker 1: was just that this carabricade is so valuable that not
Speaker 1: even the great Rhino Hearn can compete with him. But yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll have no Rhino hernstander on this podcast. He's he's
Speaker 1: been unbelievable so far.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we've got from Tommy the Marlins fans out and
Speaker 2: Finn on the Denver Broncos.
Speaker 3: Owner now is the.
Speaker 2: The Rockies, So the Rockies now have money to spend,
Speaker 2: so time to trade attorney to cause. I like it.
Speaker 1: This one's a good take. Yeah, I see it happening.
Speaker 2: I think this has to go on the hottiest of
Speaker 2: hot takes because I don't think it's ever going to happen.
Speaker 1: It might be good for your prediction about the most
Speaker 1: home runs. Of course, Field that pretty comfortably.
Speaker 2: Jed with his trademark elocution, has told us that the
Speaker 2: Tigers are shit.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's a little bit early to jump
Speaker 3: on that.
Speaker 2: On that that point, but I think anybody who supports
Speaker 2: a team in the ale central optimism is not a
Speaker 2: is part of the course, so.
Speaker 3: We'll see how that one goes.
Speaker 2: But they're pretty much kind of, I think, thrown away
Speaker 2: any major expectation that they're gonna run away with this
Speaker 2: division against the rest. And I think when I looked
Speaker 2: at Fangrass yesterday, it was predicting like eighty one or
Speaker 2: eighty two wins for the four teams that aren't the
Speaker 2: White Sox. So I still got a chance to get
Speaker 2: out on the division. But I don't think anything's looking good.
Speaker 1: But it'd be a fun race.
Speaker 3: Tony Game is another one. Marlins will win the NL East.
Speaker 1: Spicy, that's spicy.
Speaker 3: I mean they've looked good so far this year, top
Speaker 3: of the n Eleast right now. Mason Miller to win
Speaker 3: the Cy Young.
Speaker 1: So this one is related to one that I had, Yeah,
Speaker 1: which this is spicier than what I had. I say
Speaker 1: he is going to have the best relief pitcher season ever.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe that is just a spicy, but
Speaker 1: he has been un a leaf ball this year twenty
Speaker 1: seven and two third scoreless inning streak so far, which
Speaker 1: obviously stretches back to last year, and so far this
Speaker 1: year he's faced twenty one hitters and he's struck out
Speaker 1: sixteen of them. That is obscene. Obviously he would keep
Speaker 1: that up all year. But I do like this take.
Speaker 1: I think cy Young might be out of reach, just
Speaker 1: because you have to be so good in sixty innings
Speaker 1: to be able to be out starters. But he's on
Speaker 1: pace to be like Peak Rivera meets Peak Chapman meets
Speaker 1: peak name another legendary relief pitcher. He's stilled unbelievable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's one of those ones where you're
Speaker 2: just like, he's what he's gonna have to do is
Speaker 2: like a like fifty saves season to touch you say,
Speaker 2: it's less than one e r A and like one
Speaker 2: hundred and ten strikeouts, and maybe he's got a chance. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and especially when it's probably even seeing it right now
Speaker 2: that like Edwin Diaz already has four saves, un like
Speaker 2: you're gonna have like the best.
Speaker 3: In that division and division.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you're right. I save this one.
Speaker 2: We could have discussed it beforehand. Fraser, he's a Cardinals fan,
Speaker 2: came through with Sandia cantra Is all the way back.
Speaker 2: There's a few saying that the Sandy would basically it's
Speaker 2: going to the cy young but the hot take part
Speaker 2: of it is going to propel the Marlins to the playoffs.
Speaker 1: Another Marlin's playoff prediction. Okay, getting some steam, I mean,
Speaker 1: sounding has been great. I kind of assume they're going
Speaker 1: to trade him at some point, but he's an awesome Jim.
Speaker 1: He didn't get to get the chance to compete that
Speaker 1: compete any other night, but you never know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Jordan Walker as finally has his breakout in Cardinal's
Speaker 2: Best Hitter of the Year.
Speaker 1: I've made a bad joke about Jordan walk on the
Speaker 1: Predictions Pod two, saying it was year twelve, people predicting
Speaker 1: he's going to break out, and he's breaking out and
Speaker 1: he's still only like twenty three. He's still so young.
Speaker 1: I hold my hands up, Jordan Walker, I might have, Well.
Speaker 3: What's thefic?
Speaker 2: Get? Is it the smallest ample size? We've just finally
Speaker 2: seen the few balls that he's hitting the air and
Speaker 2: not on the ground because he always absolute shit out
Speaker 2: a bit like.
Speaker 3: One of those ones.
Speaker 1: But he's got five home runs in twelve games this year.
Speaker 1: He had six and one hundred and eleven last year.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so yeah, not bad play, fair play, Pete with
Speaker 2: his obviously keeping his feet on the ground. Jazz traded
Speaker 2: back to the Marlins at the deadline. That's fun, Okay,
Speaker 2: predict Marlins in the playoffs. That might be the most
Speaker 2: shocking thing we've heard tonight. I don't really see that
Speaker 2: really happening with Jack the Yankees doing well, unless they're
Speaker 2: going to get a get something else out of it,
Speaker 2: which would probably be Sandy.
Speaker 1: Jazz.
Speaker 3: He says, No, that's that Yankee's rotation really needs to.
Speaker 2: Help Joe with his Joel Bailey, with his in one
Speaker 2: of our fantasy groups, has constantly talked about the fact
Speaker 2: that he's still arthuly surprised that Taylor Wolves has a
Speaker 2: job and he has his hot takers, that he'll still
Speaker 2: have a job come comes September, even though he faughly
Speaker 2: believes that he is the worst shortstop in in Tampa
Speaker 2: ray history.
Speaker 1: I was about to say this isn't Taylor Walls base prediction,
Speaker 1: then I refuse to believe it's come from Joel. So
Speaker 1: I'm glad that he's come through there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, with a few people asking him though that you
Speaker 2: just said he was still in a job, So does
Speaker 2: counting that if he's driving for Uber count as still
Speaker 2: being in a job in September, poor tailor Wolves and
Speaker 2: Sean was just joking on that the actual trade for
Speaker 2: the four Jazz will be for a bucket of balls
Speaker 2: after he's been booed like Joey Gallo come July for jazz.
Speaker 1: Hot takes a bucket of balls worse than cash considerations,
Speaker 1: I think it has.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think we'll take cast considerations.
Speaker 1: So there we have it.
Speaker 3: There are a quick fire hot takes from from the
Speaker 3: group out there. I think that there.
Speaker 2: I think the Marlins and Mason Miller winning the cy
Speaker 2: Young are probably the two Hartits takes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I like those. There's a lot Mason millerf you
Speaker 1: never know. Well, there we have it. So what our
Speaker 1: hottest one we got was you had a nine? Didn't you?
Speaker 1: Which one did I give you a nine for? Was
Speaker 1: that the Kimodo? Yeah, o Kamoto, third best Japanese hit forever? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I stand by that. That's that's nuclear.
Speaker 3: We didn't get.
Speaker 2: We didn't get down into the other stuff that i'd
Speaker 2: potentially like written down but didn't really look into too much.
Speaker 2: To be like, is Peter Alonso going to propel Baltimore
Speaker 2: to the to the playoffs, is we were finally seeing
Speaker 2: the real jack lighter like it.
Speaker 1: We've got plenty of time.
Speaker 3: Kind of maybe you brunched on the Chicago White Sox
Speaker 3: aren't actually that bad.
Speaker 1: It's looking good at the moment. But look, as we
Speaker 1: mentioned at the top of the show, we are literally
Speaker 1: ten to twelve games into the season, and if we
Speaker 1: don't look stupid by this time next week, we almost
Speaker 1: certainly will buy this next month. But good news is
Speaker 1: by then we'll have done, you know, two more podcasts
Speaker 1: contraduting ourselves even further, so therefore making it impossible to,
Speaker 1: you know, prove that we ever even had that opinion
Speaker 1: in the first place. But thank you for listening to
Speaker 1: to tonight's podcast. We appreciate you jumping on, and we
Speaker 1: are going to try and be a little bit more
Speaker 1: consistent now getting out some new pods and content each
Speaker 1: week as a season rolls on. Keep an eye out
Speaker 1: for that, make sure you subscribe. Do obviously check us
Speaker 1: out on YouTube where you can watch us, not just
Speaker 1: listen to us. But yeah, if you're a podcast listener,
Speaker 1: then do review and rate. It does help us out
Speaker 1: a lot. Also as saying you should check out the
Speaker 1: Balage and theirs website. I know Gavin the team are
Speaker 1: doing a lot of hard work as usual keeping that
Speaker 1: updated with content with the start of the season underway.
Speaker 1: If you do want to write for us, then let
Speaker 1: us know. Now's a great time to join that team
Speaker 1: and start writing some content. We're always looking for contributors,
Speaker 1: so get stuck in and yeah, follow us on the socials.
Speaker 1: So I'll leave it at that, Russell, thank you for
Speaker 1: joining me oh pleasure man as always, and we will
Speaker 1: speak to you all very soon. Bye bye.