High Hopes: A Phillies Podcast - Reacting To Alvardo's Suspension & Abel's Debut

Episode Date: May 19, 2025

Jack Fritz and James Seltzer discuss Jose Alvarado's 80-game suspension and how the Phillies could replace his role in the postseason. The guys also react to Mick Abel's dominant MLB debut and the Phillies' sweep of the Pirates. Presented by Miller Lite To purchase Ring The Bell by Jack Fritz and Kevin Reavy go to RingTheBellBook.com 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

Are you ready to dive into the story stats and personalities that make baseball the greatest game in the world? Rob Bradford from the Baseballs & Boring Podcast here, and we'll have you covered every day with podcasts that bring you closer to the action. From the bleachers to the clubhouse, whether you're a diehard fan or just a casual observer, these conversations are aimed to educate, entertain, and most importantly, inform you. Follow the Baseballs and Boring podcast in the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcast. This is the High Hopes Podcast. High Hopes. On the Odyssey app and sports radio 94 WIP. The crowd was singing High Hopes.

Smiling through a broken nose. Oh, high hopes, high hopes. I feel a little less alone. All right, a lot to get to tonight on a little solo edition, a little Friday night edition of the High Hopes podcast. Jack Fritz, hanging out with you as we react to a Phil's win tonight, 8-4 over the Pirates. Looked a little dicey there for a second,

but either way, the Phillies were able to prevail. And you know what makes tonight just that much sweeter is when you can take a game from your bitter rivals that the Pirates are, it just makes a game like that that much sweeter knowing that again, you're facing one of your biggest rivals and just making them go home crying. That's what rivalry week's all about in Major League Baseball. I mean, what a what a concept.

Baseball has gotten a lot right recently. This is basically just, hey, let's look at the map and decide that these are all these teams natural rivals. Whatever, it's fine. Playing the Pirates, they play them every year. It's not like some huge rivalry, but you know, you get the point. Either way, it looked a little dicey there for a little portion of the game tonight, but thankfully on the backs of a lot of walks, they were able to pull one out and were able to come back and win a ball game. In a game they should have lost. And you know, one of the big things from tonight is that I thought Ranger was great. I thought on that one pitch, he missed his spot by a foot.

You know, Ranger for a majority of tonight, and by the way, went out for an ending after that, which is good. I think it showed that Rob Thompson has a lot of confidence in Rangers Wars, obviously, and it was perfectly fine. He made one bad pitch. Rangers Wars dominated tonight. I don't, what's thinks is that one pitch is gonna maybe overshadow what was another

really strong effort from him and it just continues to look like he looks closer to the guy that you saw at the beginning of last year. That's what I've seen from Rangers Suarez so far. And it's really just the pitch ability that he has, whether it's, you know, rushing fastballs in and then going change it away and then maybe going fastball in and then going curveball off of it. He is in that mode right now where it's so hard for for these

guys to pick up what he's throwing or have any rhythm to where he's going or have any plan when they go up there, it's a lot of just read and react. And when you're a pitcher, when you can command both sides of the plate in the way that Rangers Suarez can and keep those guys guessing and keep those guys on their toes, it makes him that much harder to hit.

So I thought Ranger, obviously, besides the one bad pitch, was brilliant tonight. I thought he was absolutely brilliant. First start wasn't the most dynamite in the world. Tonight certainly was closer to the Cleveland start than it was that. So I think tonight was another step forward for Rangers Wars.

But you know, the other big takeaway from the game tonight, it's kind of been for the last about week and a half where they're not doing much damage against starting pitching again. Now, Andrew Heaney is someone who for the majority of his career has not been a very good pitcher. He was highly touted. It feels like actually it might be a decade ago he was a Marlin. He's been around forever and he's always been one of those like analytic darling kind of guys and all these I guess quote-unquote forward-thinking

franchises would take a shot on them because I think that his fastball is one of those really really special kind of pitches that teams dream on so he has a bit of funk to him and To his credit the last I would say You know the year and a half. He's figured it out. I mean heading into the game tonight He was pitching to a 3.15 eRA so it's May 16th. It's not like that is a super super small sample size. So he's crafty sure But overall like they haven't done a great job against starters recently the sunny gray outing was great. But besides that

They haven't exactly been doing a job They've scoring a good amount of their runs late. And I think where you give them, I think where I'm at with them when they play teams like the Pirates and these other, I mean, the Rockies are this week and they're playing these bottom theaters is obviously you would like to mix in a laffer.

And given the current state of the bullpen and having to use Alvarado tonight is beyond annoying, but you know, mixing in a laffer obviously great, but just don't, those don't have one of those inexcusable losses against, against a bad team. And that's what tonight was kind of trending towards was, is this going to be an annoying loss against a Pirates team that you have no business losing to not to bring everything back to odds But I mean heading into the game tonight there there were minus 200 or 220 favorites So that's that's not a game that you should you should lose at all. So They scratched the claw. They found a way out of it. Johan Rojas big at bat

late in this one, they they out eight walks. And I think when you're looking at reasons to be optimistic about the current state of the team and the team going forward here is offensively, I think we're looking at a shift. I know Rob Thompson will come out and he will say that this team slugs. They don't. I mean, that's not really how they're built. You know, this is a

team that is gets their ducks on a pond. They have to string together some base hits. They have to be really, really locked in with runners scoring position. They have to be really good with two outs and runners on because that's how they're going to score their runs. Obviously, Schwab reconnects to the ballpark, but besides him, Bryce is again 25 to 30 home run guy. And after that, it's a bunch of 15 to 20 home run guys. That's not exactly an offense that has quote unquote built a slug, but they are an offense that has done a better job so far this season at putting the bat on the baseball, not striking

out a lot, taking their walks, passing the baton to the next hitter, using the opposite field and I think when you see them buying into what they were preaching in the offseason at this point in the year and really since the Mets series, I think you feel pretty good about that. So I don't want to make declarations on how this can go in October, but I will say that I like this style of offense heading into October Because the boomer bus stuff while home runs are great and I do think that you need home runs in October obviously, but they can't be the engine to your offense and I think that's the thing that causes an offense to stall in the postseason is when it becomes to home runner bust and causes an offense to stall in the postseason is when it becomes too home runner bust.

And believe me, when the home runs are flying out of the ballpark, it's great. I mean, we all remember the first two games of the Diamondback series, but this kind of offense, I just think is more versatile. And this is the kind of offense that can lead to some success in the postseason. And you're not gonna go through,

you're hopefully not gonna go through, you're hopefully not going to go through those big spells where they're just not scoring any runs. So was it perfect? No. Obviously, hitting starters is going to be important, especially in postseason baseball. And again, not to make everything about the postseason, but it feels almost impossible not to in watching everything, every single game, because I think we've gotten to the point season but it feels almost impossible not to in watching everything every single game because I think we've gotten to the point in the season where everything is kind of settled down first month of the season hot and heavy reaction I mean hot and heavy reaction and you sit here now it's

may 16th they're what a game and a half out of first place. They've stabilized themselves. They've settled into the season. You're seeing some good developments in the bullpen. Jordan Romano, a nine pitch inning tonight. Another solid, solid performance from him. Now, the first batter was terrifying. You know, he walks McCutcheon on four pitches, his fastball is at 92 and a slider did absolutely nothing. So I'd be lying if I said I wasn't immediately nervous,

but he got the double play and got out of it. By the way, they sit on the broadcast, the Pirates have grounded into the most double plays in the National League. That feels impossible. I watched the Phillies this entire year. That feels absolutely impossible. So I really do think that they have settled into the year.

And I think the fan base has settled into the year. You know, there's little things and we'll get to Nola. You know, obviously the bright situation. Good to see him go three or four tonight. Obviously it wasn't two home runs and a bunch of RBIs. Although congratulations, we have, he finally got his 1000th RBI. I was praying he got his 1000th R RBI and then next batter Shorver exes the ballpark and he gets his 300th home run, but it was

Not meant to be so but yeah, so it was a good night from the standpoint of Bryce went three four He got a walk You take that at this point all of a sudden Average is up to 248. But again, I just there's there's little things. But I think fan base wise, I think team wise, we can all accept that they're a good baseball team. They're not a dumpster fire. They're not bad. Are they great? We'll see. I mean, I mean, we'll see. I think they're at least squarely in the mix.

They are squarely in the mix as one of the better teams in the National League. And the question is, is, is whether or not that's good enough for people. And I think at this current standpoint, as we are two and a half months from the trade deadline, keep it afloat, be in a good spot and, and let's see what happens when July 31st rolls around. So again,

I think that they're, they're playing pretty good baseball. This is an important week to gain ground on the Mets. They're obviously playing the Yankees this weekend. You have the, the Pirates and you have the Rockies out in Colorado. Now I know out in Colorado has been a a house of horrors for this team but still you have to go out there and take care of a job against a team that still has not won 10 games so far this season. So yeah overall again it again, it's not going to be the most, it's always not, it's not always going to be the most pretty, but at least they, they found a way

to come back and, and win this one tonight and, and take a ton of walks and you know, have patient at bats and, and just feel comfortable passing the baton to the next guy. And if they get more and more comfortable doing that kind of stuff I think it's only gonna lead to better results as the season rolls along and as we head toward postseason play so 8-4 would have loved to just kept it at 8-3 did not need it Jose Averado to come to this game that felt like a spot that might've been too big for Daniel Robert. I guess they wanna see how he would handle it.

And given the first go round in that kind of spot, he certainly did not handle it well. So overall, you take the win, but we'd definitely like to start hitting some starters. Now, some other things to get into. Now the big one is is Nola. So we talked on, I mean on the final out after his is outing the other night. We talked on the podcast that came out yesterday about Aaron Nola and is he dealing with something physically. And I know I use the term phantom. I out this one actually it kind of makes sense. I mean

In watching his last art. I did not think he was able to drive through and and and drive down the mound and An ankle injury does make some sense now my pushback would be okay Well, if you know he's dealing with an ankle injury that's not going down and swelling, why is he being, why is he hanging out there to dry? That feels ridiculous to me. But whatever, it think it's a semi relief that he was dealing with something and I don't totally dismiss that he was dealing with an ankle injury. But it's pretty remarkable that this is the first time he's hit the IL since 2017 and it really just show you how valuable Aaron Nola is for a baseball team and how he does take

down a ton of innings. And I just think this could be a good kind of mental reset for him. Now at the same time, I think we've gone too far from the standpoint of he has had some good games this year. It has not been a total dumpster fire. I know his ERA is over six right now But there's been some flashes and I I just watch him and I don't think he's a guy who's who's totally cooked I don't think he's a guy who's just done. I think there's I think he's gonna go on the IL for 15 days miss a couple starts and come back and and I think

Get right back on track track and be mostly fine. Is he gonna have the bleep and null outings? He's always gonna have the bleep and null outings. But to just say that he's done and he shot, I don't buy that at all. I really don't. And I do mostly buy the ankle injury. I think it's a plausible excuse for why he was not able

to get some finish on his pitches the other night. And I just, I kind of expect him to come back from the eye on being mostly fine. Now, what is exciting is who is taking his place in Mick Able. And I am just so happy that we're here and we're having this conversation and it's not a pity call up because we've seen pity call ups.

They happen. He's earned this. And for those of you that haven't been following the McCable journey, you know, he's kind of written off prospect wise, I would say midway through last season. And I think his trade value completely declined I don't think there's many teams out there vying for make able services and You know, it's unfortunate because the kids what 22 last year 23 this year. He's super young and To just say well, he doesn't have it. He's and he's not gonna be a competent major league pitcher

Well, he doesn't have it. He's not gonna be a competent major league pitcher. That's that's I think we do with prospects a lot, but I guess it's kind of nature of it Well, he has just responded in such a phenomenal way and I couldn't be happier for him I mean, he just he seems like a great kid and it may only be one start and I hope it's only the Beginning for him and his journey, but he's totally earned it I mean, he's pitching to a 2.53 year a up in AAA Last year and and before that He's been getting shelled up there, but I Don't know what they worked with with him

I believe he was working closer with the the league pitching staff and Caleb Cotham, but they have totally been able to get way more command out of that fastball. The fastball was something that really plagued them and fastball command specifically because he just couldn't keep it within the strike zone. It's a really good pitch. His fastball reminds me, it's not Wheeler's fastball, but when you watch it there are some similarities to Wheeler's fastball. It's a special pitch. It's 97, 98, really good spin, rises a little bit. It's an interesting pitch. There's going to be times where it goes out of the strike zone, 100%, but he's done a much better job at using it as a weapon so far this year. And he is doing such a better job at command of that pitch. And then off of it, when they first drafted Mick Able, he had like a power slider and then almost like a get me over slider. Well, it looks like that kind of pitches back and I think he's mixing a sweeper

here. But he was legitimately dominating up at AAA. Wasn't some flukey 2.5 ERA. It was real stuff. It was real stuff. All this, is grayed out, I believe, right now at a major league level. It's a really remarkable turnaround. And he's going to get his shot on Sunday. Now, what does the future hold for Mick Able? I'm not totally sure. If I had to guess, I believe he is more trade bait than anything. You know, they have a pretty good, you know, they've almost have a plethora of starters. They're probably gonna need a

bullpen piece. They could use an outfield, an outfield bat. You have them come up and you haven't pitched against a Pirates offense that is dreadfield an outfield bat you have them come up and you haven't pitched against a pirates offense that is dreadful and you don't have them pitch out in Colorado out in in Coors Field and in that in that altitude probably gives him a better chance to succeed. So you know it again heading into trade outline who knows maybe he makes a couple starts maybe makes maybe makes one start, no idea. But maybe he goes on a little bit of a run here and and and opens their eyes. But either way, overall, just just couldn't be happier for for a guy that was probably down in the dumps about what his major league career would look like after being on the fast track for so long

and really doing a great job of putting it together this year and being ready to go and ready to help this team hopefully win a baseball game on Sunday. So good for Mick Able, cannot wait to watch that. It's bad news. It's bad news for Paul Skeens. Having to face McAbel in his major league debut.

I mean, just sounds like a tough spot for old Paul. Other speaking of bad news, again, serious bad news. Moises Chasse out now with Tommy John surgery. Really interesting arm they got last year in the Gregory Soto deal. Seth Johnson is up in Lehigh Valley. They've moved him to the bullpen. He actually looks really interesting last night out of the bullpen for the Iron Pigs.

Not throwing his fastballs much, but starting to throw his sweeper a little bit more. And given that he's not the biggest command guy in the world, that could be a pretty interesting mix. So I do wonder with Carlos Hernandez have they run out of patience with him Daniel Robert tonight did not do a job but there's still some interesting stuff there could Seth Johnson given that he's on the 40 man could he be another or could be the next one they kind of bring up so Moises Chassé that stinks. I mean, he was, but his last start, his velocity is down to like 92,

and he was shaking his arm when he was leaving the field. So he had this fear that this was what was gonna happen. But still, he's a young kid. Unfortunately, he's probably gonna miss most of next year. And, you know, I guess we have to look forward to 2026. Man, next year is 2026. I can't believe the 2026 Phillies are already here. We've talked so much about the 2026 Phillies.

So maybe the 2027 Phillies. Maybe we're perpetually just on to the 2027 Phillies. So either way, definitely a bummer for Chassé. I thought he could have maybe helped the bullpen this year if they wanted to, but obviously that is not happening. And then final thing. So we are heading up to Reading on May 31st. Cannot wait for that.

We only have a limited number of tickets remaining. So definitely get in and get your tickets now but we are approaching approaching time to go up to Redding and seeing Aidan Miller. He started to heat up a little bit. He started to heat up. If you look at the overall stats you're gonna be like I don't see it. I don't see it. Slowly but surely slowly but surely Slowly but surely, slowly but surely, the game at AA is slowing down for him. Again, he's 20, playing up in Redding. So, you gotta take a deep breath a little bit.

So, 20 playing in Redding, he started, I think, figure out the league a little bit. Tell you what, he's got that cockiness when he walks, which I think is funny. He had a home run tonight, hit a double. So and just in watching his at bats, it really does look like the game is is slowing down for him. So we're going up to see him and the other running fighting fills, of course, but as the Aidan Miller road to the show, I mean, we got to let the kid know that we're all behind him. That's that's where we're at. That's where we're at. We are a pro Aiden Miller podcast.

He's going to be phenomenal league and he is the he started to do some, some, some damage up there in, in, in double A. So a lot of good stuff tonight, some questionable stuff. Let's mix in a Laffer. I mean, would love a good Laffer tomorrow as we head into Skeens versus Able on on Sunday afternoon. But tomorrow at 6.05 start, we got wheels in the mound. That's obviously not a game that you can't lose. So win a series and then we'll see how Sunday plays out. But overall a solid win tonight,

one that would have been a really annoying loss and maybe would not have gotten a solo edition of the High Hops podcast. So thanks to everyone that tuned in and I believe, I believe we'll be back with the podcast Sunday after the game. So thanks everyone. Shout out to Miller Lite.

As always, the High Ops podcast is presented by Miller Lite. Have a good rest of your weekend and we'll talk to you on Sunday.