High Hopes: A Phillies Podcast - High Hopes: Talking Phillies with Jon Marks and Mike Angelina

Episode Date: March 7, 2018

Jon Marks and Mike Angelina take your mailbag questions and talk about Scott Kingery and other spring storylines.  See omnystudio.com/policies/listener for privacy information. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hello, and welcome to High Hopes, a Phillies podcast powered by 94WIP. I'm your host, John Marks. Been a few weeks since I've done a podcast. Thanks to James Seltzer and Jack Fritz for their hard work putting content out there every week. But today, joining me for the first time is a big Phillies guy. He produces Phillies games, and he's the producer and co-host of the Big Daddy Graham show, Heard Every. Can you say Monday through Friday, Mike? Because it's Monday through Friday technically, but to some people it may not be Monday through Friday because it's 2 a.m.

Right. Mike Angelina, what's up, dude? Hey, what's going on, John? Big Philly season coming up, obviously getting started here in a couple weeks. It's weird. Season starts the 27th, I think, of March. Something like that against the Braves. I think it's two weeks from Thursday.

Two weeks. They put me down and we go down spring training the last possible week. When we leave, the team's pretty much leaving, too. Yeah. I can't wait to get down there. Watch the game on Sunday. And, yeah are a lot of different conversations and talk with

the team as we head into the regular season here. It was good to see the offense performing pretty well this year. Mike, what are your overall thoughts with the Phillies, what you've seen so far in spring training? First, the thing that

stands out most is, because it's the number one thing I'm looking for, is I would like to see a little more consistency from the starting pitching. Nola aside. Which you probably won't get it, but that's the one thing standing out. You know, the guys that matter are probably doing about what I expected hitting-wise, except Franco. Not that I had high expectations for him,

but you're seeing Hoskins, Homer probably once every three, four games. Kingery's really reminding us that he's a big league player. I'm not concerned with the lineup pitching-wise, and I still think that there's a lot of things to sort out in the bullpen. Talk of the eight bullpen arms, I don't even know if they have eight good bullpen arms. You can count on them to make that even worth it. So looking for just overall pitching-wise for it to settle.

Yeah, and we don't know what's going to happen with Arrieta and will he take a three-year contract for 90 million dollars from the phillies he's holding out for more years i i feel like right now there's a there's a pretty good possibility that he ends up going with the phillies i guess he's waiting it out i mean at some point i know he's working on his own but like you said the regular season starts and it's strange in free agency in today's day and age, guys are waiting until almost the last possible minute to sign big contracts. Do you think the Arrieta thing is possible, probable, somewhat legitimate, using the Phillies as leverage or a fallback position? Yeah, it's somewhere between possible and probable.

The only reason I wouldn't say probable is it still makes too much sense to me that the Nationals cut boris a favor uh because because bryce harper they you know just just make a boris klein happy and just going with it uh just to you know they have bigger things on the horizon now with him but and you know it makes sense just capitalizing the window and with they probably only have one year left maybe so i would i still think they're probably the front runner uh but phillies when you look around baseball it's hard to think of a team that has a more uh you know better chance that you know besides the nationals and phillies yeah they need them and you're right and scott boris in particular with the nationals and his

relationship with with their front office and the players that are there. It's kind of scary how much influence an agent can have over a team, doing favors, signing guys because, hey, if you want to re-sign my guy, then you better take this other guy. Scott Borch has more influence than really any agent in the game, in particular with the Nationals. It's scary, so we'll see how it plays out. It reminds me of LeBron James getting J.R. Smith and Tristan Thompson contracts. Playing GM, an agent playing GM.

Yeah. Pretty crazy down there. Yeah, I mean, overall, I would say it's tough because a lot of games are on during the day, and we've carried a handful of games here on WIP. The weekends we're playing the games. Yeah. So I'm catching those games or I'm watching them when they're on Comcast. But for the most part, and hey, listen,

I think I know what this team is at this point. They don't have starting pitching. The bullpen's going to need to figure it out as the season gets going. They really need to sign Arrieta because if they don't, it's going to be pretty much the same rotation as you had last year. Velasquez has looked good. Some of the guys have looked good. But overall, I'm happy with what the everyday lineup looks like,

but it's going to be a long season if they don't improve the starting pitching. And we'll see. They're trying. I don't want them to go out and sign a guy just to sign a guy if it's going to hurt them long term, but they need to add somebody to this mix. Yeah, I'm surprised that not just them, but somebody in baseball hasn't just said, you know, we're tired of waiting for an area edit. Let's just go lock up Lancelin.

We'll overpay him for three years and just we'll call it a day. Call it a winner and go with that. He's a guy that makes sense for the Phillies just because he's just a guy you can count on. He knows how to – he attacks a strike zone, moves the ball up and down. He's consistent. Yeah, he knows what he's doing. He's a bona fide big league pitcher, and he's at least a three, a number three. And with the Phillies, he looks like a really, really good number three.

What's the number, though? And that's what everybody's talking about. You know what's crazy, Mike, and you follow baseball pretty close. I mean, really, between you and Jack Fritz and James and Joe Giglio, everybody I know, we follow the game closer than anybody else. Right. General managers in 2018 aren't the GMs of five years ago or ten years ago or whatever else.

Free agency is different now. These GMs aren't signing the same bad contracts. Now, you'll see them. Don't get me wrong. But they're not signing the same bad contracts that you would have seen happen every offseason 10 years ago. And they're correcting the market. So I look at a guy like Lance Lynn, and I think Lance Lynn's a pretty good pitcher.

Like you said, he's a solid number three. It's all about what the number is. And the agents are still trying to be like, no, no, five- or six-year contract. These guys aren't getting five, six-year contracts anymore at $20 million a year. It's not happening. Right. No, look, if I'm, you know, McPhail, Klintak, I'm sure Middleton will have a voice in it, obviously. What's wrong with, you know, just go to Lance Lynn.

Look, here's three years, $50 million. Is this good? Are we good enough here? Like, I don't know where he's getting better than that. And then, you know, he's young enough to three years from now, he'll still get another contract. Absolutely. I would think that's a good middle place for everyone.

Yeah. Short term, big money. It works out. I mean, if Arrieta's looking at it, I would imagine that the Phillies are probably offering $3 million to $4 million more per year, or at least, than the next team, but they're probably offering an extra year or two. What's realistic for it?

What do you think Arrieta would sign for right now? Four for $100 million, or is there a team out there that he thinks he's still? He's not getting five for 125 right and maybe he's just waiting on uh you can make a fifth year vesting option maybe he's waiting for just better terms to for him to meet in that fifth year uh you know maybe lower the inning threshold or whatever to to put the incentives to get that that contract and the thing with teams are they're just i think they know like they're looking around going like, okay, we're all – I think they all realize they're like-minded and like,

all right, no one's going to jump in front of the others. So why are we rushing? Like who are we bidding against? Right. Yeah, you end up bidding against yourself. And once Arrieta signs, then Lynn will end up going. And that's what you thought was going to happen with Darvish. Yeah, Cobb will end up going.

Yeah. And the rest of the guys go. But, yo, man, it's March 6th. Yeah. Yeah, we're running out of time here. Right. You're not going to be ready to start the season. So that kind of takes away from it.

All right, so listen, we'll see. Velasquez pitched Monday. Yeah. Was it Monday that he pitched? It was Monday, yeah. Yeah, he looked decent. You know, looked good. Hasn't looked great this offseason you talked about, or this spring training.

You talked about Franco and what are the expectations, and I don't know if I have any real expectations. They're tinkering with his swing. That's what you would expect them to do. Velasquez, you know what my expectations are? He's never going to materialize into anything other than what we've seen in Enigma. He's got the stuff, but he's got everything else working against him. Very real possibility.

Comparing him to Franco, the thing with Velasquez, you can rationalize with yourself and go, if you have a vascular issue and you're not feeling the ball, feeling the grip, you're not just overall and generally your fingers aren't feeling right, that's going to affect your secondary pitches. I'm sure, I think Jack Fritz has brought up multiple times on his podcast,

he's not a fan of his secondary pitches. You can at least convince yourself, hope-wise, into thinking okay, maybe if he actually feels his fingers he can be better in that area. That's, you know, with Franco, like what excuse are you going to make that you can try and spin it to yourself? Yeah, and that's what's scary is the injury.

He can't feel. His problem is his fingertips. He's got tingling, and that's what's scary. He's got the natural stuff. Remember Vicente Padilla came up, and he dominated early, pretty much just throwing fastballs. He didn't have secondary pitches. Everything was hard.

He would try to throw that weird curveball that like – The ethos. What the hell was that? I see the same thing with Velasquez. He's got the stuff. He doesn't have it in the head. Yeah. And he's got injury stuff too, but there's something –

baseball's a mental game as much as it's a physical game. And if you don't have it between the ears and you're a pitcher or you're a batter, like Franco. Is Franco the same thing where he's just guessing? If he's guessing fastball and you leave a meatball over the middle of the plate and he hits it on the screws, he's going to hit a home run because he's got great raw power. But if he swings at the same pitch every time and there's a book on you,

it's like, okay, we're not going to throw him a fastball. So unless he guesses right and gets lucky, forget about it. He'll hit 20 home runs a year because pitchers are bad and everything else. But, you know, Mike, it's one of those things where you looked at the Ken Giles trade, and we celebrated that trade. Like, oh, we killed him on that trade. Now look at it. Appel's retired.

Velasquez looks like he's a lost cause. Eshelman was in that trade. Yeah, Eshelman, he's pitched well this spring, actually. He's going to be a good fourth or fifth starter, I think. But it's not the initial return that you thought you were going to get. And, you know, I guess we should also point out, Ken Giles has lost a closer job twice. He has.

He has. He has. And the Phillies, for the most part, have been fine with Neris at the back end of that bullpen. So we'll see how they do this season. Hey, did you notice Cole Hamels was speaking out? Yeah, about the six-man rotation. So Texas is toying or talking about a six-man rotation.

And that's the kind of organization that's really into the analytics and the new age baseball. So it would make sense that they would be one of the first organizations to do the sixth-man rotation. Now, Cole's totally against it. And not only is he – I mean, he spoke out. I mean, he's really pissed about it because he prepares a certain way. Cole's – I mean, he's been trying to think. He's got to be 34.

34, I think. Yeah. So now all of a sudden you're telling a guy, all right, your entire career you've been preparing the same way. You have your off day. You have your bullpen session. You're getting ready for your next start. Now you're throwing an extra day of rest in between.

Now, is it that big of a deal? I'm not a major league pitcher. Cole sure seems to think it's that big of a deal. Plus, he's getting less starts, maybe the same amount of innings if he's able to go more innings. But, you know, first of all, your thoughts on a six-man rotation. But it seems like Cole would love to come back to Philadelphia just when maybe there's some need for some pitching. And I don't think it happens this year, but it wouldn't surprise me to see Cole come back at some point. it happens this year, but it wouldn't surprise me to see Cole come back at some point.

Hamels and Phillies, and I understand it was a bizarre, strange circumstance with the unfortunate, untimely holiday death. Wasn't it weird seeing him in a Phillies press room holding a press conference last winter? Who else have you ever seen

that with? That was just weird. I was shocked. Very weird scene. I think the the rangers i don't think they're making this decision with hamels as the number one guy in mind they it seems like every year they they lose like four pitchers to the dl and they're all you know 60 day dealed and lost causes maybe that's where the decision comes from uh i'd be curious to look up after this i just thought of this maybe hamels has a vesting option for how many innings he has to hit and maybe that's that threatens the uh threatens

a chance of getting that um yeah and also you know hamels in general was a 200 innings eater he had an injury last year for uh the stretch i think around like memorial day and yeah so that you know it really just only one season he hasn't been able to do that. Was that a health thing or was that an age thing with him getting older? Was that a fluke thing? I guess we'll find out this season or next season. But I don't think the Rangers are necessarily making that decision with him as the priority guy in line.

And here's the other thing. That rotation is not as strong as it has been in some years. Hamels is their best starting pitcher. They have Matt Moore. They have Pfister. But really, if you look at how the league, the American League, has changed around them, Texas has went from being a team that was surely a few years ago thought to be one of the better teams in the league to now kind of being like, man, you hope that offense is good enough to carry them. Right. When they acquired Hamels, the thinking was, you know, this is going to really set us up well for a playoff series,

putting Darvish and Hamels together. As it happened, they didn't get out of the first round either time. I think Hamels got shelled by Toronto one year. So, yeah, their pitching is definitely a lot worse than it's been in recent years. Yeah, his contract, and I think you might be right because it is an option. So let's see here. So he's making 22 and a half in 2018.

It's an option for 2019. It guarantees if he has 400 innings pitched in 17 and 18, last year and this year, or 200 innings pitched in 2018. And he's not on the DL with a shoulder or elbow injury at the end of the season. So, in other words, like you said, that option, the $20 million, is there if he pitches 200 innings this year. And last year, I know it was the first time he hasn't pitched 200 innings in a while. Seven or eight years, I think, yeah.

And the person who wrote that contract was Ruben Amaro, and he threw out a lot of those type of vesting options back then. Then Cliff Lee had it. He obviously didn't get it. Roy Halladay had it. Obviously didn't get it. Papelbon had it. He was so good that they couldn't – it was for games finished.

He was an all-star and so good that they couldn't remove him from the closers role without it being a player's union grievance. So, yeah, that makes sense to me, I guess. It does. And so, I mean, it's a $6 million buyout, so if they didn't want him, listen, 2019, he potentially

could be a free agent, and here's the other thing. Texas may end up going into some type of a rebuilding mode to where, even if he does vest that option, they may look at the Phillies and say, hey, listen, give us something. And you have to give something because Cole Hamels does have some value. But, well, there you go. Let's talk Scott Kingery for a second, Mike.

Okay. Because he has looked great. I mean, between last year and what you've seen so far in spring training he's the real deal yeah and it's only a matter of time before he's here but as a lot of people and we put out a we put out a mailbag uh give us some questions for us to talk about and i think everything except one question was kingery kingery kingery so if you don't already know how it's going to work is and what's the date that they can bring him up i think it's april 13th april 19th so if they wait two weeks essentially a little bit over two weeks and they and keeping scott kingery in the minors they essentially get another year of

keeping him under club control without him being a free agent right seventh year right so for everybody out there that and uh turtle from from our station is like, I don't care. We want Kingery now. A lot of people are saying this. Two weeks of keeping him in the minors saves an entire year of free agency. It's a no-brainer. It comes in at the Chris Bryant. Right. It's what you do.

But once that happens, what do they do? Do they bring him up with the expectation of, hey, he can get at bats in a couple different spots it seems like that they're that cesar is going to be the guy yeah at least to start the season what do they do what would you do right and you know we had to point out cesar was one of their better hitters last two seasons he's a he's he's turned himself into a bona fide uh top of the order hitter the guy gets on base and, you know, hopefully steals a little more.

But Cesar is a good player. You know, maybe just wait for an injury. You're going to have games, whatever it is, 15, 20 games or EDH. Just get, you know, I guess get creative. Altair, I'm sure, is going to get hurt at some point. You know, maybe, you know, who knows? There's eight defensive, or I guess seven if you don't count the catcher. Some of these may go down.

It's just, I think it's just kind of one of those things you kind of wait and see. It's not necessarily like. Maybe it takes care of itself with an injury or ineffectiveness. It's not necessarily like Chris Bryant where there's a glaring, where like they were saving third base for him. Like, you know, strategically planning for him to be third baseman. Yeah. Right.

But, you know, I would say to, like, Turtle and the fans that don't agree with, you know, wait in two weeks, ask the Nationals and the Orioles if they're fortunate that – if they feel fortunate that Manny Machado and Bryce Harper are on their team this season. Bryce Harper could be a Philly by now if – because each of those teams, they didn't call him up on opening day of 2012. And as it happened, both of those teams made the playoffs. The Cubs made the playoffs this year with Chris Bryant.

And if the Phillies miss the playoffs this year, I don't think it's going to be because they're missing a dozen Scott Kingery games. Yeah, and they might leave him down there for the first month if he's really hitting the cover off the ball. Then they say, all right, let's bring him up. missing a dozen Scott Kingery games. Yeah, and they might leave him down there for the first month. If he's really hitting the cover off the ball, then they say, all right, let's bring him up. The other thing is, at this point, Franco hasn't earned anything other than he's the third baseman right now. He's not the starting third baseman for the rest of the season.

J.P. Crawford pretty much took his job away from him last year. That's a guy that doesn't have a lot of power. Kingery showed that he can play multiple positions. Second base is his best defensive position, obviously. I think between the guys, they could figure out third base if Franco was kind of being like, hey, listen, you're not doing anything. All right, we got Scott Kingery that can come up here and do it. Is he strictly a second baseman in your eyes?

So if Franco's not in the lineup and Kingery is, who goes to third base? Is it Scott? I think it's Scott. Cesar, I'm not sure about his. The thing I don't know for sure is who's got a stronger arm between Cesar and Kingery. Can either one of them play third base? Yeah. Well, I would guess Kingery probably is the better.

Just because I've seen Cesar's arm longer, I know it's not that strong. Odds are Kingery's a little stronger. So I would think it's him. I think you're leaving J.P. Crawford there. You're not putting him at third and putting Cesar at short. So it's not one of those things. Oduble's entrenched in center. I know Kingery's played center, which can only be good.

It doesn't hurt you in any way. Because Oduble's got the shoulder injury going on. Cesar played center, too, at one point. Cesar played center for a month and hit.300 a couple years ago. It was one of the most forgotten months in Phillies history, but he did it. Yeah, so I would think that's the move. Huh. What's the lineup?

Let's start at the regular season. And, by the way, because I've had people inquire about this, and there's some thought to Santana maybe leading off. There's been talk about Hoskins. And the other thing with Gabe Kapler is he's a guy that's going to put a high on-base percentage player to hit leadoff if it means sacrificing some power in the middle of that lineup to do it. I think at this point it makes most sense to stick with Cesar.

I know that he's not a base-stealing threat, and it bothers me. It does. I hate the fact that players don't try, because you just can't have good speed, and Cesar has good speed. You have to want. Totally new coaching staff this year, so they're maybe something someone gets through. The Davey Lopes factor, where he's really pushing these guys to steal.

But anyway, I start the season with Cesar. I don't overthink it. I don't put Santana there. I want him batting in the middle of that lineup. And Cesar Hernandez is my leadoff hitter. Agreed, 100%. And then going from there, I'd put Oduble, too. Hmm. Yeah, well, two, you're looking for one of your best hitters

because they're going to see more plate appearances. He's one of their best, but I don't necessarily want to waste Santana or Hoskins' power there. I'd rather – because, you know, who knows, maybe it's first and second, nobody out, and you get Santana up there. I'd rather have that situation. I'm also a big – and I know Santana switched hits. I'm a big fan of putting a left-handed hitter in the two-hole

because say Cesar has a leadoff double or a steal second, you just naturally pull it. You can get the guy over to third. Agreed. Pull the ball to right field, maybe play first to third. I'm a big fan of a left-handed hitter there second. And Oduble, you know, he's got gap power. So you're not talking about a guy with no power.

I mean, just looking at it from this right here, bottom line is your top four hitters, you're much better than you. You're vastly better than you were even to be. Think about what you had at the beginning of last season compared to what you have right now. I mean, you have a Reese Hoskins who, listen, I don't know if he's a 300 hitter. I don't know if he's a 35 home run guy.

But here's what I do know. He has a great approach to the plate. He's going to see a lot of pitches. He's going to drive in a lot of runs. And he's going to be a timely hitter. He's a good player in a lot of runs. And he's going to be a timely hitter. He's a good player. And Santana, as much as people were bitching and complaining, like, oh, I want Reese Hoskins at first base,

you're such a better team with Hoskins and Santana hitting 3-4 than any other move that you really could have done. Absolutely. And I liked what I saw from Hoskins in the outfit. You know, I didn't see a prime Barry Bonds out there glove-wise. He was no worse than Pat Burrell. No, he wasn't. He was not.

The Phillies have never had a good left fielder ever defensively. Well, it's the position that you stick to, guys. Hoskins and Mike, that was where he had – literally they threw him out there for three games or something in the minors. They're like, yeah, here, go play left field. I was amazed at how well he played. It just seemed like naturally. He played it in college, and I know that, but he did just fine in left field.

Yeah, absolutely. And Santana's an upgrade at first base, so you're improving your infield defense. And as Hoskins gets a little bit older, he can move back to first base if he loses some of his step right there. I actually feel, and we're going to get to the over-under for the Phillies' wins here in a second, I feel really good about this lineup. So let's talk about the rest of the lineup here.

So you go Santana Hoskins? Yeah, I would go that order. Santana Hoskins. What are you doing after that? So, you know, most of the time we're going to go right-handed pitcher on the mound, just, you know, odds-wise. So I would figure Williams' five is good. Left, right, left.

Yeah, and then he's also a guy, like if you cut the line up in half and say in the first inning the four-hitter makes the last out, he's not a bad guy to lead off the inning because, say, he draws a walk or gets on base, he is a threat to steal. So it's kind of like a double leadoff hitter, that five hole. But he's also a guy that can drive it in if you've got a rally going on. He showed he can be dangerous with extra base hits. Yeah.

He hit a lot of RBI. He did. He did. I agree. I like him fifth. And then if Altair's there against a lefty, I'd be comfortable with that too. Six through eight is where it gets interesting It is, JP at 8?

I'd probably go Alfaro Alfaro 8, just let him hack away Yeah The one thing I do like about JP at 8 and this is the start off he's just not going to go up there and swing and everything

There is value to turning the lineup over and getting the pitcher up there. Now, if the pitcher grinds out to end the inning, then it's like whatever, but that's important for the following inning. Carlos Ruiz did a great job in making the most out of his at-bats batting eighth. He wasn't up there getting desperate, trying to hit the ball because he knew that the pitcher was coming up, but he took his shots when he needed to, but he was patient as well.

Even his last year here when he was clearly on the other side of his career, Chooch, he had a really good on-base percentage, probably around.350. You're right, that's big for the eight-hitter. It's just at this point I don't really have a strong opinion on who's going to long-term probably I'm sure JP is going to be the better on-base guy. But also, I don't know how many extra times I want to get Alfaro up there yet until I see a little more consistency. Yeah, no, you're right.

The tools of Alfaro I love based on what I saw last year and whatever. But here's what's going to happen. He had enough at-bats last year to where, and he'll probably still get first however many games this season, and then there's going to be a book on him. And then it's going to say, okay, this is how you get the guy out. And how you get the guy out is you don't throw fastballs to him. So he's going to have to adjust to it too.

He did well last year in walking. He really did. He adjusted a little bit, but I'm really curious to see what starters do against him, what pitching does against him this year. I wouldn't throw him fastballs. I would throw him junk. He's got great wall power. No, he does. He's got a rare one-handed

swing where he can just tomahawk the ball out. You're right. He can one-hand it and pull it right over there. That's the starting lineup right there. All right, so I wanted to end on this right here. And it's, you see, so you actually were in Milwaukee on Sunday because you went out with the Rights to Ricky Sanchez bus trip.

How was that, by the way? It was a blast. It was a four-day weekend, I guess, three and a half, whatever it was. Flew to Chicago on Friday. Flew to Chicago, barely. Flew to Chicago. Barely made it out of here. Last flight out of PHL. Oh, is that right?

Oh, because of the snow. Because of the snow. Oh, I didn't even think about that. Yeah. Right before we took off, the pilot comes out and goes, I don't want to alarm anyone, but because of the strong winds, we can't de-ice the wings. So what I'm going to do is go out and eyeball the wings to make sure that they're de-iced so if you see me doing that i just don't want to alarm you oh it's good yeah because that's that's pretty

much information i wouldn't need to know but i guess if you look out and the pilot's looking at the wings yeah was that thursday was that so that was friday it was it was delayed until about sometime at noon 12 30 oh my god you almost didn't get out. Yeah. And Spike was on our flight, so most important person on the trip. Glad we got him out. No doubt. All right. So you get out. You get to Chicago, hang out Friday night, party.

Yeah. We went to Bulls Mavericks Friday night. Oh, you did? Yeah. Obviously, I've seen a lot of tanking as a Sixers season ticket holder. That was the biggest tank fest I've ever seen. The Mavs had four players on the court at one point in time. How's New Orleans doing this year in Dallas, by the way?

Not good. He hasn't played. I think it's like a second game back. He's still New Orleans. He's bricking layups. He's got more energy than anyone, but I don't know what that does. So then bus to Milwaukee on Saturday? Sunday is around like 1 o'clock, I think.

So you spent two nights in Chicago. Yeah. Chicago's a great city. How was the weather? Was it cold? It was better than it was here. It was probably like 45 and sunny. Oh, so that's nice.

Yeah. I mean, I used to have a friend out there that I would go see a couple times a year, and depending on the weather, it's great in the spring. It can be hot in the summer, but if you go, I used to go around my birthday sometimes in December, and it would be cold. Man, that's a cold city. Great city.

Yeah, it was blessed. That was my first time out there. Yeah, beautiful city. Beautiful, clean city. It's great. All right, so then you go and you're in Milwaukee. You saw an exciting game, I guess, for the first half or whatever. Yeah.

The bad third quarter. Yeah, first, I guess, two and a half quarters. They're the Sixers. That's what they do. Especially on these – this is my first bust of process, but that's what they do on these other ones. Yeah, same thing. Yeah.

Well, yeah, so that was not – some of these losses this year, Mike, are just absolutely killing me inside. All right, so you missed it on Sunday. It was alumni game. It was alumni day down at Clearwater. Yeah. And who was out? Brett Myers, Scott Ayer.

Pete Happy. Pete was there. Yeah, it was good to see Pete. J-Roll came out. Yeah. It was so good to see him. I miss J-Roll. I love him.

Living in Tampa. I didn't know he was living in Tampa year-round with his wife and his daughters. I didn't know came out. Yeah. And it was so good to see him. I miss J-Roll. I love him. Living in Tampa. I didn't know he was living in Tampa year-round with his wife and his daughters. I didn't know that either. Yeah. So he's down there. So he came over and whatever. And he was hugging Gabe Kapler. And there was a picture that was out there of him and Charlie over by the stands.

And I think Charlie was showing him something on his phone. And Jimmy was like smiling and pointing to it or whatever. So there's this idea being floated around by Jimmy. He wants to retire a Philly, but he doesn't want to take this BS, sign me to a ceremonial contract, I retire as a Philly. He actually wants to play in a game. Yeah, and I was reading an MLB.com article, so I assume it was Todd Zielecki that wrote,

don't be surprised if jimmy rollins could play an errorless week of shortstops though which you know i probably could i will say when he when they introduced him to come out and tip his cap and all that he looked he looked pretty old getting that dugout i don't know if you saw him he was it was a long jog he did i i look forward to the day when a when a ae Jimmy Rollins comes out to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the World Series. And everybody's like, man, everybody's old. Look at Utley already. Yeah, Utley already looks old.

He's got the gray hair. You don't want to take a roster spot away from somebody. You don't want to have to designate somebody from the 40-man roster to put them on there. But I think there's a way you can maneuver it to where... First of all, I don't think it's going to happen. No, yeah. But I would... I mean, come on, man. I would love to see it. If there was one home

game in September where Jimmy Rollins put on the uniform, let off the game... You could also do, like... First off, I agree with you. I doubt it's happening. But maybe there's the third week of April. They have a home Sunday afternoon game.

And they know they're going to designate Pedro Florman for assignment to make room for Kingery. That's Sunday afternoon. Or you can transfer guys being transferred from the 15-day to the 60-day DL, which clears a spot off the 40. You bring him on, and then he retires after that. You can do whatever. There's a way if they wanted to do it.

It would obviously be a home game. They want to get the crowd from that. The only thing I can think of as a fan, how cool that would be. And maybe I'm just a schmuck, but that would be really cool to see Jimmy come out one more time from that dugout. I think it would be cool. I think Phillies fans, it was a painful, whatever it was, four years of Ryan Howard at the end.

But I think they really did appreciate that last Ryan Howard day. Absolutely. Basically, they turned the game over to, all right, this is Ryan Howard's celebration day. All right, one more thing on Jimmy. I mean, I was talking about this on the air the other day. So the Phillies have never retired a number of a non-Hall of Fame player. I like this conversation, yeah.

So with that being said and that being known, A, Jimmy Rollins has the best chance to make the Hall of Fame of the 2008 players. Do you agree? I see it that way, but this is going to come up. It's not going to be a real conversation until a couple years from now, and we're only going to have more advanced stats come out. And I think the more advanced stats that come out, it trends towards Utley. So I see it that way that it's Rollins because, well,

15 years of everyday shortstop in the National League, the four gold gloves, the gap power. The collective of what he has. And I don't necessarily understand this or know this, but Jason Stark has said on many occasions that Jimmy Rollins, in his eyes, is a Hall of Famer. He's never hit 300 in a season. I don't know how you can be a Hall of Famer and play during the era that Jimmy played and never have hit 300.

Well, what helped him a lot this past offseason was Alan Trammell got in. Yeah. And Barry Larkin's already in. He said Jimmy Rollins is a Hall of Famer. I think there's a pretty good chance he gets in. Yeah. Borderline. Yeah, he was undoubtedly the best shortstop for the first 15 years of the century

in the National League. Certainly was. So, did any of these guys get their number retired? Hall of Fame or not Hall of Fame? And there's a new sheriff in town. Yeah. Do they continue with tradition and say, sorry? And I actually like the fact that they just don't retire. I love Bobby Jones, 76er.

I love Bobby Jones. His number's retired. Dolph Shays. Yeah, he's more or less a bench player. Mo Cheek's my favorite athlete of all time. I'm glad his, 76er. I love Bobby Jones. His number's retired. Dolph Shays. Yeah, he's more or less a bench player. Mochik's my favorite athlete of all time. I'm glad his number's retired. You know what I mean, though? Bobby Jones isn't a Hall of Famer. Do they go for it?

See, here's what I think, and I don't care about the Hall of Fame stuff. If Jimmy gets his number retired, you can retire his number. But if you retire Chase Utley's number, you have to, you can retire his number. But if you retire Chase Utley's number, you have to retire Ryan Herron's number. I don't know how you retire Chase and not Ryan. People would be pissed. Right. I look at it as, are the Phillies ever going to issue 6-11 or 26 to another player again?

They haven't. I don't think that's an accident or a coincidence. I don't think they're ever going to issue it again. So if they're not going to issue it again, all right, go paint it up in Ashburn Alley. Why not? But that's it? No Cole. Cole only won 110 games as a Philly or something like that,

and he was a huge part of 2008, agreed. Yeah. MVP of both LCS and World Series. But of the three of them. He's the only one, I guess, Utley won't, but he still has a shot. Hamels has the best, he at least has a chance to come back here and add to his totals. He does. No, you're right, he does.

Yeah, I wouldn't close the book on him yet. I would say that I would, you know, if Cole retired today, I would put him on the other side of the line. I would just do the three hitters. You think they make it? They, what, make the decision? You think the Phillies retire those numbers? I think they do.

It's an amazing conversation because you get people that are like, no, you can't retire them. They're not in the Hall of Fame. They're not going to make the Hall of Fame or whatever. We've seen them break rules before. They had a rule, I forget the year, maybe it's five. You be on the phillies for at least five years to be on the wall of fame right and jim tommy's on there uh doc's going to be on there they were the they were instrumental those three and i'll say equally instrumental yeah in the best run in the

franchises however many hundred and however many years the, the best run of the franchise ever. So I put them on. That's what I say. Agreed. All right, so High Hopes Podcast. A couple times a week you'll hear between me and Jack and Mike and James Seltzer and whoever else we throw on here, you'll hear us.

But do this for us. Rate us. Give us a good rating. And the more ratings we get, because right now if you search Phillies podcast, for people that are just Phillies fans, if you search Phillies podcast, we don't come up because we don't have enough ratings. So rate us.

Give us a good rating if you like it. You should give us a good rating, and then more people will get an opportunity to hear High Hopes right here powered by 94WIP. Mike, it's been fun, dude. We'll do it again soon. Looking forward to it. All right, go Phillies. All dude. We'll do it again soon. Looking forward to it. All right, go Phillies.

All-star closer, Kenley Jansen. We have a question. What's the best podcast of all time? Baseball isn't boring, baby. I'm Rob Bradford, and every single day I'm sitting down with the biggest names to show you this great game is the greatest game. It's my podcast. It's my passion.

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