Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - 177 | Marlins Outbreak & Suspension, New Extra-Inning Rule, and Foltynewicz DFA

Episode Date: July 29, 2020

The Marlins season has been suspended due to a virus outbreak within their locker room. Jomboy, Jake, and Trevor Plouffe try to break that situation down without getting too scared. The guys also discuss our first samples of the extra inning rule (18:35) along with the rather stunning decision by the Braves to DFA Mike Foltynewicz (28:45). You can also hear their live reactions to the news that the Marlins and Phillies' seasons have been suspended as the Yankees pivot towards playing in Baltimore (35:30). 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. The Marlins all have Corona and it's sad times and sadder times. But we're going to talk about it. Let's do it. What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to talking baseball. My name is Jimmy. Sitting next to me is Jake.

Trev is in California. As always, in BBD in the corner. And we are coming to you live from the Roosevelt Studios here in the Bronx, R-S-V-L-L-E-L. t s dot com is that their website i never say the website i think it makes sense but anyway welcome to talking baseball we hope you're doing well we hope you enjoyed three fantastic days of sports and baseball until you got the bad news which we will be covering but we're also going to talk about some actual gameplay and stuff like that as well we have trevor trev i need a lot of your insight on this stuff Jake, you get to go first, though.

How are you? I was going to say, I hope you didn't want my insight on this stuff. Yeah, man, just crazy to think about the last 48 hours and what I was feeling on Saturday. Saturday was kind of this euphoric sports day for me, and I was excited to be feeling that way for the rest of 2020. And now we're playing scared again. And rightfully so, you know, you hope the best for all the Marlins. We got news of more Marlins today, which is insane. you know, the NAD said they're not flying down there this weekend,

so we are going to need some decisions to be made. Meanwhile, we're still playing a lot of baseball elsewhere, some good action. And yeah, man, the first weekend was great. It's just that each morning there's just been a swift kick to the Nads with some COVID news. So that's where I'm at. Trav, how are you?

I'm doing great. You know, I, you got to think, we expected. stuff like this to happen. And I'm hoping that MLB expected stuff like this to happen. So hopefully there is some contingency plans that they've been talking about. And I think there are some things they can do. So I'm not as down as maybe a lot of other people are. So I think that's a positive for us.

Yeah. I mean, if anyone doesn't know, the Marlins had three or four people test positive. while they were playing their series against the Phillies, they decided as a team to keep playing and not alert the league and not alert officials and just say, you know, let's just play. I think Maddenling's quote was there was never a moment,

it was never a doubt whether we were playing or not. I don't know if that's Maddingly trying to pass blame up. Like we were never told to not play if this happens. Like, you know, no one explicitly told us or if that's madingly just being very dumbly honest. I don't know what that is. Then you find out that the Phillies who were playing against them were told. So at least the Marlins told the Phillies they had that much knowledge. Like, hey, we should probably let these guys know, though.

But now that I'm thinking about that shows like a weird balance of morality. And the Phillies knew that the Marlins had four players that tested positive. And they said, yeah, fuck it. Let's play. We want to play too. We got to get our wins in. Marlins end up winning. This is my take on this.

Hold on. Hold on. Like, they did know about four guys. They got tested positive. The thing is, the players shouldn't be making these decisions. Like, where are the medical experts there to help them out? Players want to play. It's all we ever talk about on this show. Like, they're going to want to play.

We need somebody. that is an expert in the medical field to be spearheading these decisions. And that to me is the thing that I think about the most. Like we, the Nats aired on the side of caution. They're saying we're not going down to Miami. That's good. But let's also have a medical director there on both sides. We need to have this in place for each team.

And if they don't have that already, which just seems like they don't, that's something they should address immediately. Like that's where I'm at with this whole thing. It's unreal. I mean, that was, the beatwriters were tweeting it out just as casual news. Like, Nat's, Nats players vote. They don't want to go to Miami. And it's like, what? Why are we still letting them vote? And, you know, that- Apparently the first report on that was wrong. They just suggested, they asked MLB, hey, we'd rather not go. Sure. Yeah. The decision lies with MLB at this point. They've said they don't want to go. Yeah, yeah.

And rightfully so. I think we would say that as well. But we're the doctors. Yeah. And that's what we're going to find out shortly is how are we going to address this? Because nobody, I mean, the Marlins, A, don't have a team right now, and B, nobody wants to play them. So what are we going to do there? The Phillies, and, I mean, is kind of a ricochet shot.

And, you know, this starts getting into testing and, you know, two to 14 days, blah, blah, blah, whatever you believe in. You know, the Phillies test came back negative, which, thank God, because if they didn't this morning, I mean, I think baseball would have been one step closer to hitting that nuclear button, whether that means a two-week timeout or whether that means canceling the season. So we'll see, but nobody wants to play the Phillies right now. I know they're scheduled to play the Yankees tomorrow.

They're supposed to get another round of test back, and if everything is clear, you know, and people are feeling confident enough at the medical. experts feel confident enough in the testing, then they should play and they should feel good about that. And that's the part that gets really hairy because I think people still believe some different things medically between how it can manifest and different things of that nature. So we are in it. We are in it and we'll see how people react. I mean, the most positive you can spin is that all the Marlins people get better and we hope the best for them and that maybe this is the warning shot, the rest of the league needed to see to kind of, you know, we saw dudes fist bump in and elbow in

after home runs. You know, what are we not seeing behind the scenes? I use cards as a reference before and maybe I'm wrong. Maybe guys aren't playing cards before the game, but I would bet that they still were. And I mean, guys are just doing stuff a little too normally that maybe this can be the wake-up call, but otherwise, I mean, it's scary. Yeah, I think even cards, it's just like being in the same room. Like being in the clubhouse without a mask is dumb. Yeah. They're all next to each other.

It's nuts. There's no way to do. I mean, if you ask you a medical expert trap, they're just going to say, don't do this. Yeah. So I think that's why maybe they'd rather ask the players because they want to play. And selfishly, we want them to play baseball too is a damn blast having them back out there. But there's no way to play and be safe unless it's a bubble plan.

And, you know, they did the three regions. Why didn't they just do it? giant bubble plan. They gambled that it wasn't going to get worse, and it spiked back up, and no one's taking it seriously in America at all, and that's going to be a problem, and whatever. I think what happened with the bubble plan

was that it came out at the wrong time. They proposed the Arizona, Texas, Florida bubble plan, and, you know, there's a couple of things the guys didn't like. One, like, they're probably going to have to be away from their families. And two, like, that was just at the time that all those states were

seeing a rise in cases. So it kind of got shut down really quickly. And guys and teams were like, well, I'd rather go play in my home city, which is faring better according to the numbers. And now all of a sudden, we're kind of seeing the opposite. So this whole thing has been fluid this entire time. In hindsight, the bubble plan is probably the best case scenario. And yeah, like if you're talking about the doctors are going to tell them not to play and the players are going to have to make the decision, like those are two horrible options. Like,

there's got to be something better than that. I don't know, man. Like the owners met up and they said, hey, we're just going to tighten up protocols. We're not going to cancel the season right now. I understand that. And maybe the players want to take it more seriously now because they understand what's at stake and all that.

What I don't, what I can't figure out is what do you do with the Marlins? Like, you know, the Yankees and the Marlins games, the Yankees and. talk better, Jimmy. The Yankees and the Phillies games got canceled because the Marlins were in Philadelphia and the Yankees trust be in Philadelphia after them.

And because the Phillies were all in contact with the Marlins. So the Phillies first round of tests all came back negative. If the second round comes back negative, then we're good to go and the Phillies can start playing. The Yankees start playing. I get that. The Marlins, 50% of their 30 man is tested positive. what do you do

like what what could possibly be the solution like just change them out with 15 minor leaguers doesn't make any sense that's the only thing they can do in the situation switch the other 30 guys they were

away get them up there like there's no other solution the other solution is like cancel the Marlin season but then like that leaves a whole like that's the only solution trap but that's kind of

crazy because if you're the Marlins, is that worth it? Is that arm loose or what? You got to use all the service time you don't want to use? Are the Marlins just going to fight that? Where's Joey Batts? Where's Trevor Pluth? You couldn't pay me enough money. Even if I was still good, you couldn't pay me enough money to go play right now. Yeah.

It's just, man. Crazy, man. And we talked about this, you know, on, as we're leading up to the season, And we said, once guys get out there and see how it's going on, or they might not like it. They might not like the way the season's set up and how they feel. Don't bet against more opt-outs coming soon. Well, and I think the bigger problem is I think they were liking the way it felt,

but a whole team then got it. You know, guys were having fun and hanging out in the dugout. And yeah, you know, hey, the starting pitchers are in the stands. That's funny. you know, two guys just hugged after a homer in the dugout. So I don't know, again, and that's kind of the, I think that's the other problem with this. You just land at a big, I don't know.

What do you do with the Marlins? God, I don't know. I mean, do you start forfeiting their games to teams until they could field a healthy squad? I mean, would that punishment also scare other teams to start taking this more seriously? That's bullshit for the NL Central and NL. West team's trying to get a wild card game. Sure.

Yeah, I don't think you could give a win. I don't think you can give a win. You can't do that. You could just exit off the schedule and see how the winning percentage plays out. But like I said, you have a 60 player pool. And we knew some guys were going to get tested positive. We didn't know 15 guys were, or 14, whatever it is. But you have the pool.

Yeah, it's there. That's kind of why they. They did it. Yeah. It's going to be very interesting how they figure it out. Right now they're trying to finish out, trying to keep going. So I did not shout out our new patrons at the start of the show. No.

I told you that we're coming from you from Roosevelt's studio. Yeah, a little, and I typed in roosevelt's.com slash Johnboy, and that brings us to a page about us. So that probably helps us if you went there, if you're going to check out a Roosevelt shirt. So we'll just do all the housekeeping there. Well, I'm going to keep up with houseke. We have so many new patrons that I love every single one of you. I'm going to save the second half of these for the voicemail episode,

which we're recording tomorrow. Call in leave a voicemail. What's the voicemail number, BPD? 917426-2796. Right off the brain. I like that. All right. This episode is brought to you by Austin Brown, Lucas Perea, Ben Philippi, Christopher Hartman,

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We got some people live and gals. We got some people live watching now. Yeah. Look at that. That's part of what you get with this. A little bonus pre-imposed show too. Yep. Cool.

All right. See something stupid. Corona's obviously terrible. Obviously everything hangs in the balance of the Marlon's situation. Let's move on to better and more fun things. I want to talk to you about a lot of the gameplay. I want to talk to you about the extra inning rule. I want to talk to you about the crowd noise.

I want to talk to you about you watching baseball. Is this the most baseball you've ever watched? That's the question I have. We've got to talk about Fulte getting DFA'd from the Braves. But first, I got to talk to you about draft kings who has decided they like what we're about. And they want to help out. So grab your peanuts and popcorn. Baseball is back, Jake.

That's right. The boys will be getting back out on the diamond this week. And while we may not be able to join them in the stadium, we can't. Illegal. There is plenty of action to be had from the comfort of your home. I actually watch games from an uncomfortable desk chair because I kind of work them. So that's kind of sucks. You watching from a comfortable place? Not yet.

I've been wanting to. Saturday was comfy day. Okay. Saturday was comfy day. What's your TV set up? It depends where I'm at. I have a nice little outdoor setup that I like. Oh, yeah.

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sports book for details. Gambling problem call 1-800 gambler. God, it's long. I asked him, Trev, when I said, can I speed read the disclaimer? And I think he didn't know what I meant. I thought I was joking. It was kind of like, I guess. Right. I'm a speed read it. Yeah. It's a lot, but I think there are some decent deals in there. If you're looking to get in a sports book, like, hey, why not use the code and reap the benefits? Helps us help you. Win some money. Go watch the pregame show. Find out who to bet on a home run. Jake and Trevor are doing well.

I'm doing awful. You know who's the best ping pong player I've ever seen? I'll give you two guys. One baseball, one non-baseball. Okay. Ryan Dozier. AJ Hardy was kind of like the champ of MLB. He was a hands team, all hands team.

And then this one's going to be fun for you guys. And you could imagine, as soon as I say his name, you're like, oh, that's probably right. Reggie Miller. Oh, yeah. Lanky. He's so long. As competitive as they come, too. Very competitive and talks a lot of stuff. A lot of that noise.

The O'Brien household, big winter ping pong household. Me and my dad and my brother. Every winter in Connecticut gets too cold to go outside, big ping pong turns into ping pong house when we were growing up. So that's good. I grew up with my sister and my mom, so I'd play ping pong against a wall. I'd put the table against the wall and just hit it back and forth to myself. It's fun playing with Jake because he's really. really good at defense, but he has no offensive abilities.

Never hit a winner in my life. So a little bit into my childhood. Speaking of. All right. Extra innings, Trev. The extra inning rule has been implemented. Now, we've seen it a good amount. Oakland did it. Otani got thrown out at third in the Angels game.

Cleveland had it happened with them. Who did Cleveland play? Cleveland played the Royals The Royals and they won The Royals won and they did exactly what Like you know people said it was going to be a sacrifice contest They sacrificed them over with a bun They then hit a line drive to sacrifice him in

And that was the game Clevenger went off on Twitter saying You know how hard it is to get a runner to second base Against the back end of these bullpens You're really just diminishing their skill You're putting them in bad spots And you know if money is tied to it In arbitration and free agency is tied to some of these

guys that that it doesn't give them an earned run yeah but it gives them a bad taste in their mouths which is a arbitration mental game they lean on that pretty bad mental game yeah i get where clever is coming from okay i get it but it's the game both teams got to do it and like honestly it's was crazy to me that it doesn't really make any sense to me that they're doing it but it is what it is and would we have heard from him if they won that game Probably not. No, or not in the fashion that it happened. When it does happen like that, that sucks.

No one wants to watch that. Yeah, and I think, you know, MLB has been thinking about this for a while. Jim's mentioned it. Like, I wouldn't be surprised if you see going forward the 12th inning or something or 11th inning in regular season games just to short it down a little bit. The only part that I feel bad about, because I'm with you, Treb. I mean, both teams get to play by the same rules. I do think it's a bigger advantage for the home team,

but I mean, maybe that's home field advantage this year because there's no fans or anything, so give them that. I just feel bad, especially at this part of the season, we've got 30-man rosters, we've got a lot of young guys, a lot of dudes with pitching limits. So, you know, when I go check out the Blue Jays and they signed Shun Yamaguchi, a guy who, you know, he came from overseas, I think he was a 14-year pro over there,

a four-time All-Star, and his MLB debut is with a runner on second and extra innings, and it was against the raise. He gives up a walk and then a triple to Kiermeier, game over. Welcome to the show. So situations like that suck. But I don't know. We're all playing by the same rules. It is what it is.

It's not going to be in the postseason. It's a weird year. Like look at everything that we just talked about for the first part of this show. So if that's your problem, I don't know. Get over it for this year. I understand if you're baseball traditionalist that it hurts your soul a little bit. And it should, but, I mean, if you can't do it this year, come on. I'm fine with this year.

I do, like, Trev, I want to get your thoughts on this. I think it's coming. Like, I think, and not in the 10th inning, but in the 12th inning, I think we're going to have this in baseball. I think fans are going to understand it and, like, be diluted by this season, which is kind of like what the players were fighting for with a lot of this stuff. Like, hey, I know you're saying one season only, but once you get it in here, you set the precedent. I think this will be part of baseball moving forward.

Maybe you start in the 12th inning and you do two innings of clean extra inning ball. But, you know, I think, I don't know how you feel. I know Derek Jeter came out and said, like, I hated extra innings. A lot of some other players said, like, you know, if we can erase those 15 inning games, that's great. And I think the stats back up that like while a lot of games go into extra innings, I think I'm going to butcher this. It was like 60 to 80 percent end in the 10th or the 11th inning. So if you're not affecting,

if you're only affecting 5% of games, but you're not going to kill rosters with 16 in the games. I think, I'm just trying to let people to prep yourself. So what do you think, Treve? Do you think that this is going to be implemented in baseball? I think there's definitely a possibility of it. We're going to see how it goes this year. I wouldn't like to start it right away.

The two-inning grace period is, if those are the statistics where you're saying, okay, most extra-ending games and in the first two endings, and yeah, we can cut off the 18-ending games, and it just kind of isn't affecting a lot of baseball games. I can see it.

Maybe you spice it up a little bit, though. Maybe you don't do the thing that you used to do in Little League. Like, let's do something cool. Like, we're the big leagues. Let's change it up. I don't know exactly what that is. someone in the chat said what if you just put them on first and not second well i don't know if that increases the scoring so much that it would make a big difference

but you know one of the cool things that i've heard um said and i don't know how much since this makes as far as speeding the game up but it's a cool thought process is that every other sport end of the game close game the ball is in the hand of your best player football two-minute drill, basketball, like obviously the ball's going to somebody, like your guy. Baseball's not the way. It's just happenstance. It's chance. Like, it would be cool to be able to choose who you want up.

That idea has been, MLB has been chewing that around for a little while because I think that is one of the fair arguments that you hear about baseball. I mean, you know, turn on a LeBron James Lakers game. You're going to see LeBron do what he does in the first minute. Like, you will. Aaron Judge, I'll use him for this example, go Yankees. You know, you could go an hour of the game without seeing him do anything. So I've been trying to mull over in my head how to make this work.

The rumor that's been going around is if your team is down bottom of the ninth, you get to use who you want, and that seems a little too gimmicky to me. Yeah. If we're talking about extra innings, and I told you both teams get to use their best guys, I know it's still gimmicky, but that's must-watch TV. You'd have to do this. Now, I have the stats here. 81.8% of extra inning games end by the 12th inning.

So all I request is you give me the 10th and 11th inning. Give me the 12th, too, of normal baseball. He wants it. I want it. A little greedy at the end. 100% give me the 10th and the 11th. Give me two of regular extra. three innings. The 12th, maybe you do a runner on second. Now, if it's still there in the 13th,

do whatever you want, but put a third column and give both teams a point like hockey does, and then it just becomes a show for the fans. And you do- So you're saying the 13th inning, it could decide the game, but if they end up tying, then just give them a-tum. No, once you hit the 13th inning, both teams get a point, like hockey does it. Like, once it goes to a shootout, both teams get a point, And then they just entertain the fans with a shootout for the second point. And you can do something as crazy as Jake's saying or put anyone up. Just give me the 10th and the 11th clean.

And then, and then, you know, if it goes to like you can put up any guy at any time, I don't think the team should get no credit at all for getting to the 13th. Yeah, we're kind of going long on this. But I think that a cohesion of those two ideas is kind of cool. You play the 10th and the 11th inning straight up. And that 12th inning put someone on first. first, whoever you want, and then put the guys at the plate that you want, and go for that. Sure.

I think that'd be fun. And after that, 13th inning, point. Again, baseball tradition is turn down your headphones right now. But, oh, my God, imagine a Yankees-Dodgers game where the Yanks could line up LaMayhew, Judge Stanton, and the Dodgers lineup, Betts, Belli, Munchy, whoever they want to. I mean, it is. Now do Cubs Cardinals. People say that we do Yankees too much as an example.

Okay, you line up Bryant, Rizzo, Schwarber, depending who's on the mound. Bias. Go to the Brewer. Baez. And then, yeah, you go Kane, Yelich, Hayura. Ron. Ron. You just need to have a point system, which baseball fans are going to refuse because it's so new.

But NHL's been doing it forever. It's crazy. You say point system, and I do get, like, a baseball heby-g-be, which I shouldn't. Yeah. I just, I understand not when needing, like, 14, 15, 16. So anyway, I think it hasn't been that bad. I think the Royals is the only example where it was like, ah, that was anti-climatic and boring, but whatever. Would you guys be opposed to just instead of messing with it at all, just expanding the rosters

to 30 guys throughout the season? Well, not throughout the season because the first series has sucked. Like you go look at the box score and everyone's using five relievers plus. I do think that's the one downside of it. I do. It sucks at the hitter, too. It sucks as a hitter, and I do think that sucks as a fan. Like, I'm with the higher-ups that, you know, when you get to September's and you're watching the Brewers and they're using 10 pitchers a game, as a fan, all those commercials, all that breaks, I 100% think it diminishes the entertainment quality.

So, no, I don't want that. But I've said, I've long said, like, if you go 15 innings, you get a guy. Like, you get a 26 man for the next game. You just have to declare them. You get to bring up an extra pitcher. and it's known across the league. There's ways to do it, but I don't want 30 guys all the time. The other spicy one I haven't fathomed with, because you're right, man.

The box scores and batters seeing a new pitcher every at bat kind of sucks. Like, that's, I'm sorry, it kind of sucks. I think someone submitted it earlier that when your pitcher gets pulled, do you lose the DH? Like, again, we're starting to get into some deep cut video game stuff there, but that would get fun, and it would make teams actually pitch pitch pitch, Mitchers. The other story is Fulte for the Braves. Shocking.

Now, I haven't talked about this twice where it came up because I was like, I want to have the full conversation about it. It's wild. His velo is down, like as 90, mid-90s usually. I think he's pumping low 90s right now. You got lit up. And Snitker's comments, or if anyone doesn't know, he got DFAed, like before the game even ended. I wonder if there's any I hate to put this on a guy if it's not true

but I wonder if there's any clubhouse Yeah yeah you know but if it's really not there I hate to put it on Fulte but I you wonder if there's any Disagreements in the culture in the clubhouse if he's been a problem You have to wonder with why they did this Snickers comments where we do not have time For his Velo to get back to where it needs to be for him to be good

We don't have time it's a 60 game season and we are win now. That's his message to the Braves. Like, we're not fucking around. We don't have time. I mean, it's going to suck if Ocuna keeps slumping and then keep starting him because what happened to not having time

to wait for guys to come around. So it's a weird mixed message, I think. If Fulte had a lot of friends in the room, I think he just pissed off the clubhouse. If Fulte didn't, maybe they get the message and they get the kick in the butt. Very weird.

No, I thought like maybe he was a free agent and his service time was ending. He had two more. years left. So like, you could a 60 day, you could have 60 day DLed him and said, dude, I think that's what happened. I think they wanted a 60 day deal him. And he was like, I'm fine. I'm not allowing you to do that. And they're like, your Velo's not there, dude. You're clearly not. Because Snitker's comment was also like, he says he's fine. The Velo's not there. Like, it is what it is. So in my head, maybe my Perry Mason brand, I'm watching Perry Mason and HBO now. I think maybe they wanted like,

hey, go on the 60-Dell and let's, 60-day, and let's figure out what's going on. And he said, no, then I missed the whole season. And they said, all right, bye. You know, the weird part of the story that I read was that the assistant general manager found him during the game and told him during the game. So going off your whatever thing, brain, you just said, I don't even know what that is. But going off what you just said, it might make sense. And we're kind of speculating here.

But like, maybe he did the AGM came and was like, look, man, like, we got a figure something out. Like, we're thinking about sending you down to the taxi squad and so you can figure things out. Yeah. And he might have said, hell no, you're not. Yeah. So that's something that could have happened. Let's not, let's just, that's a speculation.

But definitely interesting. An assistant general manager shouldn't be the one to tell you that you're getting designated for assignment. No. That's the weird thing to me. Yeah. The manager should be telling you that the GM should be telling you. Yeah, you know, it's weird. And he had some really good years last year and the year before.

Yeah, so he figured out towards the end of last year, he had that really nice playoff start against the Cardinals, I believe. But 2018, I mean, the dude was a true ace, a 285 ERA, 183 innings, 202 strikeouts, All-Star, finished eighth in the Cy Young voting. And again, that's 2018. So we're basically a season in a game removed from that, and they DFA him.

the V-Lo is big down. I mean, I remember in that game, in the St. Louis game last year, I mean, he was pumping 98 pretty easily, and I think his fastball sat at 91 the other day. So I don't know about the behind-the-scenes stuff again. I don't either. I was just doing Perry Mason guesswork. Exactly.

Like the Braves team as a whole could be, you know, very behind Fulte, or the Braves team could be, like, not behind Fulte. I mean, they were asking him if he's been hurt, he says he's not hurt at all, he feels great, they did strength test. I think the other factor in this, like Jim, you said the money shouldn't be a factor. At the same time, I mean, he's supposed to make six mil this year. I mean, you know, do the corona math on that. But because he was so good, I mean, he's getting a pretty decent payday for a younger player, at least. So I don't know.

I think the surprise is that they DFA'd him. I mean, if people aren't familiar with DFA, that means he's still around the organization for 10 days, I believe. So he's going to get traded. I mean, this is a guy who's a couple years removed. Look who Boston's rolling out for their starting pitchers. This is a guy who's going to get picked up, and they're going to get an asset for him.

I don't know if it's of any value or what it looks like. Probably not, but. Yeah, you think of teams that are good fits is every team. I mean, every team could use, if Fulte can get to what he is, And a team can allow him time. Every team. I'm sure every person, if you're on Twitter,

saw your beat rider say, don't be surprised if they show interest in Fulte. Yeah, because he's a season removed from being an ace, from being a one. So I don't know. I mean, Trevor, you're giving me the little head nod, like you're either jiving or you just don't believe it, or what are you thinking?

We don't know. Yeah. He's never a good peripherals. So that's something. Like his veto's way down. you know, could a team, do I see a team claiming him and putting him in their rotation,

which is what you have to do if you claim someone, or at least put him on the roster? Roster. You could claim him and then quickly DFA him again and then try to keep him in your player pool, but would, I mean, I just,

I don't know. I don't really see him. Yeah, maybe with the Red Sox, but like a contending team, I don't think so. 2018, his four-seamor averaged 96 miles per hour. 2019 it average 94 miles per hour. And in his one start, he threw 15 fastballs and they were average it at 90. And I guess to feed it into the behind the scenes a little bit, I mean, you know, I don't know the Braves full 30, man.

If you know, you know your Braves team more than I do, Braves fan, but, you know, they couldn't kick Fulte to the pen for a week. Like, I don't know. Your guess would be they addressed him with something. Yeah. It didn't. It wasn't a fun conversation. and then they just cut ties. That's your best guess,

and I hate to be doing that if it's wrong. So, but that is. We have breaking news, so I will play the breaking news sound. The Marlins season is officially paused. So for like a week, the Phillies are also unpaused, kind of. The Yankees are traveling to Baltimore

to play the Orioles. Both teams are just in waiting. The Marlins and Phillies would try to make up postpone games later. once they're back to healthy. I don't think this is 100% confirmed, but that's what Ken Rosenthal and everyone is treating. Phillies would return.

Phillies under this plan will return to play Friday against the Blue Jays at Citizen Bank Park as the visiting team under a previous plan due to the Jays inability to play in Canada. Team would be isolated until then, not technically quarantine. So... Okay. So the Yanks won't play tonight? No.

Okay. I think if once you tell players you're not playing, you can't. Right. Three hours later, be like, psych, you're playing again, and now you're playing Baltimore. So they're going to Baltimore to play the Orioles tomorrow. Nothing official. This is what everyone's saying.

And the Marlins season is paused, which I think means they're not going to play for a week and try to make them. Rosenthal. Rosenthal, and a lot of the Yankees beat riders are on it right now because the Yanks are involved. so that's what we've got to. Joel Sherman, yeah.

Yanks were scheduled to go from Philly to New York, but they're told to stay in their hotel rooms and not check out yet on the possibility of going to Baltimore. It's a crazy world. I mean, we mentioned this solution briefly on J.J.R. And it makes sense to a degree. If you've got two teams in the same group that can play pretty easily, make it happen.

Joe Girardi said, this is interesting. He said, I think we have to be really smart about this. Awesome thought. Yeah. I agree. I mean, we all agree with Joe there. Off the bat.

Okay. After thinking about it, I think this could happen more than this one time. Ooh. That's good that Joe came to that conclusion after thinking about a little bit, you know. If everybody doesn't play 60 games, I think that's all right. We want to get to the playoffs. How do you do that? Well, that's kind of Trevor mentioned it briefly, and Buster-only tweeted it the other day.

that win percentage might be the thing this year. And I believe they did it during the strike year or something along those lines. But for this season, if a team plays 55 games or 56 games, I think we kind of got to let that go. So that's kind of what that's saying. And then if it really becomes a tight situation again, like we're, you know, we can make whatever we need to happen this year. If you need to create a one-game playoff or something, just. Just do it.

So, I don't know. I'm kind of glad they're making moves. That's a biased Yankee fan wanting to see a Yankees baseball game, but... Caitlin McGrath just had a pretty good tweet. Okay. Which kind of puts America... Oh, boy. In the light, maybe we should be put right now.

It's grimy to even read this. Okay. Just to unpack this. a team that may have been exposed to COVID by another team that has lost half of its roster to COVID is going to isolate, then play another team who was barred from playing in its own country

because their government was concerned about MLB's plan. So I think Canada may be like, yeah, I think... Oh, if Twitter had a campaign. Canada right now. They'd be doing the McGregor walk. Yeah, I think Canada may be like, oh, you're welcome. Or like, hey, want to send us a plaque that said, you're right? I mean, this, the problem with this whole thing all along was just the no bubble, the coming and going from the ballpark.

And a huge swing and a miss that the Marlins just played. like I wish we could take that back and do the actual like what would have happened if they said hey three guys got tested let's sit today out I mean did you guys see the kind of what's been said about the Marlins and how it may have been contracted and this kind of goes along right where

sports are they all banging there are reports that some of the Marlins some of the Marlins players when they were in Atlanta in the preseason games visited a strip club. It just got like Lou Williams went to go get some wings. Maybe they were

trying to get some wings. But that's a report out there. So this we talked about the funny business. How was it going to be handled? It didn't get handled. I mean, funny business is what's going to stop this whole thing from working. Because they're not in a bubble. And even if you are in a bubble,

look at Lou Williams. You didn't care about the bubble. So this is all about guys like trying to get on board and doing it all. And there's just so many guys. miss it. You know who I know wasn't at that strip club? Miggy Row. He's got it.

No, but he wasn't at the strip club. Okay. He just got it from someone else. He got it from the guys. Miguel Rojas. He's my new favorite player that I know nothing about. Okay. Every time I see his highlights, I just like, I think I like this guy. Looks good. Team leader.

So, yeah. But I mean, he was like, don't go to the strip club, guys. I had a thought that, like, there was probably one dude in the clubhouse. When the Marlins were like, let's just play. He was like, maybe a young reliever. Like, I don't, guys. And they're like, you know, he got downvoted pretty quick.

And he probably wants to scream from the rooftops. Like, I fucking told you. You idiots. Miguel Ross, picture on baseball reference doesn't even look like him. So. All right. I don't know what season suspended means, but that's crazy. Just going to wait a week.

I don't know. I don't think they know. Nobody knows. You know what I think this tells us. MLB is dedicated to playing baseball and getting to the playoffs. Yeah. And they will. I know, but a lot of people don't.

I mean, read Twitter. Read, like, comments on this, on our YouTube channels. Like, a lot of people think the season is actually going to be canceled. I think everything MLB has said is like, fuck that. They want that. We know that the owners want that. The decision makers want there to be games, but there are just some things that. you can't wail into existence.

Like if there's, if this continues and then all of a sudden we get something back from the Phillies or a different team, like the optics are just too bad. They're just too bad. The optics have never been good though. So we'll see how those. I mean,

the guy crosses over into a whole different, and we're talking class action lawsuit type stuff if they continue to play when they know it's not safe to play. Yeah. Take that for whatever you think is safe. whatever, blah, blah, blah, don't matter.

We're talking legally. Are you responsible for an entire league of professional athletes playing and risking their health? I mean, they had them sign off on it. I think if you continue to go after stuff like this happens, there's got to be some sort of closet's like

you have to give us the best chance. Like, you know, like there's not just an, an iron clad, like if you played, no matter what we do as a as a business, you can't do anything. Like, that's not. I doubt they signed anything like that. Yeah. Get ready, NFL.

Get ready football. Yeah, right. This is all coming everywhere. All right. I think we're good. I think that's the end of the episode. We appreciate you. I mean, again, call in with voicemails the way that this season is going to go as long as we continue to have a season.

Monday and Friday, Jake and I will give you the series recaps. It's really just stats and news and who's hot and who's not. And we'll have this episode, Trevor's tidbits or just big roundtable discussions on the biggest stories of the week. And then voicemail episodes will be whatever stories we missed that you guys want us to discuss. So call in,

leave voicemails. And then tune into the pregame show Monday through Friday at around noon, 1230 every day. It's like a quick 20 to 30 minute show about you know, the games of the day. So we're bringing a lot of content in your way on talking baseball, and we appreciate you guys allowing us to do that. Well, that's just the tail end of the song, which isn't how that works.

Usually we start at the beginning of the song. And bam. There we go. How about that? Thanks, guys. See you later.