Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - 1 | July 5th (TEST EP) | Who Should Sell, Joe Maddon Got Mad & Slump Watch

Episode Date: July 12, 2019

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What's going on everybody? What's going on, baseball fans? This is a new show. It's going to be called Talking Baseball. My name's John Boy, and I got my best friend and co-host here with me. His name is Jake. And we have a ton of podcasts right now, but we want to make one where we just talk about the MLB in general.

This, if you're listening, you are probably a Patreon member, and you're getting the early access to this test episode. or you clicked on our podcast app and you backtracked a little to listen to, hey, what was their first episode like? Well, this is the first episode and this is going to be very raw. That intro music probably won't stay.

The intro in general will be different, but we're going to try and figure out things along the way. We have a bunch of ideas of segments we want to talk about, how we want to go about covering the entire 30 teams. We're going to have a lot of fun. What else, Jake? I will say this. It's going to be a Monday, Friday show live on YouTube if you're a Patreon.

Otherwise, midday. Every Monday, we will be reviewing the series that happened over the weekend. Every Friday, we will be reviewing the series that happened during the week. That's the nitty gritty. This is Jake. Jake, how you doing? This is Jake. Hello.

Excited, man. I know we originally had some dreams for talking MLB. and you were like, you kind of came in and were like, dude, I'm a Yankees, dude. And then we've kind of been sucked into this world of baseball. And it was, you know, I gave you the stopwatch, Jim. I told you. It was about two months away.

We're here. And here we are. We're doing it. And yeah, it's exciting. And I think we're going to release this to our Patreon. You and me discuss this a little bit, but I think. This test episode, yeah. And if go check out the Patreon, not the Talking Yanks one, right?

the uh, Patreon.com slash Johnboy Media. John Boy Media and we're, we've, we've already got a couple hundred people in there. We're going to release it to them. And if you want to sign up, go check it out. And you might, if you get your input in now, you could change the future of the show because we're, uh, we're, we're going to mess with the format a little bit. We've got some really good segments. We're excited about. Uh, so yeah, let's let a rip, man. We're all ears. Yeah. And, uh, you know what? This episode on the 15th, we were releasing our first real episode,

and on that episode, we'll probably do a little more of a background of who we are and all that stuff. Right now, this is really just a tester episode. We have a ton of segments. We're going to run through as many as we can

and just see how they go. So hang with us, like Jake said. If you're listening to this, if you're already supporting on Patreon and you're a baseball fan and you're listening, feedback is so welcome. Yeah. Even the mean stuff.

Even the mean stuff. We'll put stock in what we think we should put stock in. Yeah. All right. First up, Jake, we have the NL and AL report just to ease us into the show a quick. What the hell just happened these last three days for anyone that doesn't know? And see, the tough thing about this show, Jake, is baseball is so regional.

If you follow your own team, it's impossible to keep up with every other team. Impossible to do it. So we're going to try and do that for you guys a little bit. Jake has your NL report. Jake, you're on the clock. What happened? James, we'll start in the NL Beast, your hot Lanna Braves. They take two out of three against the Phillies.

They hang a nine and a 12 spot on the board after getting shut out in game one. So a little NLE's action there. The National Sweep, the Marlins, you think. The fish don't score more than two runs in any game. Met split with the Yanks. You'll hear about that on both sides of the report. I don't know, kind of a mellow subway series after London Town. The Reds take three out of four from the brew crew after the Brewers won the first game of the series.

The Pirates take three out of four from the Cubs. NL Central's a mess. That's going to be a huge talking point on this show, and I feel like every show the rest of the season is that's the tight division. The Cubs salvaged the last game of the series. Joe Madden getting big mad. We'll talk about that later. Cardinals take the rubber match against Seattle to take two out of three from them. and in the NOS, the Dodgers beat the D-backs two-game set,

five-four final in both games. How about that? Rockies lose both games to Scruston, a one-run loss and a two-run loss, and the Giants sweep the Padres. Giants having some fun of late, and they put up 30 runs in three games, Jim. The analytics team tells me that's an average of 10 runs per game. Wow.

Yeah. Wow. The leaders over there are the Braves. leading the east. Dodgers leading the West. Dodgers leading the West by 14 and a half games. Yeah. Jesus Christ. And then in Central, like you said, we got two teams at 46 and 42, the Cubs and the Brewers. And the last place team, the Reds, are three and a half games out. Yeah, the NL is a full, you can have so many different thoughts about the NL right now and be right. like Cincinnati is technically the fourth worst team in the National League.

You can look at it that way or you can look at them as like a hot week from being right back in the NL Central mix. That's kind of fun. And Jim, I think we're going to talk about them a little more later. The second worst team in the National League right now, your New York Mets. You know, they're bad of late too. I was looking at that. Yeah. They're like two and eight in their last 10, 4 and 16 in their last 20.

the Mets, Mickey Calloway is going to get fired soon. I don't know what they're doing. They fired their pitching coach, hired an 82 year old as if that was going to help. It hasn't really helped. No. And their bullpen is so bad, Jake. I mean, this is a little deeper than we want to go on the NL report, but the Mets bullpen is so bad.

Yeah. And the bullpen is a product of everything Mickey Calloway did. I mean, I mean, Brody Van G.M. Did. Yeah. Brody Van Wagon. So it's really. like it's really hard to point the blame because the GM brought in bad players.

The players are performing bad and the manager is pushing all the wrong buttons. They're a hot mess. And I mean, how could that happen? How could their GM do such a bad job when he has such a good resume as a GM? Oh, wait. Oh, wait. Mets, you hired an agent. You hired an agent to be your GM.

Hired an agent. Let's do the AL sweep and then we'll pick up some of the other big topics. Yeah. So the Red Sox in the Red Sox beat the Blue Jays two out of three. They lose the sale game. That used to be the one game the Red Sox could win every series. Sales been bad lately, man. I think he gave up five earned runs. His last three starts. He has a 10 ERA or something like that. That's no good. But the Red Sox did beat him the other two games. The Yankees split a series with the Mets. I think you might have said that. The Rays beat the Orioles two out of three, which is kind of a win for the game. The Yankees split a series with the Mets. I think you might have said that. The Rays beat the Orioles. The Royals two out of three, which is kind of a win for the. the Orioles that they got one win versus such a good team. Not really. It's always hard to sweep. The scary thing here is the raise scored six runs in each game Jake. That's six six six. They used to be called the devil rays. I don't know. That just seems a little interesting. A little scary. If you're scared, I'm scared. Six, six six. Devil, not good. The angels took two out of three from the Rangers overcame a lot of emotional distress and grief and a lot of tears.

but they did win two out of three from the Rangers who if they start losing series changes the entire outlook of their season. They're currently eight behind in the West, but are one and a half out of the wild card game. The Astros had a two-game sweep of the Rockies, which they needed because they were on a little bit of a slide. Indians swept the Royals.

Royals are so bad, Jake. The Royals haven't even won 30 games yet. They are 26 games out of the Central. The Royals are garbage, and the Indians swept them. Clevenger had his first good outing since coming back from the IL, which is good news for the Indians moving forward. Oakland took two out of three from the Twins, which is good for Oakland. But they're a wildcard team.

I think the Astros are going to run away with that division. There are seven and a half games up so far. And the White Sox took two out of three from Detroit, one on a walkoff by Jose Abrae. Your leaders there are still the Yankees, pretty soundly. The twins, pretty soundly. And the Astros, pretty soundly. Pretty soundly.

The wild card race is tight between four teams. But, yeah, that's crazy because, man, I think, I don't think Oakland's real. I don't think Cleveland's real. No, I take that back. Yeah, I think Cleveland's still got it. I think Cleveland's real. I think it's going to be Boston, Cleveland, and Tampa. Yeah, it's going to be funny to see if either of those West teams take a jump or become,

I think what's going to be fun in these first couple weeks of doing this, Jim, is going to be the buyer-sellers debate because, I mean, in my head, you know, I've been hype in Texas up and, you know, Lance Lynn is having an incredible year, Mike Minor, and it's like, do you, you're a game and a half out of the wildcard. do you punt, but mentally, I mean, you have to look at Cleveland, Boston, Tampa, and be like, we're kind of outmatch. So I think for a while, Texas, Oakland, they're going to be hot button teams for us, the nationals. And yeah, I mean, like a team like Cincinnati, and well, I won't fully jump back to the NL yet,

but there's, it's going to be funny seeing the teams that come up a lot more often. And if you're a tough, if you're a Giants fan, we got a segment for you. Hang around for that. You're not going to be there every week, but we want to get every team involved. Jim, I think starting at the top of the AL where you were just clicking around on Chris Sale real quick, last year the Red Sox were 18 and 9 in Chris Sale starts. This year, they're 6 and 12. Yeah, man.

It's tough. I think his velocity's back up and his slider still pretty good. I don't know what's going on. I know that I saw a couple games where teams were just taking that outside fastball and just poking it for a single past the second basement and like, okay, that's easy. We'll do that a lot. I don't know if that's still happening.

I haven't watched the sales start in quite a bit, but it's not good when the dude who's supposed to be your easy win is your only loss. Well, and you see it around baseball, how much that can change a team. When you can reset your bullpen and when you can come. into a game being like, all right, we've got our guy in the mound, we're going to win today. And they clearly don't have that feeling with Sale so far. Yeah, it looked like he was bouncing back. He had two really good starts in early June complete game shutout, and then seven innings, no earned runs. And then since then, yeah, he's kind of been, it's just not, it's not

Chris Sale. His last four starts, 22.2 innings, 596 ERA. guys are hitting 301 off of him. So that's a, and I don't know, that was, I guess when I've been looking at the Red Sox struggles this year, you think of the bullpen, you think of Mookie not having as big of a year he had last year, kind of the same for J.D. Martinez. But I mean, Sale, that's huge. That changes, that ace pitcher changes the way you look at like an upcoming series. And he's not doing that in a positive way for them right now.

No, he's bad. I was trying to look at if the Oakland has any pieces to sell, Jake. I know this is kind of now we're just kind of spurting different streams, but we talked about how Texas has pieces to sell. Like they have, Texas has a lot of pieces to sell. To be honest with Texas fans, you guys should not want to win this year.

I mean, if you're in it for the long haul, you want to be like a good season, but come trade deadline, you want to be slightly out of it. So you can trade pants. to someone. You can trade Mike Minor to someone. You can trade. There's someone else. Lance Lynn. Lance Lynn has the second highest war of any pitcher this year. That's three pieces. The Yankees, when they had McCann, Beltron, Chapman, Miller. I mean, they traded those guys in the turnaround was quick. If you could pull off good trades with these pieces, it's almost best for the Texas Rangers to slightly not be in it anymore. Is that like a hot take?

it kind of is because you have to put on the hat as if you're a Texas Rangers fan and you're like, well, we're just going to get hot the next two weeks and then we'll, you know, we'll take the wild card and, you know, Lance Lynn and Mike Minor in the playoffs, are you kidding me? Because you just get that natural excitement when your team's playing good baseball. I think what the words you'd want to say there would be is if you are the Texas Rangers in the next after the All-Star break in those two weeks, you either want to get really hot or really cold. Because that's kind of going to be your decision-making time.

And if you get really cold, like what you just said, Jim, I mean, the Yankees selling off those guys has led them to where they are today. Glaper Torres, officially now an All-Star. So I think it's tough if you're a fan of that team to be a game and a half out of the playoffs and say, oh let's sell that's a tough feeling yeah but i mean in 2016 the yankees were they're not there and i remember being like let's just get rid of these pieces yeah it was the first time in my life where i was like yo let's get out of here

oh okay so two so yeah so they you know they also have jake elvis andrews as drubel cabrera these guys are pieces that are free agents at the deadline ass crabs yeah Josh Fields, David Carpenter. I don't know how the rest of these guys are doing, but they have a lot of pieces to sell. Feels like we're going to have to do a buyer sell skit after the All-Star break at some point.

Yeah, yeah, that is. That is a really interesting point. Like you mentioned with Oakland, when you mentioned the buyer-seller thing, yeah, like I'm trying to think of pieces Oakland would be looking to sell, and they don't really have a lot of those guys because it's a lot of just young dudes they have.

Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, I think we might have to pencil that away as a segment in the next couple weeks. Yeah. How about that? How about that? That's what we're doing here.

All right. Next up, we're going to do some standout performances from the last series. So if you didn't watch every game, you didn't. That's crazy. Impossible. Jake, do you have a standout performance you want to talk about? Imagine if someone watched every baseball? Is it literally possible?

No, right? No, no. It's impossible. There's 15 games each day, most days. Even if you put it at 10, right? Games are three hours long. Times three hours. Yeah, it's impossible.

I guess if you could watch multiple at once. Anyways, Jim, my standout performance, I'm going Josh Bell. He had the three homer game. And Jim, the other reason I was looking at, and we do get caught up in Yankee World a lot, because that's kind of, that's where we started. sounds so dumb to say. But, you know, we get to see some awesome performances.

We get to see Aaron Judge on a regular basis, Gary Sanchez from the catcher position doing silly things. The season DJ LaMayhew is having, DJ LaMayhew is an ALMVP favorite, and I saw Josh Bell was having a better hitting year, according to some measurements, and I was like, all right, what's going on here? Because I know Josh Bell was a big prospect,

and he kind of had a weird year for Pittsburgh last year. his, you know, 261, 357 on base, you're like, okay, he only had 12 homers in 148 games, and I know my uncle Rick Jim, big pirates fan, lives in Bradenton where they do their spring training. And he was talking to me about Josh Bell, and it's so hard, man, with young baseball players, you have to make these kind of Caesar Thumbs decision. They weren't bought into Josh Bell to start this year. They didn't think he could hang defensively. they didn't think his bat was going to be enough.

Guess what? He's got 81 RBIs. He leads the NL. He leads the NL and doubles with 30, and he has 26 home runs. The guy's got 50, or no, with three triples. He's got 59 extra base hits in 85 games. He's having a special, special season.

So I did, I wanted to parlay his home runs into a little bit of, yo, Josh Bell, people. Yeah. Did you see my breakdown of his three home run game? I didn't watch the full breakdown. What do you got for me, Jim? So he went home run, home run, ground ball single, right?

Then his next step bat, deep fly ball to left center field, like warning track. Stuff. The fans got excited and they had every right to. It was a close shot. All right.

So now he's three for four with one out. The next pitcher he faces, maybe than, yeah, it's Descalso, the infielder for the Cubs. Right. Dirty, dirty Dan Descalso. So he's facing a position player pitching and it's like, all right, here we go. Yeah, let's have some fun now. Yeah, swings hard at the first pitch, rolls over to second base.

This is worse at bat. It's funny. So worse at bat. Next up, they bring in Kimbril because they're just trying to get them reps and everything like that. And Kimberle gives a home run right away to someone else. He's shitty, but facing Kimbril gets a pitch, third home run. Just funny that his worst at bat came against a position player. Well, that's why we like the game of baseball.

Exactly. Yeah, man, what a beast, dude. And good for Pittsburgh. They kind of went from those years where they're like, hey, we're in it every year. and then we lose the wild card game instantly. And Josh Bell was kind of a big prospect for him, and he's figured it out, so hopefully they can kind of build something around him.

I have found a piece that the Oakland can trade. Okay. Oakland trade piece update. Liam Hendricks. Big segment. The Aussie, the Thunder from Down Under. Aussie, yes. He's appeared in 40 games so far this season, Jake. And he has a 1.29 ERA.

Be a pretty A's move to trade him, but almost for like another piece that can help them. Like, they're like, well, we're not selling, but we're selling the one piece we can. Yeah, just because they love flipping. Love flipping. Who's your, uh, who's your standout, standout guy this week, Jim? Pains me to do this. I'm glad it's just a practice episode and not a lot of people get, get to see this. but it's Sunny Gray, man.

Sunny Gray shut down the Brewers. Eight innings pitched, 12Ks, only four hits, Jake. I don't think there was any walks, zero and runs, couple hits. And then this is the Sunny Gray that the Yankees traded for. And it's unfair to the Yankees that they have such a loud environment

that Sunny couldn't handle it. Wow. I know, so this is where some people like, oh, man, you guys are Yankee fans. I hate you. I think Jake and I are pretty balanced. We're not the Yankee fans that people, when people think Yankee fans,

that's not really us. We're not trying to be obnoxious, which I think is almost a correct assumption of most Yankee. I'm not wearing my deep white cut v neck with the gold chain to the stadium. I'm just wearing that on the weekend. So I'm not trying to come from a place of obnoxiousness. When I say Sunday, he couldn't handle New York,

he couldn't handle the media, he couldn't handle the negativity and the intention and the intensity. And Cincinnati is perfect for him. He's with his old college pitching coach. It's having a decent year. But eight things pitched 12Ks. There was one walk versus the Brewers, which is a good team right now. That's pretty good.

Yeah. And his K per nine is higher. It's higher than he's ever had in his career. His hit per nine is really low. He's not giving up the go for. ball and Jim, you know, I was kind of a Sunny Stan a little bit while he was on the Yankees because his road numbers were still good. He had like a 3-1-4 ERA on the road. He just couldn't, literally couldn't pitch at Yankee Stadium. So yeah, I think we do get nervous about coming

off as duchy New York fans, but the stats back it up too. Good outing by him. He was all fired up and intense, man. It was like, yo, this is what we wanted, Sonny. This is everything we asked for. I grew to really hate him by the end. Good for you, Sonny. We're so happy for you. So happy for you. All right, those were our standout performances.

You got something that needs to be done. And it's a slump watch, Jake. Slump watch. Whom, wamp, wamp, wamp, wamp. And we kind of did this already. Like, I have a player, but a team. It's the Mets, man. It's supposed to be a player segment,

but I think the Mets do deserve to be in this. No, no, it doesn't have to be a player segment. It can be a team. It can be anything. Umpire. Yeah, umpire. Watch that. But yeah, man, the Mets have been bad.

I think I had it in front of me. Here, here. Let me find it. Let me find it. In the last 10, okay? In the last 10 games, the Mets are 2 and 8 in their last 20. They are 4 and 16 in their last 3 and 16. in their last 30, they are 8 and 22.

That is a terrible, terrible trend. But I mean, at least they're not doing in-memorium things for players who are still alive, are they? Yeah, at least they're not blowing up their minor league facilities because they can't handle their fireworks. From top down, the Mets are the Mets, man. It's incredible. Like, it's incredible.

Which minor league facility had a fireworks display and blew up and caused a fire. If you had to guess one MLB team and you didn't know, you'd guess the Mets. And it was the Mets. And that's ownership. You've seen it recently sweep over my face with the Nix because I thought they were getting KD and everyone. It's Dolan. There's one recurring piece for the Nix.

It's James Dolan. For the Mets, I mean, it's just the Wilpons have to go at this point. Um, because yeah, top down the organization, they hired an agent to be their GM. They, they're, they're saying players are dead who aren't dead. They're lighting their minor league facility on fire with fireworks. Sorry, Matt. You're in a lifelong slump currently, Mets. Yes, yes.

And before we get to my real slump watch, reoccurring segment, what pieces does Oakland have the trade? Brett Anderson, Jake. Brett Anderson watch. Three, Oakland trade piece. Three, two nine ERA on the season so far. just had a really good outing versus the Angels and he's having a good month right now. So Brett Anderson.

They do have some pieces, not as many as the Rangers. That's two. That's literally just two pieces right now. My real slump watch, Jake, and this is so mean. Yeah. Kyle Seeger.

Kyle Seeger. How's he doing? He was hurt and now he's back? What's going on? Well, you want to how he's doing his last five games? I do, Jim. Kyle Sear. Tell him who you play.

for people that he don't even know. Kyle Seeger, your third baseman for your Seattle Mariners. He is 0 for 17 in his last five games. It's not good. With one walk. So he's got a 0.056 batting average or 0.0.056 on base percentage and 0.056 OPS in his last five games. I saw that.

That's not good. It's not good. It's like, whoa, whoa. I mean, you get 0 for 20. Yikes. He needs to get a hit in his next three at bat, next two at bat. You can't step up to the plate and think if I don't get a hit here, I'm 0 for 20. Do you have, how many strikeouts does he have in those at bet?

Like, is he putting the ball in play? Yeah. I think that's kind of even, I don't want to say that's funnier, but. No, yeah, he was putting the ball in play. let me find it again real quick. So I did. That's like that that's an awful feeling because I mean being in a slump, I mean,

it's obviously going to be a bad feeling, but literally every player to ever play baseball has done it. When you're putting the ball in play and you're in a slump, that sucks. I believe, okay. 0418 with 7, 0 for 17 with one walk and seven strikeouts. So 10 balls in play.

that have been outs. It's tough. Tough. Get, uh, get well soon. Kyle, call your brother.

So I wanted it out. I wanted to see how deep this goes. Like this is, his last five games. No, zero hits. I went back, uh,

shit, I don't know how many games it was, but his last one hundred and twenty two played appearances. I think it was a decent amount of games. Oh. I think I was looking at like 20 to 30 games. Yeah, that's a lot.

Yeah. He's got a 200 batting average and a 303. three on base percentage with a 654 OPS. So he hasn't been playing good, Kyle. Get it together. You're officially being watched. Kyle, I've got someone you could call on Slump Watch. And it's, I hate to throw my guy, my dude, Vandy alum and from Connecticut, Jim.

Kurt Casali. I don't even know if I'm saying that right. Yeah. Casale. Jim having a tough stretch I'm going last seven games Cincinnati Reds one for 19

which is tough one for 19 11 strikeouts the most strikeouts in the last seven days across major league baseball oh 53 batting average 053 slugging I'm sorry Kurt you know I don't don't mean no shade

bro but I mean this is just the segment And you're cold right now, and you know that. And we're going to work through it together, but that's tough. Reds catcher. Yikes, man. This goes pretty deep. He hasn't had a multi-hit game since May 31st. Like, what's your pep talk to Kurt?

Dude, he's got five multi, so he's played. 56 games. He's got five multi-hit games. Okay? Right. This is the red starting catcher. 56 games feel like he's split in time a little bit, yeah. Jesus, man. He hasn't had a multi-hit game since May 31st.

So in that stretch, June 1st to July 4th, a month and two days, month and three days. Yeah. 151 batting average 297 OBP, 264, lot game. Tough break, man. And he's on the season, his numbers still aren't that bad. 241, 331 OBP, four homers, 711 OPS.

But yeah, that's, Kurt's going through some stuff right now. He had a solid last year, too, 293, 355, and 52 games. So, Kurt, Vandy, Connecticut, get it going, big guy. If the Reds, if the Reds want to start winning, they're four and a half out of their own division right now, right? Right. Are they searching for an upgrade, a catcher? Yo, Jimmy.

I just had some weird happen. What's that? Kirk Casally, Vandy. You know I'm a Vandy guy. Yeah. High school, New Cane in Connecticut. Yep. grew up in Connecticut. Jim, know where he was born? Denver.

Walnut Creek. California? Yeah. I'm a little spooked out right now. That first episode, I randomly find Kurt Casale for Slump Watch, and we've got three connected dots there. Freaking me out.

Wow. That is crazy, huh? Who's their other catcher? Let me get to sense. Oh, Tucker Barnhart. Yeah, TB. But he's on the 10th. day DL right now.

I.L. Jim. Come on. I.O. My bad. God. Going to have to get a swear jar bucket going. Which means Kurt Casale. Tucker Barnhart, much cooler name. But he's hurt. He's much better. I mean, his stats suck. He should be on Slump Watch.

Wow. Okay. So if the Reds, if the Reds are, if the deadline comes and the Reds say, hey, we think we can win the division. they need to find themselves a catcher. Jim, first tangent on talking baseball, what do you do if you're the Reds? I know you've seen a lot of the Reds because they've been one of the more exciting slash YouTubeable teams. What do you do?

I mean, you're, you, I mentioned at the start, you're either the fourth worst team in the NL or you're two good weeks away from leading the Central. And, I mean, talk about a team that could trade off a couple pieces and capitalize on it. I mean, that would be the Reds, too, right? Well, they can trade Scooter Jeanette.

They can trade Yossi El Pugge. They can trade Alex Wood, Tanner Rourke. They have a lot of chips. Kirk Casalee. Zach Duke. What do you do? Do you, if you're a Reds fan, what do you do? What do you want?

Yo, I think the Reds right now are so happy with their team. Exactly. That's the other factor. They have this, like, really good chemistry going. They're all, they're all, devoted to this let the let the kids play

we're going to cause you know swagged out fights Dietrich shit but yeah you do have pieces to trade and if your ownership

you're not winning if you're the Reds this year right I mean I hate to I hate to crack down on any Reds fans that are listening

to this test episode yeah sorry sorry new friends but the Reds are not winning the world series, even if they make, even if they win their division, Jake. Yeah. It's not happening.

And there's, I mean, the Reds have some nice guys, but there's just too many, there's too many holes. I mean, I don't know. I don't want to start ripping our Reds, but I mean, you look at the catcher position, you look at Jose Paraza playing 80 games this year with a 607 OPS. You know, Senzel got the call, and he's, he's getting better, good, good young player. Yeah, and I guess that's the thing for me if I was a Reds fan. Like, can you sit there and honestly be like, you know, we can have a good second half,

but do you think you're going to have a better second half than two out of the brewers, the Cubs? I mean, I guess you'd say the pirates, yes. The Cardinals, like, I don't think you can honestly do that. So as tempting as it may be to be like, well, we're four and a half back in our division, I think they've got to be. sellers. Scooters, like, been hurt all year.

Yeah. Pueg's having a good year. He's a lightning rod that some people might not want to put into their clubhouse, though, if they have a good clubhouse culture. It's either they have such a good clubhouse culture they can handle Pueg being dipped into it or they don't care. I think Rorke's hurt as well. No, he's not.

No, he's not. Roark's having a pretty decent year. I mean, yeah. And we heard the Louise Castillo. rumors that would be like a big trade tizzy areas down to two two nine gym i was actually going to talk about him in a little bit but yeah he just had a great start well and yeah the only other guy in slub watch was another shout out to my dude jordan liles his his last two starts um i think 10 innings pitch 15 earn runs um so that's not or no excuse me 10 innings 10 10 earn runs 15

hits. Jordan Lyle. You had to give everyone team names and all that. Blitzburg. Blitzberg Steelers. Jordan Liles. O and two, two games started, 10 innings pitch, 10 earn runs,

four Yabo's. So, again, we're sorry, Jordan. Well, you got to be on the slump watch. I was going to throw someone on the slump watch that I'm not sorry about, and it's Chris Sale. Wow. I mean, okay, his last three games, Toronto, Chicago White Sox, Toronto.

He's got a 702 ERA in these three games, 13 earned runs and 16 innings pitch his last three games. Not good. That's not good. For Jordan Lyle, who cares, who knows? Chris Sale, he's a premier pitcher in this league. Can't wait to tell our Boston friends that we finally started an MLB podcast and we got sale on Slump Watch and at the beginning of the show.

We don't write the story. They know. They know. They've been watching closer than us. Yeah. Very true. Next up, Enfuego. So this is where we got to figure out how we're going to do this.

All right. We have too many names on Enfuego from these last series. I'll rip through the one I think I was most shocked by. I think we get two names. I think you get your first two guys on there and I'll get my first two guys on there. All right. That's what I'm thinking. My first two guys, Evan Lungoria.

Yes. For the Giants went off, Jake. Right. This series, who did the Giants play? Giants, well, Jim, I was the N.O. Report. They swept the pods. 30 runs, three games, analytics, 10 runs per. So they scored 30 runs in those three games.

Longoria drove in nine. It's good. And scored seven of them. Also good. So more than. half of the runs the Giants scored versus the Padres these three games. Longoria either drove them in or was the person

scoring. He had 16 combined. He had four home runs in the three games and two doubles, seven hits, so one single was in there. I mean, there's a 550 batting average. 2.215 OPS. That's so small. OPS and small sample size, I don't care. But batting average in small sample size. is impressive.

600 on base percentage. I mean, this is a guy who got traded from the raise and was part of our lives as AL East fans to the Giants, because they were doing some weird strategy last year, bringing in Cutch, Longoria, Sandoval, and all this stuff. And I was just shocked. I was like, whoa, Longoria. That's crazy good.

Yeah, Longoria is a guy that we've known a while from the ALE East. He was one of the bigger prospects that was going to change the raise and he did for a while. and it's uh you know is he doesn't necessarily impress you when you go into the baseball reference and you start digging up stats but guy can clearly put together a series and jim i think the bigger thing we're you know we're going to be talking a lot about trades and who's buying who's selling in the next couple weeks jim the word from giants land is that they're having fun which when we saw them this season you know they kind of looked dead and they they didn't really know what was going on

hey, they're having a good time and they swept the Padres and they're putting up big runs. Good for the Giants. Giants are bad. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's not going to change, but I mean, they're definitely going to sell,

but the team was having a good time and Longo went off. That's kind of all you can ask. What's Longo season at? Like... Longo. Is he not good now? Do you know, I think like his...

He's never really had like, a great season as good as he was. I think he just crushed the Yankees. I was reading something that was like a weird stat with Evan Longoria because I thought he was really good. And I was like he's never had maybe it was war or something like that. Yeah, he,

know what it was Jim. He came up was a big prospect and his best, you could argue four of his five best seasons were in his first four seasons. He, his first three years he was an all star and he's never been back to the All-Star games, which I think that would surprise you when you think of Evan Evon Goria. He's got a couple good years mixed in there. He's got a couple 30 homer season.

Even as recently as 2016, he had a big year, 36 homers, 98 RBIs. But yeah, just the overall body of work, it's not super impressive for a guy that was kind of supposed to be one of the faces of baseball. Yeah. Who's your Enfuego? I'm leaving it just Longoria. My first And Fuego That's on fire, baby Jim, I'm going to go with Miguel Sineau

Because A, you know I love the twins, Jim Slash, I just I think they're good They've got a lot of pop in those bats And Jim, a guy that I mean, they almost rode off last year They sent him, didn't they send him down to high A Because he was just slumping so bad

And he had, it was the classic case of like He had a friend who was a coach down there so they were like let's try this guy it was like their main facility it's so no's career trajectory is kind of similar to gary sanchise's which is crazy because at 16 years old they both got uh picked up they were both 16 at the same time in the dominican they both got picked up uh so no was one year earlier gary made like he came up in 16 played half the season went crazy. But then last year, Gary and Snow both had like really down bad years. Yeah. And Jim, he's starting to get it going this year. The batting average won't impress you

225. He has an 873 OPS. And Jim, over this past week, he's got four homers, 400, four homers, nine RBIs. And I just think when we're talking about this Minnesota twins and kind of team identities and stuff. The twins are clearly built around the gopher ball, which I think is kind of funny that used to be the small market twins, you know, Tori Hunter, how do these guys put it together year after year? I mean, they're yamming the ball around the ballpark. If you don't know, Max Kepler's having a big year, Nelson Cruz, C.J. Kron is hitting homers. If Suno has figured it out, Jim, and I think this is where you and I are saying the same. thing we say differently. Like, I like the twins. I think they're going to, I think they're going to make

the playoffs and they're compete. I don't have them as an actual threat. If Miguel Suno can get things going, their lineup can get scary quick. So I shout out to him for putting it together. It'll be interesting to see, I mean, is it just, well, Miguel Suno had a hot week, or is he being back to being the 80 power on the prospect scale that people were raving about a year ago? because, I mean, that would change a lot for the twins. They could potentially, well, let's do some quick math here, Jim. They could potentially have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. I mean, they could have a full lineup of guys with OPSs that start with an eight.

And, I mean, that's impressive. Yeah. So, little shout out to my twins and Migi Sano, Sano. So no. Yeah. I mean, I looked at Sano, and I looked at another guy. Danny Jansen, he also had four home runs in the series versus the Red Sox. Same as Longo, seven hits, two doubles, one single, four home runs, less RBIs.

But Suno and Danny Jansen did this in losing efforts. Longoria's team swept. And like I said, he accounted for 17 of the 30 runs scored in the three games. So I was like, fucking Longoria. I was going to make him my standout. But I switched to Sunny Gray. Got the old switcheroo. And yeah, that was my other guy who I was going to mention on Enfuego.

Luis Castillo, his past two starts, 14.2 winnings. A lot of Reds this episode. Zero dot 6-1 ERA in those 14.2 winnings. Opponents hitting 0.85. So Luis is twirling it. All right. Next up. Who got mad?

Who got mad, Jim? I have two down that I saw. Joe Madden was the big story. Joe Madden got mad, not at the umpire, at Clint Hurdle and the pirates in general. Yeah. Joe Madden is so exhausting. The Cubs got lost the first three games of a four game set to the pirates. Yeah.

They were, they're floundering a tiny bit because that division's ridiculous. They're playing the fourth game. Did you see this at all, Jake? I saw a little bit of the interview and I saw a couple of the quotes. And I mean, it seemed very Joe Madden. I'm interested to see, and maybe we'll have some of our pirate fans reach out to us. Because the one weird quote was Joe Madden saying, like, it's known around the league.

It's like pretty well known that the pirates, this is part of their strategy to throw up and in. And it's like, well, I think that's kind of part of every pitching stats. Are the pirates aiming for heads and that's well known? Because I don't, if that was as well known, I'd like to think it would have got to. to me at this point. The Clint, uh, the Pirates pitcher was in that bad versus Hobby bias.

I'm trying to make a breakdown soon. And it hit his bat. Would have hit his hands, but his bat so it's a foul ball. And there was one or two before that that brushed Hobby back a tiny bit. But, uh, Clint Hurdle,

Pirates manager just said that pitchers hit one guy all season. Like, what? And Clint Hurdle's like, I saw Joe yell and I don't know if he was yelling at me or the ums or whatever. And yeah, man, if Joe Madden starts managing on a losing team, he really loses all of his magic luster because he's a really good manager. I do think he's a good manager and gets the most out of his teams for the most part. But if his team start losing, I mean, he's so obnoxious and exhausting.

This was clearly just to fire his team up. And they won the game, right? They didn't get sweat. Yeah. So maybe that was good. He got ejected. But he does a spin move. I think it was Brian.

holding him back and Joe West playing offensive lineman blocking him. He got so mad. It's like, dude, mad and like, ugh. And someone brought, more importantly, someone brought this to my attention that, and it's starting to go around the internet, how much he looks like the guy from Get Out. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, he's always looked like that scary. Yeah, well, yeah, but it's just, it started circling the internet stronger lately, so that's pretty cool.

Yeah, A, Clint Hurdle's an awesome baseball dude. I hadn't gotten my taste of Clint Hurdle in a little while. And Jim, the biggest thing with Joe Madden, it's one of my favorite corny phrases, winning cures everything. You bring in magicians and penguins into the locker room and you're winning. It's like, oh, yeah, this is awesome. If you're doing that and you're losing, you look like a dumbass. He's just exhausting.

Do you most exhausting man in baseball, for sure. Who else got mad, Jim? Cardinals manager, Mike Schilt. You ever seen him? He's an odd looking guy. He looks like a Dwight Shrewd relative managing baseball. Mike Schilt his pants. Yeah, it's very odd.

He got upset at umpire Rob Drake because in the fourth inning, his batter. I forget who it was. Dexter Fowler just hit a home run. Next batter calls time backs out. His feet aren't even in the box. The pitcher throws the pitch, but the um didn't grant the batter time. The pitch is a strike. Next pitch, it's O2.

Now he grounds out. and he just comes out screaming and yelling. Like he wasn't even in the box. You didn't call him time. Right. Classic case where I'm Stonkrant time. They usually do. But then like the pitcher.

I guess my question, Jim, I haven't seen this. Whose side should I be on? Shilts. Okay. But if he granted time, the pitcher might have been midwind up, you know? Right. It's tough. I don't know.

You don't have to be on a side. I think you could be like, that's a tough situation. That's even better answer. Yeah, it's just a tough situation. Because, you know, you don't want a pitcher to stop his pitch mid throw and hurt himself. But you don't want the batter to have to swing with something in his eyes. But the batter just ran out of the box before the unpofficially granted time, like backed out. Yeah. So I think that's on the batter because you've got to hang in there. Yeah, you got to hear it. So then you got mad. He got ejected. That's really all. We're going to need your guys help. Let us know. No, someone gets mad because sometimes it's going to be a pitcher, it can be a hitter, breaking a bat, something like that. Easiest to follow objections, but we'll know. Who got mad? Who got mad?

Walk off watch. The Dodgers had two, Jake. Jim, the Dodgers walked off five straight games. Not true. They walked off five straight home games. They can only walk off at home. There was a road trip in the middle. they did three versus the Rockies three in a row,

then went on a road trip, then walked off the next two at home. I said that in my breakdown. I said the Rockies walked off five straight games at home, and all the comments were like, you can't walk off games on the road. And I'm like, I know, I'm just trying to let you know it was not five straight.

Right. Because that's what you would think. Yes, but five in a row at home with the possibility of a walkoff is crazy. Yeah. Crazy. And the one was five walks in a row. That was wild.

Yeah, that was a mess. Like, a straight mess. Tough day for Gregi Holland. Kept trying to throw his change up or slide or I don't know what it is, outside and away. Yeah. They weren't biting. And then tough spot for the next pitcher to come in. Now a tie game base is loaded.

Oh, it's done. Yeah. You don't have a shot there, but you just got to let Holland lose at that point. Yeah. You know, he was one strike away. from closing out that game. I know. Then you just start bouncing.

No trust in his 90-mile-per-hour fastball because he's got that dirty slider. Yeah. Jose Abraeo hit a three-run walk-off tied in the bottom of the 12th. He had a bomb. And Dickerson, Sack Fly, and the 9th Pirates walked off the Cubs, one of those three games. Kimbril.

Kimbril looking sloppy so far. Yeah, part of me, that's just, well, I don't know. You got to let him get into the season. in a little bit. A little bit, but it's like a starting pitcher, I think, is a little different. Like, relievers, like, you never, like, it's a small sample size. You got to let them go in. But I wouldn't, I'd be more surprised if a starter comes and they're like,

I get more rocked around than a reliever. Yeah. I think if you're a Cubs fan, you kind of got to be like, all right. Everything leading up to the All-Star break, that's a warm up. And then it's like, all right, Kimbril, now. let's go. Jake, you have a guy here. Next thing we're doing is call up watch.

Call up watch. Call up watch. Don't know if we're going to be able to do this all the time, but there's a really, really fun one here that everyone should know about. Yeah, Jim, and I actually think we're both going to fall in love with this segment because I found a really cool page on baseball reference that shows everyone that gets called up for the first time. I'm going to send you the link right now just because it's cool to look at. Jim, there have been 159 players that have made their MLB debut

to start this C-Zone. Jim, the first one that's really fun, Brendan McKay, two-way McKay, I'm calling them, I think other people should call them. I've lost your video, which is a little scary, but I'm going to keep talking.

Out of Louisville, and he's supposed to be the next two-way guy. He was the fourth overall pick. He actually made his... I'm frozen. Pitching debut. Last I heard it was Jake say, I actually... I want to say it was Sunday.

But... Oh, we're going to try again to connect to the video here. Uh-oh. Damn. It's coming back. Said it pros on him, too. All right. For the audio, I got a snap, so I know to edit this out.

Unfortunately, YouTube, if you guys are watching on Patreon, I'm just going to have to fast forward this a little bit. See if Jake can rejoin. Texting him now. It's coming back. and he's back. All right. There he is.

You actually think that's where I got cut off at. You actually think, well, I was going to send you this link. Yeah, I don't know if that was Wi-Fi or whatever that was. Jim, so A, that link I just sent you shows everyone that made their MLB debut this year, which is actually pretty awesome. We've had 159 guys make their debut this year. This week, a couple of the fun ones. Brendan two-way McKay.

That's what I'm calling him. I think people should call him that because that's kind of a cool nickname, right? Brendan Two-way McKay, he made his pitching debut, actually on the 29th, but he made his hitting debut. He went 0 for 4. But Jim, he's exciting. He was the number four pick overall out of Louisville in 2017, so he made climb the ranks pretty quickly, but he was a college player, so a little easier.

But it's just really exciting. I mean, we had the Otani experience this year, and I know you and I are excited because we're going to get to watch him play actually today against the Yanks. But, I mean, two-way players, that's, if, like, if McKay's good, I think two-way players are going to become a thing,

which is awesome, right? If he's good, then that's two of them in the league? Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting. So I'm interested to see left-handed pitcher, and I think it's funny because this was kind of my stance with Otani, but nobody knew what to think about Otani because it was brand new. And I was like, Ah, Otani's going to wind up being a pitcher. O'Tani hitting is awesome. It's become one of my

favorite things to watch. So yeah, I don't know. We're going to see him on the bump. I'm interested to see if he's good. If he's good, that's going to suck being a Yankees fan a little bit, seeing him be good in Tampa for the next six years or whatever it is. If he's bad, it kind of sucks because I want two-way players, so I'm in a tough spot with McKay. Jake, I have a question for you. This link you just sent me? Sure.

What the fuck is the second name? So it says Tyler Alexander, Tyler John, Dylan Seas. That's her like middle name. Oh, okay. That makes more sense. Why would they do that? Why would they? I don't know.

It is kind of a weird layout, right? I've just got it sorted by date because that's, that's, that's. That's what I'm trying to do, and I like that. So do I. I didn't realize that we had an Aussie make a debut on June 30th. Louis Thorpe, an Aussie for the twins. That's fun. Louis Stope, the Tharpido.

Yeah, and that's Jim. I actually, I think part of this segment, just quickly I'll say the other guys. Tom Eschleman gets the call. Jose Orkitti, Trevor Kelly, Matt Pius, Robel Garcia, shout out. And Tyler Alexander. And the other guy I wanted to mention, Jim, Dylan Cis, pretty big pitching prospect for the White Sox. He gets the call.

He's supposed to be one of the future arms of this, you know, young White Sox core that should be pretty good in a year or two. Five innings pitch, three run runs for him versus Detroit. Got the dub. And game one of a double header. Yeah. All right. Next up, awards.

This is something Jake and I do on our Yankees podcast talking to Yanks. But we're going to give one award each. Okay, Jake? Yeah. My first award. Keep him out of Vegas award. The Keep him out of Vegas award. The keep that dude out of Vegas award.

Okay. So this award is going to a Mets player that you don't want them to send to AAA anymore. No, it is going to Manny Machado. Mani Machado was in the on deck circle. A Dodgers fan was behind him chirping him, 12 seasons of Noak. Tober, you're going to have long off seasons. You should have stayed in L.A. He could have won a World Series.

Mani Machado turns around and says, I'll bet you my entire contract. The guy goes, what? He goes, bet you're my entire contract. We win before they win. The World Series. Entire contract? Dude, bet him $100, Manny. Learn how to gamble.

You're going to bet this dude, your entire contract? There's so much money. It's a bad bet. It's one of the all-time bad bets. It's a bad bet, mani. So he was going to the Padres Zing. Sorry Padres fans. Wow, two bad bets. Two bad bets.

He gets to keep him out of Vegas award. Just fucking a terrible gambler. I like that. Jim, my first award, and actually the only award I had prepared is the Stay Salty Award. Okay. Oh, someone did something good versus their X team. Sunny. Jim, as if I could craft an award that good. Jim, I actually, with my awards, I go puns. It's going to Charlie Morton, Morton Salt. Oh, okay. And my dude twirled another gem.

He's going to the All-Star game, Jim. And, dude, this guy just deserves a little extra love because he's having a crazy season. He's nine and two, a 236 ERA, a three-four war, if you're into that kind of thing. But, man, Jim, everyone kind of, everyone had a shot. The Ray's signed him. Yeah.

The second, the team you'd link in baseball to not having money, the raise got this guy. He's been lights out. He went seven innings pitch, 12 strikeouts, one earn run. He's having one of the best years of any pitcher. Any team could have got him. I know Yankee fans are mad. They didn't get this guy now because they signed Happer. every team that's not the race should be mad they don't have this guy

because he's uh he's been dirty man dirty all right stay salty award all right last segment we're going to do here this is one we're excited about i hope it works i hope it's good it's going to be called elevator talk this is here's how this goes we have to move this to no i think i like it at the end of the show here's how this works jake i have a wheel here with all 30 MLB teams on there I'm going to spin the wheel. It's going to land on a team. We are going to give you enough info that if you're stuck in an elevator with a fan of blank team, you can keep up.

You know what's going on. You can have a conversation. How it's going to work is I'm going to spin the wheel. We get three Xs. We've talked about Oakland. We've talked about the Reds. We've talked about some teams a lot. We're like, now, let's do another team.

You know what I mean? Yeah. Two minutes on the clock, give or take. Jake's going to go to whatever websites he goes to. I'm going to go to whatever websites I go to. And we are going to let you guys know what the conversations are. What's the hap? Okay.

I'm going to have to explain this a couple times as we go. But this is elevator talk. Jake, are you ready? I think I'm ready. I'm pretty nervous but excited. Here we go. Wheel is being spun. And we are talking about, oh, man.

Man, tough. The Baltimore Orioles. I think we got to do it. Here we go. If you find yourself in an elevator with the Orioles, here's what you have to say. Let's go. Baltimore Orioles are really bad, Jake.

You like the O's, huh? I think they have the worst pitching staff ever. Jake actually thinks that the 2019 Orioles have the worst pitching staff ever. assembled. They just lost one, lost a series versus the race. You know that. They're real bad guys. They're in last place in their division. Their bats aren't that bad. But their pitching is so... I think if you're trying to be nice to this Orioles, you'd say, hey, you know what? We against lefties, we've got some righty bats that can do something. Does Rio Ruiz do anything for you? No, he shouldn't. Trey Mancini's doing things. They have to trade Trey Mancini, right?

I think they do. Here's a fun fact. So someone gets in the elevator with you. You say, hey, do you know the Orioles haven't won 10 games in a month yet this season? April, eight games. May, eight games. In June, the Orioles won six games. They went six and 20.

Eight in 19 in April. Eight in 19 in May. Ooh, that's a really fun staff. Are they going to end up being historically bad? They're 25 and 61 right now. That's what they did last year. They're historically bad. And I think they will be again.

How many games in a row do you think they have won this season the most, Jake? I'd say they got three once maybe. I don't know. They have won four in a row. It was the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth game of the season. They still were like, we can create magic. And then there's like, oh, shit. Since then, they've won two in a row once, twice, three times.

Hey, John, John Means is their All-Star? He's got a two-five ERA, 82 winnings. Yeah, if you want to be nice to the oral fan you're in the elevator with, be like, yo, John means change up, huh? That thing is dirty. Yeah, that John means change. It's really, really dirty. Hey, what do you think we could get for Andrew Cashner?

Nothing. And that's talking owes. That was talking o's. And this was talking baseball test episode one. Thank you guys very much for hanging out with us. If you are on Patreon and you did watch this, leave some feedback. Jake and I will be discussing what we liked and what we didn't like. And we'd love to hear your input.

We appreciate it. We'll see you guys. See you guys on Monday. I believe we're going to do our next test episode. See ya.