Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - 79 | The New Mookie Trade, Twins Trade & Rays Trade

Episode Date: February 10, 2020

Mookie, Price & Cash to the Dodgers. Verdugo, Downs & Wong to the Red Sox Graterol to the Dodgers Maeda to the Twins Rays and Padres trade Pagan and Margot Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices 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 to Talking Baseball. The Dodgers Red Sox trade is official. It's a little different, too. Twins and Ray is also making some moves. Let's do it. Let's talk some baseball. What's going on, everybody? Welcome to Talking Baseball.

It is a fine Monday morning, February 10th, and we had some action last night. I feel like it's a bit of deja vu because we're talking about the same teams and the same players, but it's different, Jake, it's different. My name is John Boy. I'm coming to you from John Boy Media headquarters in the Bronx, and I've got my good pal, Jake, coming to you from Denver, Colorado,

and a quick couple announcements, Jake, we have to do before we start the show. Will you allow me these? Yeah, hi, Jim. Hi, Jake. This episode is brought to you by Dalton Hines, Lily, Kevin, DeMorrow, Sean McCray, Brady Justice. Hell yeah.

Sean Riley, Tom, and Gary Burkhart. No D. Sometimes there's a D before the T in Burkart. No D, just hard H-A-R-T to the point. I like that, Gary. Those are our most recent patrons. And another announcement. We are retooling our Patreon.

Someone's taking it over. I posted on there last night a little behind the scene. outtake that I wasn't allowed to post on the main channel and let everyone know that we're going to have someone take it over. We're going to try and do some behind the scenes, like quick hitter Q&A, behind the scenes office stuff, some giveaways, trying to get way more involved because we want to give back to the people that support us. You also get to sponsor an episode.

You get your name shouted at the beginning. And you get live access to be in the chat as we record. If you want to do that, we got Buck Johnson and Chris Ferry in here. And a lot of times people that are in the live chat actually help out. and enhance the show because they help research some stuff. Are you ready for announcement number two, Jake? Yeah, I think was that, okay. I thought that I thought we were already on announcement.

Okay, are you ready for announcement number three, Jake? I'm ready for announcement number three. An episode a day, every day starts today. Keeps the doctor away. Oh. Same. Okay. You can do bold.

Just like the trade. Same but different. Yes, yes, yes. No, our mini episodes start tomorrow, and those are the start of an episode of day. It just so happens that it starts on a Tuesday and we record on Mondays, so we're here. There will be an episode of talking baseball every day until opening day. That's a fuck ton of episodes. I hope you guys enjoy it.

We've been doing the team previews. We've been recording them already. Tomorrow, the first one will drop. They're like max 20 minutes long, so they're really quick. So listen to them at your own pace. You can sit them out, then binge 10 in a row, or you can listen every day. It's up to you. How would you listen, Jake?

Ooh, good question. I'd probably be, um, God. I would be a binger. I'd be a binger. I'd be like, uh, you know what? This, this trip to the gym is going to be somewhere between 30 minutes and an hour and a half. Let's listen to one and a half or five. TPP's team profile and projections, as they're known in the biz.

That's a biz term. Such a bad name. I think it's a great name, especially with Trevor Plouf. I mean, he should lean into that a little bit. What's Trevor. What's Trevor Plufe? Is it Paul? It sounds like it should be Paul.

Trevor Paul Plouf. It's not. It's probably some cool California name. Oh, no, Patrick. That plays. Patrick. It had to be a PPP. TPP. Wow, he's going to be so stoked.

Yeah, there you go. There you go. All right. Well, good morning, Jake. How's your weekend? Good morning, James. My weekend was all right. Snuck a ski day in yesterday, kind of. Ended up at Copper Mountain Gym in the Dew Tour was there, which is basically as bitch in his life gets. It's actually pretty cool. But it's more funny to make those jokes. But that was cool. And then, uh, did we do anything else, noodle? Um, no, I think we, we had a lunch with some friends. Uh, no like sports, right? What did I watch? Oh, I watched a little Duke Carolina, but baseball podcast. So then you watch the Oscars. Oscars. Live events. You and I are big live events, guys.

I didn't watch any yesterday, so I am out. Oh, my God. You're a fool. Katie doesn't like award show, so I can't. Like, I have to, like, really, really, like, do it to hog the TV from her. So I just didn't. Right. Well, it's an office event now, so that's not a problem.

But, yeah, man, that's about it. How is your freak end? Good. Boring. I went and saw a little woman. It was a nice movie. It's delightful. Okay.

Well, you can't say those two things back to back. It's offensive. No, the movie wasn't boring. It was delightful. I cried once and I enjoyed it thoroughly. Uh-oh, I got to close the window. Hold on. Close their window.

Hold on. Hold on to their window, baby. Yeah, I also watched Harriet. Nice. Yeah. A lot of singing like that. Wade in the water. She had a powerful performance at the Oscars.

Nice. All right, Jake. We did a full impromptu episode with bad equipment. Live. Ditched Katie to do the trade recap. Trade of the century. And that trade didn't happen. But one very similar to it did.

Early similar. Early similar. So if you don't remember, the first trade was Mookie Betts and David Price and money going to the Dodgers. And the Dodgers were going to send Alex Verdugo to the Red Sox in return. The Dodgers were going to send Meida to the twins. And the twins were sending Graterall to. the Red Sox. Gratterol.

What does that how you say your name? Bruce Star Graterall. Brewster Graterall. Yeah. So the Red Sox say they didn't like stuff in his medicals. And they're like, oh, hold on. Wait a minute. I mean, more on that later. I don't believe that. And they're like, oh, hold on. This doesn't, never mind. We don't want to do this trade anymore. Because it was agreed upon pending physical. So they still have a way to get out of it.

So then Minnesota says, oh, you don't like our guy? Go fuck yourself. We're out of this trade. So then the Red Sox say, okay, well, Dodgers, if you want Mookie, you need to give us more. So now, now the twins are out of this trade. It's just a two-team trade, and the Red Sox are giving price, mooki, and half of Price's contract to the Dodgers. And they are sending over Verdugo, Jeter Downs, who's a top prospect for them, top five prospect in their organization. and Connor Wong, a catcher? Yeah. He's not like a low-level prospect, but he's not top five, right?

No, he's not a huge-time prospect, but he's a catcher with a strong-arm and power. So if you can make something of that, you make something of that. Yeah. Okay, that's one thing. And then the twins were like, hey, we're still interested in Maeda Dodgers. Can we just do our own thing, too? And the Dodgers like, yeah, you know what, sure. So they're like, you give us Brewster Gratterol.

We'll give you Kenta Mayeda. We'll give you $10 million. We'll give you a low-level prospect. And you give us two other guys. So, or a draft pick and a prospect. So the twins are sending Bruce Darradoral a draft pick, like a 67th round or something like that, or 67th? I don't know what it was.

67th pick in this year's draft and Luke Rayleigh. And Luke Rayleigh prospect. And, all right, so that's it. So, and then the Angels and Dodgers trade just isn't happening as of now. Yeah, so let's, well, we'll put that on the back burner for sure. And yeah, can you and I have a nice honest conversation? Why are they still calling this a three-way trade? I don't, are they?

I didn't see that. Two-way trades, yes. Yeah, I didn't, I didn't see anyone calling at that. I do like that the, the twins basically said, fuck you, Red Sox. we'll just do it without you and did it. Yeah. Can we talk about the hang up before we go on to the new trade? Because I don't believe.

Yes, because it sounds like you've got a conspiracy theory, so I'm here for that. Oh, that makes me not even want to say it because, like, I don't, like, that makes it sound crazy off the bat. You got to say, you believe it. It's more like I'm cynical than a conspiracy theory. Okay. Here's a cynical conspiracy theory. I don't want to say it. I don't want to say it.

I don't like it being framed like that. I'm out. Well, sorry. But, I mean, it kind of is. Yeah, but I'm not the only one thinking it. Like everyone, like, you know, beat reporters. Then say what people are saying. Say you're not saying it.

That's what I do all day. No. It's just conspiracy theory sucks because then you get like Alex Jones treatment. There was a way, there was still time to get out of this trade. And the Red Sox were getting roasted by other front offices, by everyone in the media and the fans for not getting any top five prospect from the Dodgers. Like, there was. Wheats saying Dodgers top five prospects before the trade, Dodgers top five prospects after the trade.

And it's Heim Bloom's first trade as a general manager. And it's just getting roasted. And there's time to get out of it. And I think they used the window and the medicals as that. Because like we did the whole thing. And you and I were talking about he's a reliever. He had Tommy John. He had shoulder surgery.

The twins projected him as a reliever. all of baseball projected Bruce Starr-Graderol as a top-end reliever. And then the Red Sox were like, oh, we thought he could start. His medical say different. Did you really? Did you really? Because how could you have thought that when everyone in the baseball world that does this didn't think that? So I think they use their window to get out of it.

Yeah, so a couple things there. So Bruce Rattarral, my guy, and when we did the live show, I was, I kept falling into this like, he's kind of the key part of the deal for me. Like you know what Mookie is. Like, Verdugo should be a good young outfielder for a while. It's Bruce Stark Gratterol because he was a top 100 prospect because he was projected as a starting pitcher. Now, he's had a lot of injuries. And so basically what baseball scouts like to do is if you're that young, that size,

and you've had a lot of injuries, there's basically a good chance you're going to end up in the bullpen. There's a chance Bruce Stark Gratterol. He's healthy and he can figure it out. day of starting pitcher, but the odds are heavily in favor that he goes to the bullpen. Now the Red Sox, if you and I know this, and yes, we're diving further and further into this world, but by no means do we have what a front office should have knowledge-wise on players, not even close. And how the Red Sox could fully ignore that and play that card, you're right.

And I'm sorry you heard the conspiracy theory word. But there is something there that it's either like, well, you were either dumb on the trade and you had rabbit ears and then you reacted this way, which I don't fully believe that. I mean, I think they knew when they were trading mooky bets they were going to get shat on. I think when Kyn Bloom took the job, that was like one of the requirements and he knew he was going to get chat on. But I do think like the top five list was like really shocking. and people are like, how old did you not take a top five prospect? A little bit, but again, that that turns into more rabbit ears than real life because who the Dodgers have listed as their top five prospect could be very different. Like maybe you have the first two, but the next three could be very different.

It's your scouting department. It's devout tools or whatever. But I don't know. I'll say it has some merit. The injury thing and relief pitcher thing is either your, you're done. or maybe the Red Sox really wanted a backdoor alley to get Mokey bets. Here's my conspiracy theory. The Red Sox knew the Gratterol stuff.

They played dumb. Then they did the injury report or whatever it was. And they're like, whoa, I don't know if Bruce Stark can start. And everyone's like, yeah, that was the whole conversation that everyone else knows about. And they say, well, we can't take them. So I guess if you still want mooky, you're going to have to give us a little better. So I think that's the conspiracy theory people need to be talking about. It's not the same thing.

I'm not understanding the difference. You're saying they got roasted and they made an adjustment. I'm saying they played dumb not knowing about Bruce Starr's injury so then they could have it come up and hold up the trade. And that way the Dodgers are like, fine, just take cheater downs. We're over this. Oh, you think it was like genius by Chaim Bloom? They were playing dumb, yeah.

Well, genius and playing dumb are is a line I teeter every day. You don't think possums are geniuses? I think they're geniuses. It's our number one fighting tactic. Why would I fight when I can just play dead? You've already killed me. World War III, I'm possuming the whole time. Yeah.

And if someone's about to kill you, then maybe at that last moment I try to kill them. I'm not dead. I'm not dead. I'm not dead. I'm not dead. I'm not dead. Bam, now you're dead. Fuck. Both didn't work. Possum. Strait's better for the Red Sox. They still get Verdu. go. And Jeter Downs is like a top prospect. Do you want to make a Jeter joke since the entire internet all made the same joke in the same five minutes span? No, no. I was, I was going to roast those people as well. I mean, come on. Like, stop. There's no, there's no wit. There's nothing. There's nothing. I haven't, I haven't seen a twist yet. There hasn't, like, not even, I was

digging, because I almost, I had like a full mean tweet riled up. And you know, this is a tricky area for me because I like the fact that people are trying to make jokes. But if you see the same thing and you're running into a dead wall over and over, there's no creativity. So I was going to do, I don't know, something about Jeter inside of Boston or something like that. But I'm not even getting that creativity. So it's pretty bad.

I feel bad for the kid, except a fun fact from our big baby David that helps up with us, that Jeter Downs' brother is in the Red Sox double A and they'll probably be playing together this year. So that's awesome. Jerry Downs. Yeah. So that's cool. That is cool. What's, uh, what's his position? So it sucks that Jeter Downs is going to get these terrible jokes. It's cool. He gets to play with his brother. It's a wash. It's a wash. So roster resource, my new favorite website in the history of the world. Yeah. Um, has Jeter Downs, ETA to the majors as 20, 21. I saw some

Red Sox fans thinking that he may get called up in 2020 to help out at second base. He's a shortstop in the minors to help out at second base because they kind of have a hole there right now. What are your thoughts? Red Sox fans are still telling themselves that their team wants to compete in 2020, even though they just traded away a top three player in baseball. Yeah, I would guess they keep Jeter Downs. I don't know. I guess you got to see.

I mean, if it's the end of the season, he's playing good baseball, call him up. You're going to treat him like any other prospect. it's not like they're going to rush them up to try to compete. The Red Sox have made this clear. And that's what one of our Red Sox friends, whose opinions I respect was like, hey, why didn't we look into, you know, getting Ross Stripling if they're still trying to trade them?

And it's because they don't care about this season. And that's still a mental hurdle in the Commonwealth. Jeter Downs numbers and minor league numbers mean dick, but Jeter Downs numbers in AAA. He hasn't even played in D. AAA yet in Tulsa are pretty good. So there you go. It's 12 games.

Looking at a 12 game sample. So my bad. Okay. Okay. So this dude's only played 12 games in double A. He's not a key cog of the 2020. I saw some people saying he's going to be in the infield. No.

No, that's people trying to convince themselves that the Red Sox are up to something and they're not, guys. But I understand the feeling. Well, they're set up for like a quick rebuild. They are set up for a quick rebuild. Oh, absolutely. They're 2020 is gone. And like that's not Yankee stuff, even though a 103 win team with the most injuries ever added Garrett Cole.

It's also the Tampa Rays are really good. In Boston won 84 games last year and traded away Mookie bets and you don't have pitching. The lineup's going to hit. They're still going to do that. but you're an 84 win team that traded away Mookie bets and doesn't have any pitching. There you have it. Well, Connor Wong went to the University of Houston. Okay.

Drafted in the third round. And he has 40 games at AA. But they're pretty short at catcher. They love Vasquez. Vasquez had a good year last year. I know. But he's not good. Oh.

You know what? He is good. He is good. He's just like a light-hitting catcher. Wow. I mean, you don't disagree. He hit really well last year. He had a great year last year.

Did he? What was his stats? What's his first name? Christian Vasquez. Am I spelling his last name wrong? Oh, I am. It's a Z. It's two Zs.

How about that? He had a 103 OPS plus and 798 OPS. Yeah, 23, home. runs. Not bad. That's really good for a catcher. Yeah. For a catcher, it's good. I wouldn't go bragging about that. No, and let's see it this year without a juice ball is what I'd say. Ooh. Anything else? So that's, and Verdugo, we already did a lot on Verdugo last round. He's got four years. Obviously, Jeter Downs and Connor Wong have six, seven years.

And Verdugo's got four more. He'll go right into right field, and they will have a weird outfield of Benintendi, JBJ, and Verdugo. Ben Intendez's kind of on a prove-it year. Hey, are you mediocre or are you slightly above average? J-B-J is a fantastic defensive center fielder. Game-changing defensive center fielder swings a wet newspaper

when he steps into the box and Verdugo may be their best outfielder, but he's not Mokey Betts. Interesting outfield. No, it's that outfield can play defense. I mean, Verdugo has a background as a center fielder himself. Ben and Ten, he plays good defense. They're going to play good defense. It's going to be interesting to see how much of the real deal is Verdugo.

And yeah, Benny's bounce back. I mean, you know what you're getting in JBJ and they, Boston made their decision on that. I think they had a chance to move on from him this offseason, and they chose not to. It's good defender. An amazing defender. I want to talk about the Dodgers side of things a little bit. We kind of, nothing's changed on their end.

They get Mookie for one year. He's fantastic. All those deep track Dodger Jeter Down fans are kicking themselves today, but that's about it. No, I mean, listen, the Dodgers have been in the last. World Series three times, twice? Twice? Three. Twice. Twice. They weren't last year. In the last couple of years. And their windows still here, it's still going strong, but they need to attack it every year. So I think they are doing good. Get Mokey if you can. Price will also help them

in their rotation. And what those two guys do, and they get half of Price's contract paid for. But. Yeah, I think price is $16 million a year now or something like that. that for the Dodgers. So they could have kept Maeda if they wanted to. His contract is pretty good and his contract is so incentive-laden for if he starts. So if they wanted to keep Kenta and put him in the bullpen, it's pretty cheap, Jake. But I think they just feel mean doing that because he really wants to start. The contract like screws him over money-wise.

and the twins are searching for a starting pitcher. So I kind of think that this trade is done in niceness. Like the Dodgers are being nice to Kenta. And they're getting, like if they see Kent as a reliever, Bruce St. Garadol, and they see him like, hey, he's a little less than Kenta, but he can become him and the money's the same. But I do think this is a kindness trade. Oh, interesting.

I didn't see that angle coming into it. I think it's, well, I think we've got a couple fun things here. I think the Mayeta contract, I think the twins still needed pitching and they wanted my Ada. So that's what they were doing. They, you know, they clearly said fuck the Red Sox after the Bruce Star stuff. And that's fine. And they should have because they possomed.

But Bruce Star, he was my, in the original fake trade, he was my favorite part in this, because it was how good is he going to be? Is he going to be the high end starting pitcher Boston fake thought he was going to be, or is he going to be a high end reliever of sorts? Now the Dodgers go out and they say, you know what, fuck it, we'll take Bruce Star. I hope Bruce Star is dirty for that. Like, talk about, you know, there's been some egg on Kime Bloom's face. Oh, my God, get a napkin.

But if they, if Bruce Star Gratterol ends up being a really good reliever, I mean, if he were, to stumble into the Dodgers closer job, even in like three years or something. That's such a familiar name. It would drive Red Sox fans insane. So I think that's a fun twist. And yeah, I don't know. We went through the Dodgers pitching. They still would have started my Ada this year.

I don't think so. I think so. I mean, he's still ahead of like Gonson or Catterday. I was in some Dodger fan places and they were saying that they didn't think he would. So I don't know. And, and I don't know. I mean, he's got the, the performance incentive type contract. Can we go through it? Your guy. You know I love performance incentive contracts. And I did it. I was not aware of this one. It's crazy, Jake. It's fucking nuts. All right. So first off, and I want to say this one right away, when made it, signing this contract, this was one of the, this is one of the incentives. If

Kent Maita gets traded. He receives a $1 million bonus. Boom. He got that. So dude just made a million bucks just for getting traded. So imagine if he thinks he's making a million dollars and the trade doesn't go through. His wife's like, he's like, honey, we're getting a million bucks. Spent.

He gets $150 grand each year for making the opening day active 25 man roster. Perfect. He receives a million for each of the starts between 15 and 20. So once he makes his 15th start of the season, million bucks, 16th start million bucks, 17th start million bucks, and so on. One point five million for every start between 25 and 30. Wow.

Yeah. Oh, no, 1.5 million for, if he gets 25 starts, he gets 1.5 million. If he gets 30, he gets 1.5 million. He gets 32, it gets 1.5 million. And he will earn, each year, he will earn 250,000, $1,000, quarter of a million for each of 90 innings, 100 innings, 110, 120, 1, 40, 1, 50, 1, 50, 1, 60, 1, 80, 1, 90, 10, and then the 750,000 and then the 750 grand for 200 innings. It's the most incentive-laden contract I've ever seen. Yeah, must have been some real fun negotiating. And then in his press conference, he was like,

I've never been injured, so I don't know why we did this. Seems pretty ridiculous. Yeah, and I don't know. I kind of want to talk to our guy ploof a little bit because incentive-lating contracts are awesome because it's like, hey, if you do this, you're going to get paid, but it's also, you know, the MLV player union being the strongest union forever, was because players got paid.

Like Albert Bell, go look that one up, kids. But yeah, I don't know. Good for my Ada. Now I'm interested to see if the twins try to mess with them because they've got, you know, a couple pitchers returning from injury and stuff like that. He only gets- Showed out in the bullpen.

He only get, I think the problem with his contract and his agent sucked is the floor is three million. Yeah. Like if they just put them in the pen, and he doesn't accrue any of the starts, any of the innings, it's just three mill a year. It's like wildly different. Yeah, I mean, I think there is some unspoken back channel agent stuff

and MLBPA like, you know, you can't do that to Kent to Maeda when he clearly be a starter on your team. So that's why maybe if the Dodgers think that these young guys are going to come up and like there's a chance they win the spot from Meida, then they're like, you know what? Like, we don't want to deal with that mess. the twins can dig that. I mean, I like your niceness angle.

I like it. I'm not fully buying it. Also, it's just like the twins were so mad at the Red Sox. Dodgers were like, whatever. Dodgers have plenty to spend. They're like the banker and Monopoly feeling guilty for other people at the table. Twins were so happy to give Brewster Garterol to the Dodgers. Yeah.

They should have called the Yankees up. You want Graterall? Rub it in the Red Sox's face. Up all night. Gratterol. Yeah, that, uh, cigarettes and alcohol. The new MLB PR team missed out on that one. Yeah. Um, and then I don't know the prospects. Who's, who's the prospect that also is going from the Dodgers? Yeah. So I guess that is a part of this trade that's a kind of getting

overlooked in the mainstream media. So they get, uh, Luke Fraley, young outfield prospect, because, you know, just what the Dodgers needs, more young prospects. Um, and they get the 67th pick in the draft. which, hey, you know, take, take that as it may. Dude could never reach the major leagues, or it could be an absolute stud. That's how drafts work. There's got insider information.

I got to charge more for that on the Patreon. How do you spell Luke Fraley? I found it. F-R-A-L-E-Y. Yeah, no, no frills there, just a straight-up spelling. Would you like it more if it was double Y? Like, how would you like that? Or like Fairley Dickinson?

Where are you going with that? I had no idea. I, like, first I was like maybe it's E-I-G-H. I had like an EA. It was just very, I was looking for a trick, and there's no trick. It's very upfront spelling. Good job, the Fraley family.

He's a pitcher, Jake. Pitcher. And he has, like, no stats in the minors. He just got drafted out of college, four years. Yeah, it looks like. Fraley. Yeah, it looks like he has no stats in the minors. He just got drafted.

from Tiflin University. Tiffin in Ohio. Cool. No nothing about you. Don't care. He was bad in college. Was he? Yeah.

I had a 511 ERA. Yeah. Well, you know, it's a hard, you go pitch in the Great Lakes Intercolleg athletic conference and see how you do. I literally could not. Yeah. You don't have any.

qualifications. You already graduated. I literally could not. Well, the only other interesting tidbit from this trade, and I feel like we've done a good job talking all about it. Sure.

Is that now that trade that we were so confused about originally, because originally it was said it was the Dodgers are trading Jack Peterson to the Angels for Renhifo, and I was like, that makes no sense. There's not a balance to the

scale and they're like oh well actually they all dodgers are also giving ross tripling to the angels and i'm like okay and another prospect i'm like all right that makes more sense now that's just not happening now i think the angels were like maybe they caught backlash and they were like fuck this we're out so this goes deeper than this man this is rooted and you have to go into l a type stuff because we've got some dodgers big brother type stuff um obviously i mean they literally were the Anaheim Angels, and then they changed their name to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. That's just good business, Jake. It's just business. But Artie Moreno, the owner, got fed up that they were just the team on the side of this while the blockbuster was happening,

and he pulled the court on it. And I think it's just Angels 101. From Ken Rosenthal. So, you know, don't think this is just a dumb Jake theory. Moreno grew impatient and pulled the deal. Might have reviewed, but the Dodgers then saw it unnecessary. Outside chance to be revisited. The Dodgers still need to make a move to get two men off their 40-man roster. But, yeah, I think there was some L.A. Big Brother stuff. We don't care about the big trade.

What's going on here? And I think egos got in the way, which I think is a huge mistake. Because I think Ross Stripling could have been one of the better pitchers on the Angels this year. I think Jock Peterson would have been a huge asset on the Angels this year. And Renhifo, I know you're getting excited about the year's game because you, you know, you do war over years and stuff. Renhifo is their third string second baseman this season. And the Angels goal is to reach the postseason.

Get Mike Trout a playoff win. And now what? Now what are you telling Mike Trout by getting too proud about the Dodgers that, oh, yeah, we wanted. We, yeah, we thought that another starting pitcher and, you know, a guy that crushes right-handed pitching that could be at the top of our lineup. Yeah, we thought our team needed those, but they held up the trade for a couple days, so we're not going to do it. Classic, like, little brother. Like, this is being the little brother. Like, we're not your little brother.

We're not doing this. And it's like, oh, you kind of acting like a little brother now. Yeah. You're doing it right now. Right. Yeah, dude, stripling would have been nice for them and jock. But here's the thing, Jake. Like a perfect piece for them.

Jock was a little bit of a bonus, but he's a bonus piece that has a 900 plus OPS for his right-handed pitching last year. Like he could have been a key cog in this lineup. But Jake, the Dodgers still have to trade some people, right? Like they were originally doing it to shed some salary. So is Jock on the block right now? Are people shopping and calling? Yeah, he is.

Oh, yes. Yeah, oh, you haven't seen Yankees Twitter? Yankees Twitter is talking about how good of a fit Jock would be on the Yankees right now. Now, I don't. I have unsubscribed from a majority of like that, which is nice. Yeah.

So, and every team's fan base is doing that. I just threw the Yankees fan base under the bus right now. But yes, they are considering moving Jack Peterson. I still don't think they should. I know we just did some salary. stuff on the CBA. But man, I mean, if a jock Peterson, A.J. Pollock platoon, plus injuries are going to hit this team this year.

I mean, you're just, you're loaded. And your goal is to win the World Series. We just talked about the Angels goal, which they told Mike Trout that, hey, we need a starting pitcher and another outfielder. Oh, no, we don't. Mike Trout. Just go do it yourself again. My bad.

Their team's actually pretty good. I love my angels. But when you do a takesy backies on a trade like this, just to be proud. I don't know. So, yeah, a lot of teams are talking about Jock. I saw our guy... Stripling... We like Petriello, right?

I don't know who that is. Mike Petrielo, he does the... Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I like him. Yeah. He had a good tweet. Let me see if I could find it. I've never said his name.

Like, I've only read it. I've never heard it or spoke it, so Petriello didn't ring a bell. So he said, if the Dodgers can't keep Jock and he's like, that seems possible. And the angels are out. He goes, the teams that should want Jack Peterson. One, Cleveland.

Two, Cleveland a billion times more. Three, Texas. Move Gallo to center field. Oh, my God. Imagine. Imagine he goes within the division of the angels, but they didn't take him because they just didn't want to beat a little brother. So they beat the little brother to an extreme.

And then he's, within division. That's such a little brother move. Yeah. Yeah. And that would be a Texas coming in as like the weird cousin who kicks the little brother. Four Chicago White Sox. Mazar is there, but he's not a blocker.

The Rockies. St. Louis slash Chicago, maybe. And then seven, he said still Cleveland, though. But they're not going to do it because they're not going to want to take on seven and a half million. Yeah. I mean,

Cleveland doesn't like. Jock is available. And it'd be cool if we, this would be a sweet time for the term John Heyman has ruined, the mystery team to pop up. Like a team like the Braves or something, be like, okay. But then it's the Dodgers trading with the Braves. So a lot of moving parts. I don't know. Still a good chance he gets moved.

But also Dodgers keep him, though. And platoon him? I mean, we keep saying platoon. He played, let me see. Well, because he hits the righties and there's more righty pitchers. Right. But I think mentally, because we're like, okay, teams have, you know, left-hand pitch. He played 149 games last year.

You can't do played in the National League. How many do you start? So he started, let me see. And by the way, he's still an asset to come off the bench in those games. So there's half points. he started 109, but he had 514 plate appearances. Okay. I mean, yeah, he gets the, I think he sat for lefties.

Yeah. Oh, he cannot touch lefties, which I think they also like, he wasn't good at it, but I think they also poisoned his brain. He only got 50 at 50 plate. 50 plate appearances. Yeah. Yeah. So he was a platoon guy.

As soon as the lefty was out, the starting lefty was out, came off the bench. So he's the bigger half of the platoon, but still, they were like, nope. That sucks, man. Like, how are you, how are you going to let him try? 30 six home runs last year. Sometimes these home runs last year. Sometimes these platoon guys get made into platoon guys, like, before they get a chance.

I don't know about Jock. I'm not speaking specifically about him there. Yeah, yeah. His numbers. But what you are, what you are saying is Jock is 27 years old. And, hey, if he was on a team that wasn't the Dodgers, you're probably right. They tell them to play through that so you can be out there trusted more. But it's part of the NL and it's part of the way this Dodgers team is built. They have someone like Kikeke Hernandez

who they can throw out there. And the Dodgers just look at that like, you know, they're going, like Jack Peterson doesn't say he's taking a rest day. It's just he's going to come in and pinch hit in the sixth inning and then play the second half of the game. His numbers in those splits so bad. So bad. Those 50, I mean, it's only 50 plate appearances, but it's a, it's a 505 OBS, dude. Yeah. It's a 240 on base percentage. His career is not that much better.

His career is a 572 OBS, 375 plate appearances. Okay, so Jock can't face lefties. No. That's fine. So it is fair to label him a platoon guy. Yes, but it's not telling the whole story. With the, yeah, you have to say a lefty platoon guy is more valid. valuable than a Ritey platoon guy.

I mean, 36 homers last year. It's just math. Just crazy. Let's move forward from this whole extravaganza. Sure. Two, there was another trade. And I haven't wrapped my head around this one yet. The race traded Emilio Pagan to the Padres for centerfielder Margo Murgat.

Is that you say his name? Margo. Mani Margo. Mani Margo and someone else from the Padres, right? Yeah, let's get up the whole thing, Jimmer. Emilio Pagan and his pagan ways, Scott. I'm going to miss him in the end. Well, he was really, really good last year,

but really bad against the Yankees. Really bad against the Yankees. So let's see. Emilio Paghan, the 28-year-old from South Kakalaki, for Manny Margo and catcher slash outfield prospect Logan Driscoll

Logan Driscoll who's that Logan Driscoll Well do you know what Petcher slash outfield prospect tells me they're not too excited about him as a catcher But that also mean he might be able to hit

That's good Catcher and right fielder Yeah it's kind of an odd combo Yeah How'd that work out for Schwarbo Well all right This dude played college twice, and then he hasn't even gotten to A ball, so we're not going to talk about him.

Not talking about you, Logan. Good luck, man. But he's part of the trade. Now, Manny Margo, he's 5 foot 11. He's been on the Padres for the last three years as like a full-time player. He had 10 games in 2016. He's got a career 695 OPS, a career 87 OPS plus, A career on base percentage of 301

Somehow got Rookie of the Year votes in 2017 His offensive numbers have not been great as of now And he's got what three years of arbitration control left This trade scares me Just because I kind of get scared when the race make trades like this Because Pagan is a one-inning reliever, man Yeah and so let me let me go back to to manny margot and we we do need to preface this with being yankee fans we now in

recent years live in fear of the raise making trades especially with an organization like the Padres that isn't isn't known to be the best run manny margot was a big time prospect uh pre 2017 he was the number 18 prospect in baseball by baseball prospectus he's got defensive range for days and basically the question was how much can he do with the bat. And as you've seen, he hasn't done a ton so far. But that's also been with the Padres, a team known for light hitting. And yeah, it's what did the Ray's see in him that they're saying we can fix that? Or, and maybe we're overthinking it, Jim, is that the Ray's love good center field defense with

Kiermire. And now they can just platoon those guys and they can have the best center field defense over a season ever pretty much. Or I heard, and this is an actual rumor, but I saw a tweet that said with Kiermeyer and Margo, the race could have a two outfielder defense. And that's what I'm here for. There you go. That's the dream.

The old good defensive light hitting platoon in center field. I mean, hey, two outfielder. People been, five in the infield. People have been dreaming about that. Oh, my God. Imagine if that's what they start doing. they do the five infielder shift more often and go to two outfielders. Oh,

fucking race. Pagan's got one, two, three years after this year, so four years total. So they're, you know, but he's been traded like three times. Doesn't he been on four teams in four years? Yeah, I think this is going to be his fourth team. And I was laughing because it's kind of funny that he has, he has a fun name, Emilio Paghan. He's just like a South Carolina dude. He grew up in South Carolina.

He went to school in North Carolina. And yeah, he's currently Seattle, Oakland, Tampa. And Jim, this is kind of the funny part of it. It's full season. So 2017 was full Seattle. 2018 was full Oakland, 2019, full Tampa. And now he heads to San Diego. Yeah.

I mean, it's just like a need for a need trade? Like center. Yeah. The money and the salaries are kind of the same, right? I think what it is is, I mean, San Diego, they got Gresham in the Milwaukee trade earlier, and I think they want him as their everyday center fielder. You know, they, they clearly, Pagan had a huge year last year for a reliever.

231 ERA, 70 innings pitch, 96 strikeouts. Clearly something ticked. And I mean, even before that, he was solid. I think what, when I saw people talking about this, and I was saying how I was scared that the rays were going to unlock Margo or something like. that. Because if they do, I mean, you're you're unlocking a guy that can rack up war easily with the way he plays defense if he figures out anything offensively. Pagan is a guy in the bullpen. I personally don't see him. He had a breakout year last year for me, and maybe I'm

blinded with some of the Yankees stuff because the Yankees did crush him. He didn't feel like a special kind of reliever. He felt like a reliever that could easily fall back to being the four three guy he was in Oakland. But hey, I could easily be wrong on that. He ended up saving 20 games for Tampa last year. So the Padres get a high leverage reliever and they're clearly semi-punting on Margo. That's slides. Trent Grisham to centerfield for them. Famine left, Myers and right? Yes, I believe so. And the Padres bullpen now Yates is the closer and you got Pomerantson but gone as the next two guys, the setup guys.

It's not bad. There's a path there. Yeah. Yeah. I just, the raise might make Margo into a good player. That's the thing. I mean, and it's a big one and who knows. And maybe we're just over analyzing the hell out of this.

But hey, you know, February 10th talking baseball people. I mean, Margo's 25 years old. I was, I was once. You were once. I mean, he's a guy that with, I mean, his rookie season, he had a two and a half war playing 126 games, and he had a 721 OPS. So he's a guy that can rack up two and a half war points with a 721 OPS.

If the race sees something in his swing or some adjustment or have a, you know, some guru somewhere on their team that can make him a 750 OPS guy. I mean, you're looking at a three-war baseball player that you got for a bonus points reliever. Let's be honest. The race have so much pitching. Yeah, I mean, Pagan leaving the raised bullpen doesn't really hurt their bullpen that much. And that's not a knock on him at all. He had a fantastic season.

They have tons of relievers and they all are fantastic, basically. Yeah, I, damn, I kind of want to jump into to some of the raised forums. That's scary places to be. But yeah, I didn't, I didn't realize Pagon had 20 saves last year, but I mean, they, they kind of like thrown out everyone. Alvarado had seven, Castillo had eight. And they had that dude breakout last year. I read that guy's name today.

I got pissed off. Nick Anderson, dude. Remember that guy? Yeah, he was dirty. He's like, oh, we found this guy. he's the best reliever ever. Oops. Come on, Rays.

Ugh. Chas Rowe. That slider, baby. What a slider. Slide piece. I don't know. Jake, anything else you want to talk about here? Not really.

Can I clap? I think we did some really good talking. Pete Rose. I sent you my bonus topics. Pete Rose sent a letter to baseball saying, hey, please stop banning me. Do you know he's a bad guy? So I went on a podcast.

A good guy. What's that? Not a good guy. Yeah, I went on a podcast called the Platinum Sombrero, and it's a Braves podcast. And they asked me about Pete Rose, and I'm not sure how we got there or whatever. But they were like, did you know that he had relations with a 16-year-old? and when they like, you know, said, hey, man, that's not cool. The law was like, that's, you can't do that.

He said, he had relation with a 15 year old, sorry. He said, I thought she was 16 at the time, which was like, trickily the legal age of consent in Ohio. So he, he's, his, his, like, excuse was, I thought she was 16. How was I to know she was only 15? So now that I know that, I don't give fuck about Pete Rose at all. Yeah, yeah. Pete never been confused for a good guy for sure. But yeah, so he wrote his letter.

Other other things, Charlie Morton regrets not stopping sign stealing. So. Dude, whatever. Like, what's he going to, like, I do not, like in Keiko. Like, what would have Charlie, what could have Charlie Morton done? he's not going to go to the public and route out his team in the middle of a winning season and you got to go break more TVs the fake break TVs that was hintch it's effort that was the fake as shit ever whatever um and yeah

i mean i don't think we're going to dive into it the hintch interview happened and that was that was a blast i did a whole breakdown of it on the youtube channel um it is it basically plays as verduci was given uh some questions from MLB and Hinch was given the answers from MLB and they were two guys reading off a script. And none of the questions were pressing and none of the answers were answers. And that was the piece.

And that shows, that actually shows why we're becoming popular. Did you see the video I did? It's 18 minutes, so it's kind of long. I did not, no. So I just kind of went over everything that we found with the buzzers and Hinch and all that because he was asked specifically, can you deny that you use buzzers?

And he didn't. He weaseled around it. We're like, if you, dude, if these players didn't use any electronic buzzing situations, they would be shouting it. They would be like, hey,

the commissioner made his report on the banging, we did that. But no fucking way. And all you had was Braggman said like, no, no, no, no, no. To the question, then everyone else has skirted it. So it's so stupid.

And, man, MLB did exactly what I said I thought they would do. All the evidence that was indisputable, the banging, the clips that we posted and everyone on the internet posted, you cannot dispute those. They had the signs. And that is all that the Manfred report charged them with. Just what the public already knew.

Anything deeper that the public didn't have full indisputable evidence on, they didn't, they said they didn't find anything. And it's also getting bullshit that they blamed Cora and Beltron and Tobman in the report. Manfred put those, this is what I said in my video, put those three guys in the report. They're not with the organization anymore. They, they, the report is, is a gift to the Astros. It is the nicest report. So I'm, I'm coming more and more on the side that this was bullshit report. I was fine with it for a little bit. It's a, it's a gift. Crane got to fire his guys looked like the good guy. The players get completely absolved.

They're winners. They don't have to talk about it anymore if they don't want. And all of the blame went to Cora and Beltron and Tobman and player-driven when the Wall Street Journal just came out with Jared Diamond just came with a whole thing saying, this wasn't player-driven. They had a team in place, which we've been saying because I knew that from the start. It's like Matt Goldstein, Tobman, and there was another kid, Hogan or something. They were the department.

So, they made a cheating department. They made a cheating department. And I'm getting so mad at these people that can't tell the difference between what they did and what other teams did and trying to figure out, like, Andy Martino. They can. They just don't want to. Yeah. Andy Martino had a big, dumb tweet.

And I kind of like, I like him. I responded to him today. And he responded back and was like, I'm just not good at explaining things. He compared Carlos Delgado writing down the. pitches in a notebook like fastball, slider, slider, fastball to keep track of that bats. He compared that to people punching in the catcher's fingers like 2, 3, 1, 4 into an Excel sheet that has a computer algorithm. You punch in like 2, 3, 3, 4, 1, fastball.

3, 1, 3, 1, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, curveball. And you punch that in, and then a computer algorithm tells you what the next result is going to be the pattern because it's... Yeah, I mean, similar. It's not, it's so, like, just not the same at all. One is comparing pitches, one's comparing catchers' fingers, one you can see, everyone can see, because they're being broadcast, one, only one camera angle has it. People are being obtuse on purpose on this whole situation.

Yeah, and I mean, I want it on the record that I never used buzzers when I was hitting. I mean, neither. And so I think that's out there now, and I think that's good. And I think, and I will allow any Astros player to use that statement if they want. Easy statement, but they have not. And yeah, go go check out the John Germboy video on that 18 minutes, like he said, because he's an insane person. Jim, only final note I had that was really important was Bruce Bochee tweeted out.

Jivakah, SFDC, Kyle, period, KC House, rah. What was the last one? It's WR capital A. Yeah, it's good. Casey Roadhouse. Casey House. I think he was at a Casey Roadhouse having some barbecue. God, I mean, it doesn't get any better than that.

Dude, I don't, so you know what I found. My dad and my mom didn't know, and maybe you don't even know this. That if you hit the side of your phone, it locks it, like turns it black. Okay, so my parents both don't know that because I was like, how do you butt dial me so often? Like, I don't butt dial anyone. And I was like, do you hit this button before you put your phone in the pocket? And they both said no.

So maybe a PSA to everyone listening. Go tell your parents and grandparents about the button on the side of your phone that turns it off before you pocket it. Because it's like butt dialing shouldn't be a thing anymore. And I don't want this to be a shot at you, but I just want it to be shown to our listeners. When I say I'm not tech savvy, Jimmy, just had to ask if I knew what the lock button was on the iPhone. I mean, it's a fair question by me. And no, I, it wasn't a shot back at you.

It was a fair question. Uh, all right. That's everything. I think that's everything. I mean, for, hey, again, well, it was the MLB essentially retweeting a trade, but hey, baseball's still at it. And yeah, like you said, we're going, we're going TPP, team, profile and projection every day.

When you hear your team, you have to leave a review. Is that a fair rule? That's a fair rule. And just tell us what we got wrong. Because I'll just say this. We're going to have so much wrong. We get new listeners every episode. You know more about your favorite team than Jake or I.

And we will never pretend to know more than you. If you're a diehard fan. That's why people are a jerk. If you're a jerk about it, like, it won't be a jerk about it. We're all friends here. It's a community. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Well, Jake, I have to bring up the outro music, and then we're going to get out of here. We have a long-ass day ahead of us. Yeah, baboo. Woo. See you guys. Thank you very much.

We appreciate it. All right.