Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 913: State of the Standings: NL West and AL Central

Episode Date: June 27, 2016

As the regular season’s midpoint approaches, Ben talks to Joe Sheehan and Rany Jazayerli about the state of the NL West and AL Central.

🎵 Singing the same old song But don't you know that we're together He's together, we're together Good morning and welcome to episode 913 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Perspectives, presented by our Patreon supporters, and as always, the Play Index at BaseballReference.com. I'm Ben Lindberg of FiveThirtyEight, not joined today by my regular co-host Sam Miller, who is on vacation all week. And so I have a treat for me, definitely, and hopefully for some of you. I have reunited

Ranny and Joe of the baseball show with Ranny and Joe. Ranny is now a contributor to TheRinger.com, and Joe, of course, is a contributor to SI and The Athletic Chicago, as well as the author of the Joe Sheehan newsletter, which Sam and I both subscribe to. You can find it at joesheehan.com. We highly recommend it. Many people found Effectively Wild as a replacement, as a kind of fix for their Rennie and Joe hankering.

And so we have brought them together. And this week is the midpoint of the season. At some point this week, we will be 50% through the regular season schedule. And so this seems like a good time to take stock of teams and divisions and races. So we're just going to talk baseball for a long time, and then we'll break it up into a bunch of episodes. So hello, guys. Hey, Randy. Hey, how are you, Ben? Good. And Joe, hello.

Hey, Ben, what's going on? It's good to hear you guys back together again. Now, do you do this regularly and just not record it? Do you still just call and talk baseball, or is Randy too busy and successful? More the latter. Well, we text back and forth. We could probably publish our texts more than anything else, but this is actually the first time I've heard Joe's voice in a while. Well, it still sounds the same.

All right. Okay, so I think we will start. I just kind of, I hope that teams will cooperate and there won't be any big season-altering things that happen during this week that will ruin our discussion. By the end of the week, we'll be talking about guys who have been added to the 60-day DL and promoted from the minors, and players will have switched teams, and it will screw everything up. But right now, we can just talk about baseball. And so I figured we could

start. Joe, you recently, in the newsletter, you ranked every team in baseball from least interesting to most interesting, or maybe the other way around. And so I put that into a spreadsheet, because that's how I figure out everything. And so I assigned a point score to each team, and I got an average interestingness score per division. And I don't really know if that makes sense, because maybe that's not how you determine which divisions are interesting. Maybe you could have a bunch of boring teams, but it's a good race, and that makes it a good division. But You could have a bunch of boring teams, but it's a good race, and that makes it a good division. But we'll start with the least interesting two divisions, I think, in today's episode. And Randy might have to leave us at some point for familial obligations and, more importantly, Game of Thrones-related obligations.

But we'll try to get through two today, and we'll see if we can squeeze these in. two today and we'll see if we can squeeze these in. So the NL West is the division composed of the least interesting teams, at least according to your recent rankings. So I figured we could start, Joe, since you do preseason predictions, which I did not do this year. And I don't know if Randy did, but the two of us can just pretend we saw everything coming and nothing is a surprise to us, but you actually have your predictions down on record. And so you have your big hits and your big misses. And so what is in the NL West, what's the big miss or what did you not see coming here? You're probably starting with the one that I feel like I've nailed the most. I think the Rockies are a little bit ahead of where I expected them to be. But everything else is pretty much coming to line. I had the Giants as the, I believe it was the second or third best team in baseball coming into the season. So, you know, their success,

I'm not sure I saw them as a 625 team, but with Johnny Cueto and Madison Bumgarner pitching as well as they have, it's really enabled them to make this transition from kind of the Lince McCain team to this, you know Madison-Bumgarner team. The rotation was the big question coming into the season. And it hasn't – even with all the problems they've had with Kane and Heston being hurt in the back end, those two guys have, along with Bumgarner, given them a top three to support an excellent defense and really to me what I think is an underrated offense. Yeah. So the Giants never lose right now. And really, to me, what I think is an underrated offense.

Yeah, so the Giants never lose right now. And I know that if you were to do a word cloud of the text from your newsletter, I think after the definite and indefinite articles, I think probably variance would be the biggest word in the cloud. So right now we're talking about the Giants and they haven't lost a game in a month or so. So, I mean, do you see them as a legitimate contender to the title of best team in the league, best team in baseball, or is that just colored by their recent success? Are we opening this up to non-Cubs teams at this point? Because I think that's one of the interesting things that's happened in the last week or so. The Cubs were dropping five of six, and all of a sudden, the title of best team in baseball is up for grabs. You've essentially got a certain terms of the standings, a three-way tie between the Cubs, Giants, and Rangers as we're

talking about this. That's interesting because a week ago, it would have been, oh my God, the Cubs are going to win 112 games. And what's their playoff rotation going to be? And do you want to be in Chicago in October? And now we can actually have a conversation about the best team. And I don't know. I think that's an interesting question. I look at the Giants. I think they're the team with the fewest large holes, I guess. And even that's conceding that their bullpen is a little bit iffy. I'm still not sure what to make of the Rangers, who are doing all of this without –

I mean, essentially without you, Darvish, which he made two starts. And then the Cubs and the Giants. And I think we all know the Cubs' run prevention is a little bit of a surprise. I know you and Rob had looked at 538. You went deep into how they've been preventing runs. But, I mean, for me, I think I'd still put the Cubs ahead of the Giants so far. I'm curious, Randy, I know you're close to them out in Chicago. Where do you go with them?

You timed your debut piece for the ring perfectly. You timed your debut piece for the ring perfectly. I feel like answering the question, who's the best team in baseball, as anything other than the Cubs, is just being contrarian for contrarian's sake. I mean, I've been using run ratio more than run differential because I think it's the best way to compare teams across different eras, different run context eras. And when you talk about the Cubs, of course, you're looking at their place in history because their run ratio is ridiculous. looking at their place in history because their run ratio is ridiculous. And even with their recent slump, I think their ratio, they've scored I think 71% more runs than they've allowed, which is they've moved down to fourth all time. They're right behind the 39 Yankees.

To give you some context, the best team since World War II in terms of run ratio, the 69 Baltimore Orioles outscored their opponents by 51%. The Cubs are at 71%. The Giants, I think, are at 22%. The Rangers are at 14%. So, you know, yeah, their win totals are the same. The Cubs are, as strange as it is to say about a team that has the best record in baseball, they are one of the biggest underachievers in the game.

I mean, their Pythagorean record is like five wins better than their actual record. Their one loss record in one-run ball games is under 500. They are 10 and 11 in one-run games and 38 and 14 in all other games. So it's the Cubs. I mean, to me, that's a pretty easy answer. I didn't mean to deviate into the NL Central discussion and the NL West discussion, but we'll probably just keep bringing up the Cubs over and over. That kind of happens this season. So, I mean, with the Giants, their gambles have paid off, right?

Because it was unusual to see Brian Sabian go outside the organization and make some big free agent buys. And there was some skepticism about the players he devoted those dollars to, Cueto and Samarja. And those gambles, if that's what you want to call them, have paid off perfectly. And some of the weaknesses elsewhere in the rotation, it would be scary to think about what that pitching staff would look like without those two guys who have basically been their best selves thus far. And so, I mean, that has worked out really well. We kind of think of Sabian as the, you know, extend his veterans and keep the guys he acquires forever. But he has changed. I guess we've seen

different models of Sabian over the years, and certainly his reputation has changed quite a bit over the years. But this is kind of a deviation from his old way of operating and it's worked out perfectly. Randy and I have a longstanding argument about Jeff Samarja. I was just about to bring that up, yeah. It certainly seems like over the last couple of years – I mean he's bounced around but I think certainly this was better than I ever expected to see out of Samarja if you look at his 2014 and 2016 seasons. And the real key was starting in 2014, just even more so than the league cut its walk rate, Samarja did.

He just became much better at getting ahead in the count, throwing strikes, throwing effective strikes, which made the stuff that he's always had going back to when he was a two-sport prospect at Notre Dame, has turned him into the pitcher that Randy thought he was going to be. I didn't really love the signing. It was 5-90 if memory serves. When you combine that with what we thought about Cueto coming after the way Cueto's second half of last year was, it was all over the map. This just seemed like taking on an awful lot of risk for questionable benefit. Ben's phrase, best forms of themselves really has come to fruition. Right. I'd like to say that I was right about Samarja, but honestly, even this year, I mean, Samarja is very, you know, home run prone, particularly for a guy pitching, you know, half his games in that ballpark. He's been good. He's been solid. He hasn't been exceptional.

And again, speaking as a Royals fan, somebody who saw the most exasperating half season of his career last year, where he was giving up 10 hits a start. It seemed like every start in August is in September before sort of finding himself in the postseason. I wasn't sure that the peak era Johnny Cueto we saw from 2011 to 2014 was still in that guy. And if anything, he's really been better than he's ever been this season for the Giants. So at least to this point, the mere fact that both of them have been very durable, they haven't broken down at all, they're both pitching close to their best abilities, they're both very long contracts. There's a lot of ways this can go wrong for them. But those are the two main reasons, I think, why the Giants are better than I

expected them to be at this point in the season. Yeah. And offensively and maybe fielding-wise, also, they've kind of royalsed it so far. And this year, maybe we'll get into the AL Central in this episode as well, I hope. But when people were singing the praises of the Royals' contact heavy approach, perhaps too much so, but that was a common refrain. And some people would pipe up and say, well, the Giants kind of did that before the Royals did. That was really the Giants' model. And now I guess they've taken it to an even greater extreme.

I don't know whether this is extreme compared to 2015 Royals, but right now the Giants are out-Royalsing the Royals, and they are striking out less, and they've got about the same power, and they're a good defensive team. So it's sort of built in the same way. But the one thing that strikes me is different than the Royals. They have the fewer strikeouts in the league,

but they have the third most walks internationally. I mean, you know, the Royals, you know, the entire approach is, you know, put the first pitch in play, and then you don't have to worry about striking out, but you also never walk. This is a team that just has guys who know the strike zone so well, whether it's Buster Posey or Brandon Belt or even some of the less heralded guys. Joe Panik has a strikeout-to-walk ratio close to 1-to-1.

They quietly know how to teach offense in San Francisco very well. And I think it's hidden by that ballpark to some extent, but you see it in the strikeout and walk numbers. Well, that's a good formula if you can take what worked for the Royals and then add walks to it. That was generally the criticism of the Royals was that was missing. So they have that. All right. All right. So I remember, I think that, Joe, you were pretty skeptical about the Dodgers in your preseason, 30 teams in 30 hours or whatever it ended up being, previews. And was that based on the way the team was constructed just kind of all offseason? Or was it based on the injuries that cropped up right in spring training that have plagued the team thus far? I didn't really like their depth. And I don't blame them.

I know they get a lot of grief for not signing Zach Greinke. And to some extent, I think that's overwrought because there's just only so much you can do. The player has free will. If Zach Greinke decides he wants to go play in Phoenix, and I think Randy will attest to the fact that Zach Grein he's his own man. You just can't do anything about that. There were two pitchers on the market. One of them signed, and the guy they were chasing left, and they were left with Kershaw, and now Kazmir, and Maid, and all these other guys. It's just out of their control. They're in that bridge now where they're not ready to give Arias and Deleon 400 innings, so they're just trying to fake it this year. Now, I had them going 86-76, not making the playoffs because the NL is just ridiculously top-heavy. I didn't think they'd be a bad team.

I think they're almost exactly on pace for that record. I don't say that to pat myself on the back. If you couldn't predict the National League this year, you really got to get out of the business. But yeah, you start to see the aging of the offense. Adrian Gonzalez, six home runs, he's 34. Chase Utley's been a great story for them, but he's slipped a lot since kind of out of the blue becoming the everyday second baseman. Howie Kendrick just completely fallen off. The offense just really hasn't been there.

And as much as I love Corey Seager and I love Jock Peterson, I mean, it's going to be really strange to think you can have Kershaw and Seager and the highest payroll in the league and not make the playoffs. Yeah. I mean, if the Dodgers don't make the playoffs, then it's an embarrassment, I suppose, in the way that some of the recent Yankees teams have where you just kind of feel like if you're spending that much money, yes, the fortunes of teams ebb and flow and guys get old and the next wave of young players doesn't always come around at the opportune time. But still, if you're spending that much, really, you can't afford to miss even once. It's a bad reflection on your front office, I guess, except that this is the front office that we've all been praising as very smart and,

you know, has lopped the heads off of five other front offices and signed all of their top people. So it's hard to know what to make of that. And it'd probably look like a better team if Yasiel Puig had turned back into good Yasiel Puig. But does either of you have any idea of what the rest of his career might look like at this point? Do you have any expectations for what kind of player he is now? It's one of those moments where I'm really hoping Randy jumps in first. I mean, he could be just about anything. I mean, you forget he's still 25 years old, right?

I mean, this season could very easily turn into a blip on the radar, but his performance has declined every year since he reached the majors as a 22-year-old who was playing at an MVP caliber. I think he will always hit. I think his defense, which is erratic at best, will probably render him at some point in the not-too-distant future will start to become an issue. I think he'll end his career as a mercurial DH for some team in the American League. But from a year-to-year basis, I have no idea what to expect from him. I don't think anybody does.

I wonder how a guy who comes into the league with pretty decent play discipline, who walks 10% of the time at age 23, suddenly walks 4% of the time at age 24. 25, I should say. To see a guy go that backwards – and we have another recent example of this. BJ Upton, not so much the plate discipline, but he's a guy who at 23 looked like a superstar and then just kept going backwards for the next four years. I think we've all moved away from the age 27 peak, bell curve career model, but it is

very, very strange to see guys be that good that young and then that bad a couple years later. I know there's a lot of research that's been done on that over at Fangraphs and elsewhere that players are reaching the majors and the best they'll ever be and then declining almost in a straight line. Yasiel Puig, he has a little bit of dumb and young in him, too.

There's another guy who, was never as good as Puig was, but was also younger than Puig was when he reached the majors. I mean, he was 20 as a pre-rookie, 21 as a rookie, and had a very promising year, got traded to the Twins because of that, and really never developed into even an average

player. He had probably one above-average season after that. So, you know, it is kind of a new frontier when it comes to aging curves in baseball, and I think Puig's talent is that he'll stick around a long time but it wouldn't shock me if he completely goes into the tank the way a delman did or melvin upton did yeah there were times when it looked like he had more adaptability or more intelligence as a hitter than some of the other players whose names we've invoked here i remember various articles about articles about how teams were pitching to Puig

a certain way, and then he adjusted, and then they counter-adjusted. And it looked like he was a guy who was capable of making those sort of adjustments and wasn't just the raw athletic talent, but was also able to change himself as a player in response to how people were pitching to him. And that seems to have been lost at some point along the way. And I don't know how much health is an issue or not. But that lineup would look a lot longer with a good Yasiel Puig in it and a good Yasmany Grandal would help also. Well, and for all the talk about like missing Granke, I mean, Kenta Maeda has probably been better than anybody had any right to expect.

I mean, when you look at the contract he got, I mean, it was basically a, we have no idea how good you'll be, so we're going to just make the entire contract one big incentive. And he's been as valuable, if not more valuable than Cranky to this point in the season. The problem with the team is their offense.

They just, aside from Seager, they really don't have much in the way of consistent hitting from night to night. And I don't know what to make of their approach toward building a pitching staff either because Sam and I have talked about this a bunch of times, but it seems like the Dodgers are at the forefront in injury research,

or at least in talking about injury research. And so, you know, they've acquired all these smart people and they've kept databases and they've done studies and they've also seemed to go out of their way to acquire injury-prone pitchers, which is, you know is historically the sort of people that teams tend to steer away from. And so it would be great if they had some advantage, if they were able to keep these guys healthy and if they could go out and sign Brett Anderson and get a healthy season out of him, which they did. And then go get Brandon McCarthy and have him stay healthy or something. But thus far, that strategy seems to have backfired.

And they've constantly been in a state of trying to put their pitchers back together and trying to have a full rotation. And that really hasn't worked out that well thus far. And I don't know whether it's a smart strategy, because if you're the Dodgers, you can afford to have a bunch of guys on the DL and you can pay them and you can go get other players and try to acquire that depth or whether there's just no world in which acquiring pitchers who break is a good idea. But thus far, it hasn't been. There's no world in which pitchers don't break though. Right. Yes.

And I just – I think you look at what the Dodgers have done and maybe the stuff they're doing, the hiring and the research and the development that they're doing ends up paying off over a five to ten-year timeframe. I don't think the fact that Alex Wood broke or Brandon McCarthy broke or, oh my god, Brett Anderson broke. I don't think that's an indictment of anything. I think you say it's an indictment of those individual moves. I don't think – I'm not prepared to throw out this front office with these people and these resources. It's one bad year. And even at that, it's a bad year where they're probably going to win 85, 86 games. They could still win the division. But again, I think they've got to eventually get young players to the majors so they can get the Gonzalez's and stop treating Enrique Hernandez like an everyday player and eventually Ethier, his contract will be up. We haven't seen this front office really be able to put the money into play yet.

And I think they're going to be one of those teams that in 2019 is rubbing their hands and saying, okay, now we can go get us, whether it's Harper or Machado or I'm blanking. I know that's a ridiculous class. Jeff Passan writes about it all the time. But there are going to be a lot of guys out there. They haven't really, because of the free agent classes, they haven't been able to put that advantage into play just yet.

So the playoff odds at BP have them at about 30% to win the division. Do you guys take the under on that? That sounds about right to me, actually. 30% to win the division? I'd probably take the under. I mean, seven games is seven games. And while I think the Dodgers are probably better than they've played at this point, that's a pretty big gap to make up with three months left in the season, basically. I'm counting on the pitching getting better

in the second half. And I know that's not where the hole is, but they should get some guys back. We'll see, hopefully, eventually, DeLeon. Uriah's probably doesn't have that many innings left, but we'll see if DeLeon can have an impact. And then this is also a team you would expect, in the same way that they did at the trade-in last year, to come up with some ridiculous three-team, 53-player, seven-draft pick trade that makes them just a little bit better.

Let me ask you guys, I know we're already in a time crunch. Have you seen anything in Dave Roberts that you've noticed, not noticed? To me, he's kind of been generic so far, maybe not the greatest tactical manager. Yeah, I haven't noticed a whole lot. In talking to Andy McCullough on the podcast, he seems fairly impressed with how he's handled people, which is a big part of why he was hired, I suppose. But, you know, he's been put in a few difficult decisions going back to the first week of the season, right? Where he's had to make pitching changes that people weren't happy with. But it doesn't seem like he's a huge offender in any of the ways that tends to piss people like us off. And I think that's almost the model now for a manager in 2016. Teams are looking for the

manager who is generic tactically and an asset in the clubhouse. And that sort of describes him. And I think that they're probably pretty happy with that. I think that that's exactly what they wanted. Well, but if he was supposed to be a Puig whisperer and Yasiel Puig has an 85 OPS plus. Yeah. I mean, I guess he's been on fairly good behavior, which is maybe more important to them. I don't know.

I'd personally take a guy who's getting arrested twice a year, but then hitting for an 850 OPS, but that's just me. Right. Yeah. So where do you see potential for a big upgrade on this roster? If the team is going to make a move at some point in the next month, is there a particular place where you think they could make the biggest gain with the least expense? Well, the things that are out there are corner outfielders and Jonathan LeCroy, both of which would help this team. But if you assume they're not going to trade Peterson, Seager, Arias, and DeLeon, I just named the four Dodger prospects I can actually name. Who's the outfielder that made a big splash this spring?

Bellinger? Am I saying that right? Oh, yeah, right. Yeah, because I think Bellinger, and I think about the guy with four rings. I think that the Dodgers wanted to interject themselves into a trade for just about anybody. They could do it based on the talent. But again, it gets back to, is this front office going to do that? I think they're looking and saying, we want to have a core of five guys who are making $4 million and putting up 15 war so that we can put true

$20 million player, well, now $30 million players around them as opposed to trading for those guys. But yeah, if they were to trade for Luke Roy, and I know that I'm supposed to like as money as a switch hitting catcher who walks, but I'm about ready to give up. All right. Well, so the Diamondbacks now, I'm trying to remember what the win total projection was for them preseason that Dave Stewart said were a joke. It was what, something in the, the high seventies, somewhere in that range, I think. And, and they're roughly headed for that now. So, uh, and, and of course they, they lost Pollock. That was a big blow,

but I guess, you know, where do you go if you're the Diamondbacks at this point, we've, we've seen them kind of pivot from building over the long haul and promoting from within and then suddenly going out and signing the biggest free agent. And Shelby Miller has backfired to a greater extent than anyone could have imagined, even people who didn't like the trade, which was everyone. Where do you go if you're the Diamondbacks now? Is there enough for them? you know everyone where do you go if you're the diamondbacks now is there enough for them you know assuming things don't all of a sudden come together over the next few months is there enough that they should go into next season as buyers as expecting to contend is there

just not enough to win with this core where do you see them well item is 83 wins with pollock i did my predictions before pollock so if So if they finish, that makes about 500 team without Pollock. Just thinking about the roster, though, that whole core returns next year. Miller, Granke, Goldschmidt, Pollock. Who would you say is their fifth player? Do you say Jake Lamb, maybe? Yeah.

Those guys all return next year. I think that you look at that as the same 85 win team you might have looked at them as this year. We'll see if they have the money. They're paying Grinke a ton of money. We'll see if they have enough to go out and add probably some type of OBP guy. I mean, the middle infield is pretty bad.

Gene Segura has been a tremendous asset for them. I'm still not convinced that holds up. But they've had all these injuries this year. I think they're going to look at this year and say, well, Pollock got hurt and all our backups got hurt. They were running Chris Herman in center field. I've never seen a backup catcher play center field before. That was a new one. Yeah, but they're going to have to probably work on that bullpen a little bit.

I don't think you can – I don't think there's any reason to blow it up. You've traded Dansby Swanson. You're on board. This is your plan for the next two to three years. You're trying to win with this particular group of players. Yeah. Before the season, my head said that this was a team that could be very frisky. I think, Joe, even before they went out and traded for Grinke, I think you had the Diamondbacks as one of your potential sleepers. Oh, last fall, I absolutely had them as a sleeper.

And then they go out and they sign one of the best free agents in the market. Generally speaking, the best way to use your free agent dollars, if you can do it, is to sign one of the best free agents out there. Intellectually, I thought, okay, this is a team that has a chance to win, but my heart was just – I was just so angry with this organization for some of the moves they made. You're able to spend $200 million on Zach Greinke, but you basically sell a talented pitching prospect, and God help me trying to pronounce his name, Tukey Toussaint, something like that.

Works for me. To save, what, $8 million on a Royals contract. And then the Shelby Miller trade, which is one of the most indefensible trades I've ever seen. And I say that as somebody who, you know, attached his entire career to the idea that trading Will Myers was the height of folly. But, you know, you trade the number one pick in the draft, and then a really talented outfielder at Endurance-E-Arts was, you know,

value-wise was probably, you know, was as valuable, if not more valuable, than Shelby Miller last year. And Aaron Blair was a talented pitching prospect. value-wise was probably, you know, was as valuable, if not more valuable than Shelby Miller last year. And Aaron Blair was a talented pitching prospect. Like the things that they were doing as an organization and the, I don't want to say the arrogance, the smugness with which, you know, Dave Stewart, you know, would operate in the quotes. It was very reminiscent of Ruben Amaro at Amaro's peak. This idea that, you know, we know more than the numbers guys, that we value grit and character and heart,

and we don't care what the numbers say. It rubbed me wrong something fierce. And so I do take a little bit of delight in the fact that they are struggling the way they are, that the Miller trade has, like you said, blown up even worse than its biggest detractors could have anticipated. But they're in a tough spot. I mean, like Joe said, you had the number one pick in the draft. That's something that doesn't come around

very often. You don't want to come around very often. You've cashed that in. You're kind of committed here, at least for the short term. And they don't have a lot of free agent defections in the next year or two. So they're going to stay the course. The problem, though, is that the players that they're relying on, I don't see a lot of these guys getting substantially better than they are. I mean, Paul Goldschmidt's amazing. I don't know if he's going to improve upon who he is. Jay Kalam is having, you know, a true breakout season, but I'm not sure he can improve on this.

Losing Pollock really hurts, and I think that's the one area you can say, you know, get him back next year. That's four or five wins right there. But, you know, Zach Greinke's 32 years old, and, you, and he's a very good pitcher, and he'll continue to be very good. But I don't see him potentially getting back to where he was in 2015. I think that's going to be the best year of his career. So this is an organization that's got some issues. And on a small scale, it sort of reminds me of the Padres from a year ago where they sort of cashed in all of their chips on this belief that they were ready to win. And when it doesn't work out, it's going to take years to –

Yeah, I want to stop you there just because I want to – the Diamondbacks core you figure is Goldschmidt, Pollock, Lamb, Granke, and we'll say Corbin just to fill out the five. The Padres don't have a single player that good, any of that list. They're certainly a better team. I completely agree. But I thought – I mean what the Padres did, the Padres are going to take them five years to come back from that. The Diamondbacks have the talent still there that they could be contenders next year. But I think that they just had this opportunity. But the Padres were never going to win 90 games with what they did. I can see the

Diamondbacks winning 90 games. Yeah, I could, but I think that if they just stayed the course with the talent they had, signed Cranky but not made other ridiculous trades, they could be winning now. And they had a chance to be a 90-95 win team for a couple of years. Their core talent was so strong, and they've kind of

blown that opportunity. And now they're sort of fighting for the next tier. They're still in a higher tier than the Padres, but I think that the potential for this team was better than the Padres ever was, and they've kind of screwed that up. I don't know how Dave Stewart is a GM. I don't say that as like a boy, he's bad. It's I don't understand the path by which Dave Stewart got a GM job. Come on, Joe.

Agents become GMs all the time. It works out brilliantly. I've never understood it. You'd think there might be some value to not having another Ivy League clone just in that maybe he'll approach the game in a different way and be able to exploit some weakness that every Ivy League clone has. But I don't know. There is a reason that teams keep hiring Ivy League clones.

Well, I think there's definitely value in that. I mean, you could argue on some level. I mean, you know, Royals fans who are even more in the tank than I am will argue that that's Dayton Moore. But you have to have, you know, if you're not bringing the Ivy League sensibilities to the table, you've got to bring something to the table. I'm not sure what Dave Stewart brings to the table, period. Right. That's what I'm saying.

You always – I just absolutely value having baseball men, quote-unquote, in the organization, ex-players, guys who are in on the decision process, guys who can give you that viewpoint. I just don't necessarily think Dave Stewart – I certainly don't think Dave Stewart should be making the decisions, and I'm not completely sure Dave Stewart should be in on the decisions. And I, all of a sudden, he's the GM of a team and good luck. All the best. Go Ken Kendrick. Right? Yeah, you'd think there might be some value in just having a former player, former agent, you'd think he speaks the players

language, you know, maybe it would help him in recruiting and signing players. And, and maybe Granke was an example of that. I mean, Granke was debating between the Giants and the Dodgers. And then he ended up going in a completely different direction. And I forget who it was. I think maybe Ken Rosenthal did a sort of TikTok account of how that happened. And it was like a day or something, you know, Granke became a Diamondback. And maybe that was just because they offered him the most money.

And that's all you really need to do. But you'd think there'd be some value in, you know, there were some quotes last year where it almost seemed as if Stewart was trying to cater to players and say, million blog posts about how dumb the comment was. But you'd think that maybe the audience was potential free agents or potential players who might be attracted to that sort of approach to the game. But I don't know if that's the only benefit to it is that you can sign Zach Greinke and you also have to pay him the most money. Then I'm not sure that's such a valuable skill for an executive. I also think – I know, again, I'm sort of at this point. I think that we're underestimating players,

or maybe Dave Stewart's underestimating players. We're 35 years since the abstracts were published. We're 20 years since Perspectus was launched. Players are increasingly have grown up with this. Right. And if not everybody is going to be Brandon McCarthy or Joey Votto, Or Zach Greinke for that matter. Or Zach Greinke for that matter,

more and more of them are going to understand that this is just part of the game. They have mostly, you know, the game's been, certainly, since they've been professionalized, and more and more it's going to be kids growing up seeing OBP and slugging on scoreboards and on their TVs,

and it's just the way of the world. So no, I think that, I mean, Stewart's approach might have made sense in 1998 but it's just antediluvian now. All right. So we've touched on the Padres. We don't have to devote too much time to them because it's just depressing. The Rockies, we don't have to dwell on either. But I will just say that to strike know, to strike a rare optimistic note

about the Rockies, everyone kind of grouped them into the NL cellar dwellers category before the season started. And, you know, it was the Braves and the Phillies and the Brewers and the Reds and the Rockies. And they were all kind of in this group together. And the Rockies have turned out to be, at least by win-loss record thus far, the best of those teams and significantly better than some of them. So is there anything about their record thus far, their success thus far, that makes you think they've figured anything out in a way that they have struggled to figure things out before? Or is this just a half season of decency? Well, the thing that stands out for me is they've actually played better on the road than at home.

I mean, they've outscored their opponents on the road. Their records are about the same, 19 and 21 on the road, 16 and 18 at home, but the run differential is better. And this is for an organization that has had the greatest either home field advantage or road field disadvantage. And I still don't think we've really got a handle on which it is, but you know, of any team in baseball because of the whole altitude issue,

the fact that they are a essentially 500 on the road. This is an organization that in general, they can play 500 on the road. They should be contenders every year because that they can cater their, their, their offense to that ballpark. And, you know,

even, even bad Rockies teams have won 60% of their games at home. So how much of that is affected by whatever state the humidor is in at any given moment? I don't know. But that's probably the most surprising thing to me is that they're actually, they're not just, you know, I look at their record. I think, well, maybe they're just playing out of their minds at home like they always do. But no, they're actually a legitimate team away from Coors Field.

That is one of the most surprising things I've seen about the Rockies in several years, I would say. They lead the league in runs scored, and any path the Rockies ever have to being good is going to involve leading the league in runs scored. And I don't mean that silly. They have to try to score a million runs and just hope to survive with the pitching. And that's what they've been able to do so far. I probably owe DJ LeMayhew a public apology. I've kind of been crapping on him for a number of years, and he just keeps getting a little bit better every season. They also made an effort, I know, in the offseason to kind of finally, and talk about arguments, Randy and I have been having for a while, focus on getting strikeouts. That hasn't really turned up on the scoreboard. They're

13th in the league in strikeout rate, but I'm pretty sure if you look, they're throwing harder than they have in recent years. That's something, especially as they move away from Jorge de la Rosa and his contract expires and they start moving guys through the system. They drafted Riley Pint. The only reason you draft Riley Pint is because you think in five years, he's going to be able to throw. He's going to be your Noah Syndergaard. That that's something that – I think there might be some signs of progress for an organization that just – there haven't been any in a long time. So what they do on the field doesn't – I mean what they're doing on the field, their record, their run prevention, I mean these are all somewhat interesting.

But in the big picture, they might slowly be getting it. And very quickly, just to get back to the 20-year argument that Joe and I have had over how to win a Coors Field. Ben, are you even 20? Is this argument older than you are? Don't answer that, Ben. You know, essentially, I mean, I think a very quick distillation of our positions is that Joe believes that the pitching staff should focus on strikeouts above all, whereas I feel like they should focus on limiting walks as much as possible because other teams are going to get their hits and home runs regardless if you want to reduce the base runners. But here's the thing, though. The one thing I think we both agree on is that velocity is more important in Colorado than the quality of your breaking stuff because breaking stuff doesn't break it in Coors Field.

of your breaking stuff because breaking stuff doesn't break it in Coors Field. And at the same time, I want to say that velocity, you know, the drag coefficient on the ball as it's thrown is less than thin air. So if anything, a fastball might arrive at home plate slightly faster than it would at a different ballpark. So the interest that they are showing in getting hard throwers, I completely agree. I think that is a needed change in their philosophy. Riley Pint is a good example of that. They have John Gray, who's not pitching terribly as a young guy

in the rotation. And I think that that is sort of the future for that organization. Ben, next time you have Alan Nathan on, ask him about the whole fastball seeming slightly faster. Yeah, right. And some of the relievers they acquired over the past winter seem to go hand in hand with that strategy. Not that Jake McGee or Jason Mott has really had anything to do with their success so far, but they seem to fall into that bucket also. Is either of these teams one that you would be trying to pick over the roster of if you were a contending team? Is there really anything? I mean, there's Carlos Gonzalez, but there isn't a whole lot of shiny talent on either of these rosters that really stands out.

It's something you would want to acquire, particularly on the Padres, but unless you, you know, Drew Pomeranz, I guess, is the one guy. Right, but am I going to trust Pomeranz to throw 200 innings? Right. And are you going to trust any Rockies hitter

to hit when they leave Colorado? I mean, some guys do. Some guys don't. I don't think we've ever had a handle on who is who. You know, after what we've seen with Troy Tulewitzki after he left Colorado, and yes, injuries are a part to play in that, but I think that the proof that there's no caliber

of a player that, you know, no caliber of a hitter good enough that they are immune to the Coors effect if they leave. Maybe Nolan Arenado, but you're not getting Nolan Arenado off that team. Yeah. All right. So let's move on to the next division, the next least interesting division, according to my somewhat arbitrary rankings here. And of course, it's the most interesting division for at least one person on this call, the AL Central. So as we speak, the Indians are another team that never lose anymore.

And the Indians are, you know, probably the most popular preseason pick, certainly the projection system darling. And they've done it despite getting nothing out of Michael Brantley, which is impressive, but there's a lot to like of, you know, what they've done over not just this year, but really the last calendar year, because they kind of remade their roster on the fly last year, turned themselves into a team that could actually field baseballs. And of course they had the power pitching staff already. So is there any reason to think that the Indians will not relinquish what is currently a five and a half game lead? Well, before the season, I mean, the Indians were the team that as a Royals fan, you know, scared me more than than any other team in the division. I mean, even when the White Sox

were like 23 and 10, I wasn't buying in and they kind of collapsed in spectacular fashion. But this is this is what I thought the Indians would be. I mean, they're they're pitching staff. They've been kind of underachievers these last couple of years just because that starting rotation has been so good, and yet they have not been able to win any playoff games from it. But now that pitching staff is supplemented by a pretty decent lineup. Francisco Lindor is amazing. As a Rose fan, I'm almost at the point now where I'm rooting.

Today they were playing the Tigers. I wasn't sure whether to root for Detroit or Cleveland because I almost feel like the wild card is maybe the best that the Royals can hope for at this point. I was trying to just calculate in my head whether I'd have the, whether I would take the Indians five starters or a rotation made

of the best of the rest of the division. And I guess the problem is the White Sox. So you go Seattle, Quintana, Fulmer, Verlander and Duffy that's pretty close actually I guess it depends on whether you like Josh Tomlin but I've

I think you go back a couple of years now we keep waiting for the Indians to have that get over the hump season and they made the wild card three years ago now, two years ago but that's been the extent of it and it would be nice. And man, this is a front office I hate to say bad things about. You know, I worked with Keith Wollner for forever.

He's literally one of the smartest people I've ever known. And I just, I wonder, why can't this team build an offense? You just wait. They just could just get over the hump with an offense. And this year, it's, you know, they're middle of the pack. Again, as Ben mentioned, without Brantley. But they're still playing Mike Napoli, who hasn't hit right-handers in three years. They've gone through a number of center fielders,

but they're getting these weird little good years out of Rajay Davis and Jose Ramirez. Maybe that's what it takes. We've talked a lot about nowadays you don't have to be great. You just have to be good enough. And the Indians might just put a good defense, a great rotation, and a mediocre offense on the field, and that'll be enough in the AL Central. Right. And Tyler Naquin having a 960 OPS, that helps too. And it's like 1100s, it's his recall, right? Like Marlon Burr got suspended, and Tyler Naquin's career just got resurrected.

Yeah. And so I don't know whether this is a team that can add because everyone wondered why they weren't adding last offseason because, I mean, we all wondered whether Michael Brantley would contribute anything and that has continued to be the case. I think their attendance is down again somehow. You wouldn't have thought that that could happen, but it has. And so I don't know how much money they have to spend, but you would think that, you know, if they're not buying into those first halves from some of their outfielders that no one had heard of four months ago, maybe that's an area where they could improve if they're willing to and if they're able to. I mean, is this a team that could put together a package for Jonathan Lucroy? I mean, you talk about another position that they could really use, help out a catcher.

And then the fact that Lucroy is under contract for the next year and a half, and I think he's making like $4 million this year and I think his options for like $5.25 next year. So the money would work. I don't know if they have the talent in the farm system, but if you talk about one player they could add that would maybe elevate them to favorites to win the entire league, Luke Roy would probably be that guy. I think you'd start – you wouldn't trade both of Zimmer and Frazier,

but you put one of them out there, maybe with the lefty Kaminsky. I mean, is that start a package? I don't know. I think that Luke Roy, because of that contract in part, that just brings so many other teams into the mix for him as opposed to trading for a Ryan Braun or something. But it's such a compliment. Ettenasio said the other day, maybe a week ago now, they had no intention of trading Braun and LeCroy,

which is nice, but you're going to lose LeCroy at the end of next year. And there's a decent chance he's never going to be better again than he is right now. That would be a massive missed opportunity for a team that has actually done a pretty nice job with their rebuilding project in Milwaukee. Can I interest you in the Prince Fielder story?

I want to throw this out. The biggest hero in Cleveland since – I don't know. I don't know any other Cleveland heroes. It's Alan Freed, I guess, is LeBron James. LeBron James, a couple dollars in his pocket, right? How about LeBron James decides to save another Cleveland institution? And on the heels of getting the Cavaliers a championship, like buys a share of the Indians for 30 million cash. And now the Indians have $30 million to play with.

How would you – LeBron James could buy Cleveland two championships in a year. Nobody's hung up yet. Nobody's hung up on me yet because you're thinking about it. I'm just thinking about how cruel you are being to Indians fans listening to torture them with that kind of idea that there's no way in hell it will happen. I don't know. I mean certainly LeBron James has the money for it. I just – and he's in there. He loves Cleveland.

He has the inclination to be a GM. He's tried to do that already. So sure. Yeah. Why not? He replaces Terry Francona with Tyronn Lue. All right. Randy, I'll just let you talk about the Royals, I guess. Just go talk about the Royals.

I guess, I mean, the Royals are – they've had a couple of off-seasons that maybe people tended not to like. I mean, maybe more than two, maybe consecutive, people tended not to like and, and the I mean, maybe maybe more than two consecutive, maybe 20 or so. But it seems like even, you know, as they blossomed into this great team, they still made moves that no one really liked. And last year, enough of them panned out at least that it didn't sabotage the team this year not quite to the same extent and you know of course injuries have happened and other things have gone wrong and players have taken steps back and so the royals as we speak are three games over 500 and of course we've seen them go on remarkable second half runs when everyone had written them off before do you see

any potential for something similar this season? Well, I mean, the best news about the Royals is that they are over 500 when you consider all the things that have happened to this team this year. I mean, they've been outscored. They had an eight-game losing streak at one point this season. They also had a five-game losing streak. They just broke a four-gamer today. After being down 12-0 in the second inning and 7-0 in the second inning in back-to-back games, they lost Mike Moustakis for the season. They lost Alex Gordon for a month. They are relying on people like Chesler Cuthbert and Whit Merrifield and Brett Neibner in their lineup, and yet they're 39-35. I mean, if you had

told me all of those other things would happen, there's no way I would predict a winning record. The problem with the team is pretty simple. Their rotation is just gruesome. And, you know, give the team credit for showing the last two years that there is a path to winning a championship that doesn't involve having a good starting rotation. They had a very mediocre rotation.

They sort of took what Tony La Russa did. You just described the 2011 Cardinals, so maybe not so much with giving the Royals credit for that. I literally was in the middle of saying they took the blueprint unfurled by Tony La Russa in 2011. I think we talked about that team on the podcast

a fair amount, Joe. They've taken it to the next level. You know, Tony La Russa did it primarily in the postseason by, you know, I think Chris Carpenter would go nine and then everyone else go like three innings. But the Royals basically did that for most of the regular season, right, by just building the best bullpen in baseball and then having, you know, a lineup that was, you know, maybe slightly above middle of the pack. And they're doing it again this year in the sense the bullpen, once again,

the last I checked, they had the lowest ERA of any bullpen in the major leagues. I mean, the bullpen is – it now has to be considered one of the great bullpens in major league history when this is like the fourth year in a row in which they can make a claim to having the best bullpen in the least American league. But the rotation is like 28th in ERA. Chris Young, if the season ended today, would set the all-time major league record for most home runs per inning

by a pitcher who's thrown 50 innings. He's given up 21 home runs in 54 innings. He's still beating his FIP by a full run. Some of that Chris Young magic there for you. Six and a half ERA, seven and a half FIP. And it's just, it's so horrible that, you know, the Royals are still a very, very dangerous team when it's three to three in the sixth inning.

The problem is they're down five to two in the sixth inning all the time. Not all the time, but enough that they are where they are. But I mean, I still think this team is going to win probably 85 to 89 wins. And that will put them in the wildcard contention. Losing Moustakas really hurts. Chesler Cuthbert has been actually been very, has been a surprisingly solid replacement player there. Whit Merrifield has been, has become a cult hero, hitting 320 as, you know, the everyday second baseman, and I don't think he's going to do anything close to that, but Omar Infante is no

longer on the roster, and I think the Royals are, for that reason if nothing else, likely to get more production from second base going forward than they have. And they really haven't had the good Alex Gordon yet, or any Alex Gordon. Well, yeah, and then he was on the deal for a month. He came off the deal yesterday and homered and doubled. They've also had the 360-hitting version of Paulo Orlando, which I suspect might not be the real one. Probably will not continue.

So overall, I mean, I think the shape of the team will be different going forward, but I think they will continue to be a slightly above 500 team. And I think it comes down to last year, they went out and traded for Johnny Cueto and Ben Zobrist when they really didn't need to from the standpoint of winning the division.

I think both of those guys were huge acquisitions and winning a championship. This year, they'll need to make a trade like that to get into the playoffs. And I'm not sure if they have the minor league talent to go out and do it. It's going to be a much dicier proposition, I think. Obviously, Randy and I, we text about the Royals all the time still. And as much as I'm tempted to call up Rob Nair and really get the band back together, I'm going to limit this to one point. We spent a lot of time the last year, last two years,

talking about the Royals' contact rate and how they cracked the code in the strikeout era. I think that really is going to end up being limited to one team, the 2015 Royals. I want to say maybe it was Jeff Sullivan last year who pointed out that this wasn't just the best contact team in baseball. It was maybe the best contact team we'd ever seen. And because of that, they were able to have a good, not a great offense, but it was like a seventh in the league in runs scored, something in that range in Woba, and it was a credible offense. Well, this year, they still don't have for power. They still don't draw walks, but they're fourth in the league in contact rate, fourth in the league in batter strikeouts, which I'll assume is close enough. So if you're not going to walk and you're not going to hit for hit home runs, you can get away with that if you're the best contact team anybody's ever seen. But if you're anything worse than that, you can't get away with it. And I think that's – when we look back and have some perspective on this, quote, Royals run, unquote, we're going to see that 2015 was really separate from the years around it. That team was a good team. I'm not sure the 2016 one is necessarily one.

And so is there any route to fixing this rotation? I mean, Danny Duffy, it seems, has, you know, for as long as Danny Duffy's health lasts, it seems like he has elevated himself right to the level of useful starting pitcher. And then I guess you never know if Giordano Ventura could put things together all at once. We sort of saw him do that for half a season last year. Well, it seems like every time he stupidly starts a fight, he's much better afterwards. So that's the hope now is that after getting beaten up by Manny Machado that he's actually been very good in his last two starts. Yeah. Ian Kennedy, it turns out out can allow home runs in any ballpark in baseball at the highest rate in the league well he's learning from the best in chris young

right and edinson volquez is coming off one of the worst starts anyone has ever seen so it it's a it's a low point for some people in this rotation but i don't know is there is there a reason to expect much from the people on hand, or do you see them going outside? And I don't even know if there's a Quato that you could pick up if you wanted to, and I don't know if they would have the talent to do it, as you just noted, but are they sort of stuck with this and just have to hope enough other stuff goes right that they can survive? Well, the problem, like you said, the impending free agent market is historically weak, which those are usually the guys that you look at for trades at midseason.

They're the guys who are going to be free agents in three or four months. So it's not just a Royals problem. I think just baseball-wide, it's going to be a lot harder to go out and trade for an arm this summer. So in the Royals' case, I mean, they're coping. Chris Medling comes back with the stuff he had last year and not the stuff he was showing this year before, this summer. So in the world's case, I mean, they're coping. Chris meddling comes back with the stuff he had last year and not the stuff he was showing this year before he got hurt. They have Mike minor who they signed to a two year deal coming back from rotator cuff surgery.

He's been pitching in the minors with varying degrees of success. I don't think he's going to be a magic bullet. You know, they have, you know, the, the next guy on the list would be Dylan G, which is not really anyone's idea of a savior.

So I think they have to kind of hope that both of those guys step up as being above average starters. Ian Kennedy had a good outing today. He's a number three. Volk has to be a number four. But they don't have – I mean, Chris Young is not long for the rotation, and they're going to have to find something there. So I think the hope is Chris Medlin comes in in the short term. In the long term, I think that's the reason why this team is probably not going to win the

division. All right. And the next two teams in the division, as we speak, are tied at 38 and 38. There are a couple of games back in the wildcard talking about the White Sox and the Tigers. And Sam and I talked last week about where the White Sox go from here. And I don't know if we arrived at a real answer. The Tigers, we've kind of gotten a sense of where they are headed for a few years now. And they've done what they could to postpone that and to supplement the roster with some players who aren't getting old and expensive or, you know, at least one of those things. And so I don't know where these teams go for the rest of the season. The White Sox, of course, have been a disaster since their hot streak to start the season. And I don't know if they're in a position to sell. I don't know if selling is advisable. It seems like the Tigers are never going to do that as long as Mike Illich is around and kicking. So where do you see these two teams going from here? The Tigers are easy. The

Tigers are just, we're going to keep trying to do it this way. It's like the Diamondbacks thing, like they've made their choice. There's no deviating from the path that they're on. And eventually, as long as you have Verlander and Cabrera being paid 50 odd million dollars a year for the rest of, you know, until those contracts are up, they're on this particular path. I could see them, this will be a shocker. The Tigers might have to go into the market and get relief pitching. Hector – by the way, not Hector Rondon. Bruce Rondon just came back.

And I mean I feel like this goes back to when we were doing the podcast, me talking about Bruce Rondon. But maybe he's for real this time. But they're going to have to work on the bullpen. They'll have to do some stuff around the edges. They can score though. Man, can they score. And I wonder how many of these they'll get out of Fulmer. And I wonder what version of Justin Verlander will be the real one. But I think they're the second best team in this division. As far as the White Sox, that's just complicated, man. Again, you're closer to it. I'm letting you take this one.

Well, the thing that these two teams have in common for years is this absolute refusal to rebuild. And it's kind of an – it's an admirable sentiment in a way, this idea that you never concede a season before the season starts. But you think about both of these teams have had among the worst farm systems in baseball year after year for at least five years now, maybe longer. in baseball year after year for at least five years now, maybe longer. And in the Tigers' case, because they had so much elite talent already on hand, the core talent with Miguel Cabrera and Justin Furlander was as good as any team in baseball. And because of Dave Dombrowski's almost spooky ability to rip other teams off in trades, the Tigers have been able to sort of stay competitive,

but they've been sort of holding off the cliff now for a while. And Gombrowski sort of lost his touch. Certainly, when he traded Doug Pfister away and then traded Robbie Ray away right before Robbie Ray got good and ended up with Shane Green, that hurt. But the team is old. They keep having to fill in holes with free agent talent and using free agent dollars. And as long as you've got an owner willing to do that, Jordan Zimmerman has been very good for them. Justin Upton, not so good. But the Tigers are at least respectable. But I feel like they are where the White Sox were about three or four years ago. And what fascinates me about the White Sox is here we are three or four years later,

and the White Sox still have one of the worst farm systems in baseball and are still trying to go out and acquire guys trading for Todd Frazier. For the talent they gave up, probably a good trade, but Todd Frazier is hitting 199. He's got 21 home runs, but this is not peak elite Todd Frazier that they've got playing. So even when you get lucky with a free agent or someone like Jose Abreu, it was a great find for them as a Cuban defector.

They've been able to sort of hold off a complete collapse, but this is a team that's won 76 and 73 games the last two years. They're already under 500 again. The long term for both of these teams, just to me, I don't see how they can keep this going much longer. In the end, when it hits, it's not going to be pretty. So as a Royals fan, it's been kind of delightful to see both of these teams kind of trying to run uphill. And I feel like they're pretty much tuckered out at this point. And lastly, the Twins, I think everyone expected a step back this year. I don't know if anyone expected a step

to be this big. But I guess, is there anything about this season that makes you worried about things eventually panning out? Because that was a question. They arrived ahead of schedule. They got a little lucky last year, and we figured there would be kind of a correction year, a consolidation year, and then things would really come together. But, of course, we've seen, you know, Sano have his issues and be sandwiched into right field for some reason. We've seen Buxton struggle. There are other reasons to worry about the Twins. of success thus far made you question whether they actually will turn into a successful team, you know, as successful as their elite farm system the last couple of years would have suggested?

Well, I have one reason to be concerned is that they have the same front office that they've had in place for like 20 years. And, you know, there was this, again, speaking as a Royals fan, there was definitely some jealousy involved here. But during their salad years when they won six division titles in like nine years, there was always a sense given off by the Twins that they – am I allowed to curse on this podcast? Yes, sure. That their shit didn't stink, right? That like they just played a – they had a superior way of going about and doing things. They were the American League Cardinals. Basically.

Even though – what are they, 6-24 in the playoffs? Really, Ron Gardenhider has like one of the worst playoff winning percentages of all time. But fine. I mean they certainly had a way of winning the division. They came up with an enormous amount of talent in the early aughts. They had Johan Santana at his peak. They stole Joe Nathan away from the Giants. They made some very good moves.

But they have not progressed as an organization in terms of the way they do things. The Moneyball era has basically left them behind. They brought Terry Ryan, stepped down. Was it Bill Smith who was his replacement? He came in, made a horrible trade for getting – when they traded Santana away, the only player they got of value was Carlos Gomez, who they then gave away before he became Carlos Gomez.

And the team, you know, has been, had this obsession with soft tossing pitching that just has continually shot them in the foot for the last 10 years or so. Lowest strikeout rate of any rotation for the, I don't know how manyth consecutive year.

JJ Hardy for some reliever? Yeah. As long as we're throwing out really bad trades? Well, Wilson Ramos for Matt Capps. They've made some really bad moves. And there isn't any kind of – it seems like any kind of awareness from that front office all that they need to change things. And I just feel like as long as – unless they have a huge owner-mandated restructuring bring in – I mean they've talked about even if Terry Ryan steps down or resigns or is fired that they'll just hire his replacement from within. And I just don't see how that is going to – that's doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results.

And I don't think that that's a viable process going forward. Byron Buxton is a major leaguer. Byron Buxton is a minor leaguer. Byron Buxton is a major leaguer. Byron Buxton is a minor leaguer. Byron Buxton is a major leaguer. Byron Buxton is a minor. Look, pick a lane, but you're terrible. What is it hurting you to let Byron Buxton get 600 plate appearances as a major league center fielder?

Literally, all you're doing with him is screwing him up. And this is – this could end – I mean, I don't think he's going to – maybe he doesn't turn it – this is going to be Willie Green. But it reminds me of that kind of situation where you ruin the player by just constantly jerking him up and down. And it goes to what Randy's saying here. They need – if there's one – the short list of organizations I would say that just need to top down, start over, probably begins with the Angels. But then I think the Twins and the Rockies would be my next two. All right. So we're going to suspend the conversation here.

Randy and Joe will both be back on tomorrow's episode to discuss the NL East. You can find Rani on Twitter at Jazerly, and you can find Joe on Twitter at Joe underscore Sheehan. Again, the Joe Sheehan newsletter is at JoeSheehan.com. I consider it indispensable. And Joe has a special offer for podcast listeners since he's replacing Sam on this week's podcast. podcast listeners since he's replacing Sam on this week's podcast. If you email sheandnewsletter at gmail.com with the subject line Sam, you will get access to the newsletter through the All-Star Break for free. And if you like what you read between now and then, and if you're anything like me, you will. Maybe you'll sign up so you can keep getting newsletters. It's a great source of entertainment as well as a good way to stay informed. You can support our podcast on Patreon

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Meet me that way We'll just talk until we have nothing more to say, I guess. Oh, that could be a long time.