Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - 195 | Voicemails: Jacob deGrom, Player Development, and Celebrations

Episode Date: August 27, 2020

Jake, Plouffe, and Jomboy are answering your voicemails! Is it possible to still be impressed by Jacob deGrom? How will prospects bounce back from losing a year of development? Kyle Lewis is a stud! Clevinger is back up in the show! Who will win World Series MVP for the Tigers? Will individual player celebrations increase? What was Plouffe's college recruiting process like? 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.

What's going on, everybody, and welcome to the talking baseball voicemail episode. We got some calls. Padres and white socks are hot. Right now it's Jake and Trev. Scary. Let's do it. What is going on, everybody? Is that Jake?

You know it. You know it is. Right now it's Jake, Trev, and big baby. Don't turn it off. Don't turn it off. Please keep it going. Big Baby David behind the dish. John Boy should be joining us late.

see, we're full disclosure here. He's on a call with some lawyers. So hopefully he's not going to jail. We'll find out. No, we're all good. He'll probably hop in a little bit. But Trev, they kind of, what is this? This is like the baseball coaches.

All the coaches are out. Self run practice? I kind of like that. It's kind of nice. Let me write the lineup. Yeah. I'm going to manage and play. Love it.

Did the twins ever? do like fun days like that last game of the season get a little funky have some fun out there it happened quite often with us because usually we were out of the race come the end of september but yeah man we had some fun you know getting guys to play different positions kind of like what we're doing here the host yeah talking baseball jake's dory alley god so nervous never been this nervous in my life big baby david are you okay i know you've got some nerves over there a little bit first time I have to be in charge of the Bluetooth stuff. Oh, man.

Getting some extra buttons today. Okay. How about the day we've had already? And how about the day we've had so far? Scheduling issues. Link issues and now lawyer issues. We're probably done as a company. And when you look at this,

as we're about to get into the voice, the first voicemail, brought to you by Roosevelt so we're live in the Roosevelt studio RSVLTSS the great John Bino has returned to his chair we almost got there Trev

usually I would say that's a good thing some some law and order is coming but today the way Jim's been acting I think this might just go off the rails this is kind of like the inmates were running the prison

and then they let the Joker in he's he's on one today Well, hello Well, hello, everyone. Muted my mic. Just kicking me off. Anyway, how's everyone doing? Great.

Great. You didn't even get to a voicemail yet? We had a little bit of a technical difficulty. We played scared for a minute. Now we're here. So if you're ready. Let's just go straight into it. I got them, BPD.

Yeah, but I'm connected to the blue team. Oh, okay. You play the voicemail then. Hi, guys. It's Liam. I'm pulling. from Falkirk Scotland. I'm a big Metz fan.

I just wanted to give a quick call. They say, you know, great work, guys. I love everything you do, including, you know, your laugh in the past. And I just wanted to ask, how come no one's talking about DeGrom? Like, I understand the next stiffness, but, you know, he's hitting over 100 now in the gun

and he's still as dominant as ever. Do you guys reckon you win the third side of the end? Like, back to back to back? So take care, guys. Be safe. Bye. All right. Well, this guy DM me and said he loved our stuff, and he said, I called in. I hope BBD uses it.

We're from Scotland. And I said, well, BBD's got to use that if you're from Scotland. What was his name? I'm going to listen to the name again. Oh, you have it. Sorry. Hi, guys. It's Liam.

I'm phoning from Falkirk, Scotland. Liam. Liam. It's a great point, Liam. But it's also DeGrum. is so good and sometimes so good pitchers can get boring

when they're so goodness is like a speck of gold and a pile of shit. It's like, oh yeah, there's that speck of gold. Well, it's still there. We haven't got it out of the shit pile yet? Nah. What's the shit pile here?

The Metsy Mets. Ah. Like, Grom's pitching today. He'll probably, strikeout 10 and go seven innings and give up one earned run and the Mets will win. Maybe. Maybe. And then they're bad again.

It's a... You know what it's like? Trout. Yeah, Trout's a good example too. It's like sunsets. Like you see sunsets online, a bunch of pictures, highlights, if you will, and you're like, oh, it's a sunset. You see it in person. I'm a sunset.

Oh, okay. I like that. See it in person, it's a little different. If you saw DeGron person, be like, oh, my God, obviously there's Jacob DeGron, but he just keeps seeing the same thing over and over again. It's beautiful. But, man, I don't know. You just get fatigued, I guess.

You have DeGrom fatigue. He's so good. I'm not fatigued. It's just like it's trout in a way. He's better than everyone he faces. And I want to see him in the playoffs. But we won't. And I think that, was it the original Sy Young year where they just couldn't

win games and it was the big controversy, a pitcher, not winning games, could win the Cy Young, blah, blah, blah. I don't know. It's just, it's just become kind of unfortunate. The Mets lost both ends of a double header yesterday to the Marlins. So now DeGrom's out there to try to salvage the series. If they don't get it, which they very well could and it's not on DeGrom, like, you know, the Mets season is falling apart.

Like, there's no reason to be excited about the Mets right now. and that falls on DeGrom. I'm looking at his Cy Young year. He had 10 wins. Yeah. And then 11. And then 11. Also, I don't know if this is an ad for baseball reference or it's against them.

Using baseball reference when you don't pay for it is the biggest headache. They've put too many ads. It's unusable. And it makes me so mad. And they log me out sometimes. And it pisses me off. So there's a little side rant. DeGrom's so good.

I mean, he hasn't had an ERA over three since 2017. Last 69 starts, B.BD. Nice. 204 ERA. It's pretty good. 204. That's nuts. That's over the past three seasons now.

It has gotten boring that it's so good. Unless he was on a playoff team and we'd say, this is incredible. Or they were winning. Like, Cole with Astros last year. he won 16 in a row. It was like, holy shit. Like, you know. They went to the World Series.

Game 7. Rob Dobson said something rude in the patron chat. He said, pitchers are irrelevant until they crack imaginary beers after giving up four runs. Rob Dobson. What are you talking about? I don't know who he's talking about. But, uh, Boomer Wells. Yeah.

Good question. Why doesn't DeGrom get more love? I think he got two years of, like, the most love you can give a pitcher. And then we all just kind of sank in our seats and was like, okay, well, he's going to keep doing that. Is he kind of like good looking too, right? He is. He's got like good hair. Not bad looking. And he's in New York. And yeah, it's like, you guys would know better than I do. Like, how is he in New York? He's obviously Harold did, but like. He needs to either be a little hotter or a little uglier.

I don't think he is like star star, like commercial on billboard star, which I think he could and should be. He probably doesn't want to. Nobody in baseball is. That's the problem. Judges. But David Ross has a champion commercial. Saying like judges all over billboards right now. Why does David Ross have commercials and DeGrom doesn't?

David Ross wants to market himself. Two-time. He hired a good marketing firm. Coolest thing about DeGrom has started as a shortstop. Yes. I love like the catchers converting shortstop. Shortstop converting is awesome. You think you're a better shortstop than him?

Yeah, I mean, I made it to the show. Yeah. Defensively. Yeah, I made it to the show. What if DeGroms really get a short? He just couldn't hit. I don't judge the bushes, bro. It's not who I am.

You know, I'm a baseball snob. I don't judge the bushes. Bro. It's a good quote, Trev. I like that quote. Show him your shirt, Treve. I told you. I told you, Jake.

Trev broed out for me today. What's the shirt? You got the Trojans hat. What's the shirt you got on? So, dude. Nice. Trojan hat. I needed to change my vibe up from this morning.

I was getting to, I think I was like a little angry Trev this morning. So I brought out. Is Suddud from Simi Valley boys, Jimmy Tatro and that gang? I think one of the guys had it before. One of the guys is actually on the show had it. That's what I'm saying. He started it. Yeah, yeah.

Well, we met Jimmy Tatro. He had a huge apple right in her face, size of Jake's head. What's the next voicemail? Speak careful. Hey, it's James in Minnesota, originally from the UK, and I'm just wondering about player development. I was looking at the twin 60-man roster, and I saw that those not on the 40-man, there's only about 6 on the 25. And I just wonder if we're actually at risk of kind of having a bit of a lost generation in baseball who have lost this whole year of development time. I don't know whether anyone not on that alternate training site roster is going to be at the spring training sites or whether even not playing regular baseball can even develop you in that way.

It's really interested to see what all you guys have to say. Jake sucks. Peace. I mean, what's going on? We just global? Are we global podcasts? We got people on the other side of the pond. I like knowing that Jake sucks.

I really liked his question. Where was this guy from? He's from Minnesota. Hey, strange in Minnesota, originally from the UK. In Minnesota. Not from Minnesota. We did a whole long episode on this when they were contracting the minor leagues, and we talked about this at length,

and then over the course when we were a labor dispute pod, we gave a lot of time to this, but, you know, that was six months ago or so now. So yes, there is lost development. Like it doesn't just hit major leagues. It's not that we don't have double A and triple A and single A. We also don't have kids playing college baseball. We didn't have kids playing their senior year of high school.

They didn't get drafted to go to the minor leagues. The Jukos may have tons of guys now. So, but it's also not baseball. It's just kind of sports in general. the professional level of baseball is different, but when you take it to the youth level, that's like everywhere. Whole world took off sports for a little bit.

My cousin's playing now. The minor leagues get hit bad. And it sucks. Like, I don't know, have we even heard stories from, like, minor leaguers? I got guys reaching out to me wanting to hit. You know, they don't have a lot of options here. I mean, your options are to find a facility and work out

and hitting the cage. You probably find live A-Bs. on a backfield somewhere, if you have a buddy that's trying to throw bullpens, you can stand in, all of that stuff. But you can't replicate the four, 500 plate appearances these guys are going to miss. And you need that. You need a set amount of plate appearances for most people. And I've heard that number 2,000, 2,500, something like that.

Obviously, there's guys that get to the big leagues faster without that, but it's going to be tough. So during the break, Jake, we heard about Cressy's underground baseball league with Scherzer and Stanton. Was Gioledo there? I forget. There was a lot of guys there. And they played underground games. They organized games.

They played against each other. Do you think there's somewhere like in L.A. All these minor league guys? But like I'm saying like organized organized. Like Team Blue versus Team Red today, Team Blue's won the last four. I wouldn't say that organized. I mean, I think...

Better names probably. I think baseball players are finding a way to get together, like Trev was saying. If you got one guy that can throw and one guy that likes to swing the bat, I mean, you got something. So I think there's a lot of that going on. And the other thing is, you know,

life gives you apples, shum up your butt. But there's all of these training facilities now in places like that where, hey, if you're a guy, and unfortunately, like, this probably links into, you know, baseball's problem with integrating better, but there's a lot of these facilities now where you can still go in and pay to hit and they can, you know, get your bat speed, get your exit velo. You know, guys can still train hard and get better. Like, it's not like there's just going to be a missing generation of ball players.

At some point, some guys are going to get older and younger guys are going to come up. and I just think it's opportunity for dudes. Like, go get it. At some point we're going to be playing baseball again. And, you know, either get your V-Lo up if you're a pitcher, work on your spin rate, you know, throw into the barn, carry-wood style, you know. So I don't know.

I think there's opportunities out there. It sucks. I mean, again, we always jump to Yankees prospects. A guy we've heard about forever is Estevan Floriel. Supposed to be super-toolsy, you know, a five-tool talent, hasn't been able to play a lot of minor league games due to, injury. He's 22, 23 now. He's at the 60-man site. I mean, is he getting better every day playing those 60-man-site games? I don't even know. So I don't know. I just think it's, it kind of becomes

a personal thing. How hard are you going to train? What are you going to work on getting better? And then after all this is done, you know, eventually you do have to do it in a game. I if I was in this position I would try to find as many live A-Bs as I could probably hard to come by there's definitely some sort of organized groups getting together at these different facilities

there's a big one it used to be the IMG facility in Florida I don't I think Boris might even own it now and so there's definitely that stuff going on what's really interesting and you kind of brought this up Jake was that guys are going to be in the lab and we have all sorts of new technology and trains of thoughts on these processes, these training processes,

especially with hitting. What we're going to see next year is a test for all these guys because they're making a ton of money right now. Everyone's watching what these guys are doing. Well, you're going to be in the lab for that long. People are going to go do it, get comfortable with it in the cage. But then guess what? You've got to go to the games.

So when games do resume, it's going to be like, okay, let's see if this works. Because everybody's going to be doing stuff like this, and we'll see if it works. So this is a big opportunity for these guys, and if they end up winning out and stuff works, we'll see an even quicker progression into that type of training for baseball. But if it doesn't, I think a lot of people will be justified. It's also affecting trades right now. you think the minor league just going to suck Like everyone's going to come back next year

And all these like Like all the draft pricks That like you know All the draft picks that just got drafted or like Drafted out of all the Scouts are just going to be ripping them These guys we drafted last year Shock

I think you're I think bat to ball guys will do well You're just going to say I think you're going to see crazy fluctuation from all that You're going to hear about The fifth round pick who locked himself in his basement And all he did was lift and try to throw the ball harder, and now he hits a hunch easy,

and then you're going to hear, you know, the top prospect who had too many Doritos, and now he doesn't look so hot. You know what you're going to hear? You know what you're going to hear? You're going to hear the guy, they ask him, how'd you get your swing, how'd you keep it steady and all that stuff? And they're like, well, my brother played some ball. He couldn't throw hard.

He started pitching to me all summer. By the end of the summer, he was hitting 90 on the gun. Now that guys get signed. A lot of workout partners going to get signed. Started watching sequence with Trevor Plouffe. Now I know how hitters and pitchers think better. It helped me elevate my game. Throw the ball on the roof of the garage.

It rolls down. It hits the gutter, flips up a tiny bit, and then a little practice swing, Artie Lang style. Do you want to know what's funny about that? Is that Joe Mower in his basement had a contraption just like that called the Joe Mauer Quick Swing. They invented it as kids and ended up turning it into a hitting tool. Well, Arty Lang invented that on this movie Beer League. And which one was a better hitter, Treves?

All right. Next voice, Mal. Hey, John Boy. Calling in here from Washington State, big Mariners fan. Feels like Kyle Lewis is having a good year. I don't know how much this will last for. He just seems to strike out a little bit. But one guy I'm excited about is Dylan Moore.

seemed to hit the ball hard. He's putting up a decent little season for himself, and no one's really talking about him. Thanks, guys. Keep up the good work. Jake, aren't you always talking about Dylan Moore? I can't stop talking about Dylan Moore. Unfortunately, it looks like he went to the I.L. With the sprained wrist.

Oh, yeah, he's fine, though. About a week ago, so sorry about that. Sorry if that call brings up some bad memories. I'll talk some Seattle for a little bit. As of right now, they have the second longest win streak, in baseball. Their team record still is pretty bad. But I saw Trev, your guy, J.P. Crawford, whenever we talk about them,

he had a big game the other day. What is the win streak? I think four. It's four. Yeah, I mean, nothing crazy. When you say second long, you dressed, you buttered that out pretty nice. You got to dress it up, baby. That's all daddy does. Kyle Lewis has absolutely been raking. Don't get mad at strikeouts. It's not

1974. Kyle Lewis is doing literally everything else. So, be it. excited about Kyle Lewis and this is what we're telling you about this year. Like, yes, you're not calling up Kellanick and Julio Rodriguez, who's their number one prospect. They called up Evan White, who's the guy they paid before he played. He got off to a brutal start. I think he's starting to fight back a little bit.

But I think the other bright spot is Austin Nola. Aaron Nola's big bro, who didn't get the call until last year, he's been playing really well. He's kind of locked down the catcher spot for them. He can also play everywhere else. So Kyle Lewis looks like a future piece, and that's what was part of this season. So is J.P. Crawford. Austin Nola feels like the feel-good story. Sorry that you called probably before Dylan Moore got hurt.

Demo. What's Kyle Lewis's story? You know how I know Kyle Lewis is good? His numbers? His stats? Yes, his numbers. But also because people are buying his baseball cards at a rapid base. That's kind of how I do a prospect watch nowadays.

I tune into Phil's polls and see who people are buying. Phil's got a video. He's a guy. He's got a video coming out soon, so just be on the lookout for that. He just tweeted it. Kyle Lewis is 24 years old. What's his story? He went to Mercer College.

He's 25. First round pick? Well, he's baseball reference says he's 24. Did he just have a birthday? July 13th. 44 days ago. July 13th. So that this counts as a.

his 24th year. It's 24th season. It's a weird cutoff. It's a weird system. Yeah, I don't know how they do it. Leading the league in runs, leading the league in batting average, and leading the league on base. So it's not like he's just swinging and it's getting in play.

Like he has an approach at the plate. Former first round pick, get excited about him. I have something to say. Sure. And it's going to build off what you said earlier. Okay. To the caller. Sorry we're not talking about Dylan Moore.

He got hurt. Yeah. and we're just going to focus on this. Take that strikeouts line out of your sentence when you describe Kyle Lewis. He's leading the league at on base percentage. Who fucking cares about strikeouts? If those were singles, if those were groundouts to second, would you really care that differently?

He's leading the league in on base percentage. And he's a center fielder. Like, that's sexy. It sucks that he's coming with a, Well, but he is strike. Like, no. Yeah. Take that out and just brag about him.

Don't care, yeah. All right. Next voice, ma'all. Get Austin Nola to the Phillies so he can throw to him? Jake, I'm a Cubs fan from Texas. But I actually had a proposed trade. I want to know where Clevenger's going to go if he does go somewhere. I don't think that he would go to the Yankees because I think the Indians have a chance to contend now

that they wouldn't get dissent fender. So what do you guys think about Atlanta since they need some starting rotation help? Maybe like Clevenger for Ozuna and get a bat in for Cleveland because they need some offensive firepower. Ozuna's on an expiring contract. Just curious, but love the show, guys.

Jake sucks. I'm a Jake also, and I also suck. Solidarity. All right, so Clev gets called back up. I think he's the biggest name being talked about traded that won't get traded. But who knows? I've been wrong before, and I don't really speak from a place of authority. But here are my thoughts.

Cleve's got two more years, 2021 and 2022. I don't see them trading him in the middle of the year. If they want to part with him this off season, he is going to get one of your top prospects. The Yankees' top prospect is probably Clark Schmidt, well, besides the Martian, like almost ready to play. They're not going to trade for need. They're going to trade for top prospect. Like if they trade Clevenger, they're looking at all the ones and twos from every team that's offering pieces and making sure they get back a top one or two prospects from that league.

So I don't think the Yankees have enough to offer for Cleve. he would bring back a haul. Is he like, is he being talked about as being traded? Like, what's the reasoning here? Dude, because this is, it's hot because of Bauer last year. And the Indians, you know, can, can, they're one of the few teams that have a strength of pitching. So they can essentially trade from a strong position, not have to play, pay Cleve, and have someone like Tristan McKenzie or Plyssack or someone like that

fill the void and then potentially get more affordable talent. So that's where the rumors are. They're just paying him in arbitration. So like it's almost a fixed kind of raise, especially this year. And then you have two more years of control. It just doesn't seem like the opportune time to trade him anyway. I agree. Clevenger's really good.

Like another year or two. Like, you know. Yeah. He's really good. his last three years, 2017 to 2019, he has a 153 ERA plus and 296 ERA. Three years combined. 74 starts, 296. Club's real good.

I will say this. He's going to get a haul if you get him for two seasons. If they don't like them, like if there's something within the organization, they're like, no, man. like we don't we don't like it then then yeah but that was kind of what happened with bower a little bit obviously he was expiring his you know he's going to be a free agent but obviously the infamous throw in kansas city i think he was traded what a couple days after that yeah i mean deadline was around there but i mean the return's just going to be big if they want to move them the return

would have to be big i don't think they're going to trade for needs they're just going to trade for what's the best value we can get? And there is, you know, there is an idea around it. Because, I mean, again, it goes back to the Cleveland Indians. Bieber, Carasco, Savali, Plesack, Plutco, they called up McKenzie. Like, again, they could still fill out a rotation without Cleve. So if they could get impact talent now, because right now the infield stacked, the outfield is weak.

They sent down our guy Mercado. He was struggling. So right now, some of their outfield offensive stats are bad. So if you could get a couple impact ready to go outfielders, you know, lengthen your lineup, you still got the rotation parts. There's a world where it makes sense. I don't know. But I think the other thing that's funny that's spinning through my head is we,

earlier today we gave the Indians a little bit of credit for Colin Cleve up before his free agency would extend. if he gets traded, I believe if he goes to another team, they don't have to activate him for 10 days, which would that delay his service time? No, you would still get that service time, but they have the option to option him again. Which would be hilarious.

Welcome to the squad. See you in five days. But even then. He has options, so yeah. If, yeah. I mean, so. That's something right. I don't know.

To answer the voicemail, I don't know the top prospects around the league. I don't know who the Braves minor leaguers are. Like, you know, and if they're better than what the Yankees, I don't think can afford them. I don't think their systems deep enough or good enough right now. Honestly, I kind of like the idea of the Indians trading him for a bat and then bringing in like another outfield bat and Pilar and then just going for it. Well, and they just get, bring Pueig back. Yeah.

He has it last year. He has a fucking play. dude. Treve. Born to play, Treve. Born to play. I believe that, man, but these guys, they want to go. I guess they know they're going to be in the playoffs, so give them 15 games.

Imagine if you did a Pueger-Pilar poll to, like, baseball Twitter. What would have come back, 90-10? Well, dude. I know that's just, I'm saying the joke of that would be fan voting, but. Yeah. Won't they trade for Pilar and JBJ? And then. They want some offense.

No, they don't want offense. They don't want offense. No one does. Okay. What's Polar doing? I know he's playing well in center, but. He was hitting some. Wasn't he an under on the preseason show this year?

He is hitting at the 100 OPS plus, though. He's perfectly league average. What was his line? I forget. I forget. We got to go back and check all that stuff. I had moves at two. 555. I know that.

And I think he's under that. He'll get it going to. I think they said Pilar was going to hit 270. And I was like he's never done that. Yeah. So he's at 265 right now. And Moose is hitting 200. On now, Moose. Come on out, Moose. I had Goldschmidt. He's hitting 344. Not a big deal.

Nice. You got him as what? I think it was like 275. Yeah, it was. Some of those were really bad. It was Pilar over under 270. So it's the under. And everyone's saying he's hit. really well.

Yeah, he's been playing well. He had a hot start. It's a fishy line. Fishy. A lot of fishy lines. Swimming. Hey guys, my name is Jonathan. I'm calling out of Ventura, California.

I'm a Dodgers fan. My question to you guys is, with it being the short season and all, and, you know, they're doing the divisions where West only sees West and Central only C's Central. When it comes to the playoffs, how big of a deal or big of a factor is going to be that some of these teams have not seen each other at all because they have not been able to, you know, play other divisions and such. So I don't know if that's a big deal, big factor or not. And yeah, thanks. Let me know.

Bye. Yeah. Thank you for calling from Ventura. First place you ever dropped acid, Trev? I've taken mushrooms close to Ventura. Oxnard is the neighboring town. So that was fun. Ox what?

Oxnart. I like Ventura. It's a great place. Me too. This is a great question. Trev, I throw it to you. My guess is it would help pitchers, like good pitchers, facing a lineup that hasn't seen them yet this season.

But, I mean, how does this work for you? I think it's exactly how you said. I was going to kind of keep that to myself until playoffs came around, sprinkled some bets around the league. But the pitching staffs, I feel like, are going to be at a complete advantage. playoff time. I mean, if you see

DeGrom once, probably going to have a tough time with them. But if you've seen him four or five times, like, you've got a chance. At least you have that confidence stepping into the box. Like, oh, I've seen this guy a lot. I mean, that's just kind of common sense

if you think about stepping in a box. You haven't seen what this guy's shape is, you know, how his pitches are breaking, that speed is it getting on you, all of that? And yet the Yankees open. opened up with three homers against Ian Anderson yesterday. Wow. Game happens in a few minutes.

Do you think, okay, playing off of that ploof, could you see? Because I first jumped to the specialty guys you see in a series. Like, if you've got a guy that comes in for lefties or righties, you know, by the time game 5, 6, 7 rolls around, you've seen them. They're relievers. They're kind of one-trick ponies. But I then jump to, like, young guys. If you've seen a veteran pitcher before, even if it's not this season, say it's Taka, I don't know.

But then you come up against a young guy who's had a solid year, but your team's never seen them. I don't know. You only get one game. It could be a three-game set to start the year. So is that something? I have no idea. I think that's situational. It depends who the veteran is or who the rookie is.

I do think we'll see an influx of young guys in the bullpen. And that kind of happens in the playoffs quite a bit. But I think that to your point, yeah, like, you know, if you haven't seen someone, you're going to be at a disadvantage. So you get these guys up here that are young, just throwing cheese. I mean, look at Tristan McKenzie coming up. That guy looks like a difference maker. All arms and legs.

He just absolutely gassed up, Miguel Cabrera. Yeah, I know it's 2020 McGill, but still. Like, it's, how tall is Tristan McKenzie? Six, five? Plays taller? Limbs. Mm, yeah.

What's the next voicemail? Hey, this is Matt, calling from Michigan. Detroit Tigers fan here. I don't know if you saw, but my Tigers just beat the Cleveland Indians for the first time since April 2019. So I was just calling to see who you guys think our World Series MVP is going to be when we take home the trophy this year. Thanks, guys.

Austin Romine. Next question. Do not sleep. Tiger's MVP of the World Series. Don't sleep on them. Who's the MVP of the team right now? Jacoby Jones? There's been some good pitching performances.

Spencer Turnbull with the highest war, technically. Scope in second place? Scope. I always liked that guy. You did? Yeah. Okay. He's had a couple big years, man.

I mean, dude, 2017 in Baltimore, 32 homers. 841 OPS. Yes. A little behind the scenes info on scope. He signed one of those deals where he got upfront payment for a portion of his future earnings. Not many people, I mean, people did it,

but not many people do that anymore. So it's kind of an interesting little company. So he's not earning a lot of what he's making. How about that? Yeah. Similar batters, according to baseball reference, Earl Williams. Oh. And Ruff Ned O'Dore.

Mm. Tough comp. The baseball reference page, Jake said this the other day. But like with all the tigers wearing turtlenecks and hats, and it's just like a row of faces. Yeah. It's real, like, it seems like some trick mirror shit. Go to the Tiger's baseball reference page and just look at all those faces, just looking at you.

Just so different. They're all kind of the same, but different. We all came from the same organisms, man. Well, it depends on what you believe. Do they have the worst uniforms in Major League Baseball? Jim's a traditionalist. No. And the Marlins might.

Those Marlins' uniforms are really bad. but what are the diamondbacks wearing these days they're always in yeah those are pretty bad they're always in contention for worst uniforms it's the belt loops we've talked about the belt loops before with detroit and then yeah the mock turtle in the picture i don't know man diamondbacks aren't awful i hate that says dbacks is they're the diamond backs hate hate hate uh i use that word pretty loosely i like the tiger's uniforms i don't like their away uniforms That's as boring as it gets.

Do you have a least favorite, like off the top of your head? Jake does. My brain doesn't interpret stuff like that, so no. Like, I just see a uniform. The Marlin's uniforms, I think, now that I've given it some thought are probably the worst. Well, according to Insidehook.com, they've ranked, they have a definitive ranking of all the uniforms. and they have the Cardinals as the one, which I disagree with.

Because once you notice, once you notice that the sea kind of looks like a snake, that the bird is holding in his claws, it's all you can see. And then once you notice that the birds are far more separate than they should be, if you focus on the birds and the sea, it becomes a weird uniform.

So I'm out on that. A's. I like the A's uniforms. Cubs. I like the Phillies. Dodgers. They have the Tigers as six, Trev, and this is inside hook, and that's a fisher. I kind of like the Marlins.

They have the Marlins as the worst. But, Jake, that is a uniform you'd like. Right? Do you even know this one? What's their colors? Tell me what their colors are. I think that's bad, but I think that you would like it. That's clean.

What are their colors? White, orange, and some sort of aqua teal. The one I'm looking. at is white jersey blue letters with a like a pink slash blue outline on the letters and numbers it's just not good hashtag fire emojis

inside hook I agree with them they have the the Rockies and the Diamondbacks is 25 and 26 I don't inside hook I don't like those Rockies are pretty bad it's all the new teams Rockies are bad uniforms they're bad what's a new team you like the Ray's whites I like those and the Ray's white pants, baby blue tops, I like those.

I don't mind the Rangers new stuff. It's kind of grown on me. Still classic. Padres were always gross, now they're better. I like the new Brewers logo Unis. We need a purple and gold in the big weeks. We don't have a purple and gold. What's the next voicemail?

What's up, John Boy, Jake, Trev, BD. So I just saw the video of Trevor Bauer chugging a fake beer after he made that strike out that past semi-gray or whatever it got me thinking like he's been doing all these great like these cool celebrations you know like a ton of mdegger thing and um you think baseball will ever get to like a like a player first instead of a team first mentality like i know a couple years back when football changed it to where they can do group celebrations now they have like rankings on which team has the best celebration it's a cool thing to see you know i know a few years ago like each team has their own thing like the Yankees had the thumbs down thing a few years ago

and the Nats had like a little baby shark last year. But like I want to see more like individual like players celebrated celebrations. Do you think baseball will ever get there? All right. Thanks, guys. Love the show. Bye. A lot of thoughts running through my head.

This is kind of what we've stumbled upon, but this caller gave it better words. I think that is what Bauer's doing. He's creating Trevor Bauer fans. He's not creating Reds fans, which is fine. But that's not what I like in players. So I said this. If he was a Yankee and he did the beer chug thing and then lost the game and the team lost, like as a Yankee fan, I'd much rather, I'd be much more mad than happy for Trevor

Bauer. But maybe it's a good thing that he's creating fans of individual players. players because baseball doesn't have that. So those are all my thoughts. Trev, you played the game. Yeah, I think I don't have a problem with what he's doing, honestly. You know my take on it. Just continue to do it. You know, if that's your thing, let it be your thing. But, you know, when things aren't going your way, like continue, because then it's kind of a bad look. I also think that unlike other sports, and I guess football is... You can't dominate.

I got one player can. I mean, I feel like Lamar Jackson dominated. Patrick Mahomes can dominate a football game. You can't dominate a baseball game or a baseball season with one player. We've seen that with Mike Trout, Jacob de Grom. You know, so I'm all for the celebrations. I don't think it'll become mainstream anytime soon. But as we adopt the bat flips and stuff like that, I'm sure there's some rankings out there of those.

I think it'll move on to other defense. to play, strikeout, stuff like that. And as long as you're doing them for you and not directing them right at somebody and it's not personal, I'm okay with it. I think it's fun. I think team stuff has already kind of gotten there. Like if you're a baseball team this year, week one, you're figuring out what's our thing. That's been around forever.

Yeah, and you almost need it. There's energy to get through the season every time you get a hit, do something fun. And, you know, I think that stuff can spread when it's good. I mean, the Texas Rangers antler thing like that, they went nuts with that. That was fun. I think they did antlers a couple years before that. I like the claw. That was fun.

Claw's always good. And, you know, we see stuff in the dugouts. The Padres are dancing this year. Even the old men nationals were getting weird with it in the dugout, which was a good time. So I think you're seeing more of that. What about this one? Yeah. Closures have had them forever.

That's what I'm saying. I think we need more individual stuff. We were talking on here earlier this week about how Tim Anderson has that cool backpedal home run thing. Like, more guys should have their own thing. Even if it's like running a little silly around the bases, but think that starts getting into the unwritten rule stuff. Like, did he just do a silly run between second and third? I'm going to put one in his ear.

Maybe throw a baseball up there too. So I don't know. Who's that? We just need more. We need more guys doing stuff. the Yankees have started to do it more with guys running around third. And Carlo takes the football handoff if he hits a home run. Judge does the gavel.

Guys should have more of that stuff. Like have your individual. Soto shuffle in the chat. Things you do. Like, you know, make your own brand. Yeah. I like that. They're around the league.

I think Bowers just been much more vocal about them and brands them and markets it as much as he can. So that's why his is kind of coming out and being like, this is the one. Wolf Babe got it. The cross was Brian Wilson. Yeah. So closures have had it forever. The shooting into the thing.

Do you remember when, was that Rodney? I think it was Rodney, yeah. He would shoot it into the sky. And then remember that Johnny Goams hit like a home run off him and he unloaded the quiver? Remember?

Like all the arrows that were in that thing? That's great. I was like, that was cool. That's great content. Mariano used to just boringly shake Passada's hand after every single close. Have a boring signature.

We're fine. It had a signature handshake. All fingers spread. Hmm. I like that. Yeah. So, okay, we answered it.

Have fun. Yeah. One more call. How many calls we have left? This is the last one. Good. Two minutes away from game time. Hey, fellas.

How's it going? Just want to say Jake sucks. Hell of you. This is Zach from Dallas. I am a Seattle Mariners fan. kind of a funny story. But anyways, this question is actually for Trevor. I'm kind of curious what it's like being a high school draft choice.

You know, being here in Texas, you have a lot of high school athletes who are getting visited by all the college recruiters, and sometimes the school will make a big deal, and especially when a head coach comes to visit that player. I'm kind of curious to know, were any scouts actually visiting you at school, anybody involved in those pro organizations just kind of how did the process go while you were physically still in high school not summer ball with your travel team

actually during the school year thanks guys and uh go M's but I say that with some sadness from being honest well they have the second longest winning streak in all of baseball so one two I don't get why you're just asking Trevor this question but I

will let you answer Trev because this guy wants you three I think this guy's trying to become a recruiter and wants to know how he does it. There's some kid in his Texas town. That's just awesome. He's like, how do I, I want to be this guy's agent. All right. I mean, I honestly don't even know where to start.

Look, like, obviously it's a lot different. What's it like being a hot shot, sucking face in the school hallways, hitting home runs? Drum queen, yeah. Oh, bag of money to go to USC. Thanks. All right. Look, I have a. unique perspective on this, I guess, because I really was, I'm not trying to, like,

tout whatever. I was one of the higher recruited guys in my draft class because people thought I was going to go to college. Like, I was kind of like at the end of the first round, I told people I wasn't going to go, and I went in the first round. So a lot of colleges thought I was going to actually go to college. So I became a top target for them. So I had Stanford come down. I had USC come down. And they had coaches at all my games. And same thing with scouts, you know, I had Billy Bean rolling the games, you know, a lot of cross-checkers, teams they were interested in drafting me.

So it was a, it was a lot, but, you know, I think the main thing, if you're talking about a player perspective here, is just, like, don't focus on it. As much as you try to, like, just do your thing and try to win games for your team and, like. What was the dumbest selling point you had? Like, not on the field at all. Like, in Friday Night Lights,

the fictional town. They're trying to recruit Smash Williams. And the guy from Michigan goes, you ever play football in the snow? Oh, you got to. And it's like, that's not going to make him choose Michigan.

So what's the worst cell or like the dumbest, most irrelevant cell you got? I mean, I got to be honest with you. I didn't do a great job with like the whole recruiting thing. I should have went on five trips, Miami, LSU, all the fun places. But I knew I wanted to go to USC or Stanford. So I signed with the USC and then I took a trip.

I had a great time on that trip, but I didn't do it right, man. I'm kind of the wrong guy to be asking. So you basically came down to baseball and good education or baseball and party, and you went baseball and party? Funny story. Yeah, those are my two choices. Trojers were my first day. Stanford is my second day.

But my brother said the same thing. He said, look, what are you going to? to school for. I'm like, what do you mean? It's like, really, what are you going to school for? So I want to go to school to play baseball. And it's like, then you have your answer. Like, don't go and have to deal with all that shit at Stanford.

They go play baseball where it's probably more of a focus at USC than it is for Stanford, obviously, because it's tough, man. Academia. Yeah. Boat She's not a slout school, but it's not fucking Stanford. Academia, my favorite. University of spoiled children. I'm sorry I didn't have a better answer for that

I really wasn't it was you know I mean I can make something up Kind of cut and dry I had a lot of fucking people at my games I used to shove it up you know I was really good I used to go on lunch break during senior year We'd drive to the Carl's Jr. And I'd open up my trunk to put my bag of fries in there And there was just a bag of money

Yeah Yeah Why are you putting your fries in the trunk? My mom didn't want it to smell That you don't have to smell like fries So I always put the fries in the bag of in the trunk. Love playing Monopoly. I didn't play the game right.

I should have got a bag of money. You kind of did, Treb. Worked out. Well, not from USC. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Some recruiting money. They were handing out stuff back those days. I could have came up.

Meet the rap booster. Yeah. Me and Reggie could have just been hanging out at some Hollywood Hills. Seriously. Would you have been like in there during that time? I think so. That was a pretty fun time. Yeah.

I mean, that was really, that was a huge selling point for me. Their football team is so freaking good. And while you're a recruit, you get on-field passes. And I was like literally going to all the games just like on the field during that time. Carson Palmer time. Any baseball players from that like USC team go to the bigs that you would have been teammates with? Lucas Duda, actually, yeah, he ended up going to USC. And then he's, you know, he had a long career.

in the show, and I'm trying to think of who else. Not a lot of guys. Not that I can think of at the top of my head. Cool. All right. I think that's all. Last voicemail. We're done.

Thank you guys very much for calling. Appreciate you. Love you. We'll see you Friday on the series recap. Go the ball. Tune into the pregame shows Monday through Friday. They're their own entity in the podcast app, and they're live on Paralymp.

and Facebook and YouTube. And they're a lot of fun. Know who I think was a USC guy around that time? A talking baseball favorite, Tommy Malone. Tommy Mill one, yes, you're right. Totally forgot about that. I'm sorry, Tom. I feel like I diss Tommy all the time.

All the time. I really love Tommy, too. I really love that guy. She's a constant disc track. Ian Kennedy, too. Oh, you would have been too much to the Ian Kennedy. Oh, yeah. Ian Kennedy.

It's a long time ago, man. 2004. Fucking 16 years ago. Yeah. All right. Thank you guys. Outer music starts playing now. We start whispering.

Goodbye. See ya.