Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - Mets Stumbling, Cardinals Embarrassing, but Yoshida Rakes | 660

Episode Date: May 10, 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 http://get.bluemoonbeer.com/BASEBALL to see delivery options.Shop Lightbox lab-grown diamonds at http://bit.ly/3KymJ2q and use code TALKINBASEBALL10 for 10% off your purchase.++++++Timestamps:0:00 Lotta Scary Topics This Episode!3:10 Mets Off to a Bad Start!21:00 Cardinals are Embarrassing Themselves34:40 Oli Marmol41:00 Masataka Yoshida is a STUD48:00 Jomboy is Over the Sweeper53:00 Red Sox Lineup All BANGS55:10 Jake's Closing Notes 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 to baseball. It's the midweek episode brought to you by Seatkeek. We got slumps and one guy had proven everyone wrong. So let's talk all about it. Oh, wow, wow, bow, bough, bong, bown, bown, bown, bong, bong. Oh, he looks so good today, Jake. A freak. Cult leader.

Just got back from Nepal. Hello and welcome to talking baseball, brought to you by seat geek. My name is Jimmy. His name is Jake. He's wearing, yeah, it is a little culty shirt and Trevor's wearing a Valley Boys hoodie in the valley. Wow.

First place pirates too. Producer BBD behind the dish. We got the midweek episode. Some kind of overarching like team. Team updates like what's going on with these fellas. And then some personal ones as well. Some weird situations. That's the.

Yep, Jake, how you doing? James, Trevor, David, yeah, fell asleep on the couch last night the moment the Yankees game ended against the AAA exhibition they're putting on this week. Oakland's as bad as I've seen a team. It's really sad. Like, I wish I was protesting with the Oakland fans because I get, if your owner wants to move and stuff, that product on the field. And not to be shots fired at the lads, but it's, they're pitching especially is just, you're really playing from behind right now. But got a good night's sleep on the couch. Back gets better support on the couch.

And then, yeah, put on my cult leader outfit. We're going to your stadium today, Trev. Get some more scouting reports for you. And yeah, I'm jazzy to talk with the full game because we are starting to get to, like, games are mattering. If you're the Cardinals, you can't slip up anymore. Like, the Yankees have the raise coming into town. If they blow that, they will not be able to catch them.

So games matter in May, Trev. We get it, bro. You placed a bet on the Cardinals to win the division. We get it. They don't need a pep talk from you every dang episode, all right? You sleep on the couch a lot or what? What's up with that? Only when Jess's old boss comes over and stays with us.

Oh. All right. Hey, you know what? I'm doing well. Thanks for asking. Anytime. I celebrated Mother's Day last night with Olivia. Oh, why?

a nice dinner because we got a lot of stuff going on the weekend. I like that. We went out early and had a nice little night together. And I am a little scared of this episode because we're going to be talking about the Mets. And we haven't really covered the Mets a ton other than some of the pitching staff injuries and the Shurs or stuff. And the first time I feel like we're going to really cover them in depth. We're going to probably talk about a lot of the struggles. But maybe we'll find a light at the end of the tunnel or something like that for Mets fans.

maybe, I'm hoping. Maybe. What do you think, James? We can start with the Mets. Does anyone want to sponsor? The Mets. Shady Rays. Okay, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Shady Rays. My cult outfit a little bit. You can fall asleep at the game. People won't know. They won't know. I'm excited to wear my Shady Rays. Now you look like Tom Cruise at Coachella.

Okay, going back on with the sunglasses. Yeah, it is wild. How much better you look when the sunglasses come on. The more of my face you cover with Shady Rays, our friends at Shady Rays. We got some special stuff going on with them. They are our partner throughout Blitzball, which has been incredible.

If you guys have been watching that on the YouTube, you already know if you don't, you should. And you already know Shady Ray's world-class product. If you lose or break your glasses, they send your placement. No Q's Aid. It's no questions asked people. Okay?

So basically you get lifelong glasses from Shady Ray's. Summer's here. Go to a ball game. I'm wearing shades the whole game today, Jim. I probably am too. Hold me to that. I got a couple pairs. Well, the whole world can hold you to it

because we're going to be on camera for the majority of the game. Yeah. Trave, we got hooked up. Jake got hooked up. I did some networking. You know me and the people. Guess who seats were sitting in, Jake, in our Shady Ray glasses?

So Shady Raes is getting like double sponsorship. Code talking. Code talking. What kind of seats you're sitting in a day? Code talking 50% off two plus pairs. Get yourself a pair. Get yourself multiple pairs at Shadyrays.com. Talking 50% off.

And yeah, you'll see them. It's a friend of a friend of a friend's seat, you know? Yeah. If you're watching the game. They might be the best seats in the stadium. There's an argument. Lauren Michael seats. What?

Whoa, like Lauren Michaels of Saturday Night Live? I think they're like Saturday Night Live seats, but like when Fallon goes, he sits there. Jake got off for those. He sits there. What? Yeah. I've met a couple of things.

I always told you you're a freaking movie star. I do it. The cult's working, baby. I just texted Co-Tucker. I said, it's time to start the Coltucker. He said no better date than today. He says that to everything. Yeah, it's true.

I was actually texting him yesterday, so no big deal. He's, I think he's coming back on the field Friday. Rocks needs some help. And so do the Mets. Wait a so to the Mets. Yeah. I'm just watching you guys. I don't know what's going on over there.

Saturday Night Live seats, Yankee games. Good for you. I'm happy for you guys. The Mets have four hitters, Nimmo, Linder, a lot of. Monzo McNeil. All OPS Plus is positive. I mean, Nimmo's numbers are great.

I think Alonzo tied the NL lead of homers last night with Muncie. Alonzo is mashing the ball. The average is low. I don't know if I think that's lower for him than usual. Dionne Base isn't incredible, but he's absolutely smoking balls he hits, so his overarching numbers are good. Lindorre might be struggling,

but it looks like the slugging saving him a little bit. I think you would want more, but it's not terrible. McNeil's hitting. The pitching is a problem. And is it injuries? Is it pitching through injuries? I don't know, but they are second to last in the league in FIP or in FIPP fielding independent pitching. So are the pitchers just taking care of business on their own, like not relying on the fielders, blah, blah? And Oakland is last. And as Jake said, Oakland is not even a real team. Like they're trying to lose on purpose. and it's a bizarre. If they go 500, the rest of the way, they lose 91 games.

They're on pace to be the historically worst team ever to play a full Major League Baseball season. So technically the Mets, I'm not counting Oakland, they're last in FIP. And that's on the pitchers. They're also pretty bad at just straight up ERA. I think they're in the bottom 10 there. And I don't know. Like some of the names are the names.

wanted, right? Like, Sanga's got six starts. Scherzer's got five starts. Obviously, Verlander, that's a big one. Carrasco's got three. McGill hasn't been good. David Peterson hasn't been good. So they've lost, what was their record?

14 of the last, 12 of the last 15 or something. Over their last 15, they're two games under 500, 17 and 19 on the season. It's been all over the place. You know, you mentioned Pete's overall numbers look pretty good, but, you know, as of lately, the last, you know, 14 days, 688 OPS, 298 OBP. So there's been some issues kind of all over the field. You know, I think if you look at, you know, just the overall numbers. You're right, James.

26th overall on ERA for their starting pitchers. I always like to look at WIPP. How many people are you freaking letting on base per inning? 27th overall in WIPP for their starters. And that's, look, yes. Cookies going to be back. He had three starts and then, you know, was injured. He's going to come back soon.

Hopefully he can return to form. Scherzer, I don't know what to make of what's going on with him. I called yesterday. Before they scratched him for a start, I was on baseball today with C. Rose. I was like, why are, why is he pitching? His quotes were saying, I know what this is. It's something in my shoulder, my scap, and all it needs is rest. I had the same thing in 2019.

It just needs a little rest. I'm like, but you're pitching through it? So they made the savvy. decision to like not pitch him. Thank goodness. And hopefully that calms down and Scherzer can return to form. We know the Velo hasn't really been there. He hasn't been himself. But if I'm a, I would bank on Max Scherzer's like being a pretty good pitcher this year as long as he's healthy. I think that's a key for them is kind of getting all these guys they signed to pitch, pitching and kind of getting in some sort of rhythm. They have not been able to do that.

and the depth they've brought up to replace these guys, you know, for the most part, they have not performed, you know, up to standards at all. So it's kind of just been a little bit of everywhere. There's been some decent spots in the bullpen. I'm not going to pat myself on the back again about David Robertson, but my goodness, he's the best. And without him, I think their record could be a lot worse.

What's going on with Verlander? He made his first start. He makes his second start today. Yeah. Okay. And its first start, I think he landed at 5 and 2. Yeah, they popped him for two homers in the first. Yeah. No, he was fine.

Okay. So, yeah, I mean, that's nice. Verlander's back. And let's, let's be honest. Like, he's, you know, he was their huge move. Like, he was supposed to replace DeGrom. He won the Cy last year. He's Justin Verlander.

They played it safe with him from the start. He could, if he goes out against Cincinnati today and throw seven shut, none of us would be surprised. I feel like this isn't a good baseball comparison, but no one we talk about a hitter being a clitor. being a click-off, you know, it's the littlest thing. And it's, Trev, I see I got your interest because it's something you love, but it feels like this rotation is a click-off. And it should come, right? Because, like, the quest, one of the question marks was Sanga and what would it look

like early, and he's actually been great. And the ghost fork, the numbers on it are crazy. Like, he's doing his thing. Verlander, none of us will bet against him that if Scherzer gets the rest he needs. And he knows his body better than probably any other player in MLB. Remember when he sat out a World Series start? Because he knew he couldn't do it, but he knew he kind of could the next day. That's where he said this was

or similar. Yeah. So after that, McGill, Peterson, Lucchese, I don't know. Like, let's see. But I think if those other three click, then those guys can potentially see that and pass the baton. We see that in baseball.

The bullpen makes me a little nervous. I know the stats, and I don't think Mets fans are saying, it's the problem. But, you know, D. Rob, Adavino, Drew Smith, you like that. It gets a little thin after that, man. And obviously, Edwin Diaz right before the season, and we know how tough that was. Brooks Raley was kind of a big ad for them. He's on the IL. I really like Montes Tehoka, which is, I don't know, like a funny sentence,

but watch that guy throw baseball. but he had to get TJ. I don't know, man. Like, if you want to go on a winning streak in today's MLB, obviously you need a lot of things to go right. But I'm worried that say the rotation gets going, you know, will the bullpen be able to do it for like, you know, win eight out of ten?

Because you're going to start burning through those guys a lot more, which you haven't been. So I don't know. The Mets concerns are kind of real. Buck, coach him up, right? That's, we're a manager's podcast. Can I tell you something that's, I don't know, some people find this interesting. I'm one of them.

Some people find this completely irrelevant. The Mets are 30th in strength of schedule so far. They've had, according to baseball reference, the easiest schedule in all of baseball. They are 12 and 12 against teams under 500. That's not good. That means you're one of them. And they are 5 and 7 against teams over 500. So I don't know what that means or not.

Their schedule stays kind of relatively easy for a little bit. So maybe get out of it. And I think June is hell. There's one month that's a little bit of a hell schedule for the Mets. I'm not sure which one it is. I forget. But I was hoping when I looked that up that it was a little, it was a different tale.

We have the, we have the stats. Overall, their opponents have a 469 winning percentage against other teams. For a 76-win pace over 162, and they're obviously 19 and 17 against the Mets. I think this is interesting because, you know, offensively, they haven't been great either, 18th in runs. Some bright spots throughout seems like when they hit the ball, they don't line it up with pitching, which is always tough. And that's how you can get into these ruts if you're just not lining your stuff up whatsoever. But they've already kind of dipped in and like the reinforcements as far as like offensively.

Like they brought up Beatty. They have Alvarez there. And it's like these guys have actually been performing well for for young guys. But those aren't the guys that you're going to rely on to like save your season offensively. It'd be nice to come get a jolt from them. And you might get a couple good weeks run out of them. And maybe they do carry you for a series. but it's those guys at the top of the lineup that have to do it.

And like I said, Pete's overall numbers that good, he's going to have his times where he's struggling. Like I said, the last 14 days not exactly great. But I think right now where they're pitching is at with them still trying to get everyone back into the rotation, that's what has to go. You just got to bang the ball around a little bit, and it kind of just hasn't happened lately.

They are second and bunt hits. Okay. So, but their Daniel Vobok has a 400 OBP. Their percentage of bun hits is bad. So it punting a lot of Alex, I guess. Bunting a lot. Carrasco comes back soon.

He just made a rehab start. So I don't know. I guess, you know, in two weeks, a lot can happen in baseball. You know, if you went a week ago, the Mets didn't have Justin Verlander and Cookie Carrasco. In theory, they'll have both of them in the rotation. in like another week.

So you can change this tune pretty quickly, but like Jim said with the schedule, like they probably know that, right? So I don't know. It's going to be a little bit of everything. Getting Justin Verlander and Carlos Carrasco back, that's important. And that's the players are going to have to go.

Whether it's the young guys or Alonzo goes nuts for two weeks or maybe just the whole lineup balances out that right now you look at the Mets lineup and you see two different lineups. Like it's, you want those top guys have kind of gone. They can obviously do more. They're great players. But the bottom of the line is,

is one of the young guys going to go nuts? Or one of the veterans going to figure it out. Like, Marte got slid down the other day. I don't know. Yeah, he's been struggling a lot. Yeah, I had something else to say, shoot. Okay. Why did I forget what I was going to say?

I don't know. Last year they had such a good babbip. That was what Strider was making fun of them for. Kind of like, you know, you're getting lucky on your, you know, your ground balls that you hit because they're a big ground ball team. And this year, they're bottom in that. So maybe the shift is hurting the Mets where they were finding more holes against the shift last year.

Now they're just, I have no idea. Mets fans, let us know everything we got wrong. And then the things that you're like, yeah, that is a concern. The pitching. Jolly. I think they're all concerned about everything. Should be. It's not looking good.

And the good news is if they would have got Correa, he's not performing either. He just said, I'll boo me right now too. I've been watching a lot of that. He also cited his low Babbat for a reason. Which, you know, that does mean something. Like typically you are a Babbat guy. Like you have a certain, you know,

you're mean, whatever it is, 315. You'll get back there. The one thing I forgot to mention that I always got to mention with the Mets is we're on Tommy Hunter save watch. We have it at 0.5 over under. He does not have a save yet. Okay. He does have 12 and 2 thirds innings pitched, which is like dang close to tops of that bullpen. Just so, you know, only D. Rob has 14 in the third.

And, you know, he's like the closer. Know what he had to do on Sunday, Treff? They needed him to eat it. Big Tommy Hunter through 49 bullets. Oh, my guy. I bet he was screaming in the clubhouse afterwards. He does this thing on the flights where he goes like, giddy up, gety up, when you take off.

Okay. To like the plane. And I can just imagine him just like screaming. He does. He's a loud individual. All right. I feel like Tommy Hunter just gonna play forever

because he'll just force his way in to some like front office meeting. He'll like barge in the door and say, I'm gonna be on your team. And then people are like, all right. Like you're just a big guy kind of scary.

So sure. Do we want to pivot to a positive note before we go back to negative in the third topic? No, I want to go. I want to go Cardinals with you. Wow.

I want to hear your take on this. I want to just keep the negative. Let's just go down. Can I give you a positive thing? Yeah. Trev mentioned he already celebrated his mother. Mother's Day? Yeah.

Mother's Day for the rest of the states is Sunday. And if you're trying to get your mom, your spouse, whoever it is, a Mother's Day gift they're going to remember. This is where I learned it today. There's a lot of flowers, the socks they reference in here. You get them, the diamonds, the lab-grown diamonds with lightbox, which gives you a pricing you'll understand a little better, if you know what I'm saying.

that's going to be a gift that they're going to remember. My mom doesn't remember the flowers I got her. Well, the flowers are dead now, bro. Yep. But if I got her these lightbox, if I got her these lightbox diamonds, she remember that. She remember that. And especially, she wouldn't have to know this part

with Code Talking Baseball 10. Name of the show, 10. You're going to get 10% off your purchase. So click the link in the description. Shop light box lab grown diamonds. Code talking baseball 10, 10% off your purchase. It's this Sunday, fellas. So it's like go time.

Yeah, fuck. Go time. Oh, no, I got Katie a weekend away. Ooh, nice. That doesn't happen until Memorial Day, but I got it. That's kind of confusing me. I got, I got to get her like something little just hander. Yeah, you got like a card.

flowers but like I got the big thing. Like a frog. Can I get sadistic a little bit? Just. Okay. What I think about sometimes, you know, if I buy Olivia like a piece of jewelry or something, it's like, I don't, I'm not a big jewelry guy. But I know, you know, sometimes you got to do that.

But what I think is, you know what? One day, she's going to be able to like re-gift that to our daughter. And like it just goes on and on. That's what makes me like you're recycling your presence. So then it's actually not. It's only half the price. because there's two presents in one. Olivia's like, why did you get me this child's necklace?

No, I'm waiting. He doesn't say that. I actually did get her nice earrings from my box. Pass it down, Olivia. It's not really for you. You just hold it for a little bit. When you're dead, she's designed to re-gift. My God.

You did get sadistic at the end. One day, Mom, my life. They got a little sadistic. We can all be honest about it. I love Olivia so much. My goodness. All right. all right you want to talk about

let me just let me throw some questions at you bro because we've talked about this a lot Jake and I have been on the car and I talked about with Rosie it's like just a lot of stuff yeah I haven't talked about it with you guys a lot and I know the audience wants to hear your take because it isn't it's just like a fascinating

start to the season for the Cardinals and fascinating in the worst way possible I guess what I'll ask you James is are you okay with them, because Ali Marmal said this is a proactive move if you actually look at it.

Are you okay with them thinking that way that this is a proactive move to get Contreras off the catchers, off of catching? No. So it like helps them quicker. No. And the season

doesn't prolong. No. I think the Cardinals are utterly embarrassing themselves and I think that when the Yankees moved I'm from Jeter to Dedi. I thought the Yankees fans and the Yankees did a poor job there. And I don't think we've ever seen a superstar and, you know, legacy player leave and have what the fuck we're seeing right now.

I mean, the pitchers aren't performing. And they're just blaming it on their new free agent prize possession. Don't even care if he's not Yadi. You knew that he's not Yaddy, right? You signed him to be your catcher and you're not even giving a month. And there's so many other outliers that are going on with poor pitcher performance that, like, can't just be him. You know? And rhythm, game calling, we'll figure it out.

There's, it takes two to tango. Go have a meeting. Because all their updates are like, they were having mutinies, which is how this Cardinals team operates. they had a mutiny to out their last manager. They were a Yadi, like veteran team-led team, basically. Like, that's how Schilt got the boot. And then it seems like through all these updates that they're just having these, like, player-led meetings.

And Contreras wasn't part of them. He said he was going to play the outfield. And they're like, well, after talking to him, it's probably more DH. Like, what? You didn't talk to him before you told the media is going to do the outfield? And then they still went back on that and, like, said, no, outfield.

then they said they had when he went back to Chicago they had a you know a long pitchers meeting with him and they really poured into him and told him how much they love him and support him like oh so a pity fucking party for him like after all this backlash you guys really may maybe realize like you're causing a problem here but dude I feel bad for contraris now I don't know everything going on behind the scenes because we aren't privy to that so if there's stuff I'm missing there's there's stuff I'm missing but from the out of the outside of the outside of the outset, this looks like they brought in a dude to be a punching bag. And if you needed a stopgap to just come in and perform poorly and then,

and then you move on to your next like five year catcher, you should have done that. But it's kind of like awful. It's such a, he's such a different catcher than Yadhi was too. That's the thing that I, you know, you have to remember. Yadi had some good years offensively. Like he figured ways out to do that. But he was a defensive catcher. He handled the pitching staff. He understood game plans. He could read a hitter better than anyone. He, you know, he could throw the pill a little bit. Wilson Contreras has never really been known for that. You played against him in the same division his entire career. You've seen them. You know the stats. If you're going to sign a guy to a contract like that, you do your due diligence. Like you knew that you were not getting Yadi. You weren't going to. that's not what you signed up for. So if you want Yaddy, you could have went and got, you know, Rosie's out, go get Austin Hedges.

A guy that can handle pitching staffs that is, you know, can frame the ball and can steal some strikes, you know, like if that's what you wanted and you could rely on the rest of your offense to give you your run production, then you should have done that. Like you were bringing in Contreras to, he's an offensive-minded catcher. he's an offensive-minded player that's what he is and you know if you were hoping to turn him and his career around defensively in in a spring training like that's typically not going to happen so that's to me the most frustrating part is like you knew what you were doing and then you're like I just you signed a guy for specific reasons and then now you're scapegoating him for those reasons it's it just doesn't make any sense to me and what the one point I did mention on our show James is and again I keep saying this so people know I've not talked to

Flaherty whatsoever about this the only thing I talked to Flair about yesterday was like you're a fucking beast go get it nothing's changed I just pumped them up but I got to imagine for this to happen for them to come out and say you're not going to be a catcher anymore for the foreseeable future at least there had to be pitchers going to the pitching coach saying stuff. Absolutely. A front office does not go in and do that without hearing that directly from some guys.

In my experience, that I'm speculating but dang I feel like I'm right on it. Because you are. Because they kicked out Schilt and because you're right and because the problem

here is they signed Wilson Contreras because he could hit, right? That's what Wilson Contreras has done at Major League baseball. They wanted him to catch, but they gave him a five-year deal. He's 30 years old. That they knew in the Wilson-Contreras timeline there was going to be DH and there's going to be maybe some corner outfield, maybe some first base. We'll see. But they signed Wilson Contreras because he can hit because that's what he's done at the major league level. To bail on him a month in as the catcher, when you're right, he talked, he skipped a WBC

to like catch these guys and learn these guys. And man, the pitching staff here, Trev, you drove the biggest nail through the coffin that I think the Cardinals front office should have came back on. The two-strike homers. You know, that tweet was going around the other day, and the Cardinals have given up the most two-strike homers. Most two-strike hits, too. Guess what? I don't really care whatever fingers Wilson Contreras pressed on the pitchcom button. I was going to say fingers put down.

but it's a pitch calm life. Guess what? You didn't have to give up the Homer pitch. Like, he didn't call for that. And yeah, Trev, I mean, hey, if you went to Jack Flaherty before the season and told him your stats would be this on May 10th, he'd probably give you some fucking cool answer because he's a cool guy and be like, not possible.

But, you know, they're there. Wayno's been out. Mats has gotten crushed. Michael is, I think he had a decent outing his last. time out, where it's also April, like any major league player outside of Mike Trout, basically, can have a bad month. That to pull the plug this quickly, that just ain't it. So that's kind of the disappointing part and how public it was.

Like, you can, you can say, like, hey, we- Why are they all about in public now? What's up with that? You can say, hey, we want to get Wilson some more DH days. We're going to work in some more of the catchers and everyone with, say like, okay, like the Cubs have done that in previous years. And that's okay. Like they brought him Jan Goams while he was their catcher.

So I hate how they handled the whole situation. I think we might have a situation of the players might have a little too much power. And I don't know. And where does Marmall sit in all of this? It's bizarre. And I bet on the Cardinals to win the NL Central. Did they also lose their pitching coach, the Cardinals? I mean, they lost Yadi.

They lost their pitching coach, all that. So is it no surprise that Jordan Montgomery is not struggling at all? He's like, what guys? I had Gary Sanchez for a while. Like, you can't pitch without a good catcher? Shit, you're pretty spoiled. We forgot to mention that. And Gary just fucking blocked everything.

He'll save the Mets. Gary will save the mess. Congratulations. I mean, Monty. King of New York. You take away Monty's one bad game. a butter knife it he's got like a one nine era in the other seven or six uh even with that bad game he's got a three two era and maybe that's because he wasn't in this system that

they pulled the plug on and they and they didn't know also you have the new pitch clock like it seems like their world got shook and they're not they're just trying to blame it on contraris instead of being like shit a lot of new stuff happened maybe we should adjust well i don't want to just kind of twist the knife in right here. But you mentioned Mike Maddox who left the Cardinals in the off seas. You know where he's at now. Texas. Texas Rangers.

And he looks so much better in a Texas uniform with that mustache. He's a sexual man. That makes sense. That doesn't get talked about. He's a sexual man. Okay. They've dealt with a few injuries themselves. Ninth in ERA, fifth and whip.

Six and hits per nine. Two different voices. You had a guy, Mike Maddox, who's been doing it for a long time. You have Yadi who's been doing it for a long time. You have those voices in those meetings. They're running them. Those two guys are running those fucking meetings. And now

you got a couple of new dudes in there. And yeah, you got to expect a little bit of change. But I don't know, man. Like they didn't, the change isn't what they expected apparently. I'm trying to think about this

where it's not just like, he's just a scapego. Like, what else could have happened? Is he underprepared? Is he not been preparing for these meetings. I haven't really seen that in the press, but that could be the one thing they kept behind doors, maybe. Because everything else is out in the fucking open. I don't know what to do with it. I'm saying it on the fly, which always works well with me. But catcher war also needs to be either thrown out or times one and a half or something, because, you know, I had Orioles fans responding the other day. Adley, since the Orioles have called up Adley Rushman, I think they're 90 and 67.

Going back to that Giants team that won 107 games, I think so much of that was attached to Hall of Famer, MVP Buster Posey, who had a great season. Yadi, Trev, think about the stuff you just mentioned. Like, you're the first one to call us out on bullshit, and it's like, you know, the players have to go. But think about the stuff you talked about with Yadi, like the best at reading hitters live at bat.

How do we quantify that? We can't. And we don't and we'll never be able to. That, yeah, man, I mean, Yadi being gone was going to have an effect. I just, it's either the Cardinals were blind at how big it was going to be or they needed a scapegoat for this bad start or, I don't know, just bring back Yadi in any capacity right now. We've been talking about that.

I think Yadhi's, I think he's up a little. I was reading that. I think Yadi publicly said like he wants a break from it. He's managing in, he's managing. managing and looking to be in a Spanish speaking world for a little is what I read. Well, St. Louis. Yeah. Good for yaw.

I love the car, but I, oh, no, I, uh, nah. Every day he sits out from the organization, the paycheck gets bigger. He knows that. He's like, okay, guys, he's just watching this fire. He's got, he's got the host. And he's like, ah, just let it burn a little bit more. Dude, I mean, I know this doesn't mean everything, but, you know, we, we're talking like, Wilson Contreras is this absolute, you know, brutal person behind the plate.

Dalton on the sheet here. Wilson Contreras is tied for 10th with zero catcher framing runs. There's 11 out of 27 catchers that are in the negative. So it's like he's been in that regard. What? Dude, I wonder if like they, like you didn't shake off Yadi. So they aren't groomed to like call pitches. Hey, you know what I mean?

Also, maybe they weren't pitching well. Yeah. You're getting rocked, pop. Big part of hit, yeah. I hate catch you. You were talking, let's just get deep into the analytics because we love to do that on this show. You mentioned, like, there's no way to quantify Yadi reading a hitter swing. There should be like a sequencing stat.

Shouldn't there? Like, there's enough data now. Like, if you follow up a fastball high and in on a guy that, you know, has these splits, you should go to this pitch because that's the best pitch statistically predictive I bet there's data that can do like a sequencing stat.

Probably. Computers are everywhere. They're everywhere. All right, let's talk about our guy. Wait, wait, I want to ask you one more thing about that. Oh, yeah. What do you do about Marmal? Are you in or you out?

Like the way he's handled this is clearly like not being great. He's giving me weird vibes every time I hear him talk. His argument with CB. Buckner where Buckner was in the wrong. That was still like bizarre. He had his press conferences. He has this real weird demeanor in them sometimes when I make breakdowns. And then it's like, wait, are you angsty right now? He's competitive. It's competitive and angsty and not calm. And you're like, you're supposed to want calm. It reminds me a lot of Jace Tingler. And I think they might be the last of

their kind. And you see Bochi come in and just like, oh, we got real decisions now. And you get see Melvin come in and they're like, I love the bullpen decisions. And you see these older, like experience, even Topper and Philly, like the calm, like, tingler and Marmal, I think are the last of their kind were like not a lot of experience. They came from a weird path. They were with the organization and their players guys and they're going to fight for the players. And then they're just like angsty for no reason. Okay.

Yeah, I'm, I'm kind of off him. I was, he did one press conference. He was like, you know, I like, he was prepared for this one. And I did one press conference. I was like, you're over prepared for this press conference. He did one press conference where he was taking sips of his water. Like a comedian uses like taking sips like as a punchline. But it was more for like his angst.

He's like, yeah, so a little, and then like. You're 36 years old, bro. Yeah. Imagine me. That's my age. That's so petty of me and whatever. And it was one press conference. But I was just like, oh, what's this five?

You're supposed to be calm. That's all we were reading, we're reading, you know, body language and stuff. stuff like that. Yeah. All right. Wayneau's four years older than him? I can't imagine, honestly, I can't imagine going in and trying to command a room like that.

At my age, without having much managerial experience at the big league level. Obviously, I wouldn't because I'm young, but like, it's, that's like a thing. Like,

I'm sure he's up against it all the time trying to be like, all right, I am the manager. Well, and that's where. And there's a question mark at the end of, I'm the manager. Jimmy,

Jimmy mentioned the word, angsty. Like, that's not a term you hear with any, any, like, great manager.

Um, that I don't know. I mean, it's, it's hard to buy. He also came out and said he was going to be the outfield. And then the Cardinals were like, nope, not true.

Yeah, I mean, what's going on here? They handled all of that so poorly. Also, if his pitchers were pitching better, we wouldn't be talking about him. So maybe they just need to fucking pitch better.

I don't know. I was, I was also going to say, on the manager, front because we've seen younger managers come and go in different sports like you know even going to NFL someone like sean macvay was super young but in that sport when you're calling plays like you can you can show your worth and that's kind of what we just circled on marmole like you know what's marmole gonna whisper into waino's ear like yeah two two more curve balls big fella like that's just not

what is how it works he's being sneaky about it he doesn't want the other team to see trev Come on. Manage one day in your life. Why don't you manage to give me a blue moon, Trev? Wow. I might have one today. We'll see. I'd do it right now. It's 7.51 a.m. I'd have one. Go out on the berm. Some beers can say they're brewed for baseball. Blue Moon is brewed by baseball. It was made at Coors Field, people. Denver, Colorado, been there.

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One more thing on the Cardinals before we move on. One last thing. The graphic up right here. I feel like we have to mention this. And now I got to get it back up. Where did it go? Okay. I got it right here.

Don't worry. Coming into Monday's. series against the Cubs, which they've won two games against the Cubs since then. Cardinals pitchers had a 5-1-3 and 201 and two-thirds innings when pitching to Contreras

and a 3-7-7 in 105 innings to reserve catcher Andrew Kisner. So, look, we said all these things and maybe, maybe it's going to make a difference for them. And we could all have egg

on our face. I don't know. I guess what's the percentage? They have egg on their face then. Right. We all have a year. We all have. Yeah, we all do. It doesn't help them to just be like,

this is a problem we can't fix, so we're going to fuck ourselves for the next four years. That's what he was saying, like we're being proactive about it. No, but yeah, you're not. You're digging a deeper and deeper hole. Instead of fixing a problem and working together. So that's why they changed tune.

And they were like, actually, we had a really good meeting. It was productive. It's like, yeah, do that. So, do that first next time. That's it. If Wilson and Trears. Trade two of your fucking outfielders,

please. To the Yankees. And get some other pitching. And then we'll all be like, okay, this all makes sense now. But right now it doesn't make any sense. Go hit Wilson. Go hit Wilson.

Yeah, he's handled it well. He doesn't give a fuck. He returned to Chicago, two-hit day. Welcome back. Can we talk about Yoshi? We don't call. I'm Yoshi.

Why? He hates that. Fuck. Jeez. It's like Lubbob and, you know, La Pantere. He doesn't like Lou Bob. Who cares?

I like Yoshi. Yoshi is fucking a great nickname if you ask you. But he doesn't like it. Call him Yoshida. Why, there's no nickname? There's no shortened? Dude, first of all, I always mention this, but fire shirt on sale,

shop. Johnboymedia.com. We just put a Yoshita shirt on. It's got the cherry blossoms around it. It's fucking. Oh, that is sick. It's a banger for summer. It's like a concert shirt.

I can't. What's the nickname? What are Red Sox fans calling him? Macho man. All right. Cool. Well, he's awesome. And there's a little caveat to it.

It's his first time around the league. I always like seeing second time facing guys. Like the second time he faces this team and they prep for him a little more. But everything you would possibly want him to be as a Red Sox. fan and everyone was laughing at the contract and he's getting back at those people right now. But I just going through his splits, he's been incredible. Like you cannot find a bad slash line, although I did find one, which I'll talk about later. But, you know.

Played yourself right there, Jimmy. Well, two outs runners in scoring position. That's like his best 500 on base percentage. He's got a 462 bad. adding average. Like all those like situational stuff versus righties versus lefties. The numbers are both same. He's actually way better on the road than at home,

which is a little bizarre considering Fenway, but he's also a lefty. So I don't know how many fly ball outs he's hitting into at Fenway that maybe would be out or hits other places. But yeah, I mean, you just keep looking at it. He just keeps hitting for average. He's taking walks. It's pretty incredible.

Trev, how hard is it or how, excuse, excuse me, how easy is it to swing and miss at a major league pitch? Oh, baby. Yeah, it's pretty easy. You know. No doubt. Sometimes you're like, I don't know how I just swing and miss to that, but I did. Old, you know, a Tuesday night game for the twins.

There's a chance you're going to swing through a couple. You can still have a great game. Masataka Yoshita. That's your freaking point. Don't, you don't need to come at me. He hasn't, he hasn't whiffed on a pitch in May. 102 pitches, zero swings and misses, dialing in.

And yeah, Jim, I am interested to see because he got off to a little bit of a slow start and then he started to go. So I wonder, you know, baseball is the game of adjustments. Did he already make his first adjustments? And now pitchers will come back, Trev, please. He opened up his stance a little bit. They made a mechanical adjustment

only at the beginning of a stance. I guess the swing they haven't really tinkered with yet and they didn't really need to, but he was closing himself off, wasn't seeing the ball well, they opened him up. Sometimes when that happens, like if you think about it,

let me see if I can get here. I'm closing myself off. And now here's my head. I'm looking this way, but you see my eyes aren't really centered. Open yourself up and you got a little bit better view. I mean, it's not rocket science,

but your dominant eye is that, if you're righty and your dominant eyes, your right eye. And the way you test that is you, you look, I put my thumb over Trevor's, I close my right eye, put my thumb over Trevor's face, or both hands, both eyes, thumb over Trevor's face, and I close one eye.

And with my left eye, it's way off, but my right eye, dead center. I'm right eye dominant. Do it. Okay. Put your thumb over my face. Yep, got you. I'm left eye dominant. With both eyes.

With both eyes, Trevor. Okay. Well, actually, you just kind of hinted it. Now close your right eye and just your left eye. Is it way off now? Yeah. Now it's on? Now my thumb is still on you.

Your right eye dominant. So you needed your head fully turned when you hit it. Yeah. I didn't have that. Yeah. Sometimes I did. Your left eye? Yeah.

That's why you're so good. You don't need to turn your head so well. But I have to because my neck doesn't turn well. Oh, my God. What neck? Ooh, roasted. But that's it. Look, he makes this adjustment.

So now, you know, a couple things can happen. They say, you know, you'll see the ball better. but it could also just slow your cadence down a little bit because you're feeling like you have more time than everything kind of slows down. If you're feeling like you don't have a recognition phase, everything speeds up because you're just trying to get to where you need to get to and you're just like not giving yourself time.

So he made that adjustment. Immediately the ball started coming off of the ground and getting back in the air a little bit. And I think it was April 20th. So 420, we don't know what he did on 420 to go along with. this mechanical adjustment. I'm not going to say anything.

Maybe he put in the work while everyone else was getting high. But since that day, yeah, he's been going off. And I love that because you talk about second time through the league and all this stuff, the ability to make an adjustment on the fly, the willingness to make an adjustment on the fly is something that you have to have. You want to be a good big league hitter. His numbers right now overall are disgusting. Like this guy looks, it looks like a steal.

I found a weakness. but it's actually a great, it does it. It's a good weakness. It's something that is more likely he overcomes than the league uses to, like, doom him for good. Because it's only, it's lefties throwing breaking balls, which doesn't happen a lot because if you're lefty versus lefty, you're probably throwing like your change up in or whatever. But, yeah, his numbers when he's facing a lefty and that lefty,

throws a breaking ball are horrible. Only one hit in 16 plate appearances, a 36% width percentage, which is really high. So it's not like he is chasing them. And I think he'll get much better at that because discipline's one of his things. And I was looking at a lot of videos.

And it's a lot of the sweepers away that he's kind of like half biting on, like doing a check swing. And I think it's more likely that he overcomes that. and like he'll figure that out. He'll see more. Then teams are like bringing our lefties and throw the breaking ball. Like maybe start doing that bullpen wise for sure.

But lefties fastballs, he's like destroying. And every other split. That was the only one. But I actually think that he'll get better at that. Also, Treve, as I mentioned the word sweeper, I... Oh, yeah, this is big. The sweeper's been diluted. And it's going to be a big.

fad pitch. It's not going to last. Four years from now, there's going to be like 10 guys that throw sweeping sliders. And you're like, yeah, that guy throws a really like sweeping. Out of Vino. Like, you know, he throws a sweeping slider. And the fact that we gave it a name change, I think was very premature. I hate all of that stuff with the name changes, dude. I can't stand it.

There's a lot of guys right now, and I'll name names, Weissert on the Yankees, Kelly on the who it's not actually a good pitch it it moves so much but if i'm watching and i'm like whoa i had too much time to figure it out like we watched we saw weissert's sweeper from like a fan a video of a fan in the stands and i remember doing talking yanks be like well that's the first time like in a video like that i could really see the movement and then i clicked like i don't think that's a good thing it's 75 miles per hour righties are just yeah if they sit on it it gets smoked. So I think the sweeper's been diluted and it'll come back to being like, you know, a handful of guys throw really nice slow sweeping sliders, but not everyone's got a slider and a

sweeper. They're, they're just going by, you know, with all the data that we have, we're just going by swing mechanics and biomechanics that they have track man data on. You know, they're like, okay, well, what pitch is hard for, you know, this bat path that most hitters have? What pitch like doesn't cross that and that's when the sweeper came about but I talked to Rob Van Schoich of the Dodgers when I was down there you know last week or whatever

and we talked about that like how do you how do you game plan now when it seems like these guys can just make up pitches on a whim and he's like you know we just we can figure all those out like if some guy's a sweeper dominant this is what we do

I don't want to give his secrets away because I really respect him he said the same thing he goes we don't care about that because we don't care about that pitch we can crush that pitch. So I think you're right. Really what pitching about is about

and what hitters have problems with is just my pen. Good location. Yeah. Like staying out of the middle of the fucking zone. Yeah, because the lane for a righty, righty sweeper, if you want to try and get it in the zone and not swing and miss is actually,

it's like your blitzball slider, Treve, like you can perfect that. Well, with the inside one, like the lane is you're going to hit him or it's going to be sweet spot. And the damage of missing by three inches is like they're not a good risk analysis

assessment if I was a RAA person you know who's okay we're gonna go on a tangent here a little bit but I watched that gallon throw because you know we we talked about this guy a lot and I just tough night the diamondbacks were on

he was pitching I just wanted to see him he is a fucking pitcher everything moves at the last minute like this and he knows how to sequence with the best of them. Dude, I was trying, I think I talked about this on baseball today yesterday.

I was trying to keep up with him, like in my mind, okay, you're going to go with this pitch next. And he calls his own pitches on his pitch calm. I was trying to keep up with him. And a couple times I got in rhythm with him. And then other times, man, he just would just have me guessing up there. But everything comes out of the hand the same. And it's just going like all over. And he's on the outside peripheral of the zone.

He's never in the middle. There's a reliever on the Tigers that I'm, it's one of the breakdowns I'm editing. right now that I did a little like overlay for and I was it was the one of the cooler ones where the the break on the slider and two seam sinker was so late um I'm gonna blank out his name Brent um ah shit tigers righty reliever with an um like an American name is American guy it's like Brent Stocker or something like that what am I thinking about I don't know but it but it was awesome and I'm sorry that I forget Maybe twins.

Maybe he's twins, not. Oh, you were talking. I think you guys were both talking about this guy the other day. And I think you both, no, no, no, no. I think you both got it.

Brock Stewart. You both got his name wrong in the past couple of years. Yeah, Brock Stewart. Well, I'm complimenting him here. I'll learn your name now, but like,

it was one of the cooler two overlays of the late movement. I think with some of the sweepers, it's not tunneling. No. Because it doesn't go, like opposite of tunneling. Yeah,

it's like opposite of tunneling. So if you can read that, you can sit on it because so slow. but yeah it was Brent Brock Brock Stewart Brock Stewart yeah I messed that up the other day too because he got in and out of some really

like a bases loaded jam in extra innings well hit by pitch that would have won the game but he swung and then he struck out the next two they intentionally walked two and extras to load the bases

and then he struck out the next two although he did hit hit him closing I know we wanted to talk about more just like the Red Sox lineup banging. That's what it says right here. I love doing this. That's what it says right there. Jaron Duran Crush in the ball. 991 OPS. Where did that come from? I missed that.

I think there's an article right now that Padraea helped him or something. Yes. I think that's just the Sox pornography website. That's what the Cardinals fans are begging for. They're begging for the first headline like Yadi flew out to talk with Contreras. Alex Verdugo in the nines straight at 900 OPS right now Devers is doing it 838 even the guys

you know the older guys Justin Turner's gotten it going a little bit Connor Wong who was in the bets trade with Verdugo he's posted a 107 from behind the plate OPS Plus that's nice they've been going man and their ranks

amongst you know the rest of the league third and average third in OBP third in OPS third and runs Whoops. This is the team that we thought they could be. We're always worried about the starting pitching. Still are. I still am.

I mean, Sales looked, he's had some good outings. But the rest of the staff, like, almost like not so much. 28th and ERA, 25th and whip. But the offense has been banging enough where they're, what, three or four games over 500 now. I've got five games over 500. I just read, it's a Rosenthal article that came out like 14 minutes ago on Padreya. And it's actually, I read the first two,

I will read the whole thing because it seemed cool. But basically Padroia said, I told him to get his fucking hands up like he's about to fucking hit something. And they said, they asked Padraea. And he's like, yeah, this is what I said. He said like, because it's basically what. Belly. Yeah, Belly and Harrison, Jerry Harrison Jr.

was saying, Bailey, like, be athletic, dude. Like get in a position where you're going to like hit. Do something athletic. Don't just stand there still. And Duran said that he was like, it like unlocked him. He's like, oh, yeah, like, okay. I'm an athlete. Yeah.

Sometimes you just need to hear it. Yeah. I throw my freaking kids that all the time, my youth team. Bend your freaking knees, get your hands up, and they're just like standing like this. Horrified. Bored. I've been there.

I have three closing notes. Zach Allen, really good. I agree with you. He's a pitcher, Trev. I'm down to 2-3-6 on the year. A little Yankees Red Sox for you, Trev, to get you excited for that. Get ready for June 9th through June 18th

In those nine days, 10 days. Yankees and Red Sox play six times. Your two cellar dwellers in the A.L. East. Fighting for jobs. That's going to be electric. And three, you just mentioned Zach Gallen calling his own pitches on pitchcom? Why didn't the Cardinals pitchers do that?

Because Yachti called the pitches for years. You hate Wilson so much? Here's a solution for you. You call it. We don't know how. Yeah, he always did it. Wake up. Do you even need a catcher back there?

Just like, you know, let's just put a guy in the infield, and then we'll just have no catcher. Just put a chair there. I think the rules of baseball say one person has to start in foul play. So you start the first baseman foul. You get the catcher out of there. You pitch to lefties in.

And that's Cardinals baseball. Put no one Aironada behind the plate. defensive wizard Do it Thanks everybody Love you so much Please Max Reed be okay We love you so much

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