Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - Nationals are Shopping Soto! | 515

Episode Date: July 22, 2022

Timestamps: 0:00 Intro 5:15 Juan Soto is on the Trade Block 21:40 Comparison to the Miguel Cabrera Trade 29:40 EVERY Team Can Afford Juan Soto 33:00 Old Top 10 Prospect Lists 38:50 Do the Nationals Want MLB-Ready Talent? 43:20 Do the Nationals Care Which Team He Goes To? 52:50 Could Ohtani Also Be Traded? 1:03:20 Three True Outcomes are DOWN Use code TALKIN for $20 off your first SeatGeek order. https://seatgeek.onelink.me/RrnK/TALKIN Visit https://athleticgreens.com/baseball to get a FREE 1-year supply of immune-supporting Vitamin D AND 5 FREE travel packs with your first purchase. Go to https://getroman.com/TALKIN TODAY. If approved, you’ll get $10 off your first order. If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, crisis counseling and referral services can be accessed by calling 1-800-GAMBLER (1-800-426-2537) (IL/IN/MI/NJ/PA/WV/WY), 1-800-NEXT STEP (AZ), 1-800-522-4700 (CO/NH), 888-789-7777/visit http://ccpg.org/chat  (CT), 1-800-BETS OFF (IA), 1-877-770-STOP (7867) (LA), 877-8-HOPENY/text HOPENY (467369) (NY), visit OPGR.org (OR), call/text TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN), or 1-888-532-3500 (VA). 21+ (18+ WY). Physically present in AZ/CO/CT/IL/IN/IA/LA/MI/ /NJ/NY/ PA/TN/VA/WV/WY only. New customers only. Min. $5 deposit required. Eligibility restrictions apply. See http://draftkings.com/sportsbook for details. 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 presented to you by seat geek. We got a lot of things going on in the MLB as the second half begins. Let's talk about it. Hello and welcome to talking baseball presented to you by seat geek. That's right. You can get $20 off tickets at seat geek with code talking. You go to the app or the website. You search the event you want, be it.

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Trevor, haven't seen you in forever. How are you? I do miss you guys. I'm doing great, James. I love talking baseball right after the break. Things are about to get exciting here. Trade deadline is coming up. We're going to talk about that a little bit, I guess.

I'm reading a little thing right here. It says Juan Soto might be traded. Shalhei Otani might be traded. What is going on in the world of baseball? I guess we'll just let you guys know. But I'm doing great. I got my coffee here. And little Isla is just right over there beyond my screen.

She's on her iPad. hanging out with me today. So we've got a nice view. James. I'm going to go to Jake first. How you doing, Jake? James, Trevor, Big Baby David, everyone live with us on this Friday as we really full-blown second half opening day. We had a couple games last night. But every game yesterday didn't count, especially double-headers in Texas. So excited to talk some of the big ones with you guys. Juan Soto, man. It's starting to feel real, which is kind of nuts. And he's a all-time legendary player, or he's on that trajectory that we'd be talking about a pretty cool next chapter for him,

my next chapter, Juan Soto to the Yankees. And man, I, you know, I finally, I posted my Instagram wrapping up the All-Star Trip. That's the official end to it. And I had a moment. I had a flashback to Sunday night. It's me in the photo booth. with Trevor's beautiful wife, Olivia, and he comes around the corner and sees it

and the look of anger and passion that came over his face. It's what I hope every team has going into the second half of the season, so I'm excited, Jimbo. I'm also excited. We'll be a little bit on watch for trade season, and that is such a rush. We have a maybe the worst schedule of the company, ever, which I'll take full blame for.

I mean, from all star break through trade deadline, we also have like two other keystone events happening. So we'll be run ragged, but I'm excited to hop on the mics for trades and reactions. I think we're going to get a ton this year as more teams are involved. And then there are some clear guys that want to be traded. We don't have any like A1 rental trades, which I still find fascinating. There's no moot like Manny Machado for the rest of the year. Max Scherzer for the rest of the year.

There's no, there's none of that as far as true rental goes. Everyone that we're talking about as a big trade, basically has a year left or more than a year left. So that's a little interesting because maybe that makes it harder to get them done. And then there's a lot, there are rentals available like Martine Perez, but they might be keeping them. but usually there's like one crown you know when the astros got verlander when the astros got uh granky i believe they were rentals maybe they had one year left i'm not sure anyway so we'll be ready this episode we're not going to do a recap of like whatever happened yesterday and today we're just going to do a little free form soto we didn't get to talk about this while we're

in l.A because we just were running around crazy so we're going to talk about soto a little Otani and an Enosaris article that I read this morning that I wanted to chat about a little bit at the very end. Just a little bit. Did you know at all? No, we didn't.

We didn't. Unreal. He texted me a few times, but he was always kind of somewhere else. We were kind of busy during the All-Star break. Kind of busy. Juan Soto. If anyone doesn't know what happened before the break,

the Nationals leaked that Juan Soto turned down their deal. of 450 million actually broke while we were on the plane. And at first you're like, holy smokes. They offered them 450 million. Like that's wild. He turned it down. And then when you look at how it was actually structured, it was 15 years. He's 23.

So that would make him 38 years old. Nice. And 450 divided by 15. 29.3. 29 a year. That's still not bad. Like I could see him accepting that and him not getting crucified for it. But I think the Nats knew he wasn't going to accept it because they also deferred a ton of money, which they always do.

That's what they do the Bryce Harper. So they do everyone. Scherzer still getting deferred money from them, right? Like he's getting like 30 mil or I don't know what it is. I mean Strasberg's too. Like it's kind of the nationals almost signature big contract. move. And I think what everyone assumes is that

the Nationals offered him this, knowing he would say no to it. And then they went public that he said no to $450 million, which makes it easier for them to offload him to the fan base or to anyone, because it's like, well, what were you going to do?

You offered him 450 and he turned it down when it was really like the AAV, the length, the deference, Because if you offered him 10 years at 30 million a year, like maybe he says yes to that. And then he's a free agent at 33 again and can do it again or something like that. You know, so they definitely, in my opinion, leaked that so that they have an easier path to trade him.

And so it was pretty upset that it got out to reporters. But that means that they're really taking offers. And I poked, I said, hey, to my source, they're really going to move him? And my guy said, what did he say, Jake? he said, we'll see. They're definitely listening to offers. So I think it's going to happen to. And about the Juan Soto thing,

I think one thing we have to always mention here is the money is, look, we get it. It's almost unthinkable. Is that even a word? I don't know. Gosh, I do that once an episode where I say something. I'm not even sure it's a word. It's a lot of money, okay?

To Juan Soda, to everybody, that's a lot of money. I think the one part we don't hit on enough is the fact that there's an ownership change coming there. And when you're signing up to be somewhere for 15 years, you'd like to know the direction of the franchise. So that's just another reason why we think Juan turned it down. Because if you're going to be there and the new owner comes in and is not, you guys don't are aligned to the same vision, I mean, you're basically, you got one career. Okay. And a guy like Juan Soto, like he has to think about legacy. all that stuff, he's that good.

You'd want to be like in lockstep with the organization you sign with and how can you be in lockstep with them when you don't know who's going to be running the damn thing. So there's that aspect of, too. I think he's going to be traded. Like soon, like if not before the deadline, 100% in the off season. But I'm almost banking on right now, this rush, we're already seeing there's been like 10 teams that have like submitted preliminary offers. Like this is when you get a bidding more like this, this is how you max,

maximize value. So I think the nationals are going to be looked to, they're going to look to do it. Maybe they offer, maybe they do one more PR stunting offer him a little bit more money or like figure that aspect out. But I think he's, I think he's getting moved. So many fun moving parts of this. Like you, you mentioned the ownership thing, Trevin. That's very real. That's very real. We saw a couple, we saw our guy passing tweet out today how one agency bought out another agency and he talked about how huge it was. And most baseball fans will never even care about that aspect of the sort that, yeah, I mean, the contract that Soto turned down, A, the deferments

are wild. I know we laugh on Bobby Bonilla Day every year and Scherzer's getting extra coin. There was $80 million of deferments in Strasbourg's contract that, you know, we laugh and we're like, that's kind of cool, you know, you'd be done playing and still collecting. Well, if you got some of that money while you were playing and you invested in, what did Give me your investment strategy. What did Buster Posey invest in? Not life water. The vitamin water.

You know, you invested into a little vitamin water, and now Buster Posey's retired, saving his knees, having a good time with the family, because he's living next to Trev up in the hills. So I am a little skeptical that Soto is going to get traded by this deadline. I don't know, though, because we're going to have so many bidders, like a team like the San Francisco Giants. Their season has been up and down.

We've debated, are they going to be buyers and sellers at the deadline? For Juan Soto, it doesn't matter because this is a guy you're going to bring in the house for two and a half years, and you can try to make the face of your franchise. So every team is going to be able to put together a crazy and best package that if you're the GM of the Nationals, who, by the way, he's got to be curious who the new ownership group is going to be. You do have a fun opportunity. you can ask for what would probably be the biggest trade package in MLB history. I don't know if that's dramatic, just a short kind of portly guy talking on a podcast,

but I think there's an argument for it. So that part has to be appealing. And I don't know how deep we're going to dive into some of these mock trade proposals we've seen, but you're talking about a team emptying the farm. You're talking about five of your top 10 prospects, and you're talking about, you know, three or four of the top five. depending who the nationals would be like. And hey, maybe this many teams leading up to the trade deadline

will actually lead to the nationals being able to make a decision. But where I get nervous is I think these same trade packages are going to be sitting there come November when maybe the nationals have a little bit more info and they don't feel rushed like they have to make the biggest trade in MLB history tag, talking Jake in that. in the next 12 days or whatever it is. So that's where I'm at.

And I think that kind of money would lock up Soto if you don't have the deferments. It would be the biggest contract in MLB history. So you don't think he's going to get traded during the season? It's, it's, I'm 70, 30, 70 being the off season. I think there's a serious chance, but I mean, we're talking about GMs under the gun trying to figure out the rest of their moves. And if, Jim, we're sucked in Yankee land, right?

And we think they can make upgrades to the pitching staff and an outfielder. If you get caught up in the Juan Soto trade talks up until the deadline and you've been ignoring kind of the other moves you have to make, some of these serious contenders you could put yourself in a bad spot. Like imagine if we found that out that the Yankees missed out on other moves, because they were trying to get the Soto deal done? And then the Nats say, we're going to wait until the offseason. Boy, that would, I wouldn't like that.

I get that. Yeah, you need these prospects or whatever package you're going to put together for one soda. You need them for other trades as well. So if you have them in the waiting, and like you said, the national system side, you know what, this is too much of a rush. Let's do the off-sings, which I do. I'm also in agreement with you, Jake. I think it will happen in the off-season because it is too fast, too quick.

too quick, man, to happen now. But on the flip side of that, if you are a team that really wants Juan Soto, like getting him for an extra postseason run kind of means a lot. A ton. Like, if you're in the thick of it, like, if you're the Cardinals right now, who are like, that's my favorite team right now to land him. I just, like, it makes sense to me. And, like, I think he would look good in the Cardinals uniform.

I even think he, like, embraced the Cardinal way, vomit if you want, Cubs fans. Like, I don't know. It's interesting, man. Like, I love, I love this. This is the one thing that the extra two wildcard teams,

this is like another thing that, another benefit of having them is the fact that we do have more teams in on the race and we are going to see more teams making trades. For some reason, I'm just really into guys changing teams and, and the top end teams kind of just like getting super rosters right now. I don't want that to happen all the time. But for some reason this year, I just want all the teams.

I want the Astros, the Dodgers, the Yankees, the Cardinals, the Brewers, everyone to just upgrade, upgrade, upgrade. And then we see just absolute murder ball come to playoffs. Like Shohei, we haven't even talked about him. I don't think he's going to move this season either. But imagine him on a different team in the postseason, dude. Oh, it gets my heart racing to think about it. Show has a whole other conversation. But I'm excited about that one too.

but Soto, I don't know, man. They're going to get a lot of offers to your point, Jake. I think teams like are like teams that really want him and are willing to offer big packages during the deadline right now. We'll give them, you know, we're 11 days out right now or 12 days out. They will say, hey, this is our offer. You need to tell us yes or no by X date because if you're out, we, we got to go to other teams with these guys. Like they might have earlier deadline. and then you go to the other teams and do what you need to do with the prospects you were offering as the giant package for Soto.

And if those fall through and Soto's still available, maybe you go back. I don't know. But yeah, there's definitely some interesting dynamic about that. If you're willing to give up your four best prospects for Soto and then the Nats say no. And then that's drag you out till the bell. And now you're done. That's something that you cannot afford to do as a GM. So there's a lot of dancing going that way.

Because the Nats don't have to trade him at all. He's got two years after this where Otani's only got one. So that's a little more interesting to me that I just realized that. If you're the nationals and you are thinking that way and you're like, hey, maybe we can still resign this guy. Like, why would you be, why would you be leaking all this information? Like if, no, the Nats are not resigning him. I'd be shocked.

Like you said, Triff, why would they do this? the only reason they do this is basically they rang the bell and said he's for sale yeah bring us your offers so you know i i guess to your point like they can wait and just get like the best offer but again like for a team if you really want so do this extra year this extra postseason run has to if i really want one soda i'm going after him right now right now right now and then I'm going to tell the nationals, this is my fucking offer. And three, you know,

yeah. Yeah. You have 72 hours to say yes or no to my offer and that's going to be it because, like you said, you said, Jake, you got to have your chips available on the table. If you're sitting there and your chips are off,

like you can't play. So it's turned into a, GMs are going to have to really earn their money come this trade deadline. because of Soto and the Otani guy. With, man, Soto's so good. He's so young. And I was reading the Giants because they were involved and there was like a mock Giants trade that was like their four best prospects and Webb.

And I don't know. I'm not going to talk for Giants fans. Every single response I read was like absolutely no way, absolutely no way, absolutely no way. And maybe that's true because if you're. you're trying to win in the Soto window, Webb's going to be a big part of that. So I guess I would somewhat agree with that. But for certain teams,

if you have your window is open or you think it's, you think it's within these next three years of Soto, every single prospect should be off the port. I mean, he is a generational talent that you would be getting for three postseason runs. If you think your team is already in the postseason this year, next year, 2024, like good enough to be there,

then you should ditch every prospect. or however many prospects to get to add Soto to that run. If you're a team that isn't guaranteed the postseason and you're trading for Soto to get you to the postseason, well, then you probably need other pieces and you need prospects to develop to also help that push. And maybe it's a different package. But for teams that are like going to be there and that's where the Dodgers can always make these moves and they can always go get the biggest rental and trade because they're

like, listen, we're going to be in the postseason next three years. We're going to be in the posties the next two years. Let's get Trey Turner too. And then you don't even have to sign Soto. You're getting him for two and a half years. You don't like people are jumping ahead to like, well, what do you do when he's a, who cares? If you told me, if you said you could get him for two and a half years, you'd get him on free agency. I think if you approached it like this to fan bases, because a lot of fan bases are, you know, they've been conditioned.

to prospect hug because you know organizations like to do that I think if you ask a question of a fan base and you said hey if we took your top three prospects away from you but you won a world series

would you do it every person like yep yep and that's essentially what you're thinking when you trade for Juan Soto is like he's you have to have that notion like he's going to bring I'm going to say World Series. Whether it happens or not, I don't know.

But that's the thought process behind there. So if you just remove everything and say, would you trade your top three prospects for a World Series banner in the next three years? I think a lot of, like most people would say yes. Like, why wouldn't you? That's the whole point of baseball.

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and to pick up the ultimate daily nutritional insurance. Visit athletic greens.com slash baseball today. You won't regret it and you'll look like Chris Rose. And people don't know this. Chris Rose is 111 years old. And that's part of the secret why he looks so good. Jimmy, you were, got Trev, You were messaging some Yankees stuff.

We did some Soto Yankees talk the other day, and we just got into prospect packages. And then before this episode, we were talking about some of the bigger trades ever. And the only one that was super comparable to this Soto trade in recent memory was a young Miguel Cabrera. Young Miggie Cabs had hit arbitration with the Florida Fishies. They traded him and Dantrell Willis.

over to Detroit for six prospects. The two big ones were Cameron Mabin, who by the way is killing it in the boot these days. He's doing some Yankee games. He got off to a slow start. I thought the other day he was electric, and now he's doing national stuff too, one of the great humans in baseball.

And Andrew Miller, who a lot of you probably remember as one of the better lefty relievers to twirl it in this league, kind of changed the way bullpins got used. But that was later in his career. That was after his, his days with the Marlins. So basically what we're getting to is

if there's one prospect in your batch, who maybe they're going to be a perennial all-star, A, that's really hard to do and they're probably not. Cameron Maven and Andrew Miller, great MLB careers, but they really weren't those guys. You aren't going to get hurt by a prospect package you give up for Juan Soto.

Because he's going to be Juan Soto. And even if you're talking to me about, you know, the Giants have Luciano or the Padres have C.J. Abrams or whoever it is, you know what? Maybe those guys do become a stud. Juan Soto's going to the Hall of Fame. And I don't know if there's a prospect in your crop that is going to be, never mind two prospects that are going to hurt you in three years.

So if your team somehow lands Juan Soto, you jump for joy. The guy is a generational talent currently playing on a talentless roster. That hurt to say. I didn't like that. That's not who I am. But they are. I mean, they emptied the chambers that, man, whatever prospect package you're putting together, maybe there's one guy you say, I'd really like to hold on to just because we have a hole

and center field and that that guys our next chance at it. But everyone is on the table for this guy. You're getting two and a half or two years of literally one of the best young hitters to ever play this game. You do it. You do it. Yeah, the Miguel Cabrera trade situation. So he had played four full seasons and then his role. season, which was 87 games.

He got MVP votes in all five seasons. He was an all-star in the four full seasons that he played, two-time Silver Slugger, two-time top-five MVP vote getter. I mean, that is a very comparable trade. They packaged Dantra Willis with him, who was coming off a down year. At that point, Miggie had more games. He had like a full season more than soda. does. The offensive numbers are similar enough. I mean,

Miggie has him in batting average. Soto has him in on base percentage. They have the same exact slugging, basically. So that's, and then the years down that afterwards were comparable as well. Different time with money and stuff like that. And Loria wasn't the best. I mean, if you look at that trade, man, I mean, you almost, if you're the Detroit Tigers, say do you want more like do you guys feel bad just send you three more prospects just to like make you not feel bad about this because that's crazy i want to i want to go into a different perspective here james you're a mogul jake your crypto gains have been elite so you can get in this headspace of a major league baseball owner okay getting that headspace for me okay all right

BPD, just keep working, baby. What's more attractive to you? If you're looking to buy the nationals, because I think this has to play a big part in it. Like I said, learners are looking to sell the team. If you're a prospective owner, are you more inclined to have

a Juan Soto-type figure attached to your organization for the next 15 years? Or do you want clean payroll down, clean slate, yeah, we got some prospects in the chamber. Like, do you want the face of the franchise there?

Or do you want a blank canvas that you can create yourself? Like, what's more appealing to you as an owner coming in? Well, I mean, I think I can't get in this space unless you have me as like George Steinbrenner owner who like really cares about winning, which doesn't seem to be the case these days anymore. Just going off what happened when the Marlins got bought out and then they instantly traded everyone away. I'm guessing new owners want the clean slate. They don't want someone else's

bad contract or burden or whatever. I can't do that. I wish I could have done that game because I would just want to win. But owners don't care about that anymore. I don't want a TV deal. That's what they want. They want a TV. You want to inherit a TV.

Sometimes it helps. I mean, the whole Loria Loria laid out the blueprint for this move. Like he, really did a great job with it. So I think his scenario was the Stanton thing. Let's keep standing around. We have our superstar. We have a new TV deal, new stadium. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Jake, how do you feel about it? I'm with Jimmy. Just from the Marlon sales standpoint, you can say I have these stars

under contract. Do what you want with it. Remember they signed Jose Reyes, Mark Purely, right? Stanton had the big contract. Here's going to be the face of your franchise. You'll be able to market and do whatever you want. As a loser who played out of the park baseball video games, like I would love a clean slate and let me work with a clean tablet. So I guess there's probably a little bit there.

It depends who your owner truly is. And if they want to make it their own, if you come in with a clean slate, you can do a lot of work. But I think the majority, if you went around and we're like, hey, what do we got here? And you can say you've got a franchise with five guys that are known kind of throughout the baseball world and we can sell their bobbleheads and do stuff like that. I think that's where the owners are going to land.

Dude, I keep seeing people say like people can't afford Soto. And I'm getting so frustrated with that take because almost every team that I've searched can afford him. It's going to be like $7 million this year, maybe eight, once you, if you get them this year, $8 million to your books this year. Next year, it's probably going to be around $27 million. But you look at the Cardinals, that's Wayne Owen Yachti. They're coming off the books.

Bam. You got 27 for Soto. Goldschmidt comes off in two years. He's making 26 a year, I think, as well. Yeah. For the Yankees, they got Chapman and Britain coming off. bam, that's 30 mil off the books. You can afford the arbitration number for Soto.

And you go around to every team and every team can afford him. Now I think he's going to set the record for arbitration in his last year. So maybe you try to sign him to a deal or something like that. But Mookie Betts currently has the record for the highest last year of arbitration at 27 million. And I believe that the way it's looking, Soto is going to get to their 26, 27, next year. And then he has another one where he will break the record if that goes to arbitration and get 30, 33. I don't know what it's going to be.

But every team can afford him, man. If you look at all their payrolls, they all have money coming off the books. It's cheap this year. Now, if you're talking about the extension, who gives this shit? We're so far away from that. That's not a part of the conversation at all. The Braves have Kenley Jansen coming off. There's 16 mill.

Charlie Morton coming off. There's 20 mil. So the Braves can afford it. Like every team has money coming off the books and they can afford Soto. I need to see people stop saying that. It's like the only thing I'm hearing is like they can't afford them. Everyone can afford him. And he's 23 years old.

So like he's got. I give him the way guys age now, I think. And then with the universal D.H, I'd give him another, at least, at the very least eight years of like prime Soto, right? Like get him to 31. And like, that's not that old, man. Like, if you take care of yourself, like, it's worth it. I would do anything to get this guy on my team.

I think you're going to have to eat Patrick Corbyn's salary. That seems like they're saying that's going to be a thing. So what? Do it. Like you said, James, a lot of these teams have money coming up to books. You can figure out a way to do it. Well, I do think that a lot of teams won't want to do the Corbyn's salary. I think they're going to have to.

And that's two years, I think, left. Like, I don't know. No, it's this year and then it's the next two. But I mean, that's a ton of money, man. That makes a lot of teams not out on it. And it's not like Soto's making, like usually you do, usually you eat someone's salary because the other guy's not making a lot. Yeah, so it doesn't make $25 million next year. Yeah.

So it's not like, if you're, team like i'm not going to eat 35 million of corbin's dollars to also pay soda 35 million well and that's where you do stupid stuff all the time look at the rockies that's where that's where some people think the dodgers might have the leg up because currently david price is a bullpen guy for them kind of doing the same thing so maybe the dodgers will just have a rotating bullpen roll of starting pitcher making 25 mil out there um there is uh i think i saw some podres tweet saying if If the Los Angeles Dodgers have David Price and Patrick Corbyn in their bullpen, I'm going to kill myself, which is kind of fair.

I want to do some prospect stuff really quick with you guys just to, again, drive home that point. I'm looking at some of the previous top 10 prospect rankings, and these are top 10 across baseball. These weren't guys on the same team. 27 team, your top 10 prospects in baseball. Andrew Ben Tendi, number one. Yon Moncada, number two.

Glaber Torres, three, Dan's Bay, four, Ahmed Rosario, five, Alex Reyes, six, J. P. Crawford, seven. That's why I use this list. Victor Robles, eight, Tyler Glass, now nine, Austin Meadows, 10. That's probably the most impressive top ten prospect list I've ever heard. Those guys are good. Those guys are good. It's just because you know them all right now. You know them all, but none of those guys are like annual All-Stars even.

This is one Soto. You would package any of those three for Soto. And those guys wouldn't be your top three prospects on your farm. And like Jimmy said, that's a pretty good crop. I went back to- That's a really good. I mean, usually a top 10 list has guys who... Baseball's gotten better in the years, Jim, as I went through these.

But like you said, going to 2013, Jerksson ProFar, my guy, Dylan Bundy. Number three, Oscar DeVaris, RIP, that's a sad one there. Will Myers, four, Taiwan Walker, five, darn no, six, Jose Fernandez, another sad one in there, seven, Zach Wheeler, eight. So, like, Billy Hamilton's at 11 there. Like, those are the top ten across all of baseball. All of baseball. All the scouts got together and said these are number ones in each organization.

These are the next ten that are bona fide. Go do a single team's top ten process. We've done stuff like this on the show before. you really start to see when you go team by team in your top prospect list. Team top prospects crack me up. If someone ever is like he's, he's, he's number eight in our organization. Okay.

That could mean that he's number like 200 in MLB. Yes. So go get Juan Soto. Like Jim's saying, don't be too worried about resigning him. Let's get them in your team's colors. And kind of like Trev said, one Soto is going to get paid by.

someone. You know, it's probably going to be a big boy team. Like, you do have to be honest about that. But if your team is willing to match Juan Soto, he is one of the few guys that, like, a couple other elements are going to be played. He said you'd like to know what owner you're playing for. If he went to the bay and had a blast and he's the next Barry Bonds and he's having a good time out there, well, San Francisco can say, yeah, dude, let us know what contract offer you get. We're probably going to match. And let's, uh, let's, run it and that can potentially be your leg up so go get one soto go get go get one soto cashman go get one soto i don't think he's going to go to the yankees but i think i think

i think they should offer everything you know you guys are very familiar with yeah this is like great i know you guys already done this on talking yanks but let's skip talking baseball a little you know dive into your guys heads you know the prospects you know the team What are you willing to give up for one? So, are you like everybody, Volpe, Paraza,

like everybody and eat the salary? Like, where are you at? Yeah, I mean, if it was prospects, what I would say is I would say, grab one of the short stops and then take four others.

And then if they counter and say, we want both short stops and say, okay, give us a double a reliever with them with, with Soto. And then, okay. So you're,

you're willing to, part for sure with everybody. Prospects don't pan out. To the level of Juan Soto, they don't pan out at all. That just means more of ICF, though. You're going to be okay with that? No, I would,

that's why I want them to leave one in the short stuff. Everyone talks Volpe, Volpe, Volpe. Everyone that we've talked to in the Aigs organization thinks Peraz is better and more long-term plan on short. Defensively, right? Yeah, because he's a defense everyday bat. but nationally Volpe gets the hype. But yeah, everyone we've talked to says Parazza's the dude.

So, I don't know, maybe that's part of the Yankees hype train. Volpe's more hyped. They actually like Paraza more. I'm spilling the beans on it. I like that. You just, yeah, you just expose that one. Well, they're on different timelines. I think defensively it shorts up everything Jimmy said is true.

I think people are more excited about Volpe's. High end potential, but you have to get there. And you're about, you're about two, three years away from that. I'm getting a FaceTime from Nikki Cass. One second, guys. Hey, he's face-time me too. Hey, Nikki, we're a lot doing talking baseball, man. So I'll talk to you later.

You got something you want to say to the people? Yes. Team Love You is winning the next football. All right, we'll talk to you later. Jesus. You know why he was FaceTime? me you wanted me get him a dinner reservation Megan moves

we got work to do okay we're working so I wouldn't give away up glaver I mean everyone I don't think you need to do that so so the nationals why if you're the nationals why would you want any major league talent doesn't make any sense ready town don't do that

I got you because it's everything we just talked about it's because prospects aren't anything until they actually make it to the major league so If you have a sample size, and that's where I do think a team like the Cardinals is interesting, especially when I look at the books and I see Waino and Yaddy are going to be gone. Goldschmidt's got two more. This is a team that likes locking up their superstar.

Nolan Aronado, if Soto can be the next guy, that if you're the nationals, I know their timeline doesn't look pretty right now. But if you can grab Dylan Carlson, and you can grab a, who's Brendan Donovan, and you can grab the pitching prospect they got from the raise. And like if you can, if you can do that,

you're taking away some of the risk. And that's kind of what it is. So I don't necessarily agree with it. I think we all look at the NL East and say, hey, man, your timeline doesn't look like that right now. But you're eliminating risk. that if you bring in, you know, I don't know if Nolan Gorman's off the table, but that guy was a big prospect.

And think of everything we just said. Everyone is kind of on the table because it's Juan Soto. So if you're the Cardinals, you just have to kind of juggle the, okay, who's still going to be on our team this year? Like Jimmy said, Glaver Torres and the Yankees. I don't know, but that's what it would do. It would eliminate some of the prospect risk that, again, Cameron Maven and Andrew Miller had very nice MLB careers in the grand scheme of things,

but for what they were looking to get back for Miguel Cabrera, it wasn't it. I think the Cardinals are my number one choice for landing area for Soto. I think they've seen what having a guy like that means to an organization. They've had a couple guys like that. when you have a guy like Molina, like say, say the Cardinals get him, they're obviously going to want to try to sign him long term. Because I believe they are one of the franchises that really benefits from having a legit face of the franchise. Like I said, Melina, leader, you know, represents the Cardinals way as best you can.

Wayno the same way. I think Soto and like Aeronado are like the perfect guys to continue that. Like Soto in, you're going to want, if you're wanting someone, Soto, when you extend somewhere, you're going to want to extend somewhere where you can be a star and have a chance to go to the postseason every single year. You really, you really care about your legacy if you're a player of Juan Soto's caliber. I think the Cardinals are perfect for him in that regard. Like it doesn't have to be a coastal team. Doesn't have to be a Dodgers or Yankees team because I believe the Cardinals are kind of like on par with those franchises as far as like, you know,

recognition. Like the Cardinals are a premier franchise in the big leagues, whether you want to admit that or not they really are they're in every discussion about you know best run franchises in baseball and like the exposure's good enough for you know he can do whatever he wants but it's also you know he's not going to have to deal with some you know heavy pin stripes or something like that i really feel like the cardinals are like a really really good landing spot for him and a good long-term place for him too he said they got guys coming off it'd be like a changing of guard a little bit. Well, just to one soda.

That's, that's kind of my point. I know. That's what I'm saying. Those guys off and they'll just continue the Cardinals way. And you might, you know, you're going to have to give up a lot for him.

But I, Cardinals are one of those teams like they're just in, they're just in it every year too. Like they're a good enough organization to really come and restock their farm system quickly, make the moves they need to make. And what did the tweet say? It's there was like seven teams and three of them were in the AL West, Padres, Giants and Dodgers all there.

Because they're all. all battling with each other. I mean, Padres get Machado and then lock up Tatis and then get soda. I don't know. I'm interesting. I'm interested. Cardinals have only had one losing season since 2000. Treve, like you said, that's a, I mean, that's a shout out to them.

Like, when you name all the big money teams around baseball, you don't go to the Cardinals. They are a really well-run organization. Yeah, I think it was only two AL teams. It was the Yankees and the Mariners. It was three NLS. The Mets were involved. I was going to throw that out to you guys. Do you think there's anything?

We hear about this more so in basketball, but do you, and football if like a big quarterback's getting traded. Do you think the nationals have any like we got to get Soto out of the NL if we're doing it? Like, or is it truly? NL East. Okay. Okay. They lost Harper to their division.

I don't think they want to lose another to their division. The counter to that is we're going to a balanced schedule next year. So it's interesting. you're seeing them as much as true would right so that to compete with them though whenever they're ready whenever they're ready to I love you Juan

we've seen Juan be a superstar with the nationals obviously they win the world series on the biggest stage but still this guy's not as popular as he should be and I think if you put him on one of those franchises that we're talking about the Dodgers the Yankees the Mets

even the Cardinals I think his star starts to just shine, man. The other, the, the Vegas. Cardinals already got that Aronado trade. They got paid $50 million to get Aronado. Rocky should have been kicked out of the league on the spot. Still should.

That's Vegas favorites right now. Dodgers, Cardinals, Yankees, Mariners, Astros, Padres, Giants. And the other sleeper team that people are starting to talk about, and part of me would love and part of me would hate if they did this. I mean, how long have we talked about Toronto looking to make another jugular move? They need a lefty, too. I mean, if they could do Soto and Vladito. Good luck, if you're anyone, they have a top five prospect.

Like if they did a Gabriel Moreno at Teasker Hernandez and a couple of other. their prospects. I mean, here's what I'll say. For baseball, I know we, Trev tickled the ivories on Otani for a second there. For baseball. If this is all kind of PRE and it doesn't happen, it's cool. If it does, and Juan Soto's playing in another uniform,

I mean, can you, if he gets traded to the Padres, my knights are fucked. Like, if Tatez comes back and Soto's there with what Machado's done, my knights are fucked. If he goes to the Blue Jays, I need to see that. Like, I, for baseball, if it happens, it would be awesome. And I'm rooting for it. Like, even if it was the Blue Jays who are in my Yankees division,

God, Vladian Soto back to back. That's not even video game stuff. If you try to do that in the video game, it's like, no, your owner declined that trade. You're like, oh, that makes sense. I thought of such a trolly thing to say about, yes. to the Blue Jays that I

What come on man Just like If he goes to the Blue Jays It's almost like hey this is what like Swagger and like men amongst boys actually is Like I feel like it would be like Oh this is how you actually fucking Talk shit and back it up

And he's younger than them So I think the Blue Jays are bad at it They're cringy They're like a JV team that's like really excited all the time and Soto is like They're swagging themselves up a lot right now Yeah They said

They said last year was a trailer And this is the movie Like they said a lot of And they do the jacket Like a lot of stuff And it's just like I don't know guys I don't know How to fire your manager

Because you whined about him not coaching you That's why I tell everyone Soto comes It'd be like a man amongst boys But Soto's the boy He's 23 I just don't like When teams try to

Take on a big person like that just go play the game dude like you're just going to end up like having to like eat it at some point during the year like the home run jacket is cool when you're winning but the home run jacket's not cool when you're losing like just go play the games guys like we know we know you got swag we know you're confident you don't think I'm shove it in our face all the damn time because when you do that it's all just false bravado anyway I agree want what where's the nightmare scenario for you guys Astros the Astros right yeah red socks Yeah, Red Sox.

Yeah. Just the rivals. If Juan Soto gets... So you'd rather him go to the Mets than to the Red Sox or Astros. I'd love if you went to the Mets. To have him in New York? Unless...

Unless they actually like realigned divisions and the Yankees are Mets in the same division, then... Oh, that would suck. Yes. Yes. If it's NLA... If Juan Soto went to... That would be my number two team trip.

One Yankees, obviously. Two Mets. Juan Soto goes to the Red Sox, and it's like just bring up Ted Williams' baseball reference. Because he can hit the monster so easily. He will get on base at a, like a 500 clip.

The guy has nobody helping him. Josh Bell is having actually a really nice year and one of the better rentals out there. Outside of that, man, it's brutal. And maybe that's why Josh Bell having a nice year because Juan Soto's just, I'm based in front of them. You know that picture of like the Marlins outfield? It's Stanton. It's Yelich and it's who's the other guys?

It's Zuna. Yeah. And everyone's like, oh, man, look at that. J.T. Romuto. J.T. Romuto. Oh, look at this. When you look back at the Nationals, dude, and all the dudes they had, like, thank God they won a World Series.

Thank God they won in 2019. Because if you're looking at Mad Max, Stephen Strausberg, Trade Turner, Anthony Rendome, Harper and Juan Soto and he didn't win one, we would just be, it'd be the laughing stock of all time, but they got one so we can't do that. But just that picture of them all together. Well, Harper didn't. But yeah. Oh, he didn't win one. Yeah. But, you know, they were all together at some point. And if Turner, Harper, Rendon, Soto. It's nuts.

If Trent, if Trent, if Trent Grisham fields a ball in the outfield clean, they might have been done. A one Soto ball. Yeah. Snake. That's how hard he hit it. And then Trent Grisham's a really good feel there, too. Remember we thought he was just going to go down and never recover from that? Go glove. You want to go glove the next year? I think he regressed a ton this year.

I think Eno did an article. He's been crazy. That was a soda against haters. Right? Yeah. Wasn't it? Yeah. Baseball history.

Unbelievable that happened. Dude. And then Howie Kendrick's saving them. Homer off the pole or right field. Houston. Yeah. With some lead in my pencil. Speaking of.

Maybe he's boned up. We're talking a little bit of Otani. Brought to you by Roman. You think the Romans. You think the Romans and the Japanese ever battled in history? I don't think so. I don't think travel is good enough then.

Yeah. Okay. Know what else was definitely happening, though? Pre-major ejaculation. Non-stop. I mean, that's been since, start of time, right? Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, I don't think they're ashamed about it until like the 60s. Let me put this in here. Hello. Dinosaurs just were going through that all the time.

Oh, man, there's got to be. They don't care. There's got to be someone out there that's a dinosaur sex expert. Yes. Ross. Ross Keller. Um, if you're premature ejaculating, go look into Rome and this, it's a company built on dealing with male issues. And this is a big one, people. This could change your life. If you've got a significant other and you're having a problem with PE, this can change your life, their life. It could change your future.

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What's pretty quick? Within seconds. Did you make it past? A minute mark? Minute mark. No, we've got we've got a couple that are tight, tight. Would fit in a commercial break, a single commercial break. One commercial.

Go Roman. Layla. What else you guys want to talk about? It's your dick fix, guys. It's not a big deal. I want to talk about Otani. Now, if they trade him, which MLB Network said they're going to trade him.

It's this year and one other year. You get a pitcher and a hitter. Yeah. So you get three years of Otani. You get a year and a half of a hitter, a year and a half of a pitcher. Yeah. Because it's only next year. Maybe it happens.

I really don't think this happens because of this reason. Your whole identity is in shambles. You're back to rebuilding. you're back to retooling Mike Trout and nobody else angels. Now they've had No, they've had star power. They've had appeal.

They win Otani games. They've had the Japanese media, the Japanese fan bases. There's so much money. The Yankees always liked having a Japanese player. This is the first time since Snokola. They haven't in a while. They always went, you know, Matsui to Kiyigawa.

He didn't pan out. Then eventually they brought, they traded for each row. And they got Corota in there. Then they got Tanaka because that that money that comes in. Like the fourth inning was brought you by Sapporo. And then there's all these Japanese sponsors, all this media, all this shit. But I mean, you lose so much if you get rid of Otani.

I mean, think about the most coveted jewel of a player. Like people are talking about will he ever not win the MVP if he plays to his average abilities? and for you to be like, trade him. I mean, that's a big decision. Like they don't think they can be good next year. That's the question. If they trade him this year, you don't think you can be good in his last year.

I think you have to say how can they be good? We can say that. But for them, because I don't think they will be, but for them to admit it, that's like the first time. Like, it's like, oh, they might need, you know, prospects to help. but I don't know, man.

That's that's a big move, in my opinion, just because it's like, that's who they are right now. Think about Perry Manizian, Manasian coming in to control. You got the beginning of the year, people are just like, Perry, Perry, Perry, we're in first place. Things are looking great. Taylor Awards, a freaking absolute stud. Otani, MVP last year.

every fucking award you can win he wins it like it's our year we drafted a zillion pitchers and then to see where he's at now you made the decision to fire joe madden now how much to affect that have probably not that much but still it's going to be looked upon as a move that he made that probably you know hasn't had the effect that he wanted so you got that you got the angels just looking abysmal and now you might have to trade show hey otani are you going to automatically be the most hated GM of all time in your organization's history, your first year in? Could be. It's crazy.

Like he has a real decision here. Because James, you said, well, can't they compete next year? He's got to be able to look and say, can we compete this year next year? So people. And if he says no, if you look in the mirror and you say, we truly, I don't think we can compete next year, then you have to trade Oton. because I don't think he's going to re-sign. Sorry, Jacob. I don't think he's going to re-sign there. A couple things people forget, Trev.

The Angels were 26 and 18 before Anthony Rendon got hurt. Otherwise, they'd be winning this whole damn thing. What was Rendon doing at that time? And they'd be on top of the AOS. He had a positive. It's a positive. If they just didn't fire Joe Madden, there is a universe where, you know, know, they're on top of the AL West right now.

And a serious note, like what you're saying, you cannot possibly be in the Angels front office and say, we have two of the best players to ever play this game and say we don't have a chance going into next year. They're going to give it another shot next year, whatever that looks like. And I think the bigger thing is, A, no one knows what to value it. I would love to know the day and day out of real GM life. Like, is Brian Cashman sending an email to Perry Meneycin with, like,

his three prospects with, like, a tongue out emoji and, like, I don't know, think about it. Like, why don't we punch it, man? I think Shohei Otani gets traded at next year's deadline. I think he becomes next year's Soto. Just because the angels cannot punt on the concept of them not being good with Otani next year. They need to see themselves be bad next year without Otani. The other thing, you guys were all over it, the money that this man brings in. We talked about, you know, remember the lockout times when we were the number one labor pot in the world

and we kept saying opening up those books, open up those books. I think if we saw the Angels books right now, we would be shocked. We would be shocked. Otani is a superhero across the big pond. like an absolute superhero that the money he must bring in is absolutely ungodly that to do it for the rest of the season and then to do it for the first half of the season next year then and that's when the trade package becomes a lot more real that you're going to get a I mean that Max Scherzer trade Turner trade package which was a pretty good one

in recent years is that not similar to autonomy? I mean, you're getting a half year of a pitcher of Max Scherzer's ilk, so match that. And then it's a year and a half of Trade Turner. So you're losing a year of a hitter, a really good hitter. But it's Shohei Otani. So think about now the owner's side of this. If you're a GM and you tell your owner, you can bring in Shohei Otani and the zeros on the check that come with that, my goodness. You're a superhero.

So I think it's a next year's story, unfortunately. But boogety-bugety has a couple knob jobs that talk into a microphone about baseball. If that Otani trade goes down, fire up the microphones, babe. Who are you describing right there? That's not me. Not James. Similar face you had when I was taking pictures with your wife and her friends on Monday night. Disgust.

Pure disgusting. I have two things I want to say about the Oton. situation. First thing, I think you just came up with a great skit. I think we need to start doing like major league GMs communicating like their teenagers would be awesome. Like we'll use the word mid a lot, emojis, flame emojis, fax bro, stuff like that. Do we have anyone that can do? Remember when those fake text chains used to be like a thing? We should do like a GM fake text. One of our kids has to be able to do that. There's an alternate universe. Jake, what do you say? There's a world. We know what we are not doing that.

Oh, can me and Jake do it? If it comes from your personal Twitter's. Okay. I guess it's not that funny. Whatever, bro. That's like a BuzzFeed, horrible thing. Yeah. BuzzFeed is sick.

Okay. There's a world in this simulation. You know, the other part of the simulation, where the angels are still in first, place and they all are mohawked up and show hay's got a mohawk and madden's leading the charge and mohawks are like in fashion again won sodo's hitting second for one sodo's in yeah he has a mohawk now i think he already has a mohawk kind of but then parry fired joe madden so that world doesn't exist in our simulation still want to see joe madden with a mohawk i i hope pictures eventually

surface. Maybe he still has it. They should rehire him. I mean, he's, Billy Martin style. He's definitely going to be know how every year in the postseason they bring in a fired manager. Got to be Joe Madden, right? In the booth? Yes.

Not in the boot, like the pregame show. Uh, yeah, maybe like, yeah, some like programming before and after. I feel like he did the booth once. I don't know, man. He's an exhausting guy to listen to. What's he doing right now? What do you think he's doing? Seriously.

What is Joe Madden doing right now? Tantric sex? I was oddly in that range. It's probably calling like calling, calling friends up and talking ball. I don't think so. Yeah, I think he's like in the gossip. Maybe like on some ayahuasca listening to some music or something. No, I think that's where his head's at right now.

Maybe he's like addicted to draft kings and just making hella money. He's been fading the angels every. night. He's crazy rich now. Yeah. He's richest shit now. Yeah. Hellas Scrilla. Yeah. Uh, download the draft King sports we have now. Be like Joe Matt and make money. You can bet any $5. You can make any $5 bet and get $100 in free bets instantly. promo code John Boy only at drafting sports book. And official sports betting partner of Major League Baseball minimum age and eligibility restrictions apply. See show notes for details. MLB trademarks used with permission. Get $100 in free bets instantly win like Madden.

I don't, I agree with you that bit isn't funny if we do a text chain, but if in my head, if Perry Minizian and another GM are actually talking like that, that was the funny part. They probably are. I mean, they all just text each other. It's kind of silly. It is silly. There's been a three team trade. that's just text.

It's funny. Yeah, you think they'd have like an official portal or something like, no, it's just text. I wanted to talk about the, Eno's article, which I just thought was interesting. And he does such a good job on this.

And it's, it's Jason Stark and Eno Seris, the athletic. I don't want to give like everything away, but the three true outcomes are all down for the first time in 17 years. Strikeouts are down. Home runs are down. Walks are down.

And they dug into why. and I thought it was like my type of reasoning. Like every, like Eno's so good at like every web being tackled. But what about this and this and this? And it was pretty cool. Because obviously the ball's dead. Everyone agrees on that. It was supposed to heat up and the ball is supposed to fly more, but it's not.

Sticky stuff is gone just like last year. And because the ball's dead, a lot of hitters are just trying to find holes now instead of hit for power, which was interesting, like McNeil from the Mets, he's on record saying like, yeah, well, you can hit it hard. It doesn't go anywhere. So you better just better off hitting it where it's not. And they dug in all these numbers. And the interesting thing was that offense is down this year. And Eno's like, offenses down. And you don't have pitchers hitting. And offense is still down. and the sticky stuff is off their fingers.

And there have been more position players pitching than ever before. So, but they took, yes, and they took that out. They took the position players pitching out and it's even more down. Because like they have the numbers. When position players pitch, the slash line is like stupid. It's like 1.5 or something. Yeah. Yeah.

It's 405 batting average, 466 on base. 773 slugging when pitchers are pitching so offense is down like crazy compared comparatively to last year and they're trying to figure out why what's your theory well three true outcomes for people that don't know it's homers strikeouts and walks okay when you have pitchers and we've talked about this extensively on this show when they're using the tech and they're they're just so far ahead of hitters and being able to make adjustments quicker. Guys are throwing harder than ever. We're training for V-Lo.

So pitchers are harder to hit than ever. So you're saying to yourself, well, doesn't that mean we're going to see more strikeouts? But I think guys are doing that whole like, hey, let's get our A swing off. They're starting to realize you can't. You can't take an A swing against a guy's a pitch and a location. You just can't do it. And I'll argue any person in the world who wants to,

to say that you can do that. Now you can put yourself in the right position to get a good swing off. I understand that. You want to be as consistent with that as possible. I understand that. But there are times during the year where my goodness, you need to shorten up and just put the barrel on the ball. And I think in the article they're talking, guys are swinging more often. And I think we're going to start to see just different swings. We're not going to be able to, we're not because you can't get up there and try to hit a 27 degree launch angle every single time. Like you're going to see guys shortening up and just putting the barrel on the ball, especially now when we saw the shifts on.

Now when the shifts go back and we don't have that, like we'll see how things change. I think that's going to affect the game. But I think hitters, the only way you can kind of counteract or combat what what the pitchers are able to do now with tech is shorten up. Like try to stream together hits because if you're just going up there, trying to hit the ball in the air, you know, in the middle of the field, great. That's a great swing to have. And that's, you know, probably your baseline where you want to be. But there are just times throughout the year where you can do that. And pitchers know how to expose that type of swing. So, okay, let's reach in my bag and let's try to, hey, all the second base is open or like, I just want to, I don't want to strike out. Like, let me just put the bat on the ball. I think guys are starting to realize that around the league. Like, I need to, I need to stop trying to. do this every single time I'm up because I'm striking out too much.

Let's put the ball and play a little bit more. Let's see what things happen. And the swing rates are up on balls and strikes this year. And that was one of the theories is because they're not, they're not swinging just for power. You can't, dude. Like, it's so frustrating if you try to do that. You just look like an idiot sometimes.

Like, I don't mean to beat up on this guy. Like, I actually really like him. And he's like a really, really, really nice guy. Former Yankee great Chris Carter. Like kind of took the same swing every single time. Like he was about as consistent as you come. But the ball doesn't go there every time. And guys can start to expose that swing.

Chris Carter struck out a lot. Current Yankee, Joey Gallo, same thing. You got to, how many times do I said that on this show? You got to have more than one club in the back. You can't just have that one. I think, you know, for a while people were trying to do that. And we saw crazy strikeout rates. and then I think a lot of it has to do with pitchers being able to, you know,

advance because of tech faster than hitters, but we're trying to make adjustments now. I have two examples that are the same example. Hell yeah. The two examples are the Baltimore Orioles. Jimmy, you know I theorized this last year when offense was down a little bit and the Yankees were kind of sucking. I was like, I don't know, the Yankees are normally a top five offense

and last year they were sucking and offense was kind of down. Turned out it kind of led to a lot of it with sticky stuff. And by the way, there's still some form of stickiness around the baseball. Jim, I know you're my spin rate guy. The Baltimore Orioles, one, they moved back their fence to a ridiculous spot. Two, they've added a lot of talent. The Baltimore Orioles last year, their ERA was 5-8-4. They were giving up basically six runs per nine innings.

This year, their team RA is 3-9-4. So, okay, that's two runs a game across baseball. So there's part of your influx. And like Trev said, it's technologies and bullpens for me. Domingo Hermann came back for the Yankees yesterday. His fastball sits 94-95-ish. I feel like when he came up four or five years ago, that felt like, ooh, this guy's got a good fastball.

Now in the words of Trevor Plouf, that's mid. The game has taken another jump. And my Orioles bullpen. All right, we're playing the Orioles. It's 2 to 2 in the 5th. Good game. Here are the Orioles bullpen pitchers that have an ERA under 2-5. Jorge Lopez, Dylan Tate, Felix Bautistic,

Siano Perez, Keegan Aiken, Joey Crable. That's six guys coming out of the Orioles bullpen. that have like elite numbers. Like if you saw a guy in previous years coming out of the bullpen with one of those ERAs, you're like, wow, that must be one of their better guys. It's across baseball, man. Ryan Halsley, I was a little high in bed after hanging out with Jimmy, Blevins, and Moyland, and I opened up my Instagram,

and Ryan Halsley is pegging the corner with 103. And we're just like, oh, this is normal baseball. it's not. His pitchers are freak shows, man. They've got the tech advantage. And some of the hitters, man, if you don't have a game plan, or if you don't have that B-swing,

yeah, right now you're getting slaughtered. Slaughtered. Oh, man. That's scary to think about 103 being dotted up like that. I'll send you the clip, Treb. I mean, he did it in the All-Star Kid. Yeah, that's a good. I haven't noticed any spooner rates going back up this year.

I don't, unless there's something I don't remember. Well, didn't they spike back up at the end of last year? Well, they did, but now they're checking their fingertips because of that. Right. But I mean, some of them are still sitting, like, not at full dip range. James, you remember when Dan Bellino stroked out of Gardner's hand for a while? Yeah. He apologized.

He was like, sorry, my bad. Speaking to umpires, we never, uh, the cat never got let out of the bag about the Brandon Hyde ejection. in Minnesota and what the Empire did to the Orioles dugout. I cannot believe that didn't get left, like, leaked. I'm not going to leak it. It's your story to tell? I don't want it. I don't want that story.

It's not my story to tell. Maybe I'll give it to Nikki Cass. Let him get in trouble. We'll just have every listener know that, like, if Nikki Cass releases an Instagram with a gesture in it, on August 14th. That's what the umpire did. Coach,

don't start with me. Yeah. I like that. You like that, Trev? August 14th, go check, Nick McCask's IG out for a motion.

And that's what the umpire did to Brandon Hyde. That got him so mad. To the dugout. Oh, just the whole dugout? Yeah. Oh, okay.

All right. It was just, I can't even talk about without laughing, dude. It was funny. All right. We'll be back on Monday to recap the weekend series, some of the games that happened yesterday and everything going on.

And then obviously we'll be on call for any trade deadline stuff as well. I think we'll have to find some threshold of like, is that worth jumping on a reaction or is that not? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Maybe it'll just be like two of us, three of us. Who knows? We will do some reaction stuff for sure. Yeah, we'll figure it out.

The article was cool because Eno was trying to find out like he talked to a bunch of managers, a bunch of fans. It seems like balls are in play more. It feels like we're getting more hard hit, soft hit balls in play. But the numbers, certain numbers don't support that because I had done this trying to bring this up and tried to find like the balls put in play. And it didn't really support it. But then he kept digging and found out that like, no, we are seeing that.

are seeing guys exchange power for placement, which I think is a more fun brand of baseball to watch. Someone in the chat brought up Claissé's end of the All-Star game. You watch that guy pitch. Tell me you can get up there and just take an absolute hack against that guy. Good fucking luck, dude. Good luck. You need to be like short as can be, know where your barrel is and just try to put it on the

baseball. That's all you can do in a. situation like that. And don't let anybody ever tell you different. Like you cannot, unless you're a guy that just sees him, right? And shoot, there are probably some guys that, even a guy like that, they see the ball well out of his hand. That's just kind of a crap shoot. I don't know. I don't understand that whole thing, how that happens. Some tunnels look good to you. But if you go up against Manuel Class A and try to hit homers to left field or the center field, you can strike out every time. Every fucking time. Has he even given up a homer ever?

If he has, I bet you it's like on a one-two count when he's, when guys are shortening up on him. You know who took him to the top of the wall? Brett Gardner. Close. I-K-F. Yes. He doesn't take a swings, bro. He doesn't.

He did. He started the season doing the Josh Donaldson high, high knee kick with and doing power swings. And he didn't do well. And he completely abandoned it for his like, he's hitting really well lately. So last year in 69. and two-thirds innings pitched. He gave up two home runs. So good luck.

That's wild. Love this. That's it. That's it. Okay. Goodbye. Farewell. Eric Thames,

Jose Altovae, Jorge Soler, Jed Lowry, Andrew Benintendi, Cody Clemens, homered off of Emmanuel Claucese. Two of more walk-offs. Goodbye.

See you later. Go Pirates. Dick is