Rates & Barrels - Chase Burns' Impressive Debut & AL Playoff Picture Check-In

Episode Date: June 25, 2025

Eno, Jed, and DVR discuss Chase Burns' impressive big-league debut against the Yankees, an ugly fan incident in Chicago against D-backs second baseman Ketel Marte, and the Cubs' choice of Cade Horton over Ben Brown in their rotation with the return of Shota Imanaga, before taking a deep dive into the AL playoff picture with a focus on the third Wild Card spots.Rundown2:55 Chase Burns' Impressive Debut9:05 Abusive Fan Ejected (and Banned) After Heckling Ketel Marte14:49 The Cubs Choose Cade Horton over Ben Brown (Optioned to Triple-A)21:52 Buying the Mariners, Rays, and Jays as AL Wild Cards?30:51 The Rays Are Surprising (Some of Us) Again43:24 Team(s) Most Likely to Pass Current Wild Card Holders49:21 Can the Twins Recover in 2025?Follow Eno on Bluesky: @enosarris.bsky.socialFollow DVR on Bluesky: @dvr.bsky.sociale-mail: [e-mail] our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFeSubscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrelsHosts: Derek VanRiper & Eno SarrisWith: Jed LowrieProducer: Brian SmithExecutive Producer: Derek VanRiper Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart, groceries that over-deliver. Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It is Wednesday, Juneth, Derek Van Rye Barino-Sarris Jed Lowry here with you on this episode. We dig into the Major League debut of Chase Burns, took place on Tuesday night against the Yankees. We are recording this just prior to what might be the pitching matchup of the year? Question mark between Paul Skeens and Jacob Mizorowski. So as soon as this episode's over,

we are all going to consume that in some fashion. I'm a little jealous. I actually feel like I maybe could have justified not being here today and just letting each of you do more work in my absence while I took that game in in person, but I decided not to abandon my friends. I showed up to the pod. I know, I know. I could have been enjoying a bra,

could have had some nice seats. This is your de Grom. You know, Mr. Zyrowski, I wrote about him today and one of the fun things about Mr. Zyrowski is just that he has the same kind of movement over arm slot, expected arm slot as de Grom. He kind of has de Grom's fastball. And then with the 96 mile an hour slider,

he kind of has like peak de Grom slider. Actually, in a lot of ways, I think de Grom. He kind of has de Grom's fastball. And then with the 96 mile an hour slider, he kind of has like peak de Grom slider. Actually, in a lot of ways, I think de Grom is the comp for Mizorowski. It's not quite the same command, though. Take de Grom, make him taller, give him more extension and let him throw a little harder. And then that's Jacob Mizorowski. But then take away a little command. Yeah, yikes. I mean, the command long term though, right? I think that's where DeGrom has been so successful for so long. I swear that dude could put it on a dime, any of his pitches.

Mizorowski gets to that point, unfair. In terms of like stuff and location numbers, I looked at it and the comp is actually Shohei Otani. That's not a good comp in terms of like stuff and like how he looks, but Otani is big stuff, poor command. And he's had really good results because the stuff is so good. It'll also help having above average defense behind them too. That can go a long way towards covering some of those flaws and that's something the brewers have historically and at least recent, done very, very well. So I am very curious to see where it goes,

and it's the most exciting arrival of a pitching prospect probably since Ben Sheets for the organization, and that's a completely different type of pitcher altogether, right? I mean, Sheets was an Olympian, a lot of the hype just came from who he was before he was a big leaguer. Mizorowski, I think, in terms of of stuff is maybe the best pitching prospect I've seen as a

Brewers fan in my lifetime. So hope we get to see a lot of it throughout the summer but plenty of interesting debuts. Let's talk about Chase Burns for a moment. How about 8Ks against the Yankees in your big league debut? Team got the W as well. Burns ran into a little bit of trouble. I think Ben Rice got him for a homer in the upper deck but started his career off with five consecutive strikeouts. Not a bad way to go and I

mean I think the stuff looked phenomenal and the thing that really stood out to me watching Chase Burns was the command. The command was very good. Sometimes we see commands slip a little bit in a debut. We see maybe the nerves or different factors like that that come into play. And I thought Chase Burns located an excellent arsenal, mostly to his liking in this one. Jed, what were some of your takeaways getting the first look at Chase Burns against a big league lineup? Anytime you have the stuff to put away five guys in a row, especially that lineup, that's really, really encouraging. I think it'll really be telling when he goes back through and starts facing guys and the book gets out on him, because obviously the stuff is there.

Then it really becomes about can you execute? Can you make adjustments? But obviously, I mean, for a guy that got drafted last year to be doing this at this point, I mean, I know the incentive is to kind of rush these guys through. But to have that type of performance, you know, about a year or a little less than a year of when you got drafted is impressive. The major league stuff numbers actually lined up right exactly with the minor league ones. And that's not surprising because, you know, savant doesn't run arm angle on every night. So it's going to run it tonight and tomorrow we'll actually know a little bit more about Chase Burns and stuff because of right now the way that we have it is we're guessing

at arm angle the same way we guessed at arm angle in the minor leagues. But I did want to look and see like why does stuff plus say that fastball that was 97, like 98 plus, why is that fastball, you know, like kind of average-ish? Stuff Plus says it's basically exactly league average or the 96 Stuff Plus. And that seems a little bit hard to believe, but you know, for what it's worth, hitters hit 400 off the fastball yesterday.

And then the reason that it may not list as well as it seemed to our eyes is, you know, you see that it has good ride there with 18 plus inches of IVB. The problem is that his release point is very high. His release point would be in the top 10 of pitchers in baseball. So you get a high release point, you get, you expect that IVB. He kind of gives you the fastball you expect. In fact, I went and looked at release point and movement

and the comp for him is Brian Baker, which is just weird. And it may end up just being, you know, people will look at me like I'm crazy and this is, you know, the next coming of, I don't know who's a a huge ride great fastball I mean people are mad about my sunny gray comp it's definitely not sunny gray he throws super hard and it does have IVB but the fastball will actually be more hittable than people expect that's what I'm gonna willing to stand by we'll see how it goes looking

at that profile too right like there's not a lot of depth on the pitch. There was one curve ball there. If you're going to be a relatively higher arm slot guy with good ride, you're going to want an off speed pitch that's got a lot of depth to it. The slider looks like it's, yeah, has decent depth, but not like off the charts depth. I think there'll be some pressure on that change up too,

you know, because the model doesn't like it, but model doesn't, you know, it's not great on change ups in that small sample. So maybe the change up will be a huge part of a success. Early sample size, but you're talking 2.1, like you said, 2.1 inches more rise than average, but it's only the sliders only got 1.2 inches more drop. There's only one curve ball and it's got, you know,

6.9 inches less break and 2.8 inches less drop. I think that, you know, it's exciting. You don't, I don't want to draw any conclusions about a kid. That's part of it too. 90 miles an hour. That's a really good slider. Yeah. Well, I mean, I, I, yeah, absolutely. It's breaking hard, right?

But I think, you know, that, that, once again, that'll depend on execution moving forward. Can he continue to execute on that pitch? And then just having a change of speed, right? I think that has depth because I think the change of speed with a high arm angle matters, but it's got to have depth. The one thing that I thought was really interesting though from the model was seeing that 113 location plus because it validated what I thought I was seeing with my eyes on Tuesday night

And I think the way you're describing the possibility of chase burns having Occasional problems with that fastball where it's just more hittable than expected kind of reminds me of hunter green I got guy the Reds brought up a couple of years ago and hunter greens had to add depth that arsenal and he's Reached that ceiling over the course Right, so I think if you say, well, okay, maybe the fastball in terms of its raw grade is not as good as Hunter Green's, the slider is similar, it's like a great, great, great pitch to have,

his command's better, that might help ease some of the stuff-related limitations of that pitch. But I would agree with both of you, the change-up's gonna be a really important pitch for him. I wanna see if we get more of those in these follow-up outings. We talked about before, two starts next week, both on the road, Boston and Philly,

a nice test for Chase Burns beginning that big league career. But hey, I think he held his own, given the difficulty of that matchup on a hot humid night in Cincinnati. Let's get to a really disappointing story that took place in Chicago on Tuesday night. An abusive fan was heckling Ketel Marte about his late mother and that fan was objected

from the game, as that one banned by the White Sox from all home games indefinitely. And just another incident involving fans that crosses the line in ways you can't even imagine it seems like these incidents are growing in number I don't know if they're just being reported on more frequently if it's like this is something that's just been happening forever if it's related at all to The increase in legalized gambling we just talked about this last week with the incident in Pittsburgh You know fan was ejected after making comments to Tommy Pham. Dennis Santana took a swipe at a fan from the bullpen after comments that crossed the line.

In this instance, one thing that really stood out to me was Tori Lovolo during a pitching change, going out there, talking to Ketel Marte, consoling him, and just being a great friend, a great leader, a great manager in that instance. right? That to me was sort of this this like very touching, kind of critically important moment to see someone out there clearly heard it. You could see tears in his eyes while he's out there trying to play. And, you know, at least the White Sox responded quickly and did what they need to do. But when does it end? When does this get better?

I mean, I asked this question on a morning where I was just reading a story from Dan Hayes, the athletic and the twins have a director of security who basically described interactions, at least online, as a postgame routine now checking in on threats that might be made as just a regular sort of occurrence. So, Jed, I mean, you've probably seen and heard more accounts of things that you would ever want to even recall. And Tori Lovolo wouldn't repeat what was said. I don't think I'd repeat it even if he did.

So why is this getting so much worse? So why does it seem to be getting so much worse? It seems to be getting worse. You know, the fan interactions in stadium, in game, you know, especially opposing teams has never been overly positive. I'll just kind of leave it at that. I think that with social media, particularly on, you know, the threats you see, like, you know, Liam Hendricks and Lance McCullers getting threatened via social media, I think people just feel more comfortable

media, I think people just feel more comfortable typing, you know, sitting behind a screen and typing these things. You know, security is going to be even more important as we move forward in this game as legalized gambling is more widely adopted. I mean, the White Sox was also a place where someone took a gun to the game and it went off inside the stadium. So that's the scariest end outcome. I don't know what to do about it. You there's some unpleasant things you can do about it.

You could make more of a barrier between the players and the, and the fans that takes them out of the experience. You know, it makes it less of a inviting place to be. I hope that doesn't get to that level. I've heard people talk about, talk about possibly ending props in gambling. And for those that don't gamble, props are very specific bets that are like, I think Jed Lowry is going to get more than one hit today, the over under is one and a half hits or whatever, you know, and the nice thing about that I could see is like, I'd be super mad if Jed cost me $50,000 because you didn't run out a second hit or something. Something stupid that you wouldn't have done. I'm just making up an example. towards a player as opposed to, you know, with gambling on a team, at least, you know, all sorts of people contributed to that win or loss and it's not as specific or pointed. But, you know, I don't know if that really solves

anything either because if you bet on a team to win or lose and the starting pitcher does a big thing, like there can still be these huge things that happen, like a missed play in the ninth that causes the team to lose lose or the starting pitcher gives up seven on a day you wanted them to win. So there can still be that anger. Unfortunately, the combination of a proximity to players, alcohol and gambling is part of the story.

A bad combination, but I'm just glad in the incident on Tuesday that Tory Lovolo stepped up as the person he's really shown himself to be. I remember the story from a few years ago when Mike Hazen's wife was sick she was battling brain cancer and she wanted Christmas lights on the house for it to feel more like Christmas and Tory Lovolo is in his own words I think kind of like a Clark Griswold around Christmas and he went to Mike Hazen's house and put up the Christmas lights and just seems like the kind of character that he has. But basically stepping in and just doing the right thing.

I think went a really long way on Tuesday night. Quick follow up from something we talked about on Tuesday show, Ben Brown has been optioned to triple A by the Cubs. So Kate Horton stays in the rotation. I don't recall. Was Kate Horton in your piece this morning, you know, from the young pitchers that you wrote about? Why not?

Just, just should have been. Wasn't trying to pick him and say, oh, he wasn't in there. It's more of just the Kate Horton's kind of quietly pitched pretty well. But I've been surprised that his strikeout rate has been relatively low. I mean, he's showing a little wider arsenal than what we just talked about with Chase Burns. Maybe the stuff's not quite as good, but for a guy that I thought was gonna strike out

23, 25% of the batters he faced, he's been down in the 17.6% range so far. It's got above average fastball velocity, two breaking balls, and a changeup. That should be enough to get you a good strikeout rate I think that's the wideness of his arsenal that has you know allowed him to succeed where Ben Brown had difficulties I think Ben Brown has got to go down and Work on those things we talked about cutter sinker

Whatever it is splitter to just try try some other pitches to take some pressure off of what is an excellent curve ball. But you know, that's why we were talking about some similar things with Chase Burns is like, you know, Ben Brown has an elite breaking ball. Chase Burns has an elite breaking ball to be a great starter in this, in this league. You need to, you kind of have a constellation of pitches around it. You can't, you can't just even the best breaking ball, if they're guessing for it, like Ben Rice, hit that homer off of Chase Burns' excellent slider because he just guessed right. It wasn't the largest arsenal. He didn't have to think it through too hard. He was just, I'm sitting slider and there it is. So, Kate Horton, the stuff predicted his strikeout rate better than

his minor league strikeout rates, but it's a wide arsenal and he has, you know, a little bit more polished than people expected above average locations. Yeah. Should have been in my article. I don't know that I think he's an elite pitcher, but what they need right now in Chicago is, you know, competence and sort of major league quality. I guess the corresponding move was a shot to Imanaga's up, that's good. So Imanaga, Tyon, Boyd, Horton,

it's a representative one, but I still stand by my belief that, put Tigram on the top of that and it looks a lot better. You know, I got a question for you on Ben Brown, you were talking about his curveball. So like, I'm looking at that pitch, the profile. What about it in your thinking, how does it grade? Cause it's about 2300 RPM, which is good,

but you're talking about a pitch that's got, you know, six and a half inches less break than average and seven inches less drop. What is it that you would classify Ben Brown's bring balls elite? You can't forget the VELO. Cause it's 87. Yeah. The 87 like, you know, changes, like there's, forget the Velo. Because it's 87. Yeah.

The 87 changes, there's very few curve balls that are 87. So even though it's slightly below average, it's below average movement, I mean, it's a power curve. I mean, that's a vintage line of colors through an 87 mile an hour curve ball. I worry a little bit about that. I think you got a guy with a fast ball that, not elite in terms of the vertical drop, right? There's not a lot of bit about that. I think you got a guy with a fastball that not elite in terms of the vertical drop, right?

There's not a lot of rise on it. Oh yeah, the fastball's a problem. The fastball's a problem. Yeah, it's a 258 batting average against on the curveball. I just, you know. But a 43% whiff. And he throws it a lot, and there's a lot of pressure on it

because he doesn't have any other pitches. So people are guessing curveball sometimes. 2300 spin is, is, is okay, but it's not, you know, it's not frame or Valdez. So you know, yeah, I think there's, I think there's, there's, there's a pitch that needs to be added to that arsenal. Obviously the V lo is great, got a great whiff rate, great K rate, great walk rate, but given up a lot of barrels and a lot of hard hit balls. And I think that's just to your point, like a lack of mix, but something with a little bit more depth that's slower probably makes sense

for someone like Ben Brown too. Ooh, that's an interesting idea. What about a slow curve? Exactly. You know who's doing that? Andrew Haney is throwing a sweeper, a curveball, and a slow curve. None of them are good, but he's throwing them all. This is where, you know, from the hitter's perspective, this is where there's some divergence.

When everything is hard, it doesn't matter, right? Like it doesn't matter the pitch dynamics unless the movement profile is there. You know, you can tell me that the slider is hard, but I actually think or the curve ball is hard I actually think that's working against him because everything is hard There's really no change of speed that I need to worry about and then you're telling me the curve ball doesn't break Even anywhere close to average. So now you're talking like in my estimation a cement mixer, right? Like this thing is it's and it's not spinning fast. Or a more average slider. It's like, maybe it's an average slider.

Yeah, exactly. It's 87. Exactly right. Just call it a slider in your head and maybe it's hittable. Because it is, like I said, it's, you know, the breaking ball, I would classify as breaking ball, right? Like we can start talking about

the difference between slider and curve ball, but like if you only have one breaking ball and it's hard and your fast ball is hard, you never really like your, the timing differential is so minute that even if you aren't right on time, you're still can barrel it up, especially with that lack of movement.

I think that's a problem that we've talked about with Taj Bradley in the past. Previous iterations of Taj Bradley, you know, you had three pitches that he was throwing pretty frequently. It was four seamer, splitter, and cutter, and everything was between 91 and 96. It just didn't matter how good any of those pitches were because of what Jed's describing. There's nothing that changes your timing, and that makes hitting easier and makes your

stuff play down. So yeah, that's pretty interesting that, especially with the two-pitch mix, Ben Brown might be running into that same problem. We always have the, try adding a cutter. That's like the running joke on the show, add a cutter. Learn yoga, learn to code. Learn to code, E.Kale's the other one

that I think we're shoving in there too. Just make sure you're doing all those things and the more I think about learn to code, I'm like, that's number four, that's the offer app, that's getting closer to nothing's working, so you gotta start thinking about the next thing. Yeah, Learn to Code for baseball players, bad sign. That's a real bad sign, I think, for a lot of guys.

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exclusions and terms apply. Instacart. Groceries that over-deliver. Did you know that socks are one of the most requested clothing items by organizations addressing homelessness? It's true. And it's also why we started Bombas. Every time you buy, well, anything from Bombas, an essential item is donated to someone facing homelessness. That's Bombas's one-purchased, one-donated promise. Bombas makes socks, underwear, slippers, the best deal, the highest cash back, the most savings on your shopping. So join Rakuten and start getting cash back at Uniqlo, Best Buy, Expedia, and other stores you love.

You can even stack sales on top of cash back. Just start your shopping with Rakuten to save money at over 750 stores. Join for free at rakuten.ca or download the Rakuten app. That's R-A-K-U-T-E-N Rakuten.ca. Let's move on to our main topic for today. Take a look at the AL Playoff picture. If we take the three current division leaders, the Yankees, the Astros, and the Tigers.

Remove them from the conversation. They're sitting pretty comfortably in terms of playoff odds should make the playoffs in some fashion. We know the season's only half over. A lot can happen. I wanna begin by asking you a simple question. Are you buying the Mariners' Rays and Jays

as the three wild cards because they have quietly nudged their playoff odds up Considerably according to fan graphs get the Jays at 59% the Mariners at 65.7% and now the Rays at 71.5% I think all three of those teams have ticked up in the two days since we started planning out this show I Get the sense that the typical person listening is saying, no, I'm not buying all three of those teams as wildcards. But Jed, as you started digging into this group, I think you have probably more skepticism than Eno

and certainly a lot more skepticism than me about the standing of these three teams. I buy Tampa Bay and I buy Seattle. I'm a little worried about Toronto. They're, you know, they're at a minus 10 run differential. So they're overperforming what their record is right now. Santander. I mean, that's a huge hole for them. You know, they spent a lot of money on him. He just has not been productive. Jimenez at second has not been productive. I love Bichette. I love Vladdy. You know, you got a guy

like George Springer who, you know, can has the experience to help, you know, guide some of these young guys, but isn't the player, you know, he was at his peak, but still a good player. But I am really worried about that rotation. You talk about Berrios and Bassett and they've been good. And, you know, after that, gosh, I, I, I get real concerned on the pitching. I mean,ett and they've been good. And you know, after that, gosh, I get real concerned on the pitching. I mean, they've only had four, three guys throw over 80 innings. And the Gossman is, you know,

the Gossman's at a four, six right now with an ERA plus of 91. Bowden Francis is the next at 64 innings. They don't have anybody else that's thrown over 40 innings. They don't have anybody else that's thrown over 40 innings in their entire staff. That fifth spot has been a total revolving door. I mean, right now it's Eric Lauer,

but they've tried a lot of stuff there and they just haven't been able to develop somebody that can step in there and be the homegrown fifth starter. Even the fourth starter, Bowden Francis, the VELOs pretty low, and the fourth starter, Bowden Francis, the VLOS, pretty low, you know, and the strikeout rate was low last year, and this was in the range of outcomes. So they desperately need a starter,

but they could maybe, maybe they could get a starter that just gets them there if they don't want to spend the price for Sandy Alcantara or, you know, Jacob deGrom or any of the top of the end ones. I think this is a fascinating team though, because I think every year, I think this is a fascinating team though, because I think every year I get one team that surprises me and then I start digging into what's making them good.

And usually the thing that it is, is they're popping defensively. A couple of years ago when the Diamondbacks made that run to the World Series, I think they were the best defensive team in baseball based on defensive runs saved and outs above average. They were at or near the top leaderboard in the defensive metrics that we at least publicly use. That would be the case with this year's Blue Jays.

30-39 defensive run save puts them fourth, they're fifth and out above average, they're first in catcher defense. Alejandro Kirk's been phenomenal. So really kind of great across the board, making their pitching probably play up a little bit, because I share your concerns about the starting pitching especially. They're tied for 15th in K-BB percentage, 13.9%. That's fine, but it's not what you fear in the postseason. And I think as the innings pile up on their bullpen, which has been fantastic,

their second in K-BB percentage in the bullpen, they might lose effectiveness. And the way you BB percentage in the bullpen, they might lose effectiveness. The way you add to a team like this at the deadline, ideally, yeah, probably more bullpen depth just to keep those A-guys fresh because you're going to lean so heavily on them if you are a post-season team. And then maybe one more bat. They're 13th in Woba as a team, 319.

I think what makes the Jays a tricky team to match up with is that they don't strike out a lot. They lead the league in a good way in team strikeout rate, and compared to the team that's second in team strikeout rate, the Royals, the Jays at least get to what you would call league average power, a league average in slug, league average in ISO.

They have some guys that do some damage. So they have that sort of do everything well, don't make mistakes defensively, kind of frustrating sort of team to pitch against because they don't strike out a lot but I can see very easily how you look at this roster and say yeah it just doesn't seem like it's on the same level as those division leaders or those top-end playoff teams but one of the thought here, if you're in the position of making decisions in that J's front office,

I think you have to look at the state of the American league right now as a our window is open situation and think about being more aggressive and trying to go out of your way to get those pieces that can put you over the top. And one last thing before I run out of breath, Trey Savage, also from last year's draft class,

might be a difference maker in that rotation given how well he's pitched cruising through the minor leagues. That might be mid-rotation or better big league stuff right out of the box, so that could be another way to kind of elevate one of their relative weaknesses. I mean, he was just an ECU last year in 2024 last year in 2024, you know, as a draft pick in 2024, this would be a meteoric rise, but he is in AA already.

You know, not the best first two starts at AA in terms of results in terms of ERA, but the strikeouts are there and the walks, you know, calm down. I've heard plenty of farm directors say, if my guy has major league pitch grades, why is he in the minor leagues? Like they may just say, hey, he's better than Eric Lauer. You know, Max Scherzer came back and through 91 and change and has basically been talking about the thumb as somebody he has to manage the rest of the year.

So maybe he can be a four or five for them, but I don't know if he's a difference maker. So maybe the idea is they stumble along with Scherzer and Bowden, you know, at four and five and Treja Savage is like the, you know, like the late September call up, you know, or the, the September one call up that they, that they just try to catch lightning in a bottle. I could see that. What I don't see is them being super aggressive and buying at the top of the

market trade wise, just because I think that they had this combination of untouchables and then prospects that nobody wants. It's a weird combination because Bloss is hurt. I believe, yeah, Tiedemann is hurt. And I don't know that Alan Rodin has a ton of trade value. Arjun Namala is their shortstop and he's number one with a bullet right now. They're not trading him at all. I don't think they're trading Trey as Savage.

So like the, you know, Relvis Martinez has the suspension under his belt. Maybe the most tradable guy is RJ Shrek, who is a 24 year old, little bit older side, who is killing in AAA. But that might, they might also say, hey, let's call up RJ Shrek and let's just do the thing where we hope Santander comes back.

We get Varsho back. Maybe we try Shrek and we don't actually have to spend a lot on the on the market. I could see them doing that just because, you know, there's very few impact starting rotation arms that are going to be on the market and they're going to cost a lot. going to be on the market and they're going to cost a lot. I do think when you look at the guys that get moved at the deadline, a player that is ranked on prospect list the way Namala is ranked is, that's much less likely to happen than it used to be. It's just not going anywhere, yeah.

The Rodin possibility is like, okay, yeah, Alan Rodin. Alan Rodin's probably going to get you back a number three or number four starter. He's going to get you back another guy kind of similar to Barrios and Bassett. I don't know if that's necessarily good enough to change the fate of this team. I like what they've done.

I just wanna see them be really aggressive if there's something out there that can put them over the top. Sandy would be a big deal for them. I think you could get Sandee Alcantara. Yeah, especially with the recent form. Looks like Sandy getting back closer to his pre-surgery self.

I found the Rays to be a very frustrating team to break down. So for our segment yesterday, we fired up the old Trademaster 3000 and I started by looking for an upgrade for the Rays and I looked at their roster and I didn't find an obvious one, which is probably the sign of a well-built team.

There's not necessarily a gaping hole. You can go up and get the best available player that makes sense based on what you're willing to give up long term. And it got me thinking about what does this team do well? You know, what's their weakness? What's their strength? This isn't going to surprise anybody. They're tied for 11th in Team Wobe at 320, right?

So they're above average. They're not great, but they're above average. Starting rotation, 14.2 percent K minus BB, just above average. Tied for 13th. Relievers, top five, not surprising. They're always kind of great in the bullpen, right? Third in ERA, but fifth in K minus BB. Defensively, pretty solid, pretty much across the board,

except for behind the plate. I think they're a minus nine for FRV right now, so maybe catcher is a spot they would try to upgrade. It's hard to get those upgrades in season. First of all, it's really hard to get a defensive upgrade in season because you're asking someone to come and learn an entire staff and learn an entire team. I think it would be really hard. Plus, I think catchers are something that teams hoard. Catchers with team control, like everyone, there's like somebody in every organization that all he can talk about is catcher depth and all he thinks about capture depth, you know, and he's claiming guys and he's he's talking about it all the time.

Think about in spring when you have to have like eight catchers to start spraying like, you know, they care about catching. So I doubt that's where I think they're hoping that has him Kim helps them at short offensively and keeps the defense high. short offensively and keeps the defense high. I think the pain point for them, if I look around, is Christian Morel. And you know, he's an interesting player that I see why they got him. He has good bad speed, he barrels the ball really well, but he's looking kind of like Jose Siri without the defense right now, where it's just a huge strikeout rate, not enough walks and not quite enough power to float the entire thing. I know that WRC Plus says he's above average, but with a DH-like glove, it's a kind of a tough combo right now.

But the thing was, when we tried to come up with an idea where they can improve upon it, we couldn't find who they'd trade Christian Morrell to, you know, who wants to take that on. If it's the White Sox like Benetendi back to the Rays like you know where Benetendi's contract is paid does that make the Rays better? I don't even know and despite all of this they have a plus 70 run differential, and they're actually underperforming their record And they still have Shane McClanahan coming back. When the Rays are at this point in the season and they're playing as well as they are, it's really hard to bet against them just as an organization.

And defensively, I mean, I think, you know, if you're going to go by outs above average, their team defense is actually quite good outside of, I mean, Brandon Lau and Caminero are minus 12 and as a group, they're minus one. So, you know, but those two are basically offensively, it's the old adage, you know, well just drive in more than you give up. And I think they're both doing that. They're giving up a lot as well.

I suppose they could trade, you know, we have to remember this is the Braves, the Rays. They could trade Brandon Lau. They could trade Brandon Lau and They could trade Brandon Lau, and I don't know what it would get them, but I guess they would ask for maybe outfield offense back, and they'd save money, you know, and maybe they'd improve their defense at second.

That's in the ram of possibilities, but they don't have to, you know. They called Chandler Simpson up to try the outfield again, see if he can help. They've got some ideas still left in the holster that don't require going to the market. I hope we keep getting good news on Shane McClanahan. The last update I saw from Mark Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times is that he gets some good news from a nerve specialist and should resume throwing up a mound soon. So that makes me think we're a month plus away from seeing McClannahan in games again But you add him back in in August and you get your didn't cost us anything big lift

To your top of your starting rotation Anthony Santander back off the IL Hopefully, you know the thing is for people hoping that Michael King's stay on the ILB will be short I think with nerves is it's just like people won't know. It could be a little bit of time, it could be a lot of time and shame to client has a little bit of proof of that. Yeah that's where if you're banking on him coming back and being awesome that might be misguided because of the uncertainty. The Mariners being in this group I mean they've weathered injuries to Kirby and Gilbert so they're through that.

We'll see if they get Bryce Miller back. I know he had the PRP injection. His situation still sounds like the loose body in his elbow. It's going to be very hard for him to get back. But their pitching depth is a little bit better than maybe we expected. Logan Evans and Emerson Hancock at least look like Major League starting pitchers. Right. So if you get into the postseason,

you're looking at some combination maybe of Gilbert, Kirby, and Wu with Castillo maybe as the odd man out, or the fourth guy, the guy that starts a game in a longer series, but maybe doesn't start in a shorter series just based on where all those guys are at with the stuff at this point in their respective careers. I think one thing people are gonna ask about this team

is if their lineup is actually really top heavy because Cal Raleigh is hitting like an MVP, right? They're tied for sixth in Team Woba. I would guess that if you took Cal Raleigh out of that equation, you're probably looking at an average or below average lineup. The thing that is working is they got Crawford, Luke Raley's back now, Randy Rose Arena, all on base a ton even if they're not tapping into as much power as

expected. And then Julio still hasn't really done the higher end Julio things yet this year. So you can kind of say, oh, even if Cal cools off, there are a few ways for them to maintain maybe not a top six sort of offense, but at least the top 10 one, which pair with that pitching would make them plenty dangerous. I think you read my notes somehow before, uh, before we started talking about this, cause that's exactly what I got. I got Raleigh getting back in the lineup, extending, extending that lineup. Julio has been, you know, traditionally a second half hitter. And if he rounds back into that form, could carry this team.

I hope Cal Raleigh hits 60 homers, right? I wanna see it. But he's doing a lot of heavy lifting right now and the teams are gonna start, you know, making somebody else beat them. What's better than a well marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue? A well marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue

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I have an unscientific feeling about the Mariners that I can't really point to anything specific, but except to say that Randi Arroz-Lorena and Julio Rodriguez in their history have white hot months. I mean, just absolutely low, lift the team, put them on their back months and they have not done that in a little bit. And so I just, I kind of feel like if you have two of those guys, at least one of those guys is going to give you a month where they just look like an MVP. And so I think that'll help. I think Dominic hands on is one of the more interesting guys they've had in that position in a while because right now I think he's peaking. He's 27.

I don't know that he's going to ever be like a real standout player, but right now he's got the best strikeout rate, best whiff rate, best barrel, best max EV. He's basically I think peaking, putting all of the best parts together. And I think he can be at least the league average player for them, which is important at the bottom of that line up. You're right. They have some holes. Brandon Williamson is a glove first guy.

Cole Young is trying to make it work. I think if they could get a second baseman in the trade market, I think they would for now. I think Luke Railey's return is going to be important to them. They've been going through Rowdy Toles and Donovan Solano and stuff. I think Luke Railey, at least against right handers, is a legitimate guy who can be like your sixth hitter and extend that lineup. So, you know, they do have some pain points. I would say right field, second base and third base offensively are pain points,

but Williamson's glove is good enough for me. And I think Kanzone might be just good enough to be a seven hitter. So second base is the real place that you're circling. And you know, they have other guys, they could try Colt Emerson there if he keeps coming. And you know, Ryan Bliss will come back and, you know, maybe they tried Polanco, you know, in the field a little bit and acquire a DH on the market. So there's a little bit of flexibility there.

They got Robles who is coming back. I mean, who knows what that looks like when you come back from an injury like that. But a guy that has experience and has performed, like he can extend the lineup. I mean, he's not a, I don't think offensively he's a huge difference maker, but he plugs a hole. He can't play second though. So there's still, I think there's still pain there, but maybe you could play Robles in right and Ken's own a DH and Polanco at second, sacrifice a little

bit of defense and go for the offense. But honestly, it's one of the better lineups that the Mariners like the Mariners have this problem. They all every time You know, it doesn't seem worse than years past. In fact, I think it seems a little better than years past I like that they've given the opportunity to Cole Young and Ben Williamson seeing if those young guys are ready and then that gives Them another still month before we get to the deadline to possibly upgrade one or both of those spots depending on which they feel Is easier to upgrade or more urgent to upgrade. The more we talk about these teams that have defensive shortcomings at third base and or offensive shortcomings at third base, the more I think Ryan McMahon will be on the move

at some point this summer. It might be a few teams interested in his services, so he could be a good fit potentially in Seattle. I did pull up the past calendar year leaderboard, which is always a fun snapshot when you get to mid season Cal Raleigh past calendar year 156 games played 54 homers that is bonkers. There's two guys that have 58 Obviously judge and Otani. How does this war compare to the judge?

His war compared to judge judge is a 12.4 F4 during this past calendar year. Raleigh's a 9.3. Ohtani's an 8.9. Big dumper. He's doing it. He's trending towards second in the MVP voting, but if he keeps it close, you can make the case, because catching is such a difficult position.

Eight guys that have more than 40 homers in the past calendar year, so it's the three I mentioned that are up in the 50s. Eohanio Suarez, 49, Kyle Schwaber, 45, Brent Rooker, 42. I would make it in the case on Seattle radio for Suarez to come back. They love him. They love him. He's loved by the media, everybody, the clubhouse. It would be such a good thing. If Brandon Winston's so good with the glove at third, he can help at second too. So I think Suarez back is an interesting one. You know, I think the two worst strikeout rates

of Suarez's career came while he was playing in Seattle, but at least he wouldn't be new to him. Like the thing I keep hearing is after a year there, it's a little easier to hit, given all the quirks of the park. That's true. Like you'd want to get somebody who's never played there and then he just strikes out for, you know, two months and he's like, he'd also missed the first couple of months where it's a little colder up there. That's true. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. And a guy that typically backloads that production in the warmer months We've seen that a lot from a Ohanio Suarez

Alright, so kind of talk through the three teams sitting in those positions right now Who is most likely to chase one or more of them down? I think you start looking at the playoff odds And again, I cut off the three teams that are currently in the division lead. And that reflects how we've been feeling. There's been a real differentiation between the top three and the bottom. The next three. Yeah, just like in the last two weeks, it just seems like there's been a good bit of separation between these groups.

But there's so much time left. So who from that lower cluster teams like the Guardians, who always find a way to hang around the Royals, who Jed mentioned earlier, the Rangers, maybe the Red Sox, despite trading away Raphael Devers. Who do you see as a legitimate contender kind of lagging behind right now in playoff odds? Who's your favorite of that cluster? The Twins are part of that group too.

Who do you like out of that group, Jed? Out of that group, I'm gonna go with Texas. We had talked about Kansas City a little bit, but I think, you know, Texas has, you know, their run differential is plus 10. So they're, they're underperforming. They, their expected wins would be 41 and you know, with E of Aldi and de Grom at the top of that. And then you look at what their Woba is versus the expected Woba. There's a high Delta there that I feel like, you know, you got some names there.

Third in the big leagues. Third in the big leagues in underperforming their expectations and expected Woba. Exactly. And you got a strong team defense, you know, 11 outs above average as a team defense. The one thing I look at this,

you know, when I look at this roster, I'm just looking at the bullpen and I'm saying that it's been good, but they don't have a closer. I guess I should have looked into who would be available on this. But I think if I'm picking between Boston, Texas, Kansas City and Cleveland, I like Texas,

especially if they add a closer. Yeah, I mean, there's some boring names available like Kyle Finnegan from the Nationals is available for a song. At least he's been a reliable closer. You know, I like Robert Garcia, but you push him to set up and it probably is probably better for the team. The kind of riskier, maybe more costly, but very interesting was David Bednar

from the Pirates, who apparently ownership scuttled previous trades. So he is definitely somebody that is on the market. He's been up and down, but recently a lot better. The stuff is there. Sometimes the command leaves him. But David Bednar would be a big acquisition for this team. And I agree that when I look at the team, it just feels like a team that should be better. Like, I don't know, again, I don't hate to be unscientific but it's like you have Wyatt Langford and Corey Seeger and Marcus Simeon and Josh Young, like, you know,

Adolise Garcia, like this is a good team. The rotation is good. Yes, there's problems. Simeon looks a little bit older than I expected and you know, Jock's hurt and you know, Yes, there's problems. Simeon looks a little bit older than I expected. And, you know, Jocks hurt and, you know, some of the guys aren't maybe as good as we'd hope they'd be right now. And Jake Berger's hurt.

But I don't know. White Langford to me is a stud and he could get white hot. Corey Seeger can get white hot. There's ways to carry these guys. And, you know, a slightly better bullpen would help. You're talking about Iovaldi and de Grahm right now and just with the stuff they're running out there, I mean, you're talking about guys with 69 and 88 innings

that, you know, with under sub one whips, you add a couple arms of that bullpen. I mean, then the bullpen has actually performed fairly well, you just, when you look at the, across the board, like the save category, it's a closer by committee right now. I've been seeing a lot of buzz around Jake Bird in the Rockies bullpen.

I mean, that's a guy that's had a lot of success this year in a difficult spot. ERA is in the low twos, 31.5% K rate. Really funky. Really funky stuff is actually good on top of the funk. So like, I think you could, you could see Bird maybe not being a closer anywhere else, but being a clear A bullpen sort of addition for someone.

I could see that being maybe a good fit for Texas. That might be a bullpen that wants to add two if they decide they're buyers. And they basically rebuilt the entire bullpen from last season and they're still looking for answers there so finding guys that might be around beyond this season would be good. The other guy that came to mind was Ryan Helsley

but the Cardinals are playing well. The Cardinals are not falling into clear seller mode. They're eight above 500. They're 44 and 36 entering play on Wednesday so I think the Cardinals would have to go through a pretty rough slide in the next five weeks They're 44 and 36 entering play on Wednesday. So I think the Cardinals would have to go through a pretty rough slide in the next five weeks for Ryan Helsley to become somebody else's closer

for the final two months of the season. Yeah, I know there's some bad teams that they just don't have good relievers that are, you know, the White Sox and the Nationals, you don't necessarily want any relievers. Grant Taylor's probably still headed towards starting, so. Depending on where the Red Sox go, you know, Chapman because it could become available real quick. Right, they end up being the best option available for teams that want to, you know, established a reliever. There's some like

selling that's going to be come available maybe in the next two, three weeks. That's not obvious to us right now, because there are some teams like the Rangers that are going to hit a crossroads and go either way. I think the team that I think is a dark horse is really at the precipice actually. I picked a team, the twins that are 37 and 42. In terms of run differential, there's nothing that really speaks to them other than their projected run differential is much better than their actual one. They're at minus 20. There's a lot of bad things going on. And if it continues to kind of spiral in Minnesota, then that of course I think they could become

sellers. The reason why I like them was, you know, I put that together. This chart is just like the last 30 days by hard hit rate by a team. And they're number one in hard hit rate. And I think this is significant to group it by the last month. Not because I'm trying to say they are hot. I don't necessarily think that works that way. But what I think is the twins have been relatively healthy offensively or have been getting there.

Matt Wallner is healthy. Brian Buxton and Carlos Correa are on the field at the same time. And so this is what this offense can do when everybody's healthy and they are currently until Royce Lewis needs to make his way back. But this is a pretty good offense. Now, on the pitching side,

they've run into a slate of injuries, but Zebi Matthews is throwing again. And they actually, you know, among their prospects have some guys where if they want to be aggressive and kind of move guys along at all, then there are some names that could be available to them. And you know, the more that they stay in the race and whatever, the more those names become attractive. Guys like CJ Culpepper and Connor Prelip are both in AA and they're both 24, 23 years old and they both have 30% strikeout rates.

And they're both starters. So if they ever just say, hey, you know what? These guys are ready. They deserve a chance. They may be upgrades over Simeon Woods Richardson. And of course they get Pablo Lopez back at some point as their deadline acquisition. So I just think that they're a little bit underrated. They haven't been performing well,

but there's an offense in there that works. And there are some prospect pieces that could, you know, paper over their injury problems. I was trying to come up with a team that I liked, you know, as a sneaky, better than you think club. And the Guardians kind of pop into my head as a guy that watches the Brewers a lot. And you just think about this team that always finds a way even when projections, even when Pythagorean records, third order records, even that Clay Davenport puts out, you don't

find those types of things right now saying, oh, the guardians have underperformed. You find the opposite. They've been overperforming and you kind of say, well, how and why? And even though we see them make moves at deadlines, how aggressive are they going to be able to add payroll? And then do they have enough internal help to make that roster considerably better? I mean, one guy that might finally be healthy and ready to contribute at a major area of need is Chase DeLotter, right? He's had a few setbacks along the way in the minors with that foot, but putting some really nice numbers together

in a small sample at Columbus, only 22 games, he's getting to some power, he's got a 438 OBP. We know they need bats. I mean, the right field is a huge problem. He's almost like an off hurt, you know, minor league pitcher where you're like, why bother using any of those innings down there? If you think his approach is good enough

to be better than what you have, like let's start the process now. Maybe call him up now and do what the Mariners are doing with Young and Williamson and just say, okay, is Chase DeLotter an immediate impact guy or is he an impact guy for later? Because that will help you understand your immediate needs as a front office when you have that chance to upgrade in a few weeks. But even though I know they always find a way,

I can't make a strong case for why I believe in the Guardians as a better option than these other teams that are chasing right now. I think the only one I can make is Steven Vogt. Yeah, I believe in the Guardians as a better option than these other teams that are chasing right now. I think James P. is for the Rangers. The only one I can think of is Stephen Voate. Yeah, I believe in Stephen Voate. The magic of Stephen Voate. I do believe in Stephen Voate. I guess that's as much as I have on the Guardians right now.

Shane Bieber's coming back. That's gonna help the rotation. You know, but this lineup is pretty bad. It's pretty bad. Like, you know, you fear Jose Ramirez, you respect Steven Kwan, you can't make a mistake to Kalmanzardo, and that's it. That's all the nice things I can say. Santana, 39 years old, is just, he's doing what he does,

right, like with a little less power. But yeah, you're right. There's just not, it really does, you know, like I said, this is as of Monday, but negative 23 run differential, but they you know, they're outperforming by four wins right now. And on top of that, the bullpen, I mean, you got some, you got Cade Smith, and you got Emmanuel Clausais, but Clausais given up a lot of hits 40 hits and 33 innings right now. That's a lot of hits

to give up as a closer, you know, with a with a one, four, eight whip. I mean, it's just I want to like I said, I want to I want to believe I'm having a hard time seeing it. If I had to piggyback on one of the two teams that you guys picked, I think the Rangers do make a little bit more sense to me because the twins have been the banana peel that I can't steer around. Season in and season out, I keep falling for it, and I just don't want to fall for it again. But I'm with you guys. Like the Rangers should be better.

Like they have top end talent on that roster so they could play their way into becoming buyers, clear buyers between now and the trade deadline. Anything else that caught your eye, though, as you're looking at these teams trying to make up ground in the playoff race in the second half? It was weird to me that before the season the projection said the AL is wide open and I thought oh yeah this AL is gonna be a dogfight all the way through. So I wonder if we are just catching a snapshot right now where it looks relatively solid and then everything's gonna go in a different direction and it's gonna end up being what we thought

it was in the beginning of season because there even as much as we liked the teams that we talked about there are flaws there and the difference in the standings is not anywhere where you know anything you know the Angels are like number one in barrels this year you know it like, and they're only 39 and 40. Like they're not out of it. So, you know, the only teams that are out of it are really the White Sox and A's. Even the Orioles, like there's a good team

underneath the hood there. And they could just... I really worry about the pitching on the Orioles. The pitching is a problem. I'm just saying like, Grayson comes back and maybe they just like have a, they win 10 in a row and all of a sudden we're like, what in the shit we'd be talking about the Orioles, you know?

So as much as we liked the incumbents and we had a hard time finding dark horses, there will be a dark horse. I think there will be something that like sort of rattles the cage here. Yeah, and we didn't talk about Kansas City. I mean, that's another, you know, another team that they just they don't give up runs. You know, that the the entire staff is pitching well.

They're playing good defense. But I think Bobby Witt is the vast majority of that in terms of out above average. They just need depth to the lineup like they need Vinny Pascantino and Jack Caglioni and Jonathan India. Like they need those guys to to step up a little bit. The pitching is going to keep them in it, right? The pitching is going to keep them in it. But the lineup is just, I mean, no one scored fewer runs.

Lowest scoring, you know, team in the league. Is that true? In the whole league, wow. As of Monday, I didn't, I did, you know, a lot of this research on, on Monday. So they may have, they've only got 263 runs scored as of today. Yeah, no, they are last now because Pittsburgh's at 265.

They were tied with Pittsburgh when I looked at this. They are the lowest scoring team in the league and somehow are not completely out of it. Yeah, says a lot about the quality of the rotation. I do like Jack. I mean, that'll help. We think Vinny Pasquantino probably better in the second half than rotation. I do like Jack. I mean, that'll help. We think Vinny Pascuantino probably better in the second half than he was in the first half.

Michael Garcia, maybe a breakout guy. Salvador Perez could get hot. Like there's a few things that could still go right for them, but they seem like they need another bat or two via trade. You know, like one impact guy and then some veterans. Yeah, they're flirting with it for reasons. And we knew that the run they made last year was going to take more to sustain. And that's kind of playing out here so far through the first half of the season.

We need to go. We got Jacob Mizarowski versus Paul Skeens here in just a few minutes. We're going to go watch that. We're going to go watch that. Eno on Blue Sky, enoserus.beescott.social, imdvr.beescott.social. You can find Jett on Instagram. Thanks to oursocial, imdvr.bscot.social. You can find Jed on Instagram. Thanks to our producer, Brian Smith,

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