¶ Intro / Opening
Oh, this is good. It's Trevor may Day with Scottie Braun. That's it.
You get two of us on a Friday. Let Trevor cook all Friday long, which he does on his own show may Day quite often.
Trevor, good to see you.
And just in case you needed a little more confidence, which I don't think you do, but just in case you wanted a little pump me up on a Friday. You are the most valuable position in the ft FAM and in Major League Baseball.
Why do I say that. How many relievers were dealt for at the trade deadline versus every other position?
I don't know, like a hundred.
We tried to count the number of transactions that have in today, just in general, players that were in one place and then went to another place. It was legitimately over one hundred, which is incredible. What a blast though. It was a lot of fun being on this side of things and covering it and just having stuff happen in real time. I was fortunate to be doing being on a show with Hunter Pence and so he understood the assignment too. We were excited, We were excited, a
lot of yelling. It was a good time.
That's good energy.
But you realize sometimes in the off season a few relievers get paid and then many don't. And also many relievers unfortunately don't make it to free agency. Good ones even, but then come trade deadline time, jams go Wait, if we're gonna make the playoffs, we use relievers in October more than we use starters. Last year, I believe was fifty two percent relievers in October versus forty eight percent for starters. And I will say, I think they are
doing something right. Because of the volatility and you want to catch a hot hand, it does make sense to do the trade deadline thing, not to go too crazy because we got a lot to cover for the day. But I remember Andrew Friedman saying I want to get all my work done in the off season. So even loading up on relievers like kurbya, it's Tanner, Scottik, et cetera. The problem is pitchers get hurt a lot. And then the problem on top of that is relievers are vollatiles.
So you still might get to the trade deadline and be like, damn, I could use a high leverage guy.
It is crazy that relievers are so valuable in a very specific situation, namely making a playoff run, going deep into the playoffs, and then winning a World Series. They're like arguably one of the most if not the most important positions to have at least covered. I mean, you need several guys, but you can really really get a lot of value out of that. And this is a great example of how this is This plays out is interesting.
We was doing Sunday Night Baseball last week and graphic came up about Jan Durant and Harris and Harrison Bader joining the Phillies and it showed their wars and guess which were those two of those guys? Which one of those two guys had a higher war this year? Harrison Bader. But if you asked anybody who would who would you who might be playing a much much bigger role in the playoff, they would say the opposite. So it just
goes to show you, like how relievers are valued. You kind of have to get into the weeds figure out if you want to do it with statistics, but there's one consensus, and that is the best teams have the best reliever cours going into the playoffs. The guys throwing the best back there tend to get the farthest.
Yeah, if you're in the playoffs, war might not be the right answer. I don't know if they're factoring in relievers the way that they should regular season.
Okay, you can make your cases.
I mean, war is going to reward position players at premium positions playing every day, cool, get it. But the playoffs are built differently. Things tighten up, including your pitching staff. So it's a good point. You might have to tell some of your buddies to work on something there if they don't have it already, because really it would benefit your brethren. So anyway, let's get to a team actually that's got a pretty good bullpen. Let's charge them out,
¶ Mariners sweep the White Sox and walk it off last night, but there's some worry about Josh Naylor's shoulder. We discuss Seattle's game changers, including new faces, and check on competitive AL races.
charging about Mariners, sweep Mariners, walk off Domken's own with the walkoff knock. For the Ems, they've been pretty damn good since the trade deadline. I think five or six and one since the trade deadline. I will point out that Josh Naylor left that game last night early. Looked like he was wincing a little bit. Shoulder soreness is the word. It's the other shoulder, because I think the other shoulder was bothering him, and then you know, this
one pops up for him. So here it is pulled today due to a sore shoulder that was on Thursday. And then Mary Brown, who covers the Sports that this is something to watch out where he had issues with his shoulder on and office recently as mid June with the Diamondbacks. So you want to weigh it looks like a hard swing there, you want away playing him making the playoffs and also making sure that Josh Naylor would be ready for an October stretch.
I you know, it looks like a little bit of a tweak. I think there's certain different swings you can see, then you can assume a certain level of maybe how bad.
It might be.
But one thing about Josh Naylor is he swings hard, and he always swings hard. He's swinging off his helmet pretty much every time he swings, and that's just the way he plays the game. So you know for him to he needs to be able to do that to
be as effective as he can. And it looks like he just something felt a little bit weird there, But even the subsequent swings after it, it didn't seem like he like couldn't swing anymore, just like he just was tentative about it, which gives me, you know, a little bit of hope, and I'll be honest, we can talk about his bad and his glove and what he's meant and how they have corner pop for the first time
in recent history, the Mariners, that is. But I mean, the guy's got eleven bags since he's joined the team, which is crazy considering he's in the top bottom I think, bottom ten or twenty percent in the league in sprint speed. So I mean he's taken bags left, right, and center. That might be the biggest loss to have if he's not playing. So to give them a little bit rest, we're talking. We're in the dog bays here, right, We're in Houdust. This is the best time to get a
few days off here and there. They're coming off a really good series. They're gaining gaining some games on that division lead Astros. But you know, if you do, if you do pass them now, you're gonna have to stay ahead of them. So let's let's just take it one day at a time and get make sure everyone's healthy and we're not risking anything.
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Go for it. Yeah.
We've talked about the stolen based prowess of Naylor a lot this week, and I was thinking how coaches across the country, youth, high school, even college, are probably pointing to him as the post boy for why you can steal bags and not be that fast and just a whole baseball IQ and the fuel for the game is important. But yeah, I want to double click on what you're talking about with DMS within the AL West. So, first off, you're out in the Pacific Northwest. How much are the
fans buying into this team. There's been frustration over the years because they've built a really nice core, especially on the starting pitching staff side of things, and bullpen's been pretty good and here comes some offense for them reinforcements in twenty twenty five. So as of right now, after that Seattle dub you've got Houston one and a half games clear of Seattle in the ALE West, and then the Texas Rangers are four and a half games back
of first place Houston. But the Rangers in a fight for a wildcard spot, that last wildcard spot right now. It's like a Texas Yankees even Cleveland involved kind of battle. Obviously, you know, Boston is still close enough where they can get caught.
What do you think about the Ale West and the ale wild Card?
I mean, the first of all, the sentiment up here is they are they jump on the bandwagon quick, they get back on the horse quick, and they love their sports and they're they're really enjoying what they're seeing.
They think, like for the first.
Time in a long time, really excited about moves done in the deadline. I think that even if they ended up not working out, that most fans will be like, you know, what, we did the things we need to do.
It just you just got to go out and do the win at that point.
And so Jerry Depoto is getting a lot of credit amongst the van base that was towering a little bit on some of the moves recently. So that's all great, and it's the division is very competitive like you thought it would go in especially with the top three teams up there.
I think they're all playoff caliber teams, you know.
I think the Mariners have a great opportunity with that starting pitching and they're scoring more runs and they've created more of a dynamic lineup that is kind of scary top to bottom, Like you can't really there's not like a streak of four or five guys that you didn't have to worry about as much as you had in the past, and that has been closed up a little bit.
So it's big thumbs up here I got producer Henry in here working with me in the office, and he does a thing every day with his whiteboard in his office where he writes down his sentiment score for the Mariners. And he's been up in the eight to nines since for the last couple of weeks, since they got nailor so, and that continues. If we're going to go by the Henry barometer, things are good up here and so.
Yet Okay, well it could have been even better.
Why because they might have added another reliever for the stretch run. They were close, apparently, according to a fans Heided insider Robert Murray, who was a guest host on Fair Territory yesterday. So I don't want to upset your boy, because things are looking really good up in Seattle, and you can't have it all right.
You can't go to the candy shop and pick out everything.
Jerry Depoto did an awesome job addressing the top need, which was corner infield spots.
But did you hear about this? Let's roll the clip.
On the hype train this morning. But I'm also thinking they're legit. They added Josh Naylor, Ihanel Suarez and they almost got Joean Duran, and there was at one point that morning that he was traded that I thought he was going to be in Seattle, but they ended up getting the two sluggers and both of them have been very good since coming to Seattle.
Isn't Durand's entrance with like a magenta ish kind of thing, So that would have worked well up in that ballpark two in Seattle. I mean, it's working for the FI it's close enough, red whatever, but that still would have worked up in the Pacific Northwest being at It's t Mobile Park. But anyway, what could that have looked like for the Mariners. It's a good bullpen, but some teams loaded up super bullpens. I wouldn't say it's like.
That, no, I mean, statistically the park helps a lot. Statistically, they're still one of the top three bullpens even this year with Gabe Speier throwing from really great innings from the left side, the young Vargas kid, they kind of mix and match it and figure out the best way to get to the back end to Andris Munos, who
is one of the best lockdown closers out there. It would have been interesting to see, is did Duran then become the eighth inning guy that conwak Kelsley is in New York right now.
Probably usually rock with the guy you've had.
And you don't want to mess that up because that's usually if that doesn't work out, it doesn't look good. So it would have been great to have him. I'm sure they would have loved it. He would have thrived in this ballpark, probably here. But you know, you can't get everybody, no matter how not even the San Diego Padres got everybody, and boy did they try so. But that's it's it's cool to think about. And by the way,
his walkout probably would work anywhere. And the story behind that with Dustin Morris and the and the media team over there in Minnesota passing it on unprompted to saying, hey, we worked really hard on this.
Everyone here loves it.
You guys will love it too, And then of course Philly fans being like this was a thing we could have, like that, this is something that like this is electric here, and of course it just took off as surprising absolutely nobody especially.
Yeah, I think you're going to see more and more of that in the league. I mean, we are seeing a lot of that over the last few years. I think you're going to see even more of that because you have a spot like Philly that hadn't experienced it before. It creates another viral moment, another city that is loving and honestly, I mean that can be your top memory at a game.
I mean, they were.
Booming who were they booing the other day because Duran had to sit down he was warming up? Oh well, Kepler, Yeah, but the Phillies fans were booing someone the other day because Duran was warming up. And then I think they had, you know, a five run lead or something that turned into.
A non same situation.
So he goes back down and so whoever came into the game instead, they were booing that reliever as if you know, he was deciding the fate of the Duran entrance.
But it just shows you how much it's capturing a city. Anyway, to stay on topic for one more minute here with the Mariners, very good team, a lot of personality too, a lot of guys that are really fun to watch on the field.
Naylor is definitely one of them. Gino Suarez is beloved in Seattle. Who else Randy Rose Arena kind of fun to watch career. I twenty third home run yesterday, So this seems good. This seems very good. Last one here, pop quiz at the finish line, Astros, Mariners, Rangers.
Do they all make the playoffs?
That's an I think it's entirely possible.
Someone's got to win the division for the West to have two of the three spots. It really is dependent, I think on what happens with the Red Sox and Yankees, right because in order for that to happen, probably the Yankees would have to fall out. And I'll be honest, it's really hard to bet against the Yankees no matter what's happening and not making the playoffs because they do it every single year. But it's been dark days there so.
But can't count of Cleveland out either, So I think it's it's possible, but inevitably kind of unlikely, especially with how close the other two teams are.
¶ Cleveland is only 6 games back of Detroit in the AL Central, but it might not be a feasible comeback.
Hey, Ale standings in the central are worth the look.
According to Mike che in the YouTube chat today, he said, look where the Guardians are six games back of the Tigers. I get you might that's still a tall task. And Trevor, it's not unfathomable. It's happened before this time of year where teams are even close to nine or ten back, there's been those crazy stories. So six is not like off the charts wild. But Cleveland didn't add they're good.
I don't think they're great. Tigers are really solid. I know they've gone through more downtimes lately, but it's not like they've lost half their team. You know, if like there were some massive injuries like schoobl or somebody's down for the rest of the season, okay, we can make a case, but I don't see it.
Could it get close, maybe, but I don't see it.
Do you.
Yeah, there would have to be a combination of collapse and a team kind of just getting hot in a way that I think that the Guardians are especially, They're a very grindy team. They always are, even in the not the highest years they have. But I just don't think like there we're gonna look at a team who's gonna rattle off like, you know, fourteen or fifteen games or something. Just they're still young, they don't quite have
the star power. And I think that Detroit is playing about as poorly as they played all year, and that they could very easily turn a couple of things around and get right back to their winning ways and make it even harder. So it would take a lot, I think, for in either direction, for these two teams for that to happen. But six games isn't insurmountable by any means. You know, it's a sweep or two away. So yeah, it's baseball, right, We're in August.
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¶ Yesterday was Paul Skenes Day, to the delight of Pirates fans! His home scoreless inning streak adds to his HOF resume, and Trevor gives his pitching expertise on what he sees from Skenes.
It was a light Thursday, but it was a Paul Skien's day against the Reds Redserve in it. They're competing for a wildcard spot and they got blanked. Schemes was money as usual. He's got like a ridiculous home scoreless streak going on. So if you're in Pittsburgh and you're depressed because the team always stinks, you do get Skeen's Day and it is very fun. So it's twenty seven and two thirds consecutive home scoreless innings. The youngest pitcher in live ball are to have five home starts without
allowing an earned run. I think he's fourteen to zero this year with three runs of support. Three runs is not a lot. That's less than the average you get from a team in a big league game, So he's used to these type moments. He actually did get a little extra support in this one, but overall, just wanted to get a check with mister pitcher here on what
you're seeing from Paul. He's not the same pitcher this year, but he's just as good, if not better, with what he's finding in terms of his arsenal little less case. I haven't looked as much lately, but I know when I looked about a month or so ago, it was still way below the number that he was pumping last year in terms of K per nine and K percentage.
Yeah, I mean, one thing that's crazy about how good he's been. I mean, I think that we all thought this was entirely within the realman possibility to just repeat the results he had last year. But he came into spring training and I remember there was kind of a big stink, but people were excited about hearing him adding
two pitches after the season he just had. And then he said pretty explicitly, I want to have enough pitches to stay off of barrels and get early contact, and then also if I'm going to get a strikeout, get it quickly and assume as possible. So he's taking his three, four or five pitch strikeouts, but beyond that, he's like hit it to somebody like, I want to go deeper
into games. I don't want this like ramp up of innings because I'm young and I don't have a lot of experience from college, which you simply can't throw enough innings in college to get yourself up to the ability to throw one hundred and eighty to two hundred in a season. He wanted to do that as quickly as possible, and the best way to do it was use the
least amount of pitches as possible. And here we are four and a half months in and he has done exactly that, and he's still striking out a good percentage of his hit It's not like he's like not a strikeout guy now. He's still striking out like ten point five for nine. He's just not the top of the league. He could be if that's what he's going for, but he would also probably have a lot less innings, so
it's a trade off. He knows that as a twenty two to twenty three year old, that is wildly impressive and I mean mission accomplished. He's doing exactly what he wanted to do and it has stayed healthy, and I mean it's just rinse, repeat at this point.
It goes against the grain a little bit. Relievers are in a different world, right, you're in for a short burst, swing and miss is key. But for Paul when he is trying to extend himself in a game, it does go against the grain of what most pitchers are taught to do these days. Because Trever's swing and miss gets you paid too. I feel like Skeens is on another level in terms of confidence and knowing that, you know, if he hits free agency, he's going to get paid as the top starter of all time.
If he keeps this up.
So he can just do his thing as era as we tweeted yesterday after the six shutout.
Innings one nine to four on the season.
But you know what I'm saying, I mean, a lot of guys are taught obviously, v Lot's let's tunnel. Let's make sure that we have a nice array as a starter, and let's make sure we have swing and miss because that limits contact, which leads to batted ball luck.
And Skeens is like, yeah, I'm going to.
Sacrifice a little bit of that so that I can make sure I'm going you know, six, seven, sometimes eight innings in these outings, and I don't think it necessarily has to do with the Pirates, although you know, getting the run sport and even having the right bullpen intact is part of things, and he'd like to win more. He's gonna have to do a lot more if he wants to win more with the Pirates, like maybe learn to, you know, swing a bat and spend some money for
his owner. Again another topic, But what do you think about him kind of going against the green of what most young starters are taught to do these days.
I just think he's just more advanced and he he found his ability to have true power stuff in college. Like there's guys who don't know how it's gonna play at the big league level or at a high level.
Yet I take like Misrowski, for example, maybe Jase Burn, Like these guys are a little bit more raw, and they have really great stuff and they know that that is gonna be the way that I operate, Like this is what's gonna get me and keep me here, and then they're learning about how to then use that stuff effectively.
Here.
He just is a couple of steps ahead. It's just something he's already thought about. It was already in his on his radar, as a twenty year old and he had elite command. He has elite command and those guys don't, right, So that is kind of where it comes from. You maximize your stuff because you don't have command yet, and then you live command. That's usually how it works in your first few years in the big leagues. He just didn't need he skipped that. He didn't need to do it.
He was already there. Which is funny because we're talking a little bit about going against screen. Another guy who pitches like this gets his strikeouts, but very clearly isn't going for them, and that's Zach Wheeler has not one to cy Young yet, which is I think a travesty at this point, but he's well on his way to
maybe getting his first one this year. It's so funny we're talking about Paul Skins, but Zach Wheeler does the same thing, doesn't walk people, doesn't try to strike everybody out, and has more counting stats across the board in the same way, but he does approach the same way. He wants to go eight innings like that is his goal, and I think we're seeing a little bit of a shift.
You just have to be more advanced and more confident in your ability to throw the ball over the plate and that your stuff will get your swings in this whether you.
Try or not.
Like that's the switch that flips. Usually guys are twenty seven when this happens. He's twenty two. I think that's why it's so impressious.
Yeah, and he has the leverage in a conversation if the front office and or coaching staff is talking to him about being careful down the stretch, like Hey, we're gonna limit your innings a little bit the last month and a half, He's probably like, Yeah, we're gonna do whatever I want to do because I'm drawing fans and I've been doing what I want to do up to this point and it's working out for me.
You know.
I mean no offense to Ben Charrington. You might even be there next year, so it might be a totally different front office working with him. Like they have him permission to the WBC, He's going to do whatever he wants. Right He's one of the faces of the sport, so I think they're just happy to have him right now. Hopefully the Pirates can figure some things out in the off season. Let's do this on the way out. And
¶ Oneil and Elly De La Cruz made Matt McLain feel short. Additionally, could the Reds make a run for a WC spot? Are they at a disadvantage for acquiring pitchers?
then we're getting ready for Gavin Williams. He's about to be in the green room. We have a nice photo here for you, Trevor. It was more of like a surprise photo for Matt McLean, and it was O'Neil Cruz and Elie Dela Cruz, two of the largest humans major League Baseball, posing next to McLean.
This is good. I love it. I love it. I love that he's having fun with it. The jokes.
You've got to be able to take a joke, and when you play major League Baseball, that is for sure. So it's good to see it. But yeah, I mean it's funny because McLean, that guy can hit. He's a compact He's a compact power guy.
And the other guys are long levered.
Right, that's just yes, different different strokes, different folks.
I guess yeah, he's got a serious, serious size deficit with those two, probably about a foot. Real quick, we have a quick minute here the Cincinnati Reds. Do you like their chances for the last month and a half here to make a run at a wild card? Of course, you're gonna need a team to kind of fall back, and it's hard to see that.
Maybe the Mets.
We'll talk about them a little bit later, but you're gonna need a team to fall back because it looks like that really clear top six in the National League. I think the Reds are good. I think they'd be a playoff team in the AL, and I like their hitching staff. I don't think their offense is probably good enough. They did improve run prevention with key Brian Hayes.
Will see if he hits. But what do you think about this team? Like, I think they have a shot.
I do think a team meets to collapse though. I don't think the Reds are going to go on a ridiculous run. But could they be a few games over five hundred for the last month and a half of the season.
I think so.
Yeah. I mean it's been a while.
We've been I feel like we've been talking about this for three ish years. They go on a little run, they get about a couple games over five hundred, and then the wheels fall off again. They lose six in a row and then they're back to kind of just being around there. But I think the crowd, the young guys have been there. Ellie's been there for a while. Mcclean's been there, for a while. You know, they have the pieces, they're healthy, they're all playing, and their pitching
staff has gotten better. They did add some meaningful pieces at the deadline that should help them and improve the defense and have some experience, like it would be great to see a Cincinnati Reds sneak in make some noise and maybe make a little run because we I mean, it's always nice to see teams the scene in a while make a playoff appearance. And the one one of the benefits of having more playoff teams now is hopefully we see this more often. So I think it's absolutely
within the realm of possibility. And honestly, it'd be really fun to see a bunch of wild card teams all get hot and have it go down to the wire, kind of like I did last year. That would be that'd be a lot of fun with just teams playing really well, not one team collapsing and one team playing really playing incredible, because that that isn't as fun in my opinion, And maybe I'm being a little biased here because I think we know who I am talking about.
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Well. Also.
I mean in the National League, we had we had a conversation the other day about playoff projections. Unless the Reds make a nice run or the Marlins do something really crazy. There are six really strong teams in the National League, so it could get very boring the playoff race.
You'll have seating, you'll have buys, but as far as who makes it playoff wise, Reds do fall off a little bit and the Marlins come back down to earth, and you know the rest of those top six just do their thing, it could be a very vanilla playoff race for the last month and a half the National League. I don't think the American League will be like that, but National lygue could end up that way. So we'll
see if the Reds can put things together. I mean, I like what they've done the last few years in terms of focusing on drafting and developing as much pitching as possible, trading for pitching. I liked the zach Lytel pickup at the trade deadline because it's not that easy for them to convince free agents to sign there, right, I mean, you essentially have to overpay if you're Cincinnati.
I'm generalizing, but usually that's the case, and it has nothing to do with the ballpark experience the team, Right, they're competitive, they'll treat you well, but the ballpark won't treat you well in terms of your results as a pitcher generally. Right, they're probably in that top three conversation among pitchers. You tell me, And I know ballpark factors change year to year, but not every player is paying
attention to it to that extent. Don't you generally think there's like three or four parks where guys say, yeah, that's gonna take a little extra money for me.
Colorado of course part of the mix there too.
Yeah, And I think that that stuff gets kind of wiped out though, if you have an offense that can take them take advantage of it.
I e.
The Dodgers.
The Dodgers have a bottom three park, two like somehow they get all the pitching right.
So it's like but they they're like, well, we're.
Probably gonna score eleven runs every game though, So like
I'm I am okay with that. I think that I trust that you know the pitching side of that stuff to help me out there, and you know, to be completely open and honest, Colorado and Cincinnati don't have that reputation right now, so you know, it is something that factors in and it makes it it makes it tougher, uh to go and say yes when you don't know if the team's going to be good either or if the offense is going to be good enough to you know, help offset some of those those problems.
So it's possible, but.
It's definitely one of the many factors that goes in when pitchers are trying to figure out where they what, what offers they want a field, and what they want to ignore.
Yeah, like if you were a free agent right now and you're a starter, and forget even what the cities are, it doesn't matter, and figure both teams are competitive. If Cincinnati gives you a call and they're like, hey, tremvor are three years ten a year and then another team with at least a mid range ballpark, right kind of balanced in terms of if it's a pitchers or a
hitters park gives you a call. I know you're going to factor in other things, but if you take this in a vacuum, you're not going to go to Cincinnati unless they pay you a little bit more right, because I mean, it's going to affect numbers, and it could affect your performance in your career, right like you could fall off, guys lose confidence.
Exactly.
That is that is kind of how the scales get balanced when you're making these decisions, and it's not.
I mean the I know, the assumption is that money is like.
The top of the the top of the list for every single guy, and for it's up there top three
usually because usually it's the currency. Be like you're adding or subtracting what you're looking for based on who is who is reaching out, and uh, that is something that can can make up for some of maybe the deficiencies that aren't going to either help you in your career, or if the team's not great right now but they're gonna build or whatever, selling the dream of getting you to come to a team that maybe doesn't have everything figured out right now, that money is one way too
compensate for that.
So you know, of course that is the way it works.
But in a vacuum, if you're just considering the park and if you're gonna play, if you're more likely to be able to get away with mistakes or not, you're going to choose the place that at least at least you're gonna have you can count on that, and at the place with the better park factors, and if if they're not willing to go above a little bit above and make it a sweetened the deal a little bit,
then that's what happens. But that's just kind of I mean, that's true in every every sport when it comes down to I mean, there's no park factors in the other two major sports, or.
Actually the other three including hockey.
But you know where you're at, the area, the you know, the the fan base, like all this stuff is going to factor in as well.
And that is that rings true in baseball.
That's why if you're Nick Crawl running the Reds front office last year, you're like, oh, everyone thinks that I should pick Charlie Condon number two overall.
Yeah, we're good. We're gonna go Chase Burns.
We're gonna add another big arm, thank you, and then at the trade deadline adding Lttel. You know, key, Brian Hayes is definitely more of a pitching, you know, run prevention kind of guy, even if he finds himself at the plate again. Trevor Quick note here Braves one yesterday,
¶ There's a positive Chris Sale timeline update!
two homers for Drake Baldwin. He's definitely very much in the Rookie the Year conversation. But I wanted to spend a minute here on Chris Sale. He's rehabbing. It sounds like he should be back somewhat soon at some point. I think this month some Braves fans were freaking out out online here he is doing some sim but some fans were like.
Why even pitch him? We're out?
And then I saw back and forth with some Beat writers like you want him to just not pitch for a month and a half just to save him for next year. So Chris Sale's gonna go out there and he's going to pitch, and Brave fans, you'll be okay, it's not sacrificing next year.
Yeah, I mean, what we're resting him so that we can rest him for four more months.
That doesn't didn't make any sense. He's a competitor.
I think we especially coming off an injury, you want to like see what see what's still there, maybe what mechanical changes have come from it, because it was you know, it was a side injury. There's a lot of rotational stuff. There's things that he can he can pay attention to, and you want to go but you do want to go into the offseason feeling good, feeling strong and build on something. And Chris Sale's one of the best in the game for a reason.
He knows that stuff. That is the bulb moving forward.
And yeah, the season didn't pan out the way you wanted it to, but you got to like the guy.
His job is to pitch. He would tell you that. He's like, I mean, don't you.
Guys want me to do my job, regardless of if it's going to translate into me pitching into the postseason. I think that's that's that's what you're supposed to do, so I won't worry about it. Seeing a sharp Chris Sale should make you excited for next year.
Yes, quickie.
¶ José Alvarado is working his way back from suspension, and Trevor reacts to his PED apology.
Two minutes here, Jose Alvarado working his way back. He's eligible to return from suspension. I think in about a week and.
A half or so.
Trevor's on his rehab assignment now, and his first rehab appearance producing inning, a hit, two strikeouts, touched ninety eight point six with that sinker. It's going to help the Phillies in this stretch run here, not in the playoffs, But did you see the apology?
What did you think of the whole deal?
He didn't go with the excuse route when with more of the legal I did, but I didn't not legally, but like kind of admitting it kind of deal.
Yeah, I'd mean, honestly, something is always good when it comes to your teammates. I've had I've been on teams with you know, some of the stuff happened with Michael Panada and to twenty eighteen maybe I think it was or nineteen, and he stood in front of the team and gave a very clear and he's a very honest guy and very passionate guy, so that was.
Just his style.
And then some guys like just the circumstances, it's embarrassment, it's whatever. It's a little more muted, but an acknowledgement I think goes a long way. I think that everybody in that clubhouse understands the situation, whether it was on purpose or not. Also, like there's a level of understanding temptation as well, depending on whatever the situation was. I just think there's no group of guys that's going to
understand where you're coming from more than other players. So it always meant a lot to us, just regardless of what it was.
You know.
I played with Marlon Gonzalez after the stuff about Astros came out.
And he just owned it too, so it was valuable. It's good to see him say something.
We often talk about Hello Fresh, but we also talk about Green Chef for your wellness journey, or if you're a little annoying like me and you need the gluten free, or you've got a friend that's plant based, or you're.
Like I'm going with the protein heavy approach. They've got it all on Green Chef.
Listen the weekly meals they come with all the time. It's different, it's satisfying, and it's something you really want to do. I'm a guy that needs something healthy as I move forward. Can't be the chicken, tenders and fries all the time. It's got to be those healthy meals that I need as I'm getting older.
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¶ As today is August 8th, who is the best player to wear number 8?
little fun one for you today is eight to eight some candidates for best player to ever wear the number eight?
Do you want me to read the list so you can stew Yeah?
Sure, okay, Cal Ripken Junior, Carlia Streemsky, Joe Morgan, Yo Giberra, Willi Stargel, Gary Carter other Obviously, I'm sure we're missing a guy or two and a fan's gonna call it out.
But at least from that list, what.
Do you like?
Whoa which? Which group of fan bases? Am I more okay with offending?
Uh, I'll go Yo Giberra.
That's what I was thinking too.
And it's a good list, that is.
It's just the most iconic player from every all of six different organizations.
Nobody deal.
Yeah, we made it pretty tough for me. We're not doing the whole deep dive on stats right now and playing that whole game.
It's just like yogisms. I love those, So you could be like that or you could be like.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean if you're a hey, I'm an iron man guy, and I like people who show up every day.
The best ability is their ability blah blah blah. And then cow's are picked.
There.
You can't go wrong.
That's the point. But happy eight eight to all those who celebrate. All right, So coming up next, here's what we're gonna do. Uh, we're gonna talk about high schoolers throwing a hundo plus and get Trevor's thoughts. We are going to talk about the key to the Blue Jays offensive success. And then our last guest on a Friday here will be Tim Britton to make sure that the
Mets are okay. It's become my new favorite question in the last few months, just like a nice simple at the top when a team struggling.
Are they okay? Always produces a fun answer.
So we'll do that.
Coming up in about a minute here, still taking questions, we'll preview some series matchups coming up as well. And then yeah, I'm checking out the chat a little bit more than I have recently. So oh Jay in the chat, weren't the ft guys part of the Yotani should focus on hitting crowd a few months ago. I don't think they took it that far. I think they just wanted
to see how his bat would look that. I'm not going to totally represent Aj and Kratz right now, but they were just like, I want to see what his bat looks like. He's been hurt for a while. Like I thought it was a fair point to bring up on our show. They weren't like, he shouldn't pitch.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it, guys, Just like something something starts to degree, then you gotta be like, is he good? Is he as good as he used to be at this? Then maybe it's time to switch. There's that time is gonna come? Now is not the time?
He is? Uh?
He is a difference maker on both sides of the field, and as long as his body holds.
Up, you gotta let you gotta go with it.
Yeah.
I think he'll hit longer in his career than he'll pitch. But he still got innings left. Yay or nay on
¶ Eduardo Valencia hit for the cycle in the minors and wanted the ball. In what scenarios is it okay to ask for the ball?
this one. Trevor minor leaguer hits for the cycle, asks for the baseball good that.
Absolutely as a guy who did not enjoy cool stuff enough when he played and I of course realized at the moment i'd stopped. Yeah, how often you say it for this, you might never do it again. I mean, I was just flexing high school no hitters, So you should. You should enjoy the things, and it's get the ball. That might be the only thing he ever gets to do in pro ball. Enjoy the stuff you get and get excited about it. And I bet you nobody in that park or in either dugout had any problem with that.
It's a pretty cool conscious. It's not easy to do. Don't see it every day.
I wonder.
I'm sure there's been and I agree with you, by the way, I'm sure there's been a guy who's calling for a baseball where you're like, what is this for?
Yeah, that happens. Yeah. Sometimes you're like, okay, all right, well you know weird. Yeah.
Have you ever seen one where it's like, oh, it's because it's his you know, eightieth hit and oh eighty is my lucky number. I don't know, just something like really stupid, ridiculous where you're like, why is that guy asking for memorabilia right now in a major league game? You?
Yeah, I've never seen anything like that. Usually it's like haven't had a hit in a month.
You like, hey, can I get that one?
But did they actually get it for I've seen that, but you know, like I've seen that where they're joking, Oh, this dude.
Just broke up. Actually throw it out. They put it?
Oh yeah, they put it in their in their locker. Ye, it's great gag.
¶ Kershaw and Scherzer face off this weekend in possibly their final matchup. Also, Happy Birthday to our FT teammate Alana Rizzo!
All right, let's slap.
We're gonna continue the conversation as we're looking ahead to the weekend matchups for the next few minutes.
And I'm with you. I'm going to.
Watch some Max Sures or in Clayton Kershaw facing off tonight. It's obviously two good teams, but also these two will probably never face off again, just in terms of where they are in their career. They first opposed each other on September seventh of two thousand and eight, so Sarah Lang said, they're the first duo in Big League history to start against each other as rookies and then both
accumulate three thousand plus career strikeouts. So I don't know if you remember, but they had that viral moment that was brought up in the past few years. They were both pitching in that game, replacing injured starters. In future Hall of Famers, and the open to the broadcast, which we often joke about is overrated. It's a few minutes, just give me a quick preview of the game. But that opens that broadcast will forever be in baseball history
and viral. Randy Johnson against Greg Maddox, I think it was. And they're like, sorry, folks, you're gonna get these two rookies, Kershaw and Scherzer instead. And it's like, oh, and little did many people know that they were going to witness again two of the better pitchers in Major League history and definitely in our era.
Well, let's hope they pitch, because we don't want this happen.
What if?
But what if the torch got passed and there's two rookies that came in behind them, and we're like, is this is this an indicator of things to come?
It's interesting to think about, but.
I do want to see it as you do want to kind of bookend this thing, this head to head matchup with two to the greats of our generation. It's crazy they were rookies at the same time. It's very rare that two guys have careers like this and start the same year. So two of the best to do it.
And uh, I mean, no matter how it goes, no matter how sharp these guys look like, both contending teams, both leading their divisions, it's a meaningful game as well, So lot online we'll get to see their competitiveness, even what they got.
After all the time.
And back then, you know you could maybe slip through the cracks a little bit and you would think it's hard to do that nowadays. Jacobzaraski came on the scene, is big dude, but no one saw the miz looking like this so far this year, so you can still wow people and start a run. Hey, last minute here. Happy birthday to our FT teammate Alana Rizzo. Hope you're enjoying a nice time in that Boston weather, which she doesn't love, but this is actually the time to enjoy it,
so hopefully she's outside and enjoying a glass of wine. Also, Anthony Rizzo, Yondi Diez, and Craig Breslow, Happy birthday and Trevor, this was fun, man, just you and me hanging chill session in the library.
Feel and anytime, man, I love doing this.
It's great.
Yeah, go pick out a good book for me. Behind you something good for me. Please, thank you. Yes, we'll see you on May Day. Next Wednesday bud bip and it also is Friday, so that means the Big Fly Fridays continue and they now include parlays on the betmgm app and at betmgm dot com. So you placed your first home run bet of the day. If you do that, parlays are included a minimum ten dollars bet on a player or players. If they have the longest home run of the day, you win your share of a fifty
thousand dollars jackpot for bonus bets. This runs through our I guess no option necessary. Just apply that Big Fly Friday qualifying token. It gets dropped into your account and you can use it on the first player or the first players if that's parlay for you that you take to hit a home run every Friday. Gambling problem or concern called one hundred gambler