Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - Announcing Our April All-Star Team | 657

Episode Date: May 3, 2023

Use code TALKIN for $20 off your first SeatGeek order. https://seatgeek.onelink.me/RrnK/TALKINGo to http://shadyrays.com and use code TALKIN for 50% off 2 or more pairs of polarized sunglasses.Visit https://www.hellofresh.com/talkin16 and use code talkin16 for 16 free meals plus free shipping! +++++++ALL-JM TEAM RULESOF: 1 Must be a CF, other 2 can be any OF spotPositional Qualification: 40% of player's appearances must be at that positionUtility Qualification: Player must play AT LEAST 3 positions. DH does NOT count towards UTIL. *Dalton & BBD's Discretion for UTIL choice, if they lists them at UTIL he's a UTIL*A player may be nominated for more than 1 spot, HOWEVER 1 Player wins 1 Spot (BESIDES OHTANI)There will be a minimum of 4 nominations at each position on the sheetPlayers will be listed in ABC order by their last namesWant players to be at 120 games by the end of the year (Besides Catchers)Must play in at least 70-75% of games during the season (Besides Catchers)+++++Timestamps:0:00 Intro3:25 Our Rules6:00 AL Catcher8:55 AL 1B11:30 AL 2B14:45 AL Shortstop19:20 AL 3B22:15 AL Outfield + DH37:00 AL UTIL37:55 AL Starting Pitcher43:15 NL Catcher45:10 NL 1B49:15 NL 2B50:00 NL Shortstop53:25 NL 3B57:00 NL Outfield1:08:45 NL DH1:13:25 NL UTIL1:16:30 NL Starting Pitcher 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.

Hello and welcome to talking baseball. It's the AllJM April edition, a huge, huge episode. Let's do it. Hello and welcome to Talking Baseball. Brought to you by Seatgeek. My name is Jimmy. His name is Jake right there. Trevor's here and producer BBD behind the dish.

It's a big important episode. It's the first time we are voting a Silver Daisy potential winner. JM, all JM team. Jake, are you excited? Are you ready? I'm excited. I'm nervous. I love that we're highlighting a lot of guys that had massive months. April, I think, is the messiest. Most important.

Between games played and, yeah, I mean, the pressure of, you know, some of the best baseball players in the Galaxy, Trev, they will find out today, they don't have a chance to get a daisy. And that's as much as I'm happy for the pedal winners, I'm as devastated for those creatures. A lot of guys

wondering if today is going to be their day. Trey Turner was trying to like plug his nomination to meet last night. I said, hey, bro, it doesn't work that way unless you slit me a hundo. And he didn't because he's on the baseball field. He did like my hoodie though. I said, hey, shop.jomboid

Media.com. You can get one for yourself. For Christ, dog. Yeah, what do you think this is? Running a bees nass. We saw that contract. I'm excited. I love this episode because we do get to highlight some guys who, you know, we talk about the big names a lot. We try to highlight some of the other guys as much as possible.

When we get all the stats on the sheet in front of us, I think it's, it's cool to see, like, who's really doing it. Yeah. Yep. And April is very tricky. As you said, there's guys, like, there's a guy that might steal. There's a guy that might be an April pet. winner two years in a row that takes away from like silver from silver from silver daisy potentials a lot of time in his position.

Maybe vice versa. Maybe he runs it. Maybe he's it this year. As a reminder last year, Paul Goldschmidt kind of runaway MVP guy. I don't think after April we had any conversations any month about him being the pedal winner. Hosmer snaked it from him in April. Wow.

The rest of the year doesn't get the daisy even though the rest of the year it was like a the easiest conversation. April's a tricky one. All right. So, like I said, episode is brought to you by Seat Geek, and they are sponsoring the AL as we begin here as well. They've got the hookup for you. Use code Talking for $20 off your first purchase at Seat Geek.

That's $20 off your first purchase with promo code Talking. Click the link in the description to download the app over 70,000 events every single day on Seat Geek, including sports, concerts, festivals, and more. It's simple. It's easy. Use Seat Geek, promo code. talking. We have always had a lot of discrepancy and trying to figure out and navigate the rules on this. Dalton, who prepped the sheet for us, has also prepped a finite rules tab here, which we are

going to copy and paste and put in the description of the YouTube episode. If you want to go check out all the qualifications and the rules surrounding how you can win a pedal in the JM, all JM team, because there are some interesting things. And then Dalton also put guys in that he made sure they qualify. So we're not going to have to do our own, you know, scrummaging stats and doing math about percentage anymore. That should be a little cleaner than past years. And of course, subject to change if we find something weird

and think a rule should be adjusted. That's right. And I will discuss. That's why it's our team, maybe adjust the official rule moving forward. Yep. So, and if you've heard us use the term pedal and Silver Daisy, and you have no idea what that is because it's your first year tuning. in. If you win every

month, and it's not like May will be its own month, it'll be April plus May. It's to sign out who had the most complete year. You get a pedal per month. If you run the gamut on your position, you get a silver daisy, which is... There's been, what,

three silver daisies ever in existence, I believe? Vladdy got one. Vladdy got one. Trout got one last year. Trout had it last year. Otani was the D.H. in 2021. Vladdy was the first basement,

2021. I think they were the only two that year. And then Trout last year. It's hard. It's a good crew. Your Don. Your Don had it, but he had a split.

One month he was in the outfield, the rest of the way, I believe he was to teach. Oh, that was a tough one, yeah. Yeah, but he did have six pedals, but it didn't, it's not one necklace. It's like a friendship necklace. Like he has to piece it together.

Daisy and a daffodil. Yeah. Still really cool. Yeah. All right. So position qualification, 40% of the player's appearances have to come at this position for him to be qualified for it. There is a utility role for players that, what's the, where is it? That player at least three positions, D.H does not count towards util.

And a player may be nominated for more than one spot. However, one player wins one spot. Besides Otani, who can win it at. DH and at starting picture. Meaning like in the Yordon example, he wasn't going to win outfield and DH. We had to pick one. Yeah.

All right. Let's just get into it. As the rules come up, we'll just clarify the reasonings as we go. We will start in the AL at the catcher position. Which, Treb, you leaked Jake and I. You have a runaway choice here? I don't have a runaway choice,

especially as you started to kind of look at some of my favorite numbers here. One thing I like to look at as far as hitters is walk to strikeout ratio, and I see that our guy Adley Rushman has 22 walks to 17 strikeouts. And that just tickles my fancy a little bit. Now, if you're looking at the list, we have four guys here. I'm, Salvador Perez, Cal Raleigh and Adley Rushman. If you look at like kind of, you know, the big important numbers, OPS, even, you know, homers, RBI, Jonah Haim has it, unless it bats.

So he's kind of doing quality work with less of bets. 76 at bats to Adley's 103. I think Adley's the closest to him, but if we are giving our picks right away, I think Jonah kind of just runs away with it right now. 978 OPS from a catcher. That's going to get it done for me, guys. So I'll give him my April pedal, Jonah Heim.

It's not a conversation. The Salvi and Cal Raleigh were listed on our sheet. you know, nice, nice months. Adley was the only guy, and I kind of came in gung-ho. I've been the biggest Adley fan. I think he's going to get MVP votes this year. I think the Orioles have surprised me from who I thought they were going to be, and I thought Adley was basically a lock.

Jonah Heim has been better, just having to watch him play. And, like, it's not, you know, you can't put up these stats and look fluky. He's nasty, and he's an April Daisy legend, I think. Yeah, he leads in batting average, at least amongst these four top contenders. He leads in batting average and slugging and OPS. Who's got him in on base? Exactly. But what I like about Heim is he hits both pitchers.

So he has fantastic numbers against lefties, I believe, 1.2 OPS, but he also has an 8-83 versus righties. So catchers don't play a lot, and it would hurt if your catcher was also a platoon because you want to platoon them more day, night, not versus what pitcher. So, yeah, he's easy, clean sweep to catcher position. And he's the one who stole out last year also. I believe he got an April, Daisy or paddle last year. So last year, he was a little short on playing time for April. He'd weirdly only played like 11 games.

So we wanted to vote for him really badly because his numbers were bad. better, but Murphy had played like 20 games to his 11. Oh, okay. But Hyne snuck in there in May again because he just repeated it. Okay, so it's a second pedal. He does have a pedal. Nice. He's awesome.

All right. Let's go to another position. Jake, is this a conversation for you? American League first baseman. The four contenders here, Yandi Diaz, Diaz. Diaz. Yves. Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

Vinnie Pasquentino and Anthony Rizzar. A lot of V's, Zs, and Ys in this. quadrupled. Jim, this is a player away from being a fantastic conversation. If we had to split the hairs between Pasquatch, Vladito, and Tony Riz, this would be a disaster. But Yandi Diaz exists. And the on-base percentage, he's always been there. But now he's slugging, too.

And those biceps have always been slugging. But the stats on the field haven't. That, yeah, man, the weighted run created plus 185. I think it's a runaway, and he and a couple other guys were talking about are a reason the race had an undefeated April first in MLB history. I usually don't like to have, like, team performance in these individual awards because, you know, what can you do as one player? Oh, you do?

Okay. That's interesting. Later in this. But I think, like, you know, the race going undefeated in April might mean something. No, Yondi's been incredible this year. Yeah, like you mentioned, Jake, he always has the. base percentage, but we're hitting some homers. Everyone on the raise is hitting homers. I don't know what's going on there.

Again, these three candidates, you just talked, oh, the three guys that I'm looking at right now, Yandi, Vlad and Vinny, 15 to 16 strikeouts, 15 walks to 16 strikeouts for Yandi, 13 walks to 14 strikouts for Vlad, and 15 walks to 16 strikouts for Vinny.

That's like not your grandpa's first basement, bro. I like the plate discipline from all of them, but I think that Yondi has separated themselves a little bit here. So I'll give Yondi my April pedal as well. Yeah, the on-based percentage being so high is amazing because he's batting lead-off for the raise. He did it half the season last year. He batted lead-off, but he's, I think almost every game or every game he's played has been from the lead-off spot. And the slugging to come from that spot as well is pretty crazy.

So yeah, another clean sweep. There are some interesting ones in the A.O. But it started out the first two, I was like, well, not much gone on here. It's like a little crescendo. I like it. And just a shout out, obviously biased to Vinnie Pascontino. Career. 50 walks, 50 strikeouts. Insane. Love that. Insane. What's going on with that?

Is that like a thing this year? Like, are we walking more people this year? Our pitcher's tired from the pitch clock. Rush. You don't see that. The pitchers so early. Oh, yeah. We'll get there.

But Jim, the second basement of attacking pitchers all year. Yeah, this was the first group where I went and dug, like, deeper into things I liked or didn't like about them. You have Dubon, who just made some headlines with his quotes. about the Giants. Comes off like a jerk, in my opinion. Hell of a hitting streak.

Beelow. Maybe he's tapping into that. Lau. Yeah, B. Lau. For the raise. Simeon for the Rangers. Glaber Torres for the Yankees are the top four on the list here.

I think we're just shoehorning four every time because I don't, there's three that kind of. Yeah, we want at least four on the sheet. Sometimes there'll be more per month if more guys does. deserve it, but. I have a choice here. I don't know if it's your guys's choice. Do you want me to go first?

Yeah. I am taking Simeon. Now, I don't think he leads in every stat. Dubon has a higher batting average, and Lowe has a higher OPS. But Lough doesn't face lefties. And I, that hurts you. for me. If your team doesn't, you don't face, you just take those days off, you don't face the other side of the mound.

I don't, I think Simeon who has played every single game in April from the lead off spot hits both sides is I'd rather have that guy than the guy you have to platoon for. I think defense. Yeah, I think defensively, Simeon's been a little bit better than both of these are the rest of the candidates here. He does lead in some of the counting stats as well, James, as you mentioned, he has played all. the games. He leads in runs scored. He leads in RBIs. He's such a solid player, man. And so there's a lot of these guys are when we get down to it. My decision was between B. Lowlin and Simeon. But I think as far as overall play in April, I will also agree with you and go with Marcus Simeon for my April pedal. Sweet. Simeon, you know, this isn't my, where the team influenced me at all, because obviously, Ray's and Rangers had very nice months, not as

good as the undefeated raise. But Simeon, man, on both sides of the ball, the tone he sets for that team, the four stolen bases also can't be ruled out in this equation. And yeah, I mean, almost every counting stat, or Lowe has two more homers, but like you said, Jim, with some of the platoon stuff. I think Simeon all around great April, great second base one. Yeah, and I wonder with if he's just getting raised, Lowe. Like his numbers last year

Or this year when he has faced lefties in the pen They're not bad So I'm not rooting against him I'm rooting for the race to give him some chances And if he continues to do it Then it would be much harder for me But yeah Got a hit from both sides

Can't be a guy getting subbed out He also strikes out like almost twice as much as simian Yeah If you want another tie breaker Yeah Cool All right wow I thought there's

might be not a clean sweep there. Now it gets ugly. Shortstop position. We have in front of us. Bichette, Wander Franco, Jorge Mateo, and Jeremy Pena. This is ugly for you, Jake? Yes. Because as everyone knows, and I pre-season bet,

Bo Bichet has led the ALE and hits the past two years. He's currently leading the ALE and hits again. All he does is hit. Wander Franco has been a huge part of the raise undefeated April, where he has six stolen bases. He has five homers, a 909 OPS, which is higher than Bichette. He plays really good defense.

Jorge Mateo from your Baltimore Orioles, the Baltimore Birds. He is five games less than Wander Franco. he has one more home run. He has more runs. He has 10 stolen bases. He's one of the fastest players in the league. He's not a guy that's supposed to leave April

with a 1.0PS and a 667 slugging. So this is where all of us have our different, how many games do you have metric? All of us have where do the stats actually land? And I think easily you could pick either one of those three and have a good argument. Pena's on the list. I think he's a tier below. Like Jimmy said, we have four guys at each level.

I think you can make a compelling for all three. Dalton guessed my pick on the way in. He thought this was one of the hardest ones. He guessed my third pick. Wow. Trev, tough for you? Not really. I, too, also very much enjoy watching Proboscett play.

He's had a couple, like, five hit nights back to back or something like that. But Jorge Mateo, I think, to me, is... right now playing better all around baseball. You mentioned what he does on the base pass. He's an excellent defender as well. He's had, he's like pushed, you know,

one of their top prospects off a shortstop, man. Like this guy has locked down that position in Baltimore. He is a big reason why Baltimore has, is up to a really great start in April. And, you know, if you kind of just like look around the numbers, he's still one dotting it,

man, at the shortstop position. So when it is close in some of those bigger numbers like OPS and some of the counting stats. I always try to lean base running and defense to round it out, and I think he's separated himself in those categories. So I'll take Jorge Mateo, even though, man, you said Wander and Bo had some really nice numbers in April.

But Mateo gets my vote. Do you have a different, or are you also Mateo? I'm Jorge Mateo. I thought this was easy. I didn't even think this was hard. The only thing, I mean, Wander has how many more games, six more games. I just clicked off the sheet. He has five more games, which is, you know, over almost 40 at bats,

which is significant, especially when we're talking April sample size. And I do want to throw in my Eddie Rosario theory, as I label it. Jorge Mateo has done it all from the second half of the lineup. Wander has been up top. Like when the game starts, Wander Franco's there. You know he's going to be there. team is game planning to beat him. For half of this month, Jorge Mateo has been a bonus piece at the bottom part of the lineup.

Now, how much should that hurt him? I don't think as much as the gap has landed in April. Yeah, if the slash lines were closer in any way, I would go to that stuff to find a tiebreaker, but I didn't even think that it was worthy of digging in. He leads in every slash line leads in F4 and leads in weighted runs created plus. So Mateo gets it. He's almost at a 400 OBP. I mean, all right, baby.

Way to go. If I see a four with your OBP, I'm going to like you. Yeah. Even if it's just a month, man. That's like... Especially from the bottom of the lineup, man. Turn it over. All right.

We're like cruising through this and we've agreed on every single one so far. The A.L is, yeah. I think we're going to even out on that. A little surprised on Wander. I think we, I do think we landed in the right spot, but... I'm telling you, get these numbers in front of you're like, yeah. He's got double the doubles. Tayo just runs, man.

He's so fast. Third base. 60 stolen bases. Trevor, we got your guy Matt Chapman. Devers is always here. Jose Ramirez is always here. Josh Young in the top four. This has been the Devers J-RAM debate for two years in a row now.

It's never been anyone else besides those two. At least not as a winner. About to be. Yep. And this one's easy. I think everyone is in agreement on this one. He had, I think he was the April player of the month, too. I'm pretty sure, or he's going to be.

I know he won player of the week at least once. Matt Chapman's running the way with this thing, guys. Yep. He's got a contract year. Taste your boy, Trev. Contract year for him. He's leading in extra base hits. He's got 20.

The next closest is Raphael Devers was 17. And, you know, Devers had a really solid month as well, 10 homers and 27 RBI. Matt Chapman has just been, he's hit. constantly throughout April playing great defense his F4 is I think maybe tops in the league right now is it sitting at two um 219 weighted runs created plus he's doing it all right now and if he continues this my goodness he's going to get paid this off season leads the league in total basis he started from the get going hasn't stopped can i tell you guys something yeah thank god we don't have to pick between Devers and J-Ram again because their stats are always very close.

Just toe to toe. Matt Chapman helped. He helped his own case a ton in his last seven games of April where he batted 458 with a 552 on base. Zero home runs, six doubles, four BIs, but I mean just hits, hits, hits. So he finished strong That's how you're going to get yourself a pedal He made it easy Maybe if he doesn't have that strong

We're finished he's it's a three-way race And we're really He made it easy for us So I thank him for that And a little love to our thick neck king Josh Young Who He has the highest

After Chapman He's got the highest slugging And he's been looking apart And so thick At third Holy smokes Treve You want to hear Chapman splits

He's got 30 Plate appearances Against left-handed pitchers. I got to imagine he's crushing the ball. 536 batting average. 1.4 OPS. Is that good?

536 batting average versus lefties. What's the right-handed? Give me the OPS versus right-handers. 9-89 versus right-ies. 1.4 versus lefties. Yeah. Platoon guy. 312 or 317 batting average versus righties. So Matt Chapman, what a month.

A Daisy. it is yours. 465 OBP. Let's go to, my brain would go to you till next, but the way that we're structured where we go to outfield. What do you guys want to do?

Let's go to outfield. We're banging down the sheet. And maybe we even tell people right now about shady rays, because I have my glasses right here. I have so many shady rays. I know my whole drawer full of them. It's a Shady Ray,

Shady Ray's life. You guys know Shady Ray's by now. They've been with us for a while. And if you've been watching our Blitzball battle, It's a Shady Rays festival. So we love Shady Rays and what you need to do. Is summer here? No.

But it's kind of. It's about to be. Hurry up. And you need sunglasses. So go to Shady Rays and you know they've got the best deal in town. Code talking 50% off two plus pairs of polarized sunglasses. So get yourself a pair. Get yourself and a friend or a lover.

That's like Bogo, but better. It's like a bogo. but better. Yes. It's been a big raise month, so why don't you get yourself some shady rays? And the rays are shady too. Whoa.

This works out perfectly. Treves. You're the Mariners Reek. I'm the Ray's Reek. I've been inside the rays. They're shady. This this outfield and DH situation is really

pliable or like You can... Liable? Yeah, you can rotate. You can be very flexible within our rules around here. Interesting. Because... The rules you need to have are one center fielder.

And not a lot of guys qualify as center fielder because it's a very hard position defensively to play. Then just two outfielders. So if the two best outfielders are both center fielers, you can use both of them. You'd just be an outfield slot. And then the D.H. But there's just so much moving.

around, just to give you an example of like the massaging Brent Rooker, you can have him win DH and then have three outfielders. Or you can have Brent Rooker count as an outfielder and that leaves D.H for Yurdon or Yerdon wins out. And then you have this guy at center field, but whatever. There's a lot going on. I don't know in what order you want to do it. Because who you put at center field changes how you do the rest. I think that's why we have to do center field first. I think That dictates the rest. Can I ask you, Brent Rooker has qualified at D.H? I have full faith in Dalton.

Yes. I do, too. When he and I were going over what the rules should be, Brent Rucker was the example I looked at with, yeah, he plays a lot of D.H. Just typed Dalton into baseball reference. And? Oh, there's a couple guys.

He plays more D.H than any position, than any other position, Brent. Okay, good. Good. We want our DHS to play D. Where are you going in center field? I mean, I'll, I'll tee it off because I, like you're saying, the puzzle piece goes, I think it's trout. Um, the, uh, always trout. It's fucking always trout, right. Um, and I, I think, you know, Big Aaron judge was kind of the other center fielder that was leaking out.

And, um, pretty much all of Trout's numbers across the border better. Yeah. So, but if judge is a top, judge isn't going to. get in the top three outfield spots unless he wins the center field spot and trout goes to another outfield spot. So that's the trickiness here. Like if you think Judge is a top three outfielder, he has to be in that center field spot and you put trout elsewhere. Well, a center fielder can still land in the other outfield spots, right? Well, trout would be the center field spot. Right. So if judge was good enough, he would just be another outfield spot. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Centerfield is the most transitive. But he's not, in my opinion. I think the only way Judge gets a day. Yeah, if he's not eligible for center field, he doesn't make the list. So if you want Judge as a top three, you know, if we want to be Yankee homers, I would say, well, I'll give him.

Yeah, he didn't earn it. I agree. I don't, I don't have, I don't have them there, but there's ways you can mess with it like that. A little bit. So Trout at Centerfield. You just, you got, you lock in the best center field. and then you find the two best outfielders.

All right. No massaging loud. I agree with that. So Trout wins center field. A little deep cut. Congratulations. A little deep cut for the talking baseball. I mean,

if you care about multiple season streaks, which I don't, you would be interested because Trout, I don't know, at the end of 2021, if he got a pedal. But he got every centerfield pedal last year. He did not get the pedal in 21.

Are you alluding to that he could be on a run for a dollar? Double daisy? I care about double daisies. I care about double daisies. I don't care about like hitting streaks over two seasons. 2021, his only pedal was April. He got hurt.

Oh, yeah. But didn't his April month carry him over into May, I'm pretty sure. It didn't. He would have. He would have in the conversation for sure. We knew he was broken. Injuries are tough. We have our own rules.

Trevor Plough. This is where things get into. interesting in the AL. Do you want to throw up maybe your next outfielder and we see if there's any alignment on that? Or if we just think you're done as well. This is where I'm having difficulties because Brent Rooker like deserves a pedal.

He deserves a pedal and I just don't know where to put him. If you can put him at D.H., I mean, he's better, he has the best numbers of any of the guys we have listed here. And so we have an opportunity to put him in one of the outfield positions or given the DH. And that's kind of where I'm like, oh, shoot. Well, that conversation, to me,

comes down to is he better than Otani? Because Otani is the, Otani's only way to get a pedal is at DH. And starting pitcher. Yeah, but offensively is D.H. So to me, who, who's better? Yeah, he's been better than Otani as a hitter of this year. So then, then my brain goes,

but the third outfielder, So say Rooker gets the D.H spot, there's two outfield spots. Are those two guys more deserving than a pedal of a pedal than Otani? Yes. As a hitter, I think so. Because then Otani is out. But if they weren't, then I would give Rooker the outfield spot, Otani, the D.H. That's how I would do it at least.

To get the top most deserving guys. I get what you're saying. I think if we're doing Rooker, which he's earned it, The numbers are tough. He's played the most games of DH, right? Yeah, it came up with more games of DH. For himself, he's played more games at DH than any other spot. Let's just do that.

He deserves a pedal. Let's give it in the DAG. You can shuffle that later if we feel like we need it. Yeah, I'm fine. I'm fine with that. I was down to Him or Otani for DH. I think Otani did beat out Bucson or Alvarez, IMO. Harold Ramirez also gets some love.

But Rooker has been incredible. and I think the outfielders have been better than what Otani would be, so I have Rooker as my D.H. I'm good with that. I do think it lands that way. If you need to slide it later, we can't. Yeah, you can slide around if Otani deserves it. But there's two outfielders that have better numbers.

If Rookers of the D.H, there's two outfield spots open. That's how it works. Sorry, Otani. Maybe three. No. I mean, so then there's some fun names here, names that I don't know if they're going to go on to, you know, be in contention for... Get more pedals.

Daisies. But... Well, you got, Jim. Well, the next highest slugging percentage goes to Kelnick, right? No. Well, yes. Yeah. Randy.

No. Calnick has a 615. Randy's 573. I want my outfielder's slunk. Especially if we're not doing centerfield. We're doing just corner outfielders. I mean, that's an important slash. line for corner outfield position to me.

So I'm giving it to Kelnick one of my spots for sure. Also had Kelnick. He's been incredible. His walk percentage ain't great. Trev. That to get better. Trev slash Reek, you're not in on Kelnick? It's not that I'm not in on Kelnick. I just have my next guy up and it wasn't Kelnick.

Would Kelnick be your next next guy up? He's close. He's close. I definitely want to reward. him for perseverance. I think, you know, I take that into account for my award because, man, the guy has been brutal to start his career. I mean, that's not, I mean, that's, I'm not trying to come at him because you know how I am with Marinus fans. He has been brutal. He still has a negative career baseball reference war, even though he's got off to this nice start. Um, my next, my guy that

I have, and I, and you guys have voted him in already. It's two, it's two votes to the three. So, so we'll let you lead off the next guy. Okay, so snaps to Calnick for getting First Daisy, I'm assuming. Incredible. You want to hype him up more? Put perseverance in the rules, BBD. He played so well that he,

they slot him up to the three hole recently. He was in the six for a majority of the season. Actually started him, seven. Moved up. He's playing both outfield spots. If the team was off to a better start, we would be talking about how he changes their season outlook. He would like be the story of baseball.

Like, but if you told us coming into the season, Kellnick was going to be a, you know, a one and a half war usable outfield, we'd say, okay, nice step. Instead, he's been one of the best in baseball. Also, uh, hitting lefties and right. He's both at, uh, great, great pace. They never, he never used to let him do that.

Yeah. Well, he didn't earn it. And now he's made some swing adjustments. He's put in time. Um, I believe he did do like the drive line thing and, you know, he put the work in. And it's, and it's, and it's, and it's, And it's panned out, and I love guys that are willing to make adjustments.

And for him, I was like, he had to make adjustments. And he went and didn't. So I do like that. So yes, I mean, snaps for him. I will lead off our third and final outfield position. I'm going our guy, the best to ever do it. Randy a Rosarena, man. I think that he's just impacted the game so much.

I have a little bit of WBC bias watching him do his thing, but you get into, you know, the MLB season. And he's continued it. And he's leading in B-War. I think he's only behind Trout and Rooker for F-War in this outfield position. He just plays the game with so much passion. And again, he's a big part of the reason why the race went undefeated in April. So he's my vote for the third and final pedal winner in the outfield.

I'm with you. He started every single game besides one, a Sunday, in Toronto. They gave him the day off. Otherwise, he's been there. Mostly in the three-hole for the team. 20 out of the 28 games in the three-hole. And, yeah, I mean, he's hot.

Let's see how field I had. I had Trout, Randy and Kelnick. I had Rooker and Otani a slightly more of a debate for DH. Again, mostly games played because what Rooker's done, but like you're saying, I mean, even in that sample,

he's outperformed Otani and a lot of the counting stats. So I know, you know, Rooker Otani on paper coming into the year, a featherweight versus a heavyweight, but Rookers earned it, man. I'd like to see Randy have more triples, only one. Come on. It's fair. It's not enough.

That's fair. Damn. He's got four games at DH and absolutely went crazy. Adelis Garcia deserves a shout out. he did have, I think, eight ribbies in one game. So that kind of elevated those numbers. I think three homers and eight ribbies, right? Don't have such a big game, Adelis.

That was a nice game. I'm using that against you for some reason right now. I don't know why. I mean, a 2015, Trevor Plouf would punch you in the face right now. No, I'm just looking at these notes. Like, damn, I'm like, you know, he's got some counting stats. And I remember that one big game. No, there's some other guys that need to be mentioned here.

I mean, Kyle Tucker, that dab Abraham, Lincoln M. F. He's off to a good start again. Always. Your Don. Shocker. Not involved in the outfield or D.H. conversation necessarily for April. And he's a guy that we, if you had to pick one guy. Yeah. To be in contention for a Daisy. It'd be your dawn for me, him and Trout. And sorry, Yordaun, this year is not your year. Unfortunately. April's tough. He did a great job. job.

I mean, I'm looking into Randy a little bit, trying to find some fun, fun stats. Runner on third, two outs. He's had three opportunities. He's got four RBIs. Yes. Just the best ever. Just the best ever play the sport. That's quite the stat right there, James.

He's just in the clutch moment, like he's going to push that run across. You have. That's what he called out, the backbreaker stat. Yeah. He's pissed the pitcher off. Now I'm looking at Runner on. He's got nine plate appearances. Runner on third less than two outs.

And I think he's come through a ton. He's pushed the run across. Where is it? Push the runner on third, less than two outs. Seven RBIs. Nine chances. So. Want to have an undefeated April, kids?

Randy's doing the damn thing. Holy smokes. Alex Verdugo, clutched Jean as well. He's had a couple walkoffs. He's kept the Red Sox rolling. I know you guys don't want to hear that. Kept you guys in last place. But hey, got to mention him.

We love Verdugo. All right. We got the whole pitching an NL to do. Well, we got utility. Oh, you too. And this one's kind of easy. I think we're all going to be on the same page here. The numbers are kind of glaring.

Three, two, one. Taylor Walls. Taylor, motherfucking, Walls. abstain. Taylor walls. That's two. Taylor Wall, sure.

We have four guys listed here. It's Drury, Kike Hernandez, Whitman-Maryfield, and Taylor Walls. And Taylor Walls by far has the best numbers. Everybody on the race has good numbers. My daysy winners are good enough to tell in a position. Oh, you're just out on the U-Till position. Always happened, yeah. Yeah, okay, good.

Well, me and Jake agree. So Taylor Walls, congratulations. I believe your first pedal. A lot of first time pedal. A pest. And he's hitting. Yeah. For him to be hitting is gross.

Be a glove only, for Christ's sake. He also has five stolen bases. Just throwing it in there. Something going on in those walls. Who's your pitcher, Jimbo? If you abstain from you till, well, you got throwing the pill. Rimes.

How are we doing it? One starter? We always do, we just do one starter. Probably not fair, but that's the way we've done it. Garry Cole. Garrett Cole's my choice And I dug into some data here Thinking

Trev would go Sonny Because that's kind of the two ways He's twins guy and where Yankees guys Uh Jay uh Trev are you going sonny you're going Cole Uh I wasn't sold on either of those guys necessarily I think there's another guy that's deserved of some mentioning here

Maybe the F war and the B war don't represent them but the opponent's batting average sure does, leading in whip sure does, leading in strikeout sure does. I mean, Shohei's been incredible as a pitcher this year. Shit, I didn't even deep dive into him. You're not working. I mean, this is a tough one. It really is because those three guys, I think.

I mean, we also have Luis Castillo on our sheet, and he's fucking been lights out as well. But Shohei, like, I mean, limiting people to a freaking 102 opponent's average. That's crazy, dude. like hey simple math here one out of every 10 people that come to play get a hit off you that's crazy

yeah this is a tough one for me it's not a runaway for Cole I know that he has a lot more walks than the other guys so yes yes that's where that's where his uh but he still leads he still leads he still leads him so it's like okay

it might allow walks but I don't allow anybody to get a hit off me I looked at opponents a lot I can pull it up with show hey. Sunny Gray, five out of the six teams he's faced our bottom 10 teams in OPS. Garrett Cole, five out of the six teams he's faced are top 15 in OPS plus. So Cole has faced five out of his six games. We're above average offenses. Sunny Gray has faced the 30th ranked team twice in Kansas City.

The 20th, the 25th, and the 23rd. Cole faced the second, 9th, 7, 13th, 15th. I'm going to believe Shohei has probably not faced a lot of talent either because of the division and all that shit. So he's also faced Oakland. They are bottom 10. They got to be right. Yeah.

Kansas City is the worst team. He's faced Oakland twice. Kansas City once, the nationals, their bottom six. Red Sox are good, and that's all. Let's just say our pick on three. One, two, three. Col. Sunny Gray.

Nice. Nice, Treve. Make sure you check me out on the pregame show. Jim, that was a compelling. I knew you guys were going cool. I didn't have a pick locked in. I kind of wanted to hear something. You were compelled by my argument.

Yeah. The opponent's face is pretty important. It was pretty eye opening when I looked at Sonny's and I was like, oh my God. 20. Sonny does have the best FIP of all of them, which is very important to pitchers. It is very close to polls. It's like 0.03.03 away. Yes.

Yeah. All right. These guys are all had great April. I'm not knocking any of them. I think that Sonny and Otani can beat the best offenses. I'm not trying to say they can't. I'm just saying in April, when you judge. what they've done against who they've done it.

I think Coles is more impressive. Schedule is not their fault. Especially what happened. Yeah. All right. Let's move on. We're moving on. We're going to do believers, right?

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Today. I'll be honest. Last night, the a ale was filled out. I had a lot of fun going through it. I haven't like fully dove in deep into a lot of the NL picks. So I don't know if you guys have or can lead the way. But I'll, I'll tee up the first one. Yeah?

Yeah. I feel like the first, you know, three or four sections here that were going to go down. There's some clear cut winners. I dug into the first one, actually. I forgot, I did this. I have notes. I don't know when I did that. Catcher for NL.

You got Jan Goams on the sheet, Sean Murphy on the sheet, J.T. Romuto on the sheet. You guys have a, do you think this is a debate or you think this is easy? Sweep, no? Yeah, I think it's going to be a sweep. Although I love you, J.T. You're such a good looking dude. I had my arm around you yesterday. You love our content.

You said that. That's a quote. I think Sean Murphy runs away with this. Yeah, I have Murphy. It was a cheat code this month, man. Man, the walks, like you said, Trev, those jumped off the sheet. Jan Goem's walk percentages. Can't really peddle that.

Good for Yon making the sheet, man. Yeah. I'm all about that. But Sean Murphy, yeah, Braves, Braves gone Braves. He's catching and batting cleanup playing every game. is, yeah, Will Smith is going to get docked for not playing enough. You know, I think he was on the aisle. I think he just came off last night.

So he had some really good numbers. And I assume he'll be in the running, you know, come at the end of May. But as of right now, Sean Murphy just kind of did it, man. And in every category, it looks great. What a fucking trade. Are you kidding me? How do the Braves do that? Smart team.

How do they keep getting away with them? Matt Olson, come on over. Sean Murphy. Yeah, we'll take him too. Speaking of. First baseman Goldie, MVP last year, didn't win April, but won every month after that. Pete Alonzo has popped 10 homers so far this season.

Matt Olson, he's on this sheet. And who's the fourth, Rowdy to Les. Where you go, Rowdy? Rowdy. Out of eight homers for Rowdy. I love that. Does anyone want to go first? Treve, kick to you, I think there.

a winner but it's very it's it's it's debatable what what do you like yeah this one's tough for me because if you look at you know war stats and and and f war goldie is is leading the way here um they have all played a significant chunk of the game so there's no one that's kind of left out in that regard uh alonzo with the power numbers leading with 10 although you have rowdy and matt Olson right behind him. I think that's to me where it hurts Goldie. He doesn't have the slug numbers right now, though I'm sure he'll pick it up. He only has four homers on the year. So he's got less RBIs, he's got less runs. I love the one-to-one ratio on walks to strikeouts for him. He's got 17 and 17. This is a tough one for me. You know, I'm leaning right now with Matt Olson.

just because I feel like he's played a really well-rounded first base there and kind of produced in the numbers that I like my first baseman to produce in. But Goldie's such a stud too. It's difficult. I want to hear your argument, Jake. Matt Olson feels like at Yankee Stadium they do the subway race and right at the end the train that's in last place sneaks by you. I don't think it's Olson for me.

I think you got a pick between Alonzo and Goldschmidt, IMO. And Trev, you mentioned. I mean, Alonzo 10 homers compared to four, that's significant. Goldschmidt does have 10 doubles while Alonzo has two. So, you know, you're losing a couple bags there on those swings, but he's making up for it. And I don't know. I think the team is polluting us a little bit with St. Louis.

The strikeouts, they don't really matter, but it feels like they matter. And those three stolen bases, like Goldie's still a dog, man, that he's my vote. Goldie's my one. I was also between Alonzo and Goldie. And I think it's really close. And I was just searching a ton.

Alonzo's been awesome. He's in the four hole. Every single game, plays every game. The homers are there. Two doubles on the season. But 25 RBI so far, and that's pretty nice for him. The F-4 is in Goldie's favor,

so as the weighted runs created plus. But what I really looked at was that Goldie has the better walk percentage slightly, and this K percentage is way down. And Trev, you said this earlier in the episode. Your on-base percentage starts with four. I look at you a little different. And Goldie's got a 405 on-based percentage. So I did have on my notes here that I choose Goldie.

I'm taking Matt Olson. I know that it doesn't matter because you guys both did it. I mean, he just leads in all the categories, guys. I mean, he's tied with Pete for runs. He's tied with Pete in RBI. He's got the most walks. He's got the highest slugging percentage by 0.001 over Pete. He's got the best walk percentage.

He leads in OPS. Like, he's kind of just been doing it. So I'm going to stick with Olson, although I guess we'll give snaps to Goldie because you got your April. pedal. Leading in every category, a little deceiving more, Treff. Well, not every category, but most of the fucking categories, okay? He's leading in some

good ones. Also, also the raise didn't go undefeated, okay? We're just messing around here. Maybe they cut his mic. The next one, let's breeze through. Luis Ruiz wins the pedal for National League second baseman. Yeah, man. He's, we talked about on base percentage being over 400.

We got my attention. The motherfucker's hitting 438. He's hitting 4.38. He's got a 4.9K percentage, 500 on base. I mean, sorry to the other people playing this position in this league, but we don't have time. Luis Arise wins it. You get the pedal.

We're moving on. If Cubs fans don't hear you say, Horner, they will attack you physically in the streets. And Tyro Strata might have been better than him as well. So, but arise. What do you do? You're on the conversation next month. Yeah, Strata would be the one that needs to be mentioned. He's chasing four.

Hundy. batting average. It's crazy. The Brycey's hot, though, so. And shortstop in the NL might be a conversation. The names on our sheet here. Bogart's Edmund, Perdomo, and Swanson. Jake, I'll let you lead the way because you did say this was your biggest debate.

Yes. I think especially now that Brent Rooker was thrust into the forelight, four light, not a word. Yeah, that's not. a word by you guys. If we're putting him on that scale to not put Perdomo on the same scale, the numbers are ridiculous. He's hitting 383, 617 slug, a 1.073 OPS.

Xander Bogartz is his number one competition. Thanks for playing Dansby and Tommy, but I think those other two are just in an extraordinary league. and I think with the way this voting has been going Well, he's out for me Because he doesn't hit Luffy's But that's again, that becomes a coaching decision So I'm going Pardomo

Gotta win those coaches over Yeah, I'm not going Pardomo Trev, who are you going? I like a guy that comes into a team And kind of establishes himself in April Sometimes that's hard to do, man. And Xander Bogart's did that with the Padres. He's posted up every game.

He's played 29 games. I like Prodomo, but I agree with James that I want guys that are playing every day. And it is not his fault. And maybe he does get that leash later on in the season. But as we're talking here, April statistics, I mean, Zander's kind of been doing it all. He's hitting the 300, the average, which, you know, that's almost the same thing as a 400 on base percentage to me. If you have a three in front of your name and average, sexy. Just is.

Like Perdomo's 383? I know that. I know that. Oh, okay. I know that. I know that. But this guy's been posted up every single day doing it. So I'm going to give it to Xander Bogart's 914 OPS.

I know. What's Prudomos? One daughter. I get it. You gave him a vote, man. But I'm taking Zander. Also had Zander. Open the season as hot as you can,

those first seven or eight games that they're, video game numbers, which allowed him to slide in certain slash lines later in the month, like I think his batting average on that last road trip jumped down, but the slugging and the on base didn't slump at all, which I love. So, you know, the batting average dropped down in 220 in his last nine games of the month, but the on base percentage stayed at 368 and the slugging 452, which doesn't, and the, batting average, because he had such a hot start, 308. So, yeah, I had Xander as my pick as well.

You want to talk about perseverance again, Trev? Because go look at Pardomo's last year and go look what he's done this year. Pretty fucking awesome. Yeah, I'm excited. I think that if they let him start hitting both sides and be a starter, then I think he's on his way to some pedals in the future. But got to play every game. 47 a bad difference between Pardomo and Zander Bogart's.

looking rooker third baseman got to be honest i haven't really looked at these guys at all that's where my notes stop brian anderson jadie davis max munsey patrick wisdom oh no i did kind of look at this munsey interested me uh trav i let you start us off once he made the adjustment he went back to the back step and started raking again he started out really slow then he just got absolutely hot I believe, does he lead the league in homers right now with 11, or is that Rooker? Does Rooker have more? I don't know. I think Wisdom might have even tied him last night, but that was a May game.

Yeah, we're talking April here. All these statistics are through April. I think we should be talking about that. I watched months he hit yesterday, and he actually is doing like a double step. He takes his front foot forward first, then his back foot backwards, and then he gets ready to hit. I don't know why I'm mentioning that. Just really caught my eye. these are names that like you say give me n-l-third basement these are not the names that you would

initially just jump out to you and like they oh those that's an n-l-third basement like where's austin-re-reilly what's going on with that aranado aronado exactly um but these are the four guys we have in front of us and these are the stats that they have and with these guys if you're just looking across the board i mean munsey's kind of doing it i think munsey's going to get my vote It's got a 408 on base percentage. He's leading in all the, you know, war statistics. He's one dot in it for the OPS. He has through April.

He had the most home runs, the most RBIs, the most walks. So I'm giving to Muncie. James? I don't know. I think I lean Muncie. This one has really kind of twisted me up a bunch. Like his average being only 238 is in soon.

super enticing, but then the on-base percentage is 408, and the slugging is insane, which helps that average be low. Has he played most of his games? Is he like third base this year? I can double check. Muncie? Yeah. Are they still moving them around or without the shift?

No, he's playing most of the third. He's 20, as of today, 27 games at third, only three at first, no starts. So he's been there. So he's the starting third baseman? All right. So that's a position I like. slugging at a lot. So I'll go Muncie or maybe Jake, I will allow you if you're not on Moncy to make points for another guy and I'll take him into consideration because this one really

I don't know. I don't feel confident in any pick. It's Muncie. I mean, batting average. Batting average is ruled out when you have more than doubled the walks as anyone listed. Like, and that's who Max Muncie is. Like it's not a fluky thing. Like he's he is one of, if you started listing players who, I don't know, control the zone or, you know, Max Muncie would be at the top of the list, and he was leading the league in home runs for a little bit. So he let in April. I just checked officially. I mean, kudos to Wisdom, who made it a competition and, you know, kind of has that

thick hot Trevor third baseman look going on. But it's going to be my thick king, Max Muncie. Max Muncie. Max Muncie. Da-do-do-do-do. Bye, bye, bye, bye, bye. Shout out Patrick Wisden for like staying in the conversation, man. Yes.

We thought, hey, you had a good like year for the Cubs that one time. And he's just continued to do it. Love that, man. So we get to the outfield in the N-N-L. And there are four eligible candidates for the center field position. Cody Bellinger, Brandon Marsh, Brandon Nimmo, two brandons, and James Outman. Is there a runaway for you, Jay? There's not a runaway

This was probably the toughest pick on the sheet Because like we talked about also You know, center field can get tricky And I may have two center fielder's In my three outfielders Man The guy that I ended up picking He led the NL in slugging for most of the month

he plays a very good defensive center field it's one of those things that hey maybe it's April maybe it's not Brandon Marsh one dotted the other guys didn't and I mean Jim you like you know triples doubles homers he's got all of that he's done everything leads the league in triples that hey man

a couple of these other guys have a couple steals a couple more steals I don't know man these guys are so close that end of the day, like I thought Marsh has the best hitting numbers. So I'm going Brandon Marsh is my NL center fielder. This is the first time where my rules kind of hurt me because they don't play them versus lefties a lot. But it's not automatic.

Like the other guys are you sit when a lefty pitches. Marsh versus lefties, I think he's. 50% so sometimes they slide poshé in but he also has started like they yeah he's got more games than nimmo and bellinger yeah um and they've started them i think you know it faced one two three four five six seven eight lefties i think it's like four and four he hasn't um so i had to really think about how hard and fast is my rule because i before looking at it marsh is my is my he did start last night against your he was he did start last night against your he's that was in attendance.

Which is good managing. Just start your best hitters. Yes. Don't hide a guy. Yes. Nimmo, outman, man. This crop, dude. I'm going to give my vote because I like when this happens.

Oh, you know why they started him, because he's fucking got one dot versus lefties and a one dot versus righties. So maybe at the beginning of the season, they just were being dumb. I sat in the reporter scrum when they were talking to Topper yesterday. And he kept just looking at me like, Like, what are you doing? Why were you there?

I was just standing there. I wanted to see what questions they were going to ask. And my gosh, I would hate to be a manager. I did that twice. Jake and I did it once. And then when we were in spring training, I stood in on Hyde Scrum and I was like, dude.

I mean, the managers has to sit there and answer these questions. And he's like, what are you talking about? Anyways, I love when you have a young guy who has a big spring training. and most of the time you write that off. But James Outman has brought it into April.

He's a young dude on a team where some other young guys were supposed to shine. I'm talking Gavin Lux. I'm talking Vargas at second base there. Outman's been the best of them all. And he's really kept the Dodgers afloat. He's been one of the best hitters in all the baseball. And the numbers are close between him, Nimma, Marsh, and even Bellinger. but I'm going to give my April pedal for centerfield

to James Outman across the board I saw him make a really nice catch last night he's a thick boy if you saw him nice dumper on him I just like that he's that he had the big spring and has carried it over

a lot of times man that'll just get in your head and just won't happen he's been doing it man seven homers on the year I think he leads As far as those center field guys He has the most RBI It's close

But I'm gonna give it to Outman Yeah I'm I apologize for everyone tuning in You're going to be upset with us Because a lot of guys on this sheet right here Deserve a pedal Yes And we can only give it

To so many I think one I think one player is going to get screwed screwed So you went with Marsh. Man, I got a lot of people. I went with Outman. James. Centerfield is your oyster.

I already went with Marsh. Oh, congrats. Brandon Marsh, Centerfield. I like Outman's numbers. But Marsh, for me, like Jake said, the 418 on base, one dot versus lefties and righties. He's doing well. puck, but the rest of these two guys

picking the next two. I think I think there's one guy that's kind of separate himself from the pack. I think we all can agree. I mean, you look at the stolen bases and he's got he's got the, you know, the OPS up as well. I think he leads in F-war

all the guys that we have listed. I think we could give Ronald LeCunia Jr. one of the spots. Absolutely. Sweet. But then it gets fucking lost. Yes, but then. Enjoy it. Let's enjoy Ronnie for 10 seconds because I know we're all struggling. Yeah. But he's 440 on base percentage.

He's hitting 350. This guy has come back. And a lot of people who picked him to be like the NL MVP comeback player of the year. Like they're looking very smart right now. 13 swipes. Get out of here. 13 swipes, man. Get out of here.

And now this is devastating because is Ronald La Cunia guaranteed 30-30 guy this year. he's only got four homers through April but you got to expect those are going to come he's going to get enough of bats if he stays healthy if he's healthy with the stolen base rules like you can almost pencil and fitty so then it's just how many homers does he hit

16 walks to 18 strikeouts my goodness Ronnie have a freaking month man so some guys that I think deserve some love R. Ian Hap has a really nice month I think compared to a couple of these other guys I think he's going to be just short.

If you guys want to make your Swinsky and Reynolds arguments, I'll hear him. Yaz had a great month. I'm kind of going back. Swinsky's got an argument. Swinsky has an argument. I'm going back to the center fielders, I think, for my third outfield spot. I'm leaning that way as well. So it sounds like we're thinking the same thing.

Curious. I think I know where you guys are leaning, but then I'm going to have some questions for you. Yeah, because there's... Nimmo more walks than strikeouts. Yeah. Hot. Um, yeah.

Just say it. No, I'm, I'm debating it. Nimmo and Swinsky for me are, um... Hmm. Because I had already said, corner outfield spot, I want the slugging to be. I want you to mash homers. But Nimos stats are for center field, right? So if anything, I think in my...

brain, it would have been easier for me to put Nimmo as a center fielder and Marsh as a corner outfielder because I think Nimmo deserves a pedal. But Soinski's slugging numbers. The games aren't there. I don't know about the splits with him. Soinski's a freak. Go check out his baseball savant when you have a second. Me and, uh, me and Foolish Bailey on Wake and Jake today did, uh, Soinsky opened my eyes, but he doesn't crack it for me. Treve, you're looking antsy. I also like Corby and Carol. So I don't know. Can you guys, consider outman for one of these, uh,

the last pedal. I have, I have outman above Nimmo. I, sorry. I, because you voted outman for center.

I, I haven't put him back into the brain. My brain has in running. Um, I'll drop some fuel on the fire because we're, we're hitting a tense part, part.

I got a little Minnesota there. My final vote goes to Cody Bellinger. I knew you were going, Cody Bellinger. I thought James was leaning that way as well. No. Why are you so mad about that? You just can't convince me that he had, you know, a better April than James Outman. I mean, we could talk like they're close and they're fairly similar, but I think that,

and I love like the bounceback aspect of Cody Bellinger, a new team. I talked about that was Zander. I think that that's awesome. And he's found something that's worked for him. He's made an adjustment. Love that. But I just think Outman has across the board kind of outperformed him. even if it's just by a little bit.

I don't know. I know you don't know. I think I think Coney might have performed him just by a little bit. I'm taking outman again. That's my vote. So for the third outfit, I'm going to give him my vote again. I think that's well within the rules, BPD.

Absolutely. Yeah, if it was between those two, which maybe that makes our lives easier if I choose between those two, I would also choose out. But they're close. They're fucking close, man. I wish I could massage just to get more people on the fucking thing.

Because I think what Nimmo's doing for the Mets is pretty huge, especially like from the center field position, but from a corner outfield position, which is how my brain was working. But I mean, he's got 3.30 average in a 4.30 on a 3. base. The slugging hurts them. You tell me you have an everyday center fielder that's going to do that for you and play good

defense and center. I'm for it. I don't know. Fuck. I'll go outman to make it easy on us. I feel bad for Nimmo. And Swinski, who's slugging like crazy.

And Cobell, man. Yeah. There's a lot of guys that deserved. We can only take three. So our outfielders were Marsh, Acuna, and Outman. And those are not names that you would have said before the year. Obviously, Ronnie may be.

I did. I had those three as my... Yeah, you did. You locked it in, didn't you? Yeah. All right, all right. That was tough. So Winski stinks against lefties,

so that's easy for me. He's got a 449 OPS versus lefties. So... Eat a bug. That eliminates that. But what Nimmo is doing, on center field spot is shout out Ian hat because he also got

paid Corbin Carroll 10 Steele Yeah disgusting yeah Each person had like a category where I was like Ooh that would win for me Ooh that would win for me And NL Like the DHS aren't just more outfielders

Oh the NLDHs stink Yeah Compared to the rest of all the categories I think it's the weakest crop of four And I do think for our audience And I think most of you are baseball fans. Nice, Jake. Know that being a D.H, there's a reason that we're not sliding another outfielder in there.

Being a D.H is hard. Having four at bats a game and that's all you do on the field, that's a skill set. So as much as we'd love to slide another one of those outfielder's in there, the D.H candidates are Gorman, Martinez, McCutcheon, and Schwabo. And I'll be honest, Trev, I let something influence me here. I let pirate fever influence me. I think McCutcheon, pure stats-wise, would maybe be my two,

but what he is provided to the Pittsburgh Pirates day in, day out, along with the stat line. Like, it's very good. I've gone Andrew McCutcheon. Yeah, this is another one where, like, I agree with you, Jake. Like, if you're D.H, you're the D.H. You have to play that position.

Shorebarized. is in the outfield a ton. I think it might be 50-50. Obviously, he's at 40%. I think he's about to lose a lot of DH eligibility next month for the month after. Cutch has started in the field three times. He is the DH for his club,

which if you have a guy that can do that, it's great because a lot of guys can't. Is anyone else, J.D., is he, do I need to compare his numbers? J.D. He's been solid I honest. I had Nolan Gorman as the best kind of stats, stats. Him and Cutch are really close as far as just like general statistics. Whether it's war, whether it's OPS, I mean, they're very similar. The slugging goes to Nolan a little bit. He's got more homers.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, let me dive in Nolan's stuff. He's been playing some 2B, which again shouldn't fully penalize him, but. But he does do DH. Interesting, interesting, interesting. Yeah, I mean, he's mostly DH. More DH than any other spot. I think I'm leaning McCutche in here. And for no particular reason, I mean,

it's between him and Gorman. They're so freaking close right now. Like, I'm looking stolen bases. Cutch has four. And for an old guy and sorry, Cutch. I love that. You still got the legs under you. I could be persuaded.

because Gorman leads by a wide margin in RBI's. He has more homers than cutched by one. Same amount of doubles. Oh, this is tough. I don't like when they're tough. I'm going to go. Because then I vote with my heart. I'm going to go to an old trick where I go to the game logs

and I see which player had more nothing games. Over. No hits. No walks. At D.H. No sack hits. No sack flies. No hit by pitches.

Just the most games where you didn't contribute. Especially at D.H. With the bat. I'm on Gorman's right now. And he's got one, two, three, four. He's got four of those games. out of his 26. So Cutch, let's go to his,

we're at his game log, we're sorting by hits. Oh, boy. One, two, three, four. Three. You got a sack fly in this one. Cutch wins. Only three games where he went to the clubhouse

and said, I didn't do shit today. unfortunately. What, you voted for Cutch? Yeah. Uh, Jake. Yeah. Gorman had me a clean, give him a clean sweep.

Yeah. Gorman had four games. Cutch had three. And how about those pirates, baby? Go check out our merch shop fire cutch shirt in it. I just ordered it. Nice. Mookie bets for you till.

You guys are disgusting. Dude, the guy, the guy's been fucking starting at shortstop. Tread. I don't know about Miggi Roe was there last night. U-Till. Mookiee Pets. That's what one of my friends named their dog. Tyro Estrada.

My King has entered the chat. Connor Joe, everyone's favorite. And Jeff McNeil for the U-Till spot. I'd like U-Til spot. If it was, if you're eligible for a position, you're not eligible for U-Til. Like, I don't think Tyro should be able to lose out the position he plays 60% of time

and then be available for util. There's guys that are so util, they don't even, there cannot be placed in the positions and that's who we're looking out for. But if you can be placed in the position voting, win your position. That's not how we've done it for two years.

That's why I always abstain. He's got 10 starts at shortstop and 19 at second base. That's crazy while also playing left field. Like that shouldn't be ignored. Mookie should not be a utility. Because we just held it against the DHS if you weren't D-Hing the whole time. Like, it's how U-Till works.

I love Mookie and I love that he played shortstop and actually looked pretty good. But I just don't consider him that. I don't think he'll be that going forward. That was kind of like out of some desperation or necessity for the Dodgers in the roster. Tyro Estrada, is he going to get a freaking pedal? Yeah, I think he kind of has to. The guys that we have listed in front of us, Mookie, Tyro, Connor, and Jeff. Tyro is runaway

That's pretty funny to say that First names He's kind of run away with it In most of the categories So Let's go Let's go Tyro for me Tyro

He deserves it It's why the util was created He had an insane month 346, 393 and 922 OPS And he's playing a little defense Shout out Connor Joe though He's not too far behind in any of these Connor Joe's got the

Jeez, do we have to make our freaking reconsideration here and I'm looking at this son of a gun James, are you abstaining again? Yes. What if I choose Connor Joe and he takes Tyro Estrada, who we going to, Beaver?

I think if it was guys who aren't eligible for positions I'd be more in but the fact that it's like just like a let's help Tyro out because he didn't win second base. Like I want to out and him out. He's not eligible for second base. I'm solved. Well, he was though.

But he cannot be. Well, I think we'd have to change the percentage then, which would change all of it. All right, I'm doing it. It's Tyro. Because Conner Joe's fucking got me. A stolen basis got me. Tyro has more games at two different positions than Conor Joe.

Congratulations, Tyro. Eight stolen bases. Eight swipes. He's doing everything, man. Everything. Tyro. The bullet. Pitching.

this is it this is it this is going to round out the all jm team for april damn all right so this is a doozy this is a doozy this is a doozy always is justin steel spencer strider clayton kershaw and zach gallon good for justin steel being with this group i'll just read off like winners of categories for people at home just so they can get a sense of it um strider only started five games the other three started six. I mean, that's schedule, happenstance. Strider and Steele haven't had a loss on their record yet, but Kershaw leads in wins.

Steele leads in ERA. Kershaw leads in in in in innings pitched. Wow, three-way. We're going to make some people mad. Strider leads in accounting stats. He's got one less start, so I'll move to the slashes. K-per-9 is Strider. walks per nine is kershaw by a hair basically tied with a gallon

opponent's batting average is kershaw phip is strider whip is kershaw i don't know i think i just landed on kershaw myself i don't i can go look into opponents and stuff but that's tough what are you guys thinking I think Strider gets hurt because he doesn't have the extra start here in April, and that's tough because that's not of his doing. I think Gallin and Kershaw are so close in pretty much every category,

but Galen's got more K's, which isn't everything, but it means a lot. I think I'm giving it to Gallen, man. I just have had so much, I feel like there's been so many times to pray. is Gallin and we've just kind of gone to the other guy that I have to do Gallin now. He's he had the, does he still have the scoreless inning street going? I think it ended last night or two nights ago. He ended last night. So he had that long streak in April, 28 something.

After going 44 last year, which is just absolutely insane. And again, Fit, man. If I'm choosing between Kershaw and Gallen, Pip is way more in favor. of Zach Gallin. Some Gallin's getting my vote. I'm gonna, I'm, Jake, I'll pass it to you because I'm doing my opponent test. Right.

See if I can get a better sense, you know, sniff test on all this. Because it is, it is tough. And I gave it last time, so maybe people will. And if Strider had another start, I'd probably pick Spencer Strider. That's how fucked up this is right now. Yeah.

I hear you. Those big old feet on you, Strider. Why do you have such big feet? Mm-hmm. One less start. He's right there on strikeouts. I know, dude. Yeah, man, I want to check one more thing.

I'm looking at Clayton Kershaw's baseball reference. There's a lot of stuff on that page, huh? A lot of really good stuff on that page. Yeah, I don't know if this will pop a balloon or not. The streak's in my head. I'll go gallon. I mean, that's, you know. Don't be so upset about it.

It's his story. Your gallon pick. Him, Kershaw, Strider, Wade Miley on the sheet, not getting the vote. And we haven't talked about Justin Seale who has the lowest ERA of them. And we're normally ERA snog. So that's where it gets even more twisted.

So I'll, I was leaning, I'll be honest, I was leaning gallon. I think, I think the, the strikeouts fit the streak. Okay. My, uh, opponents faced. You said,

helped sway you last time. Uh, just did Kershaws. Every team that he's pitched against so far is currently top 15 in OPS plus. Snakes, baby. I'm doing, I'm doing,

uh, gallons now. Let's see. We got Dodgers. One, three, four, five,

They're eighth. I mean, I'm going to, if you want to. Two Padre starts. I'm not sure where they're listed right now. They are 16th, I think. Yeah, yeah, 16th. You're going by OPS. OPS plus.

Didn't you already put your vote in? Jake did. You're trying to sway him out of his vote. Well, this, he said this swayed him last time. Tweed me last time. I'm locked in with Gowin. Locked in. And I'm trying to, you know, by time.

as I fill this out. So, I mean, Gallon's got the 8th, 16th, 18th, 23rd, 16th, and 30th. So it's easier than Kirshah's, but it's not as crazy as the coal and sunny one where it was like, you face the bottom 10, you face the top 10. Fine.

I want to give it to Kershaw, I think, but I'll give it to Gowlin to support Jake Snakes. And also, he has it. You guys both gave it. Sounds like it's two on one anyway, unless Jake changed. I don't know, though. Like, he's the ERA, like, Kirchel's got him in ERA. And I'm pretty much like...

Steele's got K-on-in-2. Yeah, why aren't we talking about Steele? I said that. They're all good. They're all good. I think his K percentage is, to me, again, it's not everything, but it means a lot. And his is down. Helps.

7.93Ks per 9. you know, and Gowens got 12 and Strider's got 14, almost 15 Ks per 9, which is a joke. A result base, steals, pretty good. Well, you guys both did Gowland, so I'll just throw steel some love then. Good for him.

Didn't expect to see him on this list. Fipp he's way up. Fip steals way up there. Yeah, so it's not looking at the projective stats don't think he's going to pitch him to some good luck. He's not looking like he's going to project it be on up for a pedal again.

So based on the results, I'll give him his pedal vote for me. Two unearned runs from steel. Might have to check the scorebooks on that. You know what I'm saying? Oh, favorable... Right. Right.

That can... That can... Congrats, Zach Gowland. Congrats to Zach Allen. An incredible April. All right, now hottest manager. Gabe Kapler again. Gabe Kauff.

Look it up. Uh, Bochie with his big all head. That's cool. Braves Ashland said that she thinks Gabe Kapler's not hot. Yeah, he's too effeminate for her. She likes, you know, a rugged Alabama man. And Gabe's not that. He only eats meat.

There's pictures of him wearing white linen on the beach modeling. That's not her type of guy. It's true. It's tough. Everyone says that and you get next to the guy. Yeah, you get next to him. You're captivated for sure. He draws you in, man.

Yeah. All right. That was the all-JM episode. Sound off. Dalton, we're not picking Wade mildly, bro. Nice. April though. Sorry, we upset.

Jake sucks. Pitchers only care about this. NL. Outfield hurt, huh?