Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - 169 | Voicemails: Your Team's Underrated Storylines

Episode Date: July 10, 2020

You know more about your team than we do, so we gave you guys the opportunity to call in and leave us a voicemail about some storylines we should keep an eye on with your favorite teams! Who will take the Phillies CF job? How many good arms do the Braves have? Can Carter Kieboom make the transition to third and make up for the loss of Rendon? What could happen with George Springer's contract season? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome back to talking baseball. We asked you guys for some help today, and we think you're giving it to us. It's a voicemail app. Let's do it. What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to talking baseball. My name's Jimmy sitting next to me as Jake. We're actually sharing headphones right now.

Six feet apart. That was a lie. And Trevor is in California. 23-year-old big baby David in the corner producing. Trev. How are you? you doing? I'm doing excellent. I feel bad because I forgot to give old BBD a birthday shout yesterday. So I'm going to do it now. Happy belated BBD, you big stud. Thank you very much, Trevor. You're welcome.

I'm doing great, though. We played some tennis this morning, so I got my athletic endeavor in. It's really hot, but things are good. Who'd you play against? Olivia, my wife. She's pretty legit. Play tennis in high school. Yeah. Katie played tennis in high school. We're pretty equal on the court. It's a little frustrating sometimes for me because I'm supposed to be like an athlete and whatnot. And it's slowly but surely I'm getting better. But she's got like the form and stuff down.

So I get frustrated with it. Yeah. If I didn't lose my breath after two serves, I think I'd be able to keep up better. It's at cardio. Jake, how are you doing? It's at cardio. Look good, play good. I'm doing well, despite Jeff Passants, best efforts to bring me down.

You seen that yet, Trev? I'm going right now. I am a strong, confident male, and I don't have to answer to his BS. Yeah. Wow. And you are sitting in your power pose again. I've got my current power pose with the bat. Baseball bat.

I think it's good. I feel like I've seen the Instagram spines where you put something back there and it makes you arch more. So maybe that's what it is, but yeah. I mean, I just read his comment. And thoughts? I'll find it for you. Can you read it to the people for those who haven't read it? Well, Jake posted a provocative video on his Twitter wearing a belly shirt.

I think you look great. Yeah, I know it. Jim, you called Jeff out with a tweet. You said, can't wait to see when Jeff has to dress up for Jake's Story Allie Day, and then Jeffrey came back with some heat. Hot. He said, replying to you, I'm not in the business of gaining 20 pounds and shrinking four inches.

Yeah. Well. It was quick. It was hot. It was fast. He came in hot. There's no way he's four inches taller than you either. I've seen you guys.

No, no, no. Back to back. Inche and a half, it's probably 30 pounds, if we're being honest. He's pretty small. I think Jeff underestimates. What do you got passing that? 150? Around buck 50.

Yeah. 5.8 and a half. You snap him in half like a little twig. Oh, I mean. I'd give him 5-9-150. Jeff knows I would drop him like a bad habit. He does not want any of this. Low man wins.

He DM'd afterwards and he said some kind words, which I don't feel like I have to share. But, you know, it's the theme of this week. Real friend stab you in the front. And Jeff's a friend. So is what it is. Yeah. All right. I love it.

You and Jeff are still figuring things out, and I get it. You guys had your kind of your standoff, and then you had a really good point, which I think we do need to bring to his attention the next time we cross past that, you know, there was only, what, three official offers, yeah, we got reports of about five or six, and that's what, you know,

people were being critical to you about. So I, uh, I just feel. feel like big buddy cop vibe sometimes from me and Trevor. You know, you got the handsome, slick talking athlete, and then you got Trevor doing his games. It works well. It works well. Yeah.

Catching lizards. Don't. Makes me pretty jealous. I guess we'd had on today. Things are going good for me. So when we started talking baseball, Jake and I last season would open up every series recap, and we probably will, as soon as this season starts again. I think we've told you this

Tread before. Open up every show to basically let you know that you know your favorite team better than we know your favorite team. There's not a secret. A lot of a lot of baseball, Sunday night baseball, Wednesday night baseball,

Fox, they don't like to admit that. We don't care. Yeah. So we asked everyone, call in, let us know what position battle, what storyline, what's going on with your favorite team that maybe we don't know about. Yeah. Something interesting is not on our radar.

We got a good amount of calls here. I'm excited to learn, find out, and then give really quick takes on what I think of the situation that I'm just learning about. So excited. You guys excited? Beauty. I think admitting that you're not all knowing is a step that a lot of people in this country need to take.

Isn't it not? Smartest thing you can do is admit you're dumb. Isn't it nuts? I agree with that. I mean, maybe not that bluntly, but yeah. Shakespeare said it a little different. You want me to quote Shakespeare for you? I don't like Shakespeare either.

No, okay. No quoting then. Cool. He uses the word doth in it, though. Do you like that word? D-O-T-H? Yeah, me neither. Doesn't that Doth?

Well, it depends how you say it. I have an Eastern accent. You know, it's Doth. Kind of along those lines. I started watching The Patriot last night. The movie with Mel Gibson? Yeah. Gets me every time, man.

It's a great movie. Yeah. When his son gets shot in the beginning. Teaser. Thomas. Yeah. Ephraim from Everwood. The guy who plays like the mean general.

I forget his name in the movie. I think it's Sergeant Dickface. What a villain. Yeah, the Green Dragons. The Green Dragoon. which was Jake's intramural team name in college a lot. You know, just honoring people that burned down innocent families. That's what Jake did in college.

I mean, literally a group of virgins picking out an intramural team name, and we just landed at the dragoons, and we rolled with it for four years. Was that after watching the movie? No. No. I think someone said dragons, and then someone said dragoons just to be, like, dumb, and we were like, let's go. Sounds like your life.

Sounds like how life happens. Someone says something dumber and we roll. And action. All right, here we go. First voicemail. The storyline for the Philadelphia Phillies will be center field. Roman Quinn, Adam Hainesley, and potentially also Scott Kinger getting some outfield stuff.

Also, I think that could be a really interesting battle. Romans got that traditional speed, not a great bat, Hainesley, little less of the speed, a little bit better of a bet. Kingery probably offers you the best, but it is more of a second baseman. Have a nice day. All right. Phillies, Treve, an old party town of yours. Center field battle in Philly.

Adam, how do you say it, Hasley? Hasley. Hasley. Hazley. Yeah, I know all three of those guys, and I think what, who was the caller there? What was his name? Philly's center field battle, I think, is his given name. Okay.

Well, he hit it right on the head. I mean, he described it perfectly. I mean, you have a guy like Roman Quinn, who's kind of the prototypical center fielder. He's a switch hitter. Can go get the ball out in the outfield. Pretty good player. I think he sets up more as a late-ending bench guy. Haisley is kind of a bat first guy.

He can play a little bit of center field as well, probably not as good as Roman Quinn can. And then you have Scotty King or he was kind of, I don't know how you want to describe him. He can kind of do it all on the diamond, very versatile. I think he's got the most upside of anybody, but they really like Haisley. They really do.

They like his bat and the way he gives a bat. So it could be different. under Gerardi and what they're looking for. But I think that's a Scotty-Kingery position until something happens. I was going to ask you about Haisley because when we've been doing our Phillies love, whether the Neil Walker interview or the Reese Hoskins, we've talked about that lineup. And Hazley has been kind of penciled into the nine hole. And, you know, he's a former first round pick.

Again, this is where you know your team better than I do because I didn't watch. a single Adam Haisley at bat last year. But he put up a nice little war in 67 games. He was like a two war player. And, you know, he hit 266, 324 on base. Not impressive, but for your rookie year, you know, we've seen a lot of guys do a lot worse. So I was wondering where he was at. And I actually loved the idea of King are going out there because that opens up second base for our guy, Neil Walker, who, again, like Neil. Pro's pro. He's a pro, but he's also a guy that, like, he could could carry your lineup for a week or two. When he gets hot, it's, like, legit hot.

So I don't know enough about Quinn. Apparently, you're making it sound like he's the best defensive option, so that would be the card to play there. So Kinger started 57 games in Centerfield last year. Now, if Quinn and how do you pronounce it, is it, Haisley or Hatt? That's the whole debate. I'm looking it up right now. I feel bad because I played with the guy.

I should probably know. Adam. Adam. he played 67 games last year. I didn't know about this battle at all, so this is exciting to learn about it. If they're looking at spring training numbers, like if it was a spring competition at all,

Hazley, or Hasley, had an awful spring. He's working on things. It was only eight games. But Roman Quinn, in his games, had a phenomenal spring in his eight games. So, I don't know. That doesn't mean anything, probably, but interesting. I'm just going to take a note.

I like what you said, Like if Kinger goes out there, it opens up more spots. Like, would you rather Kinger and Walker when Walker's hot? Or is this a developmental year? Like, is Hazley of the long game? It feels like you give Hazley the first shot at it, the lefty bat. You bench him against other lefties, sure. But, you know, he's a first round pick and he had an okay rookie year.

It feels like roll him out there. And I think Kinger is kind of their, you know, part of the reason they gave him the contract early is that he can move around. So, you know, if Kinger needs to play center, if he needs to play second, I think he can play a little third. I think he's shortstop in a pinch. So I think Kinger's kind of their utility knife. They want to get him the at-bats because he's, you know, he was a big prospect for them.

So I don't know anything, like I said. Sure. Looking at Quinn's game logs, it was drafted in 2011, crack the MLB in 2016, 15 games, goes back to AAA, goes back to rookie ball, goes back to MOB, and 18 and 19. It seems like he's not a prospect to them anymore the way they've been going up and down. Who's that? Quinn. Yeah, you know, thinking about the entire situation, they want Scotty to play.

Yeah. So kind of like wherever he plays, if he plays second base, then yeah, it opens up that outfield spots. But Haisley, and it is Haisley, I just checked for us. like I said, they just really, they like his bat. So I think all three of these guys are in here playing time with the majority of it going to Haisley and Kingery. I mean, Quinn kind of mixing in there. Because he is a switch hitter,

he'll be able to maximize the platoon splits. It's a good battle, and I think that ultimately it just depends on if they feel like they have someone that could, with the bat, could play second base. because they still have they still have Seguera there, don't they? So right now they have Seguera

penciled at third, which Neil can also play and Kinger. And right now they have Josh Harrison too who can play second base, third base. They've got these veteran bats, which at the same time almost makes me that makes me nervous for Haisley. Because I mean, if you've got Josh Harrison

or Neil Walker playing good baseball, I mean, roll those dudes out there. With Joe Girardi, a 60-game season, and now a DH, the guys who are versatile versatile versatile will probably get a longer leash and more looks than a guy who hey if he's hitting he's only playing one position that guy's going to have to light it up in the batters box to stick there's a take boom i almost now that i'm really really thinking about it with some of the guys they have in the corners we might see defensive switch roman come in and

play because that's he's done that before you know when you you need to shut the game down. You have your, you know, ninth inning squad out there. They'll send Roman out there because he can go get it. And especially a lot of veterans too, so maybe a little pinch run and then go into the field. I like that. Yeah, if Cutch is in the outfield and, you know, they're up by three runs in the ninth, two runs in the ninth, you're going to see Roman go in there.

So I think Roman probably is going to start on the bench and then, yeah, if Haisley can find his way in the lineup, he'll get some starts out there. Cool. So Philly's fans, tell us how wrong. Good hitter we were. He's a really good hitter. We're going to the Braves now. What's up, guys?

I'm a Braves fan in Virginia. Everywhere around me, I see nothing but NASF fans. And I think that the Braves somehow, some way, are underrated. Maybe this is just me because I'm a Braves fan. But I don't think Farroka and Freed are talked about enough. The fact that they are up-and-coming aces does not get talked about as much as Braves fans do. Am I crazy or are they just completely underrated? And what are their chances in the NLE East?

Thanks, guys. Bye. Now, I'd have to go re-look at Freed's numbers. I know that he's a friend of yours, a friend of the program. We had him on the show. I like Freed a lot. I don't know his numbers. Soroka does not get talked about enough.

That's a fact. I agree with that. That dude was, he's 22 years old and he was awesome last year. Like ridiculous. Like very, very good. And he's 22, right? He was a two-something. Yeah.

He's 22 years old. He had a 269 ERA. It was 21 last year. Yeah. Turn 22 halfway three years. I don't know when his birthday was. I mean, he's all-star. Cy Young votes.

Rookie of the Year votes. Fidger's second. And I do think that's not a household name in the way. Like Jack Flaherty. Syroca should kind of be in the same wavelength as Jack Flaherty. Yeah, I mean, yeah, he's got to do it again. Jack's slightly more of a body work. Maybe a little bit longer, but yeah, I agree with that.

Last season at least. You're both dealing. I think the point is, like, you know, in theory, this guy's the ace of the Braves. And the Braves are, you know, a well-known baseball team, one of the best teams in baseball. Like, Mike Soroka should be more well-known. Yeah, I mean, I honestly, I knew he had a good year. And, I mean, just looking at the numbers now, he crushed it.

and I love how young he is. And with Max, you know, I think he had settled in right of the four ERA last year, one, 17 games, which I know people don't love that stat anymore, but still pretty impressive. And he's kind of coming into his own. I've known Max for a long time, and he's a guy that needs to feel comfortable, and I think he's getting to that point now. He's a big leaguer. And you have to get over that hump of like, am I ever?

a real big leaguer, or am I just here for a little bit? Last year was his time to establish himself, and he did it. So now that he's settled in, that's when you see guys take off. I mean, he's 26, turning 27 this year, I believe. This is a year, like, or he could make that huge leap. And if he does, yeah, the Braves are, that was a great one-two punch for them to have. Yeah. And Frid's numbers, well, last year, he had a four ERA.

So he's good. Good. Soroka is also cool because he's not a flame thrower. He doesn't even throw his four-seem fastball as his number one pitch. He's like the sinker, slider, two-seam slider mix. I think he hits like 92 miles per hour. Well, you know, you think 22-year-old 2.6 ERA, you're not thinking crafty. You're thinking Walker Bueller, Jack Flaherty pitch mix.

I will be honest. I'd have to go watch some of his pitch mix and to kind of see what he's doing. That leaves him open to maybe a little bit of regression. If he's not spot on and he doesn't have the V-load, and there's also now a book out on him. So it's going to be both these guys. No, no, but he was really good at inducing soft contact. He was top-tier exit velocity and missing.

barrels he was top tier but yeah according to baseball savon and i'd let the braves fan correct me if they want but i i think i feel like they had a little bit of the kitty gloves on freed last year he only had two start three starts with a hundred pitches and that's 101 101 100 so and it makes sense i mean he's a young dude and he's a young lefty um and i wonder if he because we met him briefly and you're kind of right like he's you know uh seemingly quiet not I mean, a little hot boy, I'll give him that. But, you know, you're right. Like, I could see him needing to be a little more comfortable than what you'd expect.

But I'm interested to see how much leash they gave him this year. If they give him a couple one-tens, like, you're dealing. This is his 26-year-old season. In a short in season, like, let him rip, yeah. You think Seroca doesn't get talked about because he's not American? Yeah. Canuck. Yeah.

Wow. And then he also said, like, do we like the Braves odds? We do. Yeah, of course. They're good. I think the thing that gets me is, like, the East is so good and baseball is such a coin flip. But I've heard quotes from executives that are like, if the Braves don't win it in the next five years, it's a massive failure. And it's like, I don't know.

I think that's just because they locked up all these guys when they didn't have to. Albies and Ro Ro Ro. Yeah. Yeah, but they gave them, they didn't give crazy contracts to these guys. No. That's what people, that's why people are saying. Seven, eight years, a hundred million. for Ronald Acuna, he doesn't have to be Ronald Acuna for them to get the value.

If he's Ronald Acuna, like we know, they scored on that deal. And I think that's what people are saying. With Albies and Acuna and the young pitchers, like, they should be able to add the pieces around that financially to do stuff. Dude, the East, I haven't really looked at an East schedule yet, NLEE schedule. It's tough. I mean, they open up. If the Mets are good, which.

I'm kind of having doubts on the rotation with Sindegard out now. But they're going to see DeGrom twice in their first week. Maybe. Yeah, they're going to see DeGrom. I just read that about the Braves. They're facing some studs up front. Yeah, and the race. So, like, they open up three against the Mets, four against the Rays, four against the Mets.

So they're getting a heavy dose of pitching right out the gate. They said something like they're going to face 11 aces in the first two weeks or something like that. Yeah, that's a tough, tough. tough opening. And then, you know, it's all Phillies. It's all, they got the Nationals. They, I mean, they have a chunk where they play the Nationals seven times in 10 games and 10 days.

So they have some stretches where it's like, don't slump then because you will be screwed. But I do think they're better than all those teams on paper. Maybe not the Nats. But maybe. They're right in there. So I don't know. That's going to be fun to watch.

All right, another Braves won right afterwards. For my Braves, a lot of people know about the third base battle between young thick Austin Riley and Johann Camargo. Whether or not a Zuna can fill Donaldson's shoes is a big story also. However, one storyline you may not know is with Sean Newcomb. Since debuting, he's been inconsistent as a starter, and when the Braves needed help in the pen last year, he's shoved. He has said he wants to be a starting pitcher, and the Braves are going to give him a shot this year, but with all the young pitching they have, his future is very much up in the air. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

So last time we checked in when we were at Braves Camp, it was like, you know, with Hamels out, Newcomb had locked up that fourth spot, and then Felix was probably getting the fifth. So now Hamels is healthy, I believe. Felix is opted out? Newcomb's the fifth, right? Is that where we're going into campus? Newcomb, Fangraphs has Kyle Wright penned in. Not super familiar with him, but he's a young blood, former first round pick,

so they've got more help on the way it looks like. And that's how you build a good team, folks. what Nucum might have working against him He had a really nice 2018 You know 30 starts 3-9 ERA Uh 2019 he got kicked to the Panmosa season And he was good 316 ERA a 144 ERA plus

And the Braves need help down there So I don't know I like him If you can have a young You know If you can how old is he 27 University of Hartford Jim

You are One of your brothers other in. Still paying that place a ton of money. Sean Newcomb has a lot more value as a left-handed starting pitching, but for what the Braves are trying to do, like they might be, they could be quick to kick him back into the bullpen if they need it.

There is a recipe of pitchers, young pitchers who are faltering as a starter, go to the pen and learn how to dial it up, learn how to attack the zone more. That's usually what you hear. Severino did it with the Yankees. someone else did it before Severino. Hermann.

Hermann did it after Severino. There was someone else that did it before. I forget who it was. Where they say, yeah, I learned to attack the zone more. Do you have a chamber then? No, they messed him up. Phil Hughes? Yeah, I don't know much about Newcomb.

You got anything on Newcomb, Trev? I mean, I don't want to speak a lot on him because I haven't seen a pitch a ton. but in my experience, I mean, they want guys to be starters. If he has starter potential and they can see him in that role, like he's going to get some starts then. As important as bullpens have become, you still need to have the horses.

So it just kind of depends, especially early on the season. He's probably going to get some starts, I'd assume, as guys aren't going as long. I mean, what I'm looking at here is Soroka, Fulte, freed Hamils, and him. What's the deal with Fulte? Did you ever face him or anything? Because he's got the lights out.

I mean, his 2018, All-Star 8th and the Cy Young, and then everything else around that is kind of e. I did face him, I believe. I think I remember facing him. But, you know, sometimes that happens. You know, it's a league of adjustments. And if guys make an adjustment on you or kind of pick up something that you're not doing as well as you should be,

then you've got to figure it out. But, I mean, he's got the stuff, you know. So I think what we're seeing here is there's a lot of uncertainty in the Braves rotation. Good uncertainty, though. It's good. Like ideal uncertainty, but uncertainty. But I think this is a team that's going to rely on a lot on their offense as well. What's that?

I said this is a team that's going to rely on that offense for them to carry that as well. Oh, what do you got, BBD? Trevor, you were three for four with a double of Fulte. Wow. I mean, guys, Treve. What do you say? Right-handed white dude? Something like that?

He's got a little more cheese than that. You guys are surprised. Fulte has a lot to. I mean, I was a pretty good baseball player at one point, guys. We weren't surprised. We were happy for you. Thank you. Fulte got blowed up, right?

Is he sitting on that terrible outing? still, the last game? Well, he had the hero game before that. Yeah, but then I remember the last shot of Fulte is him standing on the steps, looking out, being like what the fuck just happened. Yeah. So I wonder if that's in his brain and he's just dying to get back out there. Job Jack Flaherty.

Good job, Jack Flaherty. All right, next voicemail. Moving to the Nats, staying in the east. Wow. East Coast Pod. Baseball's back. All right. From Arlington, Virginia.

put it on the map. I'm talking about the nationals, and the hole we have at third base, and I don't think Carter Kaibu, is Kibu, is going to be anywhere good enough to fill that hole we have there. I think Afribs and Castro will probably get some looks there, and I think Juan Soto is going to hit two home runs off of coal, maybe one off of coal, one off another pitcher, but he'll get to that game, opening day. Sorry about the blunder call. it was pretty embarrassing. Bye. Love you guys.

Okay, he left two, and we didn't hear the other one yet? We won't hear the other one. It was pretty embarrassing. Do you confirm that it was embarrassing, PBD? Okay. Okay. All right, cool. That's how we operate here.

Who did he say was going to homeroff call? Soto's going to get him twice. Oh, that's four. Or he'll get two, one off of call. Okay. Sure. That was, I couldn't, it was hard for me to hear, So if anyone can just do a quick paraphrasing of what he said.

National's third base. They're trying to replace Rendon. They've got the top prospect, Carter Key Boom. Boom. Boom. I think Boom, boom, boom can hit. I think the rumor is his defense is behind that. And, you know, they've got a bunch of old dudes that can kind of play third base between

Kendrick, Estruval Cabrera, Starlin Castro. Dude, they rode Cabrera last postseason. Dude, Cabrera, look at Cabrera and Howie Kendrick's numbers on the Nats. They were like MVP level type stuff. And they had the old guy thing going last year that they said like they would raise their hands for days off and be like, I'm tired. And teams don't normally do that. Hey, Skip? I don't know.

Pretty tired. Coach, I'm old. I'd say they probably give Carter a chance to stick there. Why is everyone down on him? So Carter Key Boom, every time I hear his name thrown out there, see it thrown out there in an article, it's like, well, Carter Key Boom is being groomed to take over the third basement. It's your role. But, and then there's doubts. Like every time it's not like gung-ho excitement.

It's like a reluctance to pass him to the third base out. I don't know the situation. That's the vibe I get from it from every time I hear it read about. What's the downside? Is he just not ready? No sense? I think he, to my knowledge, he came up in the minor leagues as a shortstop. We could look up those game logs.

But, you know, going over and trying to learn their base from my experience, I mean, I went through the same damn thing. It's not an easy thing to do, especially if you're getting put there at the major league level and having to learn on the fly. So if it was defensively, that's such an easy fix. If this guy spent his entire offseason and both spring trainings working at it, like as a short step, you're going to make defensive strides over there. So if that's what they're worried about,

I think that that's probably going to be a thing in the past. And I just found my answer, Trev. He has only started nine games at third base. Yeah. In all of the minor leagues and everything, that was last year. So it's a very recent, very new. He'll figure it out. I get it now.

I get his ass out there, hit him a million ground balls, make him comfortable. It's a different position. And I keep flip-flopping on rookies this year because there's this. They crushed Fresno last year If you're going to use a rookie Like go Like Yankees and Clark Schmidt Sorry to bring it back to the Yankees

But I think that they're going to use him At some point this year Whether it's injuries or not So if you're going to use him Like might as well go Might as well go in the 60 games Because you know we don't have a full season To get the rookies ready

So if someone, if you might need Someone like that in a playoff run Get them out there now so you can find out. And Carter Keyboom, yeah, that's the only part that's all so scary because say if he does need to learn third base, like Nat fans are going to be with the short rope. Yeah, I can see that.

You know, and then we look at service time. Okay, you can't have you played 11 games last year. That just means he's going to miss seven this year. Yeah, whatever it is, each game is worth, what do we say, 2.7 games, something like that? So does that mean you only has to miss like three then? Yeah, I think so. plus the 11 game.

So that might be what they do. Say, hey, you're not. Defensively, you're not ready yet. We've seen that excuse before. But I think a guy like this who they are counting on to come in and fill a role with their organization, probably going to get some chances this year, a lot. And they have a veteran debt to back them up. Something I ran into, Trev, is if you can play defense,

How do I word this? If you can play defense, but you can't hit, I'm out. I don't even care about it. I'm out. Next voicemail. Also, that guy who loved that voicemail is a Nats fan, seems like it, but listens to Talking Yanks because he drops some talking Yankslingo in there and put it on the map. It's also final note on Key Boom.

It's the taste he left in their mouth. He played, he had 39 at Bats last year, and he hit 128. So that just feeds into the haters. Yeah, but that's really tough for him because they're thrown out of brand new, But they're just putting him in a blender. Remember when guys yelled for Anduhar because he had one game. Oh, yeah. You ever what they said about Mike Trout after 2011?

Trade him for ploof. He had a horrible 2011. Now he's literally the greatest player ever played the game. Next. That's fun. Hey guys, big A's fan here. And I think the most underrated storyline of the season is how good this A's rotation can be. I mean, Frankie Montas was really on the short list.

to start the All-Star game before getting popped last year. Charm and I had a great 2018, and it was en route to even better 2019 before the wildcard game. Asauclizzo, if you watch that wildcard game, you already know how good he can be. And then AJ puck is just as good and just as useful. And if that makes my fires are five, I think you're sitting really great.

Let me know what you guys think. All right, you got a fire. This is where maybe the talking baseball fans don't know this about me yet. Trev, I don't know if you don't know this about me, but I'm not going to ride the hype of prospects. Like, throwing like a lot of faith in Puck and Lazzardo right now to me is crazy. Like not saying these guys won't become great starting pitchers, but going into the 2020 season and saying these guys are going to be like locked down three or even four arms in the rotation and they help solidify it.

You can't do that. You really can't, in my opinion, you can't do that. that you have no idea what you're actually getting. I'm not trying to knock them. I'm just saying, like, as a fan base, to be like, we got Lazardo, he's going to be a stud. You have no idea. You have zero idea.

I mean, I agree with that. I think he said this could be a really good rotation and nobody's talking about. And I agree with that statement. You know, I've seen a lot of these guys throw. I think with a guy like puck, he's got a different skill set. You cut his hair, though, so we're all upset about that.

Yeah, that's tough. He's six, seven. You can throw the ball a ton. He's kind of a guy you're like, okay, like if he can just be around the zone, he's probably going to be effective. Because you just don't see guys like that that often, especially from the left-hand side. So then, yeah, a guy like Hazie Zazardo, he's been a top prospect for a long time,

came up, had some success. So I think these aren't just kind of like maybe. No, they're highly touted. Like I even think it's about highly touted guys. Like we just said. I agree with that. Mike Trout had a bad rookie debut first 60 games or whatever. You know what I mean?

They're not established. So you can't act like there. I really don't think any of the staff is established besides old Mike over there. Well, that's the funny part. That's the Jakey baseball joke I had lined up is like, yeah, fires could be your five. He could also be your one. And technically he's penciled in as the one right now.

I mean, even Mania, who I like a lot, doesn't have a lot of the advanced metrics numbers that you want to see from a guy, but I think that dude can just pitch. I don't think that's a problem. But yeah, I mean, if someone like AJ Puck, you know, for some reason, loses the zone in his first two starts, like you just lost a guy. Like he's going into the pen to figure it out because it's just short in season. But at the same time, people aren't talking about the A's enough.

They're a really good team. Defense hitting really good. And if these guys can be like plus arms, if they can be. breakout, then you have the very scary, scary thing. You got us? Seems like Trev lost our audio real quick. Okay. Trev, it was just you and the patrons.

All right. So we were talking about the A's and how the rotation has a lot of potential, but you can't write it in chalk yet and be like, it's a solid one through five. I mean, yeah, we're not talking like they got the three horsemen there, but they could. They could. You know, that's kind of like the thing.

with the younger guys they got to do it and everyone's like oh they got to do it before you give many credit it's like well you know this might be the year they do it yeah and I mean they're getting more

they're getting this conversation for a reason because they're highly touted prospects and they have the potential to do it I'm just the cynic in me is still like I'm not going to be like yeah the A's watch out for that starting five yet let me give you an example of what talking about here. I was 16 years old and I was looking to earn some extra dough because I wanted to,

you know, go to in and out on a Saturday night if I wanted to. So I went to the mall and I applied at Mrs. Fields cookies for a job. That and a skate, like some skate shop that was there. Mrs. Fields turned me down and said, we need someone with experience. And it's like, dude, how am I supposed to get experience if I can't you don't like let me work at it it's kind of like what we're talking about with these pitchers

like yeah you need experience me to see you do it a few times well it's like let them pitch yeah let him go eat but uh yeah then we'll get excited all right next question um so I'm Mike um

I think an underrange storyline you guys look out for is big baby David's tweets very underrated flying under the radar. Trevor Ploof gives him the acknowledgement that he deserves, but I don't think he gets the recognition that he really should. He's not verified. I think we should start a hashtag get Big Baby David or BPD verified.

It's only right. Yankees' Twitter deserves it. Thank you, Mike, BBD's younger brother, for calling in and participating. Was that a birthday present? I really don't know who that was. But it made me laugh a lot. BD, how about that shout-out? though.

Wow. Tase or Pod? Hey guys. I'm so jealous of your fucking back then. Huddisfield in England here. I have the misfortune of being a fan of the Houston Astros. As far as underrated

storyline go, one thing I think people aren't talking about enough is the fact that George Springer is a free agent at the end of the season, meaning that he has just 60 games to prove that you can still hit without knowing what pitch is coming. This is a guy who put up kind of MVP.

key level numbers last year of 162 games. He was injured for quite a lot of the season. But you question how well he can prove himself in what is going to be kind of a dampened free agent market. So we'd love to hear you guys' opinions on that. Cheers. Was that another? I missed the beginning because the year phone had that.

He's an English man. It wasn't Joey Mellos? No. Okay, just another English baseball fan. Welcome. Thank you very much for calling. Come in. London games working.

Very interesting. Storyline. Yeah. Does his, do they try, do they try to trade him? Probably not, because they're going to be in it, and they're going to be trying to win, and they're good team. But is that a factor for free agency, Trev? Like, our team's going to be looking and like, well, let's see what he does when he doesn't know it's coming.

Now, he hasn't, see, I don't think he's always 100% knowing it's coming. I don't know, though, maybe. They were doing it a lot. Yeah, I look, I think every, every, every. is going to be paying attention to how the Astros do this year. You know, that's not something that's going to, that people have forgotten about. You know, although this is going to be an easier year than the Astros could have ever imagined back in February, people are still going to be remembering the storyline, people are still

going to be talking about it. It's going to be in their mind. So, yeah, I think it's important to see how these guys respond to it. but yeah George is a hell of a ball player he was one of my favorite players in the league now I can't have him be one of my favorite players because of the whole scandal

but if he comes out this year and bangs he's going to have a spot in free agency it's not going to be what it was we all know that the owners are not going to open the wallets up like maybe they would have pre-COVID so it'll be interesting to see where he lands it wouldn't surprise if he landed back

with Houston But again, this is his age 30 season. Dude, unless he wants out of that constant, constantness of the deal of dealing with it, you know, maybe he just wants like, you know, oh shit, their fans are going to be back next year. I'll get out before that happens. He also, I think, you know, like a lot of free agents,

he will take the biggest contract offered. Yep, he's 30, so I wonder what it would be. Gosh, you know what? Like, yeah, this is his age 30 season. but he's almost 31. Like he's turning 31 right at the end of this season. And, you know, he's been playing center and, you know, how it normally plays out is he kicked to left or right for a couple years.

And, you know, there's no reason to not believe George can't do that. He was on a nasty pace last year. He had 39 homers in 122 games. He was on pace for 50 plus. So, hey, back to our betting pot. if any of you want a real deep cut George Springer, I tweeted out facetiously. On January 18th, the day after my sister's birthday,

I said, no, it's a good way to replace losing some first and second round picks, flipping George Springer at the deadline, when the A's and Rangers are ahead of you in the standings. Would I love to retweet that if it's honest? Absolutely. Do I think it happens? No. But yeah, man, I mean, George Springer, two of the past three years has had an OPS plus that was above 140.

So, hey, and, you know, I don't know how his top speed is and how he's taking care of his body. If you could get two years at a center field and then another three at the corner, I mean, that's five years over 20 million per easy, I think. Yeah, he's a stud. I think his body is just fine. He's a guy, he doesn't seem 30 to me or 31 to me. When I think about George Springer, I'm like, this guy's 20. 26, 27, 28.

But maybe that's just the way he plays. He does play emphatically. Kind of seem his balls to the wall. I dig that. I do agree that teams should be proactive and going out and getting guys like this, but I don't know about a five-year deal for him. Just that age, man.

You know where he's from? You know where he's from? I do want to give it out. I do know where he's from. Do you ask me that? Yeah, do you know? Of course I do. Hard-hitting, baby.

Hard-hitting, baby. New Britain. I'm pretty sure he came out to one of the game. while I was there. Pride of Connecticut. Yeah. Like I said, man, he was one of my favorite players. 20th on the all-time Connecticut hit list.

It's got a long way to go. Huge. Jim O'Rourke in 1872. What was he doing with Homas? Was it Bagwell? Who's one? Mo Vaughn. Wow.

Love it. In a landslide. George Springer's the third most home runs by a player born in Connecticut. Come on, George. Yeah. I mean, that's one strong. storyline that like we kind of don't talk about anymore because we're over it but like just following the astros this year seeing what these guys do because if any of them struggle any one of

them it's going to be like pointing the finger we knew it we knew you weren't that good blah blah blah yeah and it's fair it's fair next hey guys uh diehard twins fan here big fan of the show big fan of you Trevor. So I just want to say everyone loves the Josh Donaldson signing, obviously, but one thing I don't see a lot of National Baseball news talking about is the twins have an absolute stud over at second base. Louisa Rice, he came up mid-May last season, I think, and ended up taking over second base from Jonathan's scope in, like, July. He only played 90 games, but he hit almost like 340, and it was great on defense, too. I mean, him and Polanco up the middle, are you kidding me? So it looks like the twins are going to have him around for a while. And that's all I have to say, but I can't leave without asking one more question.

I just have to know. So I was born in 99. I've seen all of these beatings the twins have taken from the Yankees in the playoffs. 2003, 2004, 2009, 2010, 2017, last year 2019, I just have to ask from a Yankees fan perspective, do you guys get happy when you see that you get to play the twins in the playoffs? Or are you aware of just how sad this is? I just want to know exactly what you guys think of the twins. Thanks guys, love the show.

It's like I don't, like it's not a rivalry or I don't have any like hate towards the twins, but you're putting me in a position to sound like a cocky, a dushy Yankee fan. But yes, when I see the twins in the playoffs, I'm like, okay, awesome. It's just until it isn't the way it is, it is, and the Yankees win easily. I'm a big underdog guy. so I always hold my breath for a second when the twins are coming in because just the law of averages. Eventually they're going to get us.

At some point it's going to happen. But I will say it's almost the quickest exhale. Like there's usually just a moment when it's like, oh. Yeah. Like the Yanks got him again. So I know the day of reckoning's coming, but not yet. And Trevor, that guy said a very important thing. They said the national people aren't talking about Luis Arise.

Arise. But you know who is? You and me, Daddy. Yeah, we talk about him all the time. He just made me realize we've been pronouncing it wrong. It's a rise. Not Rias. A rise.

I can turn it a little bit. Yeah. A little flair. Oh, my goodness. Oh, my computer. Hey, watch out. Be careful, Jeff. He's a throwback hitter.

He's a throwback hitter. Which is cool. I recognize that dialect and the... He just sounds nice, right? Sounds like a nice guy. Yeah, I liked him. He said he liked you, so. That's true.

I forgot about that. Thank you for that. Yeah, we mentioned him as a guy that's best fit to hit 400 this year. Everybody that I talked to in the Twins organization is super high on this guy. I don't want to,

I've heard the Rod Karu comparisons. That's pump the brakes a little bit, people. But he's got the hit tool. And if you can hit, you're going to be the lineup. Because people give Rod Karu to Anduhar too. Is that the player, a guy just puts the ball in play, you just say, the next Rod Carew? I think they, Rod's been around them and they do things similarly, you know, the way they

approached bats, he doesn't look like the 2020 MLB hitter that you think of. You know, he's kind of the guy that you were talking about, maybe a couple of episodes ago, Jake, you're like, wouldn't it be cool in 10 years if there was just an influx of these guys who beat the shift, whatever, whatever? this guy's a professional hitter, uses the whole field, works to count. I think the biggest thing that you can see, and Juan Soto does this really well, and that's why people love him, is his command of the strike zone. Yeah.

So this guy's going to make you work all the time. And I think they have a good one here. They're very confident in him, and so am I. But the Rod Crew thing, like I said, let's pump the brakes. Rod Crew is one of the best to ever do it. So he's definitely a guy that is going to be. be a force for them in their lineup. And it's a cool, like, you know, other side of the spectrum, they have a lot of bombers. Obviously, we know they broke the major league record last year. They're

returning a lot of those guys, plus adding Josh Donaldson, and then they add a guy like a rise in there. So it's cool. I think they have a very balanced lineup. Yankees definitely have the twins numbers, the twins number during the playoffs. There's no doubt about that. You guys should feel confident until something makes you not confident. A couple things. Donaldson is kind of the perfect example of what I was talking about for NL teams. You can improve your lineup, obviously, but you can improve your defense. Donaldson goes to third. Tell Big Miguel, either play first or DH for the day. Like, you're getting a couple wins there.

And I've referenced this a couple times, but I just came up with a Jakey Butterknife stat that OZuna was brought into the Braves to kind of replace Donaldson's bat in the lineup. Ozuna's got one really good year. But it's really his only standout, standout year. He hits the ball violently. Jim, you'll like this. He has only, Ozuna only has one year with an OPS above 800. Really? One year.

He mashed with the Marlins. Last year he was 800 on the nose. So that's a little bit of the butter knife. But it's still 800 on the nose. I mean, you know. So Josh Donaldson has four seasons that start with a nine OPS, including an MVP. Like when he's- Yeah, they're not the same player whatsoever. When he's healthy, he's special and just kind of spinning it back to the Braves.

Like, I don't know if OZuna gets off to kind of a slow start. I mean, it's a different kind of ball player, and I think the Braves kind of, Braves fans are ignoring that. I mean, they're looking at a glass half full. Like you get a guy, you think he's going to give his best effort this year. And maybe you surround him in the lineup the right way. Maybe that has something to do with it. But yeah, I mean, you're comparing him to Josh Johnson.

That's not really fair. Josh is one of the best right-handed hitters we've seen in the last decade. So, you know. I read that book, Swing Kings, a lot about Josh and his hitting coach. And pretty interesting. Josh has that big leg kick. He's part of the Swing Revolution. Yes.

He's pretty vocal about it. It's cool. I was digging up and doing a lot of mental math in my head, but I got it right. I have an arise number here that I want to throw the people's way. Proopoo, pooh, pooh. Trev, he played 92 games. How many games do you think he did not get a hit nor a walk out of the 92? Well, I know his OBP was like right at 400.

92 games, how many did he not reach base? I didn't do errors, I didn't do hit by pitch, just hits and walks. You're making me think it's not very many. I'd say out of 92, I'm going to guess 15. 14. I was going to say 15 too. Cool. Okay.

Out of the 92 games, how many times do you think he reached base twice? Ooh. 33. Good guess, Trev. I was going to go more than that. I don't know. I'll say... Go with your gut.

I was going to say 40, but that seems like a lot now that I'm thinking about. 44. Wow. Wow. Isn't that crazy? When he's there, he's there. Half of the games, he reached base twice. Yeah.

I mean, 400 OBP, man, that's the mark of a stud. Yeah, but I just think it's crazy that you have a guy who's hitting the ball like, like, you know, clearly not, he's not a three true outcome. So he's not just swinging for big. So sometimes when you have those guys, it's more like an Andrew are with the Yankees who's not doing the on base either because he's swinging. So it's so cool that a rise is a free swinger, puts the ball and play every which way, but also has command of the zone. So he is a really fun player to watch. I love the more walks than strikeouts. That's kind of when you, at least when I was coming up, like if you could get those close at all, you were like, that is what I'm trying to do.

That's something players will even look at? Oh, yeah. Now it's like, you don't think about it as much, but when you really, if you go and you find the best players in the game, the best hitters in the game, there's going to be some outliers there, but most of them, they're going to be closer to that one-to-one. Not at one-to-one, but closer. You know, you're going to rack up 80 walks and 110 strikeouts, something like that, you know what I mean? And he was 36 walks, 29 strikeouts last year, which is cool. He's just a nightmare, man. When you see him locked into an at bat,

you just get that, oh, shit, feeling. Yeah. Like, it's all... There's not many of those guys left. No. Yeah, I love it. And people are talking about him a ton in Minnesota. Like, every time you mention their lineup,

it's like, yeah, but have you seen a rise? So, Treb, we've gotten a voicemail from almost every team you've played for. A's, Phillies, Twins, and here is a raise voicemail. Yeah, hi, is Papa John's Pizza? No? All right. Anyways, hey guys, this is Matt from Nashville. Classic.

Just want to speak on the fact that I've been walking around the Vanderbilt campus recently and been seeing a lot of wanted signs for this guy named Jake Sterrelli. Story Ellie, sorry. Just accusing him opposing. A lot of strombol. So don't look up for that guy. A big fan of Sanjay Ray. I guess one storyline is how they're going to win the World Series this year.

So take a look out for that. Anyways, I'm so excited for the baseball. He'll be back. Love the show. Keep it up. Later, guys. A raise fan in Nashville? Is that where he's from? How did that happen? No team in Nashville.

Yeah, I guess so. All right, we've done the raise are good talk enough. I'm starting to bounce off of that because someone reminded me that the Yankees just always beat the raise. So I was like, oh, okay, that's cool then. If there's one clubhouse, I know that doesn't, they de-gat. which means it doesn't give a fuck. It's the raise. So I kind of put all that like, yeah, the Yankees beat them.

I put that to rest when you talk about a team like that. I think it does hang over the twins a little bit, but the raise don't give a shit. I don't think so either. Well, they can't really care about much, you know. They don't got like, if you play in that stadium, you go there for 81 games, you got to have a don't give a fuck attitude. Otherwise, you can probably find annoyances every which way.

They're also very, very, are always young, too, and the young guys don't care. The young guys don't think of it. You're young and dumb. I'm not calling the Ray's dumb, but they have that attitude, that's swagger. And that's, I mean, it's one of the reasons that I'm picking them to win the World Series this year. I want to see who they can squeeze juice out of. The Ray's are a super well-run organization, and they've got some dudes they brought in this year that, as a Yankee fan were scary, Hunter Renfro, serious power.

He has been in San Diego. Do they have something that can kind of help him boost his numbers? He kills lefties, and maybe that's all he does. And then they brought in two outfielders that cover ground. Margo and Arasarena, my guy from St. Louis. Go get it. And if they put him with Keirmeyer, they might have this weird defensive lockdown team,

which could be awesome to watch. I'm seeing who's... They just need another batman. They just need another... It's Jose Martinez or Susugo. Austin Meadows is a stud. They need someone else, man. You need one more bat.

Like there's a lot of pitchers that look at the raise rotation in a playoff game that would be like, you know, I'm giving up one and that's it. I mean, I don't know if you know who Brandon Lowe is. He's pretty good. So you always skip over him. He's good. He's good. This is what I find interesting.

Is Lowe that good? Jake and I go to our computers to find out if Lowe's actually that good. Didn't he have like a 300 on base percentage? He's good. I mean... I'm going to go look at stats right now. Last year. 850 OPS.

I mean, it was good. It was 82 games. I need a little more. You guys, the way you guys scoff at an 8 for the OPS is... It's really nice. It's half a season. 82 games, true. I like them.

This is another team. This is another team that I can see going out and making a move. I think Francisco Lindorf fits very nicely on their team. I don't know what their system is like with prospects right now, but they always got them. It seems like they're always willing to deal them too. Top prospect, Wander Franco. Wander. Wander.

Wander. Yes, yes. So if they go out and make a splash like that, that changes everything. And do not put it past those guys. Neander by guy there. He knows what he's up. You ever seen two-way McKay pitch? I never saw a pitch.

I think I was there when he got drafted and came and like hit. on the field. He pitched against the Yankees once, and it was weird. He was like brooding on the mountains. He was a hard. He was a hard. He was a hard. Hardo?

Yeah. Yeah. We only saw one game, but it was very strange. It was like, you need to take so many breaths real quick. Um, it was weird. But he's exciting guy, so hopefully he's good. If you're looking for a team that's just like young, electric. Hey, guys.

I'm Sam from Madison. Oh, God damn it. Sorry. It's okay. You can cut me off because, I mean, I'm just saying the raise are like a fun team to follow. If someone's like looking for a team like, hey, like, let me follow an AL team that I don't know a lot about. The rays are going to be a good one. I'm going to sound like such a weeny head here, but like if you're a casual fan just searching for a new team,

you don't want to watch 81 games of baseball at the drop. I mean, we're talking about just this season. This season for sure. But I'm saying like if that's my every night, I don't want that. It's going to be tough. Like being a raised fan is tough. Get them a nice stadium where fans can actually travel there because they showed up in the playoffs. If they had like a good looking aesthetically pleasing ballpark, I think they'd beat America's darling.

It's just tough for them because geographically, if they put it in Tampa, there's still not a lot of people that are born and bred there. It's a lot of implants who have their teams like the Cubs, like the Yankees, like the Red Sox. That's just kind of what we have down in Florida. The lightning kind of kill it though. I mean, there's so many moving parts and you can't just build a stadium. They've also won, like, haven't they won like two Stanley Cubs in the last five years or something? Yeah. Your Rays are going to win it all this year, right?

I agree. It could help. But, yeah, if you're looking for a new team to latch onto forever, the race is not the organization you want to do that because they're going to be moving parts. You're not going to know any of the players. They're not going to be there for that long. They're kind of like the A's in that sense. I think they're the better A's, better version of the A's.

That's how I kind of think about them in my mind. Shots fired to Chapman. Oh, Chap, he's my guy. But I'm talking about as an organization. Yeah, the way they run things. The A's are pretty good at what they do. I think the Rays are better at it. Guys, how about a little sneaky rookie of the year, Susugo?

Susu-sugo. Just saying. Just saying. All right, here's the next voicemo. Hey, guys, I'm Sam from Madison, Wisconsin. And as a Brewers fan, I wanted to bring up a pretty underrated part of the roster, in my opinion, which is the pitching staff, specifically the starters.

Woodruff and Hauser both had good years last year, and I think with Lauer, Lindblom, Anderson, all could be solid, and it's Suter and Peralta can play as well if they didn't come in as starters plays well from the bullpen last year. Starters could be pretty solid this year. Thank you. Jake, what do you got in the brewer's starters? Code for Jimmy doesn't have nice words to say. I'll say this.

I've got a way to code this. I think Woodruff's pretty talented. Like, we've seen him in the playoffs a couple years now. He can pump it. I like him. The other guys, you come into a... And this is kind of what the brewers do.

You come into a series and you're like, okay, Houser Anderson Lindblum. Like, let's get this bread. And then you walk away and the Brewers took two, out of three and you say how did that happen? The bullpen in the hand. And Brett Anderson went six innings with two strikeouts and they had a lead and they gave it to the bullpen. And, you know, they've got four or five guys I like in the bullpen, maybe even more like a guy like Alex Claudio, he's buried and that's a dude

who's pitched pretty well before. So the starting pitching doesn't scare you, but at the same time, it's not terrible. Like you can't circle any of those guys and be like, game on. Like, Lauer's the five and he was good. in San Diego. Or he was solid. Like all of these guys are just okay. Like you'd feel bad with them in a playoff spot. But going into like a four-game set, you know, the brewers are going to brew her, man.

Hey, you're more, I think you're more scared of everything else they do than they're starting pitching. I don't think you circle a win nor loss just by name recognition. I love that you referenced Claudio. I got to play with him in spring training with the Rangers. and he throws some sort of e-fish change-up submarine style from the left side. He was closing for a little bit. Yeah.

It's pretty fun. But I agree with you guys. You know, they're not going to win this year by their starting pitching. If it's good, that's going to make them a really good team. But they're going to win because they've bang and they have a good bullpen. And I think the most important thing that we've seen with the Brewers is how counsel's been able to manage the pitching staff. He can pull the strings the right way.

Like he's done that, which is, you know, it kind of gets annoying watching them play because he is making those changes all the damn time. But people are okay with it when you win. Why'd you just say, fuck. I kind of like the Brewers. Brewers are a good team. They're going to be in it. They're going to be in the division.

I just don't think like you look at the starting rotation and say, oh, that's scary. No. It's crazy that haters like this. Well, Yelich and then Hater is like the scariest dude on that team. Yeah. You're not scared of Bobby Wall? Watch out. That lineup, like, can be really deep.

There's a lot of, there's a lot of questions. Like is. Chavis. What's smoke going to give you good Justin Smoke or Matt Justin's? Matt, Justin. I mean, how many times have we seen Good Justin Smoke once? Can Narvaeas repeat what he did? I mean, great Justin Smoke.

Can Narvias do what he did last year? Sogard, the advanced numbers hate him, but he's a veteran. Arias is the big piece they trade for, and hey, maybe he's good, but I don't know. Speaking to Keston, and this is kind of off-subject here, you know, where I grew up, it's called the Santa Clarita Valley, Trevor Bowers from there. Smoke's been good, I apologize for that comment. Big game, James is from there. A lot of ballplayers come out, and then recently I'm just learning about these new guys.

Keston, a Valencia guy. Sanctrine Valley, Tyler Glass Now, once the same high school with Sharba. I didn't know these things and I should, it's like my hometown

I should know this stuff. But I became a much bigger Keston fan. One, because I learned that, and two, because Phil Hughes believes his cards, he's prospects Keston's cards.

He collects a lot of them because he thinks they're going to be worth a lot. So, kind of gives him a bump in my book, to be honest with you. Wow. He was a pump. Didn't he,

D.H. in college? and we looked that up last year. Keston here, we were like, where did he play in college? He was during the TPPs. Just raked. During the TPPs, we were trying to find out what position he played in college, and it was like he didn't.

Just hit. Just rake, baby. Just rake. Just rake. Yeah. They think a lot of Kestin, which they should. He was great last year. And all his, all of his baseball savant numbers, Jake, are, like, the way you want him,

kind of. Like, he's just, his Wobah's good, his barrens. Aero percentage is good. Hard hit. Rain Eater. You see Irvine guy? Got to love that. It's good.

It's good. Was that the last voicemount? One more voicemount. Here we go. Hey, how you doing, guys? Big fan. So I was calling the one, I'm wondering if some

a big player like movie bets hits 210 in these 60 games with three home runs. Do you think that's going to affect his contract negotiations in the all season? Go Reds. I don't think it's going to affect his contract more than COVID and the shutdown affected it. Yeah.

Which I think affected it a lot. We've talked about that. We've had a full discussion on that. But yeah. Are you, I mean, I don't know. He rakes. Gets. He gets injured.

He's going to get a ton of money. I don't think he's, I mean, I was going to say, like, if he gets injured, that's probably better than doing having a bad situation. 60 games for him. But I don't think they're going to put too much stock into the 60 games. He's got a body of work that's very impressive. Yes. That's what I was going to say.

He's put together enough that 60 games isn't going to hurt his free agency. But his free agency is 100% screwed because of COVID. Yeah. That's going to be one of the most interesting things to see. We've talked about what we think he's going to get. But we obviously have no clue. No clue. And there's other ways to measure things now.

Like I was looking at Mookie's two worst months last year. It would be like May and June. And he would have ended up with like OPS a little under 800, which, you know, obviously ain't Mooky Bet's numbers. But like his Babbat was really low and stuff. So I mean, I think Mookie's Mokey. Want to know a funny tidbit about, not funny, interesting tip about Moogie and his new teammate.

Chris Taylor? Chris Taylor. Chris Taylor was a slap hitter, and I was reading that book, Swing Kings by Jared Diamond, and Chris Taylor, like, you know, saw Justin Turner,

and he said he saw Mooky Betts hitting home runs, and he was like, that dude is skinny like me and shorter than me. How come he has power, and I don't? So he revolutionized his swing

and did the whole thing where he changed it, more still, Batpath, more in the zone early, dropping it back, before you go to get that whipy motion, and then he started pulling up 20 bombs a season.

And now I'm going to his teammate. I went to his, who now is the hitting coach of the Dodgers, Rob Van Skoyek. I went and hit with them for an offseason. And Chris was one of his guys. Yeah, that's what it is. Yeah, we kind of talked about him. And, yeah, he totally changed everything.

He kind of figured out how to use what they, is the kinetic chain, and really use. your body. A lot of times you're going to use one part of your body, whether it's your lower half, your upper half, but really getting it in sync can help guys a lot. He does a pretty cool thing if you watch him hit. Sometimes in the games even, all the time in batting practice, but sometimes in the game, he'll do a thing where he steps back with his right foot. So his back foot will step back. And that kind of is a feeling for him that gets him loaded up into his hip,

kind of makes him ground his heels in and really get his weight back up in and coiled. So it's just interesting to see because you don't see it too often. He'll take that step back and then get ready to swing. It's kind of cool, but definitely one of the guys that it helped out a ton going and seeing Rob. And that book's so interesting because it says like if you ask Arod to explain his swing, he'll just tell you a straight lie because he doesn't know what he's actually doing. A-Rod will tell you that he goes straight from here Knob of the bat to the ball

Which is how I was taught to swing as a kid Just to go here and then meet it at the T And the whole swing revolution is like You actually should start here I don't know if you can see me, Triv you should start here And your first move should be back Well most guys do go back Yeah but they don't know that they do it

Back in the day they were scared to give young kids a hitch Like that was the whole thing you're going to get a hitch in your swing. But all the best hitters do it. Like you can see him. And Justin Turner has the same thing. It's back. Pretty much everybody does that.

It's just knowing yourself and understanding what you're doing. Yeah. Well, besides, it changed with the astroturf error. Like Wade Boggs, Pete Rose, George Brett. Because they had the astroturf, they were swinging for ground balls because you could get extra base hits on ground pulse. And that Charlie Lau. The whole book is really interesting if you want to go read it,

but it's very interesting to see the swing. Yeah, Ted Williams wrote about that, and everyone just kind of was like, eh, that's not what you actually do, Ted? It's like, what? Yeah. It's crazy. Yeah, you hear that a lot.

We've talked about it, kind of like the old school guys, and them not wanting to give any credence to what's going on now and hitting. They just, they laugh at it and say, that's not what we did. And God, I hate hitting Twitter so much. I hate it so much. And I get a lot of it with,

with the sequence videos. a lot of guys commenting. But the, there are some guys that take the so-called swing revolution too far. But the guys that were really in it, the Rob Van Skoyeks, the Craig Wallenbrocks,

those guys, they know what the fuck they're talking about. These guys have been holed up in a cage looking at video day after day after day after day for years. I mean, Craig Wallenbrock is kind of the godfather of all this. The Oracle is what they said his nickname was.

He's been doing it forever. I mean, I went to a hitting lesson with him when I was like 11 years old. And he's been teaching the same thing. People used to kind of laugh at him back then. Probably should have kept going to him. It would have been nice. But definitely interesting, like you said, if people want something interesting to read, they're, it's fun.

It's all about like those coaches. Now, where they are and Aaron Judge is teacher man 98 or whatever, he's the one that gets in everyone's, everyone gets in fights with him. God, he's horrible. But, so everyone, Trev says that he is, like, gentle and kind and a softy when you meet him in person. But on the internet, because he had new ideas and everyone just told him how dumb he was, that he just flipped into a troll. And, like, if you told him he was dumb, he just was, like, ruthless. He's been kicked off, like, every message board.

But Aaron Judge flies him to New York whenever he feels like his swing is wrong. And they go to a batting cage. in Manhattan that's not affiliated with the Yankees because he's not allowed on Yankees stuff at midnight after games and we'll just go in there and hit and Judge pays for him to fly out on a flight like that. And, you know, he's like a crazy dude on Twitter. I've seen a lot of his stuff,

and I tell people this all the time, those guys are good for professional hitters. But teaching a lot of the stuff that they teach to younger people is not, I'm not okay with because I think they're not ready for those moves. Their bodies aren't developed. They don't have that. They don't have enough swings under their belt.

So you have to be able to establish a few key things. Essentially, like, your contact skill should be really good. And then, like, your hand eye and all that needs to, like, be built up. And then we can talk about these advanced moves that they're doing. But these guys, they're making a killing, man, because a lot of people, yeah, they have a few names. Like, he has judge. I know that I think Scottie King, Hingery also.

In Hap, but Hap didn't like it. It's not for everybody, and that's, you know, people have to realize that. But, yeah, these guys are on Twitter, my goodness, he's crazy. Yeah. If you want to see a feud, a hitting Twitter feud, it's him. And you said it's teacher man something. Yeah, something like that. And Tori Hunter, right?

Well, Tori just was in and out, but there's this one guy that's constantly, they go back and forth. And I don't know who the hell this guy is. His last name is Fry, F-R-Y-E. And this guy's like an idiot on the other side. Like he's like so old school, blah, blah, blah. And it's like, dude, it's okay if you just want to like collaborate me in the middle a little bit. But these guys are not about that life. Jeff Fry.

All they do is, I don't know. All they do is fight. And it just gets in my timeline every once in a while. And it's like, geez, man. Sounds fun. What a feud. Yeah, teacher man's crazy. You don't have to be a big league hitter to be a good hitting coach.

No, none of these guys are. I'm so mad about that. Dude, teacher man, I forget his real name, but how he learned how to teach the swing was for three years. He just tried to mimic Barry Bond's swing in his basement. He's just swung every day in his basement watching Barry Bonds and then watching his.

So he has Barry Bonds swing. He's 60-year-old fat guy with Barry Bonds swing. No, do not say that. Do you not say that he has Barry Bond swing? Well, whatever. He has the mechanics of Barry. He tries to emulate it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's, I think he does himself a disservice by him swinging all the time because it doesn't look very good. No, but Trev, his recruiting process and then we'll on the show is that he sets everyone up, puts a ball on a tee, like he put judge there, and they all got into like a ready position. And then he had someone blow a whistle, and he was like, I guarantee you I can beat you to the ball. And then they blow the whistle. and he beat every MLB player to the ball, would that work on you? Would you be like, how do you do that? It's a T who gives a shit.

Who gives a shit if you can get your barrel to the ball faster off a fucking T? I have a problem with a lot of these guys because we've talked about this before. The controlled environment thing is stupid. There's a lot of things you can do in a controlled environment that you can't do in the box.

So I'm not saying these guys don't know anything. They do. They pour their heart and soul into hitting. They understand the, the mechanics of that's that's just one part of hitting well go watch sequence to find out how players really think it's true boom all right thank you guys for listening thank you to everyone who called in we appreciate it we will see you later have a great weekend