Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - Pitcher Injuries are Getting Out of Hand | MLB Recap | 821

Episode Date: April 8, 2024

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Hello and welcome to talking baseball. Pitchers' arms are hurting. We're going to talk about that and some first place, worst place stuff. Marlins get their first win. Let's talk ball. Hello and welcome to talking baseball presented to you by Seat Geek. Go download the Seat Geek app. Go check out a game.

I went to a game. Went to watch the pinstrippers. They actually lost on opening day, so that was a bummer. But it was good to be back in the house. I know Treves been to a game. BPD went to a game. Make sure you go to a game and use Seekek, the number one rated ticketing app,

70,000 events every single day. And we got the hookup. Code Talking, $20 off your first purchase at Seekek. $20 off your first purchase with promo code talking. Click the link in the description. Download the Seekek app. Green means good. And so does Trevor Plouf.

Last time I saw you, Treve, there is an earthquake live. during the show, people were commenting my professionalism. And tonight we've got an eclipse, man. Is the simulation, do we start with the simulation? I think, you know, every once in a while, the simulation needs to remind us to stay humble. That's what was going on there, especially you, because you look so good today.

I mentioned your quaff and your nice bright white shirt, summer Jake, kind of a little preview of that. It's coming. Yeah, you talked about your nice Italian hue. I have my nice Egyptian hue. I get that through osmosis with Olivia. I don't know. I don't know about that. No, Mike, what about my French Hugh?

Do you have your... The French have a hue? You have your California hue, where you get to go outside and live a normal life, where I think we had our first employees show up in shorts today. So we had our first shorts. A big day. Shorts day at the office.

It's still too early. Like, they're getting made fun of for it. Yeah. High of 55, maybe. so I don't know. Northeast baseball. I feel like I'm one of those guys and maybe this is me just flexing a little bit.

I can wear shorts like almost in any weather. As long as I have a sweatshirt on, I'm fine. Yeah, I mean, you're... Legs are okay. You're versatile because you'll also go pants on an 80-degree day where that's... I could do it all, Jay. God, you sure can.

I mean, people still talk about you. You know who else can do it all? Okay. Spencer Steer. Oh, yeah. How about that? It's balancing around. A little red shout out early, although the Mets give them the work.

Congrats to the Mets. Trev, we are open with the people. The pitching topic is a massive thing, so we want to dive into that a little bit and see where we land on it. And then we'll get into the recaps, which would probably be a little tighter because we want to talk about this, the pitching topic that's going on. And then we'll do kind of a normal show from there. So, Trev, I... I reached out to the only two people that I trust on the topic, besides yourself and Deeb's and Jom.

I reached out to Jeff Passon, who wrote, you know, what was his book, Million Dollar Arm, and that was kind of... He was just The Arm? The Arm, Jeff Passon, the arm, which is ironic, inside the billion dollar mystery. And I reached out to Eno, obviously. And basically, I said, hey, just give me... Just give me some elevator talk of things I definitely shouldn't say to not sound like a full idiot.

But if you're coming in completely blind, Tommy John and elbows, it's kind of the story in the sport right now. Shane Bieber, who I gave my standout for, and I was so happy for him because it's a contract year, and he's shoving. Now he gets T.J. And that changes, like, his life outlook.

if Shane Bieber Cruz through this season you're looking at 150 mil, $200 million, who knows? Spencer Strider You know, we're still kind of waiting for the final updates, but it's looking like it could be TJ. Yuri Perez, who's supposed to be one of baseball's hottest young pitchers, Giolyto, Felix Bautices, Sandy, Shane McClainite, DeGron, Bueller, Robbie Ray, Dustin,

Gregorke-Cole's got elbow stuff, Kyle Braddish. And it's an epidemic. it's become the hottest topic in the game because as we've, I guess if we've kind of known, and maybe I was young and dumb, Trev, that, I don't know, when I'm young and watching baseball, you're just looking for kind of good baseball and I like that guy and this is happening. Now that we are more in the business of baseball and what's going on, like this is a massive issue. And I think the bigger issue is that there's no clear solution. Like there's not, we're not just pointing to some random guy or gal that it's like, hey, I think they've got to figure it out.

Nobody does, man. So with that, I'd love to hear where you're at. Well, you know, I don't think there's just one problem either. You know, I don't know if there's one solution, but I definitely don't think it's just one problem. And we've had, you know, the Players Association come out and basically, you know, send a memo to, Major League Baseball saying the pitch clock has ruining arms MLB comes back and says there's no research that shows that that's the case but again I think it's it's a mixture of a little bit of everything

and we have guys that have talked about Tyler Glass and come out and talk about it we had Justin Verlander come out and talk about it Spencer Strider's come on and talk about it you know and they all kind of have offered different reasons and And again, I think it's just kind of everything added all together has led to this rash of Tommy John or elbow injuries. We can start with, I guess we'll start with the pitchcloth because that's kind of what everyone's kind of pointing to right now. And basically pitchers are saying, hey, you know, we implemented this rule in 2023. All of a sudden, you know, we've had less time to recover in between pitches. not only does that affect the arm and the fatigue on the arm,

but they're saying, you know, mentally as well. Like I'm trying to think of what pitch I need to throw next, how I'm going to sequence this guy, I'm trying to remember scouting reports, and all of a sudden I've got to be on the mound ready to go. So they complained about that a little bit, but as a season went on, I think a lot of people were like, hey, this is making the game more watchable,

so we'll just get through it. Then this year, I decided to take two seconds off of the clock. So now all of a sudden we go from a rule in 2023 that, you know, shook up the baseball world, the baseball game in general, and then we kind of added to it in 2024. So I think there is a little bit of problem with that. I don't think it's just completely, hey, that's fine. You guys are fine. The research shows nothing. Go try to work out and decrease the time in between your sets and see what happens. You get tired. You get fatigued. So I think there is something with the pitch clock. I don't think it's everything needs to be blamed

on the pitch clock. I think the main thing that we're looking at is the V-Lo, and everyone trying to throw as hard as they can. And that starts from a very, very young age. I mean, Velo's king because you can track it very easily. And there's the data, and that shows, you know, all of a sudden, hey, like, forget about what, you know, my results are right now. I'm showing the ability to throw hard, which means I'm projectable, which means a college team can take a chance which means a major league team can put me in their organization because I have that gift of velocity. And I've shown that I can improve it and throw harder. So it's like they're starting from a young age.

And I sent you guys an excerpt from an article in our talking baseball chat. And it's Dr. Andrews, who's performed, you know, I don't know how many T.J. surgeries. Thousands of T.J. surgery. And hundreds of thousands, how many do you think this guy's performed? I guess thousands. I'll just say thousands. I'll just say hundreds of thousands of four. Tens of thousands.

And his point was, hey, it's becoming an epidemic not at the majorly level, but at the youth level. Yeah. And he's saying, I used to perform, you know, eight or nine youth Tommy Johns a year. And now he's saying that the youth Tommy Johns are surpassing what he's seeing at the big league level. And his thought process is. is guys are trying to throw as hard as they can. You know, and we're working out and trying to ready your arms as much as possible. But his point is, you know, your ulnar collateral ligament, you know, the ligament in your elbow doesn't fully develop into your 26. So you're just banging

on this thing. As much as you try to work it out, like you can't make a ligament stronger. You can't work a ligament out, can you? Yeah. The muscles surrounding the ligaments, yes. but those ligaments are never going to get stronger. That's my understanding of all this. Comment, if I'm wrong. I'm not a doctor. But that makes sense, right? Yeah.

You can work the muscles out but not the ligaments, okay? So now all of a sudden you're stressing those things out from an early, early age. And then, yeah, I mean, eventually the wear and tear is going to catch up. If you're a pitcher who continues to throw the baseball, like, it's just, it's wear and tear. So I think that is the biggest thing that I'll end with this I want to hear what your take is on all this I also think it's the baseballs

I think that the fact that they're not able to grip the baseballs like they used to is putting more pressure I mean your grip strength has to be there and in turn I believe that's putting more pressure on their arm and their elbow so all these things come into play and how do you fix that? I mean pre-tackify balls

I think everyone's been asking for that for a long time Hitters, the reason I was against sticky stuff and all this shit was I want the balls to be uniformed colored. I want them to be white, but the color they're supposed to be, not all rubbed up with crap. And number two, I don't want it to be performance enhancing. I think those are two fair assessments. So let's get the pre-tacified balls like they have in some of the Asian leagues. I believe in both the KBO and the MPB they have that. So let's just do that.

That's the easiest fix. alleviate a little bit of pressure off these guys' arms. Let's pre-tacify the ball. And the other two, Jake, I don't know how you combat that. Yeah, I like the tack on the ball, pre-tac. Sure. Like, we've talked about that, whether it's sticky stuff or just how many baseball issues have we had in the past couple years.

That feels like a layup that we need to get to. MLBPA coming out and starting with the pitch clock, that was tough because I do appreciate what you said. and the workout thing is very true. Like if you just try to do more sets quicker, that, you know, more effect on the body and that can wear you down, sure, I guess the counter to that would be

going back and watch, you know, go and watch a game from the 70s or 80s, and they keep it moving, man. And again, that was a time of less injury. So I'm not ruling out... Less Velo back then. There was not an emphasis of velocity at that point. A lot less Velo.

So that's where I think there's, there could be percentage points to the pitch clock. Like I don't want to say that. That felt like MLB just kind of given their jab at Major League Baseball from ignoring some of their pitch clock requests and they're playing the great game of chess that they unfortunately have to play. Let's remember that like the PA, that's not just like one person. That's not like Tony Clark just thinking that.

That's him listening to the players. The players are saying this. They're saying, man, this definitely has an effect. So like I think we have to like remember that. It's not just. Tony Clark saying this for no reason like he's getting feedback from the guys and like I know it's

you can brush it off oh there's no peer review to research that backs that up it's like well the guys that are fucking injuring themselves for the sport are saying that so I think there has to be some credence to that as well we can't just we can't just brush that off to the side totally no and I there's percentage points and I don't know

which level and I think there still can be adaptations like I remember when the pitch clock first got added and it took about two weeks for the hitters to realize that they should start using their timeouts. You know, if they got two strikes on them, they were going to use their timeout, and that kind of reset them, that maybe pitchers kind of need their version of that. The bigger thing is it's the velocity, and it's however much you want to ignore it or not

ignore it. And muscle-wise, in ligaments, man, again, that's, maybe we'll bring on one of these doctors one day, and we'll dive in, and I'm sure that would be a hysterical episode for many different reasons because I don't know if you're building up bigger muscles around the ligament. Does that make it tougher on the lid? Like, I know nothing about that. So I'm probably going to shy away from that a little bit. But I know guys are throwing harder.

And Eno, who I reached out to, and Eno's, Eno is the absolute best. If you don't follow Eno, you're doing yourself a disservice. You know, his tweet with all the pitchers on it that throw with the highest velocity it's all guys who are really young or guys who are hurt. Like, and I'll start with the hurt guys because I don't want to wish anything on the other guys and maybe they'll be the outlier. But right now the top 10, and what is this?

Velocity, you know, it's velocity in a nerdyer stat, but it's velocity. And it's Garrett Cole, who just dodged Tommy John, we think he's supposed to start throwing again this week. My understanding is his injury. injury, like Tommy John wouldn't be the next step of that, but he had an arm injury. Right, and the elbow ligament. Shane McClanahan, Shohei Otani, Spencer Shredder just happened.

Yuri Perez, Sandy Al-Cantara. The other guys on this top list are Bobby Miller, Hunter Green, Grayson Rodriguez, and Jesus Lazzardo. So it was crazy that he posted that. And again, you know, that's a list of 10 guys, so it is what it is. But Velo's, Velo's up, man. It's obvious. If you were in a time capsule and you didn't watch Major League Baseball for 15 years, I mean, you'd be blown away.

And this is where the real problem comes into the cycle. Because when you're trying to come up with a solution and you start going, okay, if we do A, then B is going to happen. I took a, I forget if it was a cycles class in college, it definitely wasn't. I literally couldn't stay awake in it. My buddy used to kill me. I would drink energy drinks, and I would literally fall asleep in the class.

Some guy, the guy who wrote the book, his last name was Sangy. Some of you guys, you know, Trev, I know you're a Stanford man. But it's systems, and it's changing this system to get somewhere else. And this is where things get crazy, man, because there's a couple ideas that get us closer, but the biggest problem is if you want to be an MLB pitcher, you know, if you're slinging 87 right now, it's not going to happen. If you want to be an MLB pitcher and you start slinging 95, 96, 97,

you know, there's a direct correlation to throw harder make the show. And how many times have we talked about VLO, and if you throw harder, then you don't have to aim it as well because VLO gives you less risk of error or more risk of error. Anyways. More margin for error. More margin for the pancake. that, man, I can't find that solution right now

because how are you going to convince guys? The ticket to the show. Think about how we, you know. Not even the show to college. Right. Anything. But I guess I want to keep it there because you're right. The youth stuff is so scary.

When you sent that clip, that's like, damn, man. And this is where we're probably going to have to come up with a 10-year solution. And that's what brother Jeff Passon said. he was like, either way, whatever we start figuring out is going to take 10 years because we need to change how kids are thinking now. Because that's everything they've made. And I just don't know at this point because how can you tell guys, hey, man, you know, to be part of guys that played in the show, you know, if you could still not pack Yankee Stadium with how many guys have played professional major league baseball in this lifetime, they tell them, hey, man, just take it easy on the velo.

You might get hit a little more. like that's just not how athletes work and everyone thinks they're the guy that's not going to get hurt that Trev man I'm looking for solutions and I don't know if you've got any that jump out I've got a couple half ideas but but nothing good I mean it's it's all I think we're in it too deep Jake

like you said like how do we turn it back now we have all the numbers that suggest that but here's my question here's my question we're supposed to be combat combating hitting. That's what pitchers do. It make you try to not hit the ball, or at least try to not hit the ball hard, okay? We're saying

VLO is the answer. VLO negates a lot of the hitting advantages. But I'm looking at like year over year OPSs. And like why hasn't it gotten so much worse for hitters? Like it's just kind of all around the same. 730,

720, 700, 700, 750, like it bounces back year after year. So, like, are we really combating hitting by throwing harder? That's my question. Okay, so 2024 so far, 702 OPS for all the teams. Last year, in 2023, it was 734. And, like, you can just go back through, all the way back through, you know, in the 1900s, which that's crazy to think about that.

That's last century. How about that for us? Like, it's all around the same, dude. 750, 728, 720, 724 is like, we're not, I don't think we're like doing what we think we're doing. It doesn't have the same effect as like juice balls years are the ones that stick out, not Vila. Maybe I'm crazy and maybe, maybe, you know, like 782.

I mean, the biggest numbers I'm seeing are the steroid era. Like that's where the offense went, okay? But all the other years are all about the same. So what are we doing? if the OPS, which is pretty much as good as you can get for like all-encompassing offensive step, if the OPS is around the same, what are we doing? Why are we chasing Velo so much then? Trev, I love it. And there's obviously, I guess with that there's numbers that say, you know, for fastball's 95 plus, I think most guys' stats are lower. You know, I'd have to gather more, more data on that.

But I love where you're at. And it's not like there, there aren't guys out there. And, you know, Zach Allen sits at 94, which that's still, that's a fastball. But he also throws. That's hard. Yeah, right? But he also throws, you know, some of his fastballs are 91. Marcus Stroman.

I watched him have a great start the other day. And he was barely clear in 90 that, I don't know. You can still pitch and get out. It's like location still matters. I love that argument. Trev, because I would love to bring up, like, a chart of the strike zone and hitters OPS on pitches in locations. Yes.

Because guess what? That fat part of the plate, that's still where the ball gets hit. And hitters adapt, and they have adapted to the Velo that I think pitching matters, location, mixing up pitches. Like, if you drop Greg Maddox in today's baseball, I don't think anyone's like, oh, dude, he would shove. Right? And, like, you know, Kyle Hendrick.

still goes out there have good starts. Ryan Yarnbro figures it out sometimes. I know I'm kind of using the outliers right now because of course we could point to, um, you know, Felix Bautista who's on that list, you know, guess what? Hitting, hitting 103 coming downhill from a mountain of a human. Yes, hard to hit. Um, but yeah, it's, it's training these guys. You raise your hand. I have a solution. Okay. outlaw radar guns for anyone that's not in pro ball okay

if you're not in pro ball like I'm talking about these showcases for the youth if I see a fucking radar gun at one of these I might go take it and stomp on it okay high school don't need it you don't need a radar gun in high school

okay college we don't need these people have they have they have track men in college We don't need all of that. And I think that, I mean, if you're looking for a way to get people's minds off of Velo, because we think that is the main culprit, get their minds off of Velo. Have that information be not publicly available. How about that?

Yeah, it starts to get slippery just because, you know, guys are still going to find a way. What matters more to people? The future of our game and the health of our youth, or, oh man, I need to see what my Vila was at my 16-year-old showcase. I like it. I mean, you're telling the right guy, but I think there's still...

I know. I get it. I get it. That's not going to happen. I get it, but, like, that is a solution. And, like, and there are no solutions out there. No one's even trying to offer it. I think that's what we're trying to kind of do here a little bit.

Yeah, I think the solutions that are interesting. to me, but are still going to take years to figure out. We've talked about that losing your DH when your starting pitcher comes out. And I guess for me, the problem there still becomes, are we going to, our guy's going to be left to die on the hill? Because you need a couple more outs to get your DH spot. So then are we putting different expectations on the pitcher there? but the goal of the starting pitcher is to now go deeper into a game

that maybe they're not chucking his crazy Velo and you can't lose your DH after, you know, the third or fourth inning, that'd be a huge disadvantage. I'm interested in something there, but again, I still don't think that's preventing injuries because I still think we're going to be pushing pitchers and teams will talk themselves into like, well, you know, I'd still rather have a pitcher throwing gas out there

than, you know, the four at-bats I'm going to get from my DH, and I can just... We'll assemble pinch hitters. Yeah, I can just pinch hit for them anyways. I think the solution does... It leans into limiting pitching staff sizes because then you need guys that can throw bullets and that becomes a priority.

But again, that's where you almost need a 10-year scope because I think baseball would be in a tight spot for a while because guys aren't built for this. and there's something there, but man, it's going to take a while to get there, and you're still, are you de-incentivizing guys enough or incentivizing guys enough to not try to throw as hard as possible to become a major league baseball player?

And I just don't know. I mean, Spencer Strider had a quote about what you're talking about. He goes, there's a lot of things that are going on. the pitch clock, limiting the number of pitchers on the roster, how many pitching changes you can make, how many mound visits you can have, all those things are making pitching harder and potentially, I think, making health more difficult to manage.

So, yeah, I mean, there's no easy solution here. I don't know where we go. I think number one thing, Major League Baseball has to have a pre-tagify ball. Make it easier on everybody, on the hitters, on the pitchers, all that needs to come back, or not come back,

needs to be implemented into the game. And that's so easy to do. There's already examples of baseballs that do it. Trev, I've got one that you're probably going to hate, and that's why I'm excited to ask it. Yeah. I just stumbled into this. Okay, great.

In baseball, we've seen, I've seen different strike zones. I just mentioned Greg Maddox, and you know, you bring up some of those old Greg Maddox clips where he's, you know, he's popping his fastball in the other batters box, and he's getting it called with his personal catcher, and it's like, oh, my, that strike zone used to be really wide, and it wasn't as high, if we open up the strike zone a little bit

with maybe some of these other pitching rules that we're putting more of an emphasis on location again, right? Like, I don't care if you could put 97 anywhere over the plate, you know, but could you put 92 on a corner? I don't know. Is there, I realize that's a scary proposition for any hitter, like let's open up the strike zone a little bit, but could there be something?

there with some of the other rules? I think people will just try to throw just as hard further away. And just now they're more likely to throw that first strike. All right, I'll give one stupid one, and we got to move on. We've got to get to the recap. I love this discussion I could talk about it all day. What if we

had some sort of high-end baseline for how hard you can throw? Maybe like AI says how hard you can throw. right your top speed you have to throw at like 90% of that and if you throw anything above 90% of your top speed it's a ball or like you get an infraction or something like that so you make people not throw their max v low hey man i what i would say i'm trying there's some people that are hearing that and are like what the hell are you guys talking about but we're getting

close to that point that, hey man, in our warehouse stuff, which by the way, slapball made its debut last night, rave reviews, go check it out if you're looking for a fun thing to get into. Man, in our warehouse, we have a speed limit. And I don't know. Would that be the craziest thing in the world if we made a 96 mile per hour speed limit? 96 kind of quick, Trev. that still gets on you. It's such a double-edged storage

because you want to see the best of baseball in the world so we can't take away these super freaks that can actually throw 100 miles an hour and not hurt themselves. Has all this Chapman

like had major arm issues ever? No, no, I don't think so. That's because he's built to throw that hard. He has a body

I've never seen a body like this. So like if you're built to throw that hard, I don't want to hinder you. I like that angle. Like even Cole we talk talked about before who's dealing with a different injury right now, but like throws a hundred a ton and has not had major arm issues until this year.

Here's the example of that. Shane Bieber went to drivet. I'm not blaming driveline. Please don't clip this and say I'm blaming driveline, okay? But he goes to driveline to do what? To increase his velo. Yeah. And he did.

Yeah, and I guess that's, again, final shout out for Eno. You know, I was like, hey, man, what? it's something he noted he goes yeah i mean there hasn't been a real spike since sticky stuff or the pitch clock if those things do matter and then he's like but you know it does correlate with vlo and that's where even when i say the speed limit and we've again comparing this to our warehouse is funny sometimes but you just try to throw the breaking stuff harder so if there's a speed limit you're going to see guys trying to throw more 94 mile per hour sliders which again not a body scientist yet, but I'm taking applications.

But I guess, you know, throwing a 94 mile per hour slider, probably not great for the elbow. So I don't know, man. This is a, this is kind of baseball's new topic, and I don't think it's going anywhere. Crazy. Well, I'll tell you what else isn't going anywhere. The farmer's dog, baby. Take care of your elbow. Take care of your dog.

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It comes on the bag. It's specially made for Noodle. And they make it for your dog too, because each dog is different. Let's go full Dr. Seuss on you. There's big dogs. There's little dogs. There's older dogs. There's younger dogs.

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That's the farmersdog.com slash Johnboy for 50% off. There's a link in the description. Take care of ya pooch. I love that you won Dr. Seuss right there. I'm a big Dr. Seuss guy. You call me Dr. Ploos. Oh, God. Who calls you Dr. Pluse?

I do. I call myself that when I write my beautiful poems. Did you ever hear my poem where I... It was the last game of the World Series and I did the Texas Rangers and you died in the pool? Yeah. Okay, well... Yeah.

Listen, I was... It was a masterpiece. Probably at the airport, wonked out of my mind, do remember Poet Plouf coming out. Let's do some American League baseball. Hang down. How about a little Texas two-step? We ended up there on Sunday night baseball.

And they got the first reach-around series of the year, I think. They're playing some Monday ball today. And the Rangers took the first two games, man. And their offense could bang. I don't know why I got cold feet about it before the season. I think it was because some of them are young. But, man, Evan Carter's young and he hits. Marcus Simeon with a Homer 3 RBI.

Adoles, pretty much the same. Josh Smith has been hitting for them. That organization, man, they got something figured out on the offensive side of the ball. Meanwhile, for Houston, Ronel Blanco has it figured out because he's just not giving up hits. There's no need to on his end. He goes another 5.2 without giving up a hit.

First pitcher in the modern era to pitch at least 15 innings, allowing one hit or fewer. My goodness. They tried to rally late. Nice double play turned by Houston. Big double play topic week. Not in the double play topic. How about your Kansas City Royals?

They have been dropping it on the mound, and they four-game sweep. The Chicago White Sox. Never easy to four-game sweep. I know it's the White Sox, but don't care. MJ Melendez, you might hear some talk about him. Bobby Witt continues to do it, but Brady Singer, Seth Lugo, Michael Waka 7 Shut, the Kansas City Royals.

Is it going to be a fun summer in Casey? Dom Fletcher also gave them a bonus homer off the glove. That's a tough. How about Hunter Renfro throwing out the tying run at the plate? Hey, Royals, I'm in. Let's do this damn thing. But they are chasing the Cleveland Guard dogs right now who are on top of the Central. they win two games against the twins.

Trevor Plouf, what did you tell me about your twins before the show? They can't hit. And they can't hit with arms of scoring position more important. That's a problem. Tanner is a vibe shoving. Cookie Carasco. Not long for the game, but why not? Twinkies, like Trev said, you got a hit.

Yankees, they take two out of three from the Blue Jays. They lose. The home opener was there. Quake Day. Place wants to explode. Never got any offense shut out by Kukuchi and the Blue Jays pen. But then the Yanks come back. They put up a nine in an eight spot. They blew him out early, but they let him come back in that middle game. Judge Giancarlo, okay. And Giancarlo with the big grand slam on that final game. If he starts to go, Anthony Volpe also, oh God, looks like the light bulb is gone off. Red Sox, how's your West Coast swing? They take two out of three from the

Halos. Uh, and they do it on that final day with a lot of late runs at the end of that game, and Tanner Halk with six-inning shut. Tyler O'Neill has been going nut job. You might hear more about him later. Uh, Angels win that middle game. Reed Detmer's, uh, with a nice outing. Uh, Mike Trout, he's hitting, but only driving in himself. Get your Angels jokes in, everyone. Hey, people normally get their A's jokes in, but they take two out of three from the Tigers. Joe Boyle, I see you shoving.

Rooning Tigers opening weekend. Tigers won that first game, Torkelson, a two-hit day, Gio with the two-hit day. But Zach Gilauff, Paul Blackburn's six-shut-piece. And the Oakland Athletics, All right, we don't need a stadium. They take two out of three. That's what happened in the American League.

You're a freaking stud, poppy. Are we doing standings yet? I'll do some... Let me do standings. Do some quick standings. Do some quick standings. We're here. Yay.

In the AL East, as good as the Red Sox I've been playing. Yeah. The Yanks are in first place. Eight and two. Red Sox, one game behind at seven and three. Baltimore, five and four. Tampa Bay, five and five. Toronto, Toronto, four and six.

In the Central, bad news for the Guardians this weekend. But they lead the Central. They're seven and two, Detroit right behind them at six and three. Kansas City at six and four. My twins at three and four, and the White Sox at one and eight. And in the West, the Texas Rangers, the reigning World Series champs in first place. They're six and three. The Angels in second place in the division at five and four.

And then it's Seattle, 4 and 6. Houston and Oakland tied at the bottom at 3 and 7. Mm. Mm. Last place, Astros. One of their worst starts in a while. Trev, I think I want to start with the Kansas City Royals because I don't know how many times we're going to be able to start with that.

But the way they are pitching right now, you know, I can throw a lot of days. different ERA numbers at you or whatever you want. But they are, please. Entering Sunday, the Royal Starters had an MLB Best, 1-26 ERA and just 28 hits allowed. They lead the league with eight quality starts. They set a franchise record with only eight runs allowed by starters

over the first nine games. That's 57 and one-third innings on this season. They are getting good starts from literally everybody. And one of the big reasons, well, you got, you got Cole Reagan's doing this thing. One of the big reasons is they brought in a couple of veterans, and that's what they're talking about, Seth Lugo, Michael Waka.

This is what Brady Singer had to say about them. He had a really nice start to the season. He's only allowed one run over 13 in the third innings. He said, we had some really good outings, competing like crazy, and just leaning on each other, talking to each other, talking through outings. It's been really enjoyable,

obviously with Lugo and Waka, with their veteran presence, it's helped a lot. I love when you hear stuff like that, Jake, because we talk all the time, like veteran presence means something. These guys are going out there and just being rats with it. And the dugout talking about how to attack hitters.

And this isn't like something that only happens with the Royals. Like this happens all throughout baseball. But when you get guys to buy into it and really do it, like really focus on, you know, what they're trying to achieve and have a real game plan, mixing some of the stuff, then you're going to get a start like this

that the Royals pitchers have had. It's been pretty eye-opening, to be honest with you. There was a sniff test in the AL Central this year, Trev. And again, it's so early. And I think your twins have the best roster. But baseball, a lot of stuff can happen. Think about all the pitching injuries we just talked about for a half hour. That baseball has a course of a season that it makes it a beautiful sport.

and that's why, you know, with the expanded playoffs, some people don't love that because the regular season should matter a little more in this sport. But before the season, everyone started doing some Tigers Kool-Aid. Everyone was like, ooh, you know, these Tigers, they got a pen. They've got some guys in their lineup. They got a rotation. Like, there was a little bit of Tigers fever right before the season.

Hey, man, if you put the Royals and Tigers next to each other, I don't know how different it really looks. And the pitching, we obviously did. didn't think they were going to get off to this hot of a start, but they redid their entire bullpen. Seth Lugo and Michael Waka were really good last year. And if the Cole Reagan's breakout continues, and Brady Singer, you know, he had a tough year last year, but if he bounces back with Michael Garcia at the top of their lineup, has got out of the box quick this year. M.J. Melendez, I think there's more coming on him, but I think he just crossed a thousand played

appearances and it looks like it's starting to click a little more. That I don't know. Like if you were one of the people peddling Tigers Kool-Aid before the season, you could very easily be peddling Royals Kool-Aid, which, oh, that old sentence was just, that's weird. That's just weird Jake stuff. I know what you're talking about. The difference right now, I know it's only a one-game difference in the standings, but the Royals are offensively have been better.

They're second in the league in Homer's, Jake. 14 homers are tied with the Astros. Only the Dodgers have more than them, and they've played more games in them. So homers per plate appearance, I'm sure that the Royals are at the top there. They're a top 10 team in OPS right now, so they're kind of getting the job done on both sides of the ball.

They have some young, exciting players. They bring in some veteran presence, and they're off to a very hot start and a very competitive AL Central. Nice. Minus the white sucks. Yeah, and that's, you know, you do have to put that asterisk there. that they handle their business over a White Sox team

that might not be standing on their business to quote Blake Snell for a lot of this season. Let's see it. Hey, they host Houston for three and then they go on a roadie versus the Mets and White Sox. So hey, put a good month together. Give yourself some hope into the summer. And Bobby Witt, I mean, I'll be honest with the people,

there's a D.K. Reid coming later. I don't know what his ALMVP odds are, but if you could sneak a royals team into a wild card and, you know, have a casual 40-homer 60-steel season. I've seen that work for Ron. So a little Royals, Kool-Aid to get us going. And, hey, Garrett Crochet, shout-out. He had another nice start rolling.

Yeah, he's doing it, huh? He got clips. So, again, Luis Robert gets hurt. so I don't know, the White Sox season, it's slowing down a little bit. Do you want anything from the Texas series? Houston and Texas, two of the A.L. favorites, I know they're finishing up tomorrow.

Rono Blanco deserves some more love guy. Guy can pretty much get a standout performance every time he starts. Yeah, he was a stopper. I mean, the Rangers came out and slugged the first two games, and you got Blanco to come and kind of shut him down. He had no hitter through five. What was that hit up the middle? It was kind of like a line drive.

Adoli Scarcia hits it, breaks up the no-no. But he had some special stuff working there as well. But the Rangers, I think, they're just a problem right now. Their offense has continued to just go. They beat you with power. They can beat you with speed. Josh Young being out kind of sucks. But there's no spoiler.

I picked Corey Seeger to, in our homer draft this week because they're going to play Oakland and then they go, they're playing the Astros again, short porch and right, little tiny little fence out there, like I think he's going to hit some hummers. This team just thrives off their offense and they do a lot of other things.

Texas Rangers fans always want us to mention that. Yes, they bang the ball around the yard, but they are playing some solid defense as well. The pitching has been fine. They can do things not just sluggy out of the park. So I want to make sure I mention that, but they did kind of slug it out of the park the first two games.

And then, yeah, Blanco does his thing, Yordon, what are you on Homer? It's all they really needed. Astros salvaged that one. I do want to mention, you know, the Red Sox tip of the cap to them, as Chris Rose would say, seven and three on a West Coast swing to open a year.

Well, as good as you can hope for. Dude, I... And they've kind of been doing it all around the ballpark as well. We know what their pitching staff has done. Their starters and their bullpen. But their offense has been going as well. They've been banging the ball around the park a little bit. The Trevor Story News kind of sucks.

Yeah. Or like sucks a lot. But they've been playing some very, very good baseball to start the year. Yeah. And man, the West Coast trip thing, because the Yankees kind of did one. They did Houston and then the snakes. To kind of get it out of the way to start your season,

I don't know. I think players would probably prefer that. As a fan, you still have. Weather-wise. Yeah, you still have. still have the excitement of the start of the season. And that's just one less thing. Probably are like feeling the effect of going out there less coming off spring.

Yeah, you're just kind of hype for the season. Well, a lot of people are taught. Everyone should start west coast or south. Like we should just stay out of the northeast and like the Midwest. Yeah. As long as possible. Yeah. Sox kid, they're, again, they're pitching throwing the pill pretty well Whitlock.

Kauk. Tyler O'Neill. Ninth and run scored on the year. They're fourth and homers. So they're doing it on both sides. Tyler O'Neill, you're going to hear more about him later. A's snaps for you. I mentioned Blackburn and Boyle on the way through Zach Gulloff

with a massive game and Brent Rooker. So, you know, A's, I don't know how much we're going to be able to talk about you this year. I mean, if we were doing straight up topics, we'd be talking about Sacramento. some more. But proud of you guys, rooting for you. I almost gave Gell off my standout today.

I love watching the kid play. He's kind of got a little bit of my guy, Brian Dozier in him. Maybe a little bit more athletic than Brian Dozier. I'll give him that. But that's a good comparison for you, Zach. Sure is. I believe we follow each other on Instagram.

Pretty sure. Oh, my God. That's all I really care about these days. Watch out for those Yankees. I'm going to go check right now. Watch out for those Yankees. Trevor. Talk to me about that series. It's a little bit. How'd the Blue Jays look? Hmm. Well, Yanks went up huge in that second game, and the Blue Jays fought back. So need to give

them more credit, because it was a 9-2 game, and it finishes 9-8, which, you know, another ball in the gap. And we're talking about, wow, these Blue Jays, they came back, blah, blah, blah, I don't care about the Vladi Shush at all. That's this thing. And I don't know. You know, it's baseball. You have series and you're going to have rubber matches that kind of dictate how you feel. And the Yanks win one, and Jankargo hits a grand slam and turns on it, which he hasn't been able to do.

Volpey looks incredible that, you know, if you were putting wild cards of the Yankee season, Stanton and Volpe, they both look. Volpe's looked amazing. Stanton needed to show us something, and he showed us something. But, yeah, I mean, I'm not going to knock the Blue Jays. I think they're... I don't know. Right now they're at the bottom of the AL East,

but their top of their lineups are a problem, and they can pitch... I am worried about their bullpen. I love their bullpen. I think I took them in our pitching draft. Or I took their rotation. I'm blanking. Gossman's Velo was down.

That's very scary with everything we GEOS. That's a big, that's going to be a big talking point, I believe. I talked about the variance of a baseball season for the Blue Jays, you know, depending your next Kevin Gossman update. And right now, they're without Romano and Swanson on their back end, which, like, that's two guys that make their bullpen a strength. So I don't know.

I mean, it's, there's no cause for concern. but right now, right now they aren't hitting a lot and they're not pitching a lot, which isn't a good combo. But I think they're going home for the first time because their stadium was doing renovations. So they have, you know, their next nine games are at home. So, you know, Blue Jays put up a 7 and 2.

No one will be worried about that. Let's do some National League ball. In your National League, How about them, Pittsburgh Pirates? Eight in two. They take two from the Baltimore birds. A couple young studs in the first game, Greyrod and Jared Jones teed up Gunner and O'Hern went Yardsky.

But from there, it's Pirates Baseball. We got a couple walk-offs. O'Neill Cruz with the walk-off RBI single, and then Edward Olivier is, did I say that right? Walk-off RBI ground out air. We had a couple messy kind of double play balls that turned into situations this weekend. But the situation is the pirates are putting together another nice April.

Wow. Talk about them a little bit. Orioles 0 for 14 with runners in scoring position in that second game. That'll sting you a little bit. Speaking of the Bravesweep, the D-backs, they win that Spencer Shrider injury game with a darn no walkoff later on. And then our guy, Max, Freed gets hit, but the Braves do not care. as they put up a nine spot,

and then they win on the final day, too, with sale looking good, and three home runs from Riley Harrison Olson. Sure. Snakes going through it right now. A little bit of an injury report. You know, they're two free agent pitchers, haven't seen the field yet.

Uh-oh. Cardinals, they take two out of three from the Miami Marlins. 8-5-3-1. Aeronado gets it done. Stephen Matt's five shuddy. Good for you, kid. But the Marlins, they get there, first win. Luis Arise, four hits, Chisholm and Gordon Homer, and Max Myers, top prospects, six

innings, one earned run. The Chicago Cubbies take two out of three from the Dodgers. How do you like that? A lot of talent on the field, a lot of international talent, Yamamoto, Imanaga, Otani, Sayah Suzuki, all having impacts on this series. And Michael Bush with a little redemption three RBI Day against his former mates. Cubbies in Hap having a hot start. They take two out of three from the Mighty Dodgers. Giants and Padres, all they've done is play each other this year. And three, two, was the magic number for the Giants.

That was the score in the two games. They won. Man, Jordan Hicks, seven innings pitched. Okay. Michael King, seven innings, shut piece in their win. And then the Giants get it done on the final. game to win the series. Tyro Estrada had a walk-off in that first game.

Man, these teams have already played seven games against each other. Your guy Maddie Chapman with a big moment. Michael Conforto, the double play. And that was our other double play situation. So we'll talk about that in a minute. Mariners Brew Crews. Brew Keeps winning. I feel like I haven't seen the Mariners doing a ton of that.

Another Bread Game series, that's been all year this year. I feel like that didn't. happen as much. Oliver Dunn, where this guy come from? Little hitting and making plays in the field. Bryce Miller in the middle game, seven-in-stitchie up piece. But that new little split change-up thing, that's gross.

But the brew crew, they're off to a hot start. They believe in what they're doing out there. Dominique Canzon. You're going to see him in Weekly Dumb for the wrong reasons coming up. Tampa Bay Rays, Colorado Rockies. How about the Rockies? opening day. Change the vibe. Be the story. And they walk it off. Walk off Grand Slam by Ryan McMahon in a classic Coorsfield 10-7 affair. But the race come back. They win the next two. Isok Paredes with a

homer, couple ribbies. And then Ryan Pepio, six shutpiece. You don't see that at Coorsfield a lot. Austin Shetton with two hits. Not in my book, but of course he's balling out for the raise. They take two out of three from the Cincinnati Reds. They get their first series win in Cincy. Sean Mania cut the hair. But he shoved on the mountain five innings, one earned run. In Frankie Lindor trying to bust out of his little early season slump. He goes double Homer for the Metropolitan's,

and they get a series win some good starting pitching outings. Sevy, Kintana, Green, Abbott. And then your final series, the first. Phillies took two out of three from the Natinals. They won the first two games. Harper, sure, Ranger Suarez, our guy. But those Nats, McKenzie Gore shoving and Lane Thomas with a two-hit day.

And that's what happened in your National League. Do you have some standings, Treve? Oh, shoot. I forgot that was my job. I was going to talk to you about Austin Shetton. How do you not know this guy? The guy with a 3-95 career minor league baseball on base percentage, whatever, Jake. Ray's.

Yeah, Ray's going to Ray, baby. The National League, East or should I say the National League least. Only one team above 500 and that is the Atlanta Braves. They are 6 and 2. Philadelphia 4 and 5. The Mets 3 and 6. National is 3 and 6 and 6 and the Marlins 1 and 9 in the Central best division in baseball. Everybody knows that

everyone's 500 or better. Pittsburgh Pirates 8 and 2. The Milwaukee Brewer 6 and 2. The Cubs 6 and 3. Cincinnati Reds 5 and 4 and the St. Louis Cardinals 5 and 5. and then the Dodgers are leading the West at an 8 and 4 clip. Everybody else is under 500. The Padres, 5 and 7. The Diamondbacks 4 and 6, the Giants 4 and 6,

and the Colorado Rockies 2 and 8. Thank you, Trevor. Do you want to do double playgate? Because that kind of ties in Baltimore and Pittsburgh. That ties in San Diego and San Francisco. You were excited about this before the show, so I'll let you cook. Yeah, I mean, going to the Padres' Giant series, I mean, how different does it look?

Giants take the series from the Padres. But in reality, they were in a position to win that game. There was a couple of innings on that Sunday game, the rubber match, that's really, you know, it was like, it was baseball. And it was like so like, if you were to talk about things before the season, they kind of happened here. Logan Webb induces a ground ball from Xander Bogart's

and double play is going to get him out of the ending. But no, Zander beats it out. Hustles down the line. So you love that as a baseball fan. Fernando Tautiz comes up, I believe he was runners on second and third, could have kind of opened the game up, hits a sharp ground ball

and the whole Matt Chappan's there, makes that play look so easy. So we talked about that a lot, Logan Webb, Matt Chatton, what stack can it bring? Well, he got the job done there. And then for the Giants in the bottom of the eighth inning. Runners on first and third.

Ground ball to Croninworth. He steps on the base. So now he's got to clear his lane, throw it to Kim, who just has to apply the tag. He applies the tag, but Jorge Soler's shoulder gets in the way. He's too big, Jake.

Yeah. He didn't even try to shimmy it. The sheer force of his shoulder just knocks the ball out of Kim's glove there. Tying runs scores. Matt Chapman drives in the go-ahead run and Camillo-Dovall comes in and shuts the game down there but that was an interesting one because I was watching it live

and I was like okay surely the runner on third base even if they had gotten the double play because the force wasn't there anymore surely the runner from third base had crossed home plate and that run would have counted anyway no I don't know who was on third base I should probably look that up but they weren't running hard so the double play would have ended the inning

Padre's still leading instead they tie the gap on that play Chapman comes through with a base hit through to the second base hole and the Giants win that game so normally obviously very sure-headed Kim I believe he had another error in like the sixth ending of that game that led to another run

baseball you know you can't a guy like Kim you can't really get too mad he's not going to make a lot of errors throughout the season or have plays like that, but every once in while it's going to happen. So that happened in that one. And then the other one, another inner league matchup, I believe, yeah, it was the

Orioles and the Pirates there. Gunner Henderson, who was they were making plays left and right out there. Was it Mateo at second base with him? In the first game, or which? The game that he threw the ball away to

double check. Yeah. They were making plays all over the place. Looking great up the middle. And then... Yeah, I mean, Mattel made this one play to his backhand side

that like, one of those ones where Gunner Henderson was like, throw me the ball, we'll, like, do the whole like tandem thing. But Mattel's like, now I got this myself.

Henderson gets a ground ball up the middle, dies for it, tags the base with his glove, he's going to end the inning or end the game. Was that going to end the game or was it tied at that point? I'm all over the place.

I'm sorry, ends up throwing the ball away. Pirates get the walk off on that. And you just see as, face, he's just so distraught. He's like, how did that happen? In the heat of the moment, just kind of grip that ball a little bit too hard, yanks it. Pirates win.

So, you know, like those little things, the little baseball things really, really came into play over the weekend, man. You kind of feel for both those guys because both really, really good defenders and Kim and Henderson, but you mess up. The other team gets to take advantage, and that is just the game of baseball. Jake, it's a game of life a little bit, don't you think? Heavy. Man, the starting pitching lines in that Pirates Orioles series,

and these are two teams that we talk about the pitching, usually secondary. I think the worst pitching line is Tyler Wells' 5.1-1-earned run. Like, Grayson Rodriguez, Jared Jones, Tyler Wells, Bailey Falter, Dean Kramer, and Marco Gonzalez, all Bailey Falter and Marco Gonzalez off the scrap heap. shoving. Are we buying any pirate stock, Trev? I mean, they're doing it offensively. They're going, Jake. You know, you could mention some of the pitchers they have and, you know, hey, got to bring skeins up and do all this. I'll be talking about that on baseball today

a little bit later. But the offense has been raking. I mean, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven dudes who, you know, have 30 or more plate appearances, have OPS pluses over 100. I mean, they're throughout the lineup, they're getting the job done. So the offense has been there, along with some great bullpen work. So they're kind of just, you know, call it a hot start, call it what you want to. But they're getting the job done, dude. And it's been fun to watch.

They are fun to watch. Dodgers Cubbies. I've got a couple notes on this one later. But is this just a case of the California boys being too cold, Trev? Pirates seventh and OPS, fourth and runs scored so far. They're doing it. The California boys being called, it was a weird weather series for them. I think that the Cubs are a good baseball team.

And, you know, I wish you would have got to see more of Shoda pitch as the rain delay that cuts his start short. But there was a lot of fun baseball being played. You mentioned Yamamoto and Shoda and then Seya and Otani. the Cubs can play a little bit and I was happy you mentioned it a little bit in the burn there but Michael Bush doing it against the team that trades them

hits the three run double helps his team win that game that's always fun Jake when you're able to stick it to your former team I didn't really get to do it man I had some chances and didn't do it when I got traded yeah that's tough yeah I'm sorry

it's okay shout on Michael Bush though it's great for him well who was I watching this weekend that I was like wow they actually like the announcer said something and it was like oh playing against his former team and I was like do they care about that and it's like yeah

hell yeah you do yeah hell yeah you do if anyone knows that one small tidbit I just quoted another good start for Yamamoto it's back to back good starts of him more of what we've expected the blow up start in Korea I think will probably be looking back at it saying oh that was just an anomaly a weird way to start the year

Yeah, I think he's been pretty good I think at one point he'd 10 shutout innings after that Seems like it'll be a pretty Pretty easy butter knife But the Cubbies man They're also hitting 793 team OPS That's good for fifth in the league

Yeah man They're going That's uh the centrals It's been a popular topic on this show for a while I do I think both centrals Are beefed up a little bit And that's with the Cardinals

winning their series the brewers continue to roll man that I there is I think in the NL Central it feels like every team got better except maybe the brewers but the brewers are the best run organization in that division and they still have a lot of talent that I don't know they just gave the Mariners the business

and I want to double check that because as I was going through the burns I just feel like the Mariners, have they won a series yet? Dude, they, on the other hand, I'm just looking at all the team OPS. The Mariners are 28th in the league, even behind my twins, a 589 team OPS right now. Bob, that's not going to get the job done at all. Mariners haven't won a series yet. It's early.

They play the Blue Jays next, but one of those teams after this week is going to be looking in the mirror, say like, hey, it's time to figure this out, man. William Contreras, he just missed a three homer day by inches. I know I do every episode I do my underrated player rant, like throw him in the mix. Why not? I've got someone I'm highlighting later from Tampa Bay in Colorado.

Again, I know we're doing tighter series recap, especially with the big pitching open. So, Trev, I know there's part of you that hates when I do this, but anything you want to hit before we go to the next part? I just think we got to give credit to the to the Brewer's offense. I think that's where we pointed to a lot during the off season. Like, okay, man, yeah, they brought in Reese, but like, is that going to be enough? Like, what are they going to do?

They're relying on a lot of these kids and go check out their baseball reference page, man. William Contreras is doing it. Hoskins is having a nice start to the year. Yelich's power looks like it's back. He's one dotting it so far. Willie Adomis is doing it. You've got some of the young kids. Bryce Terrang is doing it.

doing it. Jackson Truroo has been awesome to start the year. So you're getting these performances all over done there at third base has been, he's 945 OPSing it. Like this is what the Brewers do. Like, you know, whenever you think their backs are against the wall, they answer and they've been doing it so far this year. They had that one game in the series where Munoz could shut the door and he just walks four and they walk it up. off. The only guy he got, I was watching that live, and Trurio comes up, bases load, with a chance to win the game,

and Munoz all of a sudden finds it for him and just dots it up like on the corner, stows him some nasty sliders as well, and you just feel for the kid, you're like, man, like, how do you watch three guys in front and you walk? Basically on four straight pitches apiece, and then all of a sudden he comes and finds it for you,

it's tough. Then Williams Contreras basically was saying, I'm not going to swing the bat, and he walked. And they wouldn't show, I was watching, for people that are watching that series, I was watching the Brewers broadcast, and they would not show the last,

it was a 3-1 pitch, I believe it was a slider. He looked like he might have went on a check swing, and they would not show that angle on the Brewer's broadcast. I'm wondering if they showed it on the Mariners side and if he did go or not, because that's, you know, check swing, another thing we got to figure out. There's got to be a better solution. A lot of sketchy checks swings over the weekend.

And hey, I just, before we go on, I do want to say, you know, we've highlighted a lot of offenses that are doing good. Oh, Pittsburgh. Number one in a lot of the categories that matter, your Atlanta Brice. Yes, yes. First in OPS, first in batting average, fourth in homers. And it's just something to keep an eye on,

nine-hole hitter, Jared Kelnick, who they got for free. You know, you're my math guy, Trev. he's off to an 11 for 19 start. You know what that batting average is? It's over 500, Pop. That's 579. So, again, early season stats, but that's where the fun lies.

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for some of you you're salivating and you should be and for the rest of you should be too really fun well made product in our warehouse

kind of can't believe how many people are tuning in and if you've done any of our warehouse stuff you know the live chat is fun I think the games

are coming out at 8 p. each night. And yeah, our one that debuted yesterday, 15 hours, and it's got like 35K views. So people are loving it. It's a really fun concept. A little handball, little basketball, little indoor soccer type vibes. Go check it out on our Warehouse Games YouTube channel.

It's a lot of fun. That whole community is. So speaking of a lot of fun, who's your standout, Tram? Definitely could have went a lot of different ways. Shout out Reese McGuire. almost picked nice job by him two and four

with the homer in five ribbies but I'm going with a guy who just dominated a series we talked about this team a lot earlier in the app I'm going with the Kansas City's MJ Melendez

who's five for 14 in the series a double three homers seven RBIs and four runs scored so like you know decent series like obviously that's really nice

at three homers in the series but it was not necessarily about the stat It's about what it mattered in the game. He gave the Royals the lead in each of the last three games. A go-ahead single on the 8th on Friday. A go-ahead Homer on the 7th on Saturday. A go-ahead Homer in the 7th on Sunday.

When you take over a series like that, do you know what you feel like? Superman. You go back in your hotel room or like, you know, whenever you get home, you start watching your own highlights. And you kind of just like, okay, I'm the fucking man.

I used to do that all the time. So I know that he's, He's doing it for sure, and I wanted to make this point about him. Because we're starting to get it going a little bit. He's 25 years old. Time to go, big dog. In his career, 0.7 career baseball reference war, and that's through a thousand at bats. Point five of that, Jake, has been in these 31 at bats to start the 2024 season.

So he's doing it. He's impacting the game, and he's one of the big reasons why the Royals. are in first place in the AL Central. So shout out MJ Melendez from Daytona Beach, which I also really like Daytona Beach. How about that? Did I even move to Miami? Pretty good.

Pretty swing. And so pretty that they were like, hey, we're going to have you stop playing catcher. And yeah, the first two seasons weren't overwhelming, but they're also not bad for a young ball player. And you wonder, you know, I mentioned it with Volpe. Like has the light bulb fully gone off and things have clicked? We'll see.

It's going to be fun to watch his season. 25 years old. Pretty sweet lefty swing. Nothing like it, huh? Hmm. Hmm. You ever try to switch hit, Trev? No.

Good for you. So much while. I want to make it hard on myself, Jake. Too easy to hit left-handed. Yeah. That's smart. Yeah. That's smart. My standout performance, one of my doppelgangers,

haven't seen us in the same room. I'm going with Tyler O'Neill. You mentioned that Red Sox West Coast trip. Man, at West Coast Trip, the honest goal is usually to go 500. The Sox have done better than that. And Tyler O'Neill has been a big part of it, man. Five homers early on in this season, including two homer day on Friday night. You know, we talked about him a little bit.

Last episode, we talked about the Red Sox, outfield defense. Rafael Duran and Tyler O'Neill. Tyler O'Neill, he currently has one outlier season on his baseball reference. It's a 2021 season where he had 34 homers, 15 steals, finished eighth in the MVP voting. His time in St. Louis kind of, you know, got banged up a lot. Right now he's healthy playing for the Sox. He's leading the AL early on and runs, homers, OPS, slugging, sure. I don't know how much that'll continue, but if,

Tyler O'Neill can be the plus player that he showed in St. Louis. You know, I talk about that range of expectations over a season, and right now the Sox, you just, you checked a box. Like that West Coast trip is done. Not only did you survive, you thrived. And Tyler O'Neill, you look at the Red Sox lefties, and you're like, okay, Devers, Kossis, Yoshida, you know, you kind of see it. Our question was the Red Sox Rides,

and now especially that Trevor Story's gotten banged up again, Tyler O'Neill kind of needs to bring it right now. It lists the top five in the Red Sox lineup. Four of them are lefties and one's Tyler O'Neill. So if he can be that righty threat, that's crazy impactful for the Sox as they come up. Okay, you did that West Coast stretch? Now they've got a big homestand.

You get turned it into a good April. If you stay in it to the deadline, like who knows how you can prove around the margins and those Red Sox first in starting pitching ERA early on this season. How do you like that? I think they're first in just overall pitching ERA as well. They're really doing it. Love Tyler O'Neill, a sign one year 5.8.

These signings, you know, as middling as they may seem when you're trying to think about where Show Hay is going to go or all these big contracts. Like they didn't have Tyler O'Neill. They wouldn't be off to the same start. If he's going to be as impactful as this throughout the season, it's been one of the better off-season signings of the year. What I love, Jake, is not only is he hitting homers,

he's got five homers, he's got seven walks to six strikeouts. We've seen the ball really well. Five-14 OBP for our guy, Tyler O'Neill. Is that because he's got a small strike zone? He's got a really nice strike zone, okay? Okay. Some people prefer a smaller strike zone. I like Tyler O'Neill, dude.

How is he dressing nowadays? Oh, that's a good question. Babes, if you... We could get some research on that. I forgot about. Oh, my God, that outfit. That was bad. Purple shirt and green pants, right?

Or was it the other way around? Like, weird skin showing in areas you didn't want to see skin showing, and that's coming from me. Man, Trev, we, uh, we screwed a lot of pitchers this week. Yeah, Michael King, how about it? Bradford, King, Halk, Fulton. Audre has won that trade. That's what everyone's saying.

That's what everyone is saying. While Bebs is researching Tyler O'Neill's outfits, do we want to start getting a little and flagey? Dirt Nasty's on Fuego. That means I'm on fire, baby, like Waco. My friends, my friends, my friends. I love this portion of the show

because I get to highlight some people. How about Matt Olson of the Atlanta Braves? He went 5 for 11 in this series, two homers, two doubles, four ribbies for a 1.7. He is absolutely going off to start the year because he's one of the better hitters in all the baseball. Former Brave William Contreras goes 7 for 12 in the series.

A double two homer, six RBIs. That's a 583 batting average, my people. That was against Seattle. And Ryan McMahon. Colorado third baseman for Jake's Rocks. Kelsey Wingert's Rocks, excuse me. Five for 12, a double, two homers, five RBIs. The Rocky's third ever walkoff grand slam.

The first is Charlie Blackman in 2020. For the first week, my people, this is the list you want to be. I mentioned him earlier. Just an absolute, I almost did this as my award. Just an absolute bank robbery. the Reds did to the twins the Tyler Malley deal Spencer Steer and Carnassian Strand

he's not starting off so hot but Spencer Steer is 9 for 22 a double a triple three homers nine RBI's 409 average the 1.455 OPS Marcelo Zuna for the Braves obviously 9 for 21 three homers 7 RBIs

429 average 1.4 OPS Ronell Blanco our guy in two games started, 15 innings pitch, only one hit, 11Ks, no earned runs. He's the first pitcher in the modern era to pitch at least 15 innings and allow one hit or fewer in his first two outings of a season. Tanner Hout, part of that vaunted Boston staff. Two games started, 12 innings pitch, seven hits zero and runs 17 Ks to two walks.

He becomes the first Boston pitcher to go at least six score of this innings, with seven plus Ks in each of his first two outings of a season. And then this is a good one, man. I think everyone's rooting for this guy. even if you play against him. Edwin Diaz of the New York Mets. Four games, two saves, four innings pitched, zero earned runs,

one walk to seven Ks. He recorded his first and second save of the season, and those are his first saves since October 4th of 2020. And that my friends, Susan Fuego. Spencer Stier, career, 193 games, 269, 356 and 8-1-8 OPS. has moved around a lot. Is he getting better?

Is he that player? Because that player is really good. I love hearing you get in FOA. He's a stud. He's a stud, dude. The part, I hate my least favorite part of the show, but it does. It helps.

Chicago White Sox, man. Eloy gets hurt again. Luis Robert, he gets hurt again. That's, if you had any White Sox stock, it was in those guys. We talked about Shane Beaver, just crushing, brutal. Trevor Story, that was a tough, tough one to watch. His body all over the place.

Spencer Strider, we talked about, also stinks. Geraldo Pardomo, one of those Arizona injuries, snake bitten. Josh Spores, remember how good he was in the postseason. Jacob Junis was a signing for Milwaukee. Julian Merriweather twirling out of the Cubs pin. And that's your injury report. Get me out of there. I hate that.

Jacob Junis got hurt. I don't like that. I'm sorry. And you know what? I think it's starting to make sense for me. We do the injury report. We bring it down. But then we do this.

Let's start the week, Trev. You know who's in my DMs? Who's in your DM? Casey Lynch. Yeah. Kelsey's husband was in my DMs this weekend. That made me feel pretty good. Shout out case.

Okay. So my award is, what's going on? our screen. We got a little red Soxout on the ball. I'm hoping we've got, oh, that Tyler O'Neill arm. I tried to find one of them walking through the tunnel. I don't think at Red Sox has posted anything there, but at least pregame warmups. We go to MLBFits.com.

Enlbbfitts, hey, get some Tyler O'Neill stuff on your page. I'll give them a scroll soon, but I thought Red Sox would be a more, at Red Sox would be a more direct route. Jake, you don't look like that. That's a piece of meat, huh? My God. Oh, guys. My award's like going to be a simple one. No jokes at all.

It is the 50th anniversary of the Hank Aaron passing Babe Ruth on the all-time homer list. What an absolute stud Hank Aaron was. Not only to do what he did in 755 homers, like you do the math, I love to do this. 75.5 homers a year for 10 years straight. Think about that. Slice in the 20, you still are up there in the 37s and a halfs for 20 years straight. Think about that, people. That's absolutely nuts. And there's all sorts of stories about, you know, the time that he played in. Obviously, as an African American playing at that time, you had to deal with some things people especially you know when you're playing the south there's a story about him in the in the

minor league affiliate of the Braves and how he wasn't allowed to hang with his white teammates or live with them so like you had to deal with all of that you know coming up through the minor leagues and if that's not difficult enough it's you know get to the big leagues and do what he did for such a long time you're not going to see any 70 homer seasons at a him it's just consistently being an absolute dog and I think that's my award is obviously congratulations on such a great feat and we and we love seeing the video and all that but people my award is an all-time baseball reference page award go to the baseball reference page it's awesome dude I love something we know how good these guys are but sometimes you just need a little visual

to do it 25 time all-star Jake the only years he didn't make the all-star team was his first year in 1954 when he won rookie of the year four, fourth and rookie of the year. And then his last year when he was 42 years old and only played in 85 games. The bold is outstanding. He still owns two all-time Major League records total bases at 600, 6,856. Think about that. Think about that. You touched 6,856 bases in your career.

That's awesome. And also still leads the world, ever in RBI's with 2,297. 755 was the end mark, like I said. Just an absolute, just a menace, man. And you listen to anybody talk about the game that played around him, and he just had a presence about him. Hammer and Hank, man.

Congratulations on the 50th year anniversary of that awesome, awesome Homer, a clip that we're going to be seeing for the rest of our lives, man. It was just that special. I just wanted to shout him out, man, because he really, if you just go look at the baseball reference page, you'll be like, oh my goodness, it's awesome. So shout out to our guy, Hammer and Hank. I tweeted it out last night.

I mean, obviously, I love looking at any baseball reference page. And, you know, we, ref guess has become a game in our office. But we love some bold. It's littered and bold. And yeah, man, like, I don't know. There's almost, I feel like there was a Hank Aaron compiler argument that was like, oh, well, you know, this guy, you know, he never, never hit 50 homers, you know, only one MVP. It's more impressive to me.

We open the show talking about guys who cannot stay on the field. Hank Aaron was on the field absolutely mauling and the all-time home run record hitter, you know, do what you want with that. He did it in time where pitching was king. Like, it's like a dead ball era. The OPS Plus is insane. Every stat is insane that, yeah, man, I think there are, I think there's been sexier baseball players. When you're talking, go, Hank Aaron needs to be in the discussion.

And, like, I don't know, I know it's where I, people, I think I'm on the unpopular side here where I don't, I'm kind of not a, I'm not a Bonds as the best baseball player ever. And hey, if we start our daytime talk show, you know, we can open with that any day we want and see where it goes. But, you know, look how good Bonds numbers are after 30. And that's normally, you know, go check out Poole Hose's numbers after 30. Go check out Griffey's numbers after 30. Hank, A, kept it rolling. And, man, he's just, he's one of the best to ever do it.

And I don't know. I think sometimes we get sucked into, oh, well, this guy won three MVP's, and Hank's awesome. And we just, we need to appreciate him more. And I, you know, I tweeted that out last night. And people, oh, this guy talks about baseball, but he doesn't appreciate Hank Aaron. No, let's just talk about him more.

and it was really cool on the Sunday night baseball broadcast here in Coney, who I obviously love Coney for a lot of reasons. But he's got a good real perspective. He's a guy that grew up in Kansas City. At one point he was the young hothead on a team. At another point, he was the highest paid guy in baseball. He had health scares. Coney's kind of run the gambit.

And Coney had like the, it's been 50 years. Like I remember that moment. And I don't know It's hammering Hank You also hit 305 career Didn't it strike out Ooh that's a good one let's see Dude he never struck out

Oh it is 1,402 walks to 13803Ks My goodness Never struck out 100 times in a season This is a weird place to bring this discussion But is 1960 season stuck out to me Led the league in sack flies, which only year he did that. Hit 292 with 40 homers, led the league in RBIs, all of that.

11th an MVP. That weird me out. I went to see who won, and it was Dick Groot. It was my girl. You know, a lot of, you know, how good is your team comes in there? Pirates finished first. So Dick Grote and his batting title beat out second place, Henry Aaron, and his braves and his great season.

So just weird voting that year. Don't know why that happened. Was there two All-Star games? Yeah. Back in the day? There's a couple of those. Couple of those. So yeah, that got cooked a little bit.

What? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah. I was wondering how he made 25 and 23 years. Four years of double ups, but. All right, Hank.

That's awesome. Baseball is weird, dude. Baseball is weird, dude. And no, it's not the Draft King Sportsbook. Make sure you guys go download the Draft King Sportsbook app. Get in on the action. We were doing some live betting at the game. It was a fun time, responsibly, you know.

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I mean, I might check out those Bobby Wood MVP odds. Could be worth the sprinkle. Could be worth the old sprinkler. Gambling problem? Call 1-800 gambler or in West Virginia, 1-800 gambler.net. In New York, call 8778 Hope & Y or text Hope & Y 467-369. In Connecticut, help is available for problem gambling. Cambling, call 8887-8-8-8-9-77-7 or visit ccpg.org.

Please play responsibly. On behalf of Boothill Casino and Resort in Kansas, 21 and over, age varies by jurisdiction. Void in Ontario. Bonus bets expire 168 hours after issuance. See dkng.com slash baseball for eligibility and deposit restrictions, terms, and responsible gaming resources. Just clicked on Babe Ruth's page, my goodness. That's not my award.

Great award, Trev. I'm going to do the California Taxes Award, Treve, you know how bad they are. They're not great. You know, it's tough out there. It's tough out there that, you know, some people go to Phoenix, some people, maybe go to Tampa, maybe you go to Chicago. Originally, this award was just going to be to highlight Ryan Pepio, who went six innings, shut out, three hits, no walks, 11.

And he did that at Coorsfield, man, which, again, you saw, you might have seen the Fairbanks quote. Pete was not happy with the balls they were getting at Coorsfield. If you watch the first game, you just, you just know there's games at Coorsfield that just get away from you. And it becomes an offensive slugfest, altitude and wherever you want to go, had a tough, a tough-ish first start against those. Texas Rangers, which everyone, a lot of people are going to have tough starts against them. So whenever a starting pitcher gets it done at Coorsfield, I always want to give them snaps just because, man, that's a daunting task. You know going into that game. You might be walking out with an, you know, you can have a good five-earned run day at Coors Field. And Pepeio went

six, shutte's. And then, Trev, you mentioned, and I thought it should be highlighted as well. Michael Bush, against the old team, against his former mates, the Cubs. And for me, I came in a little skeptical because I was like, you know, if you're good, the Dodgers, he'll figure it out. But also maybe not because they went out and spent $25 million on Teoskers and Muncie's there. And that whole team is pretty stacked. Michael Bush, we talked about the redemption game.

The three RBIs on that final one, help open it up. Bless you, Beeps. that, hey, a couple former Dodgers getting it done with their new teams, staying away from those California taxes. I know Florida's good. I'm not sure about Chicago. I'm sure they charge a little bit there, but a couple young guys bawling.

As long as my doge coin is going off, what do I care about California taxes? You know what I mean? No, I'm happy for both these guys. It is difficult to get traded. It's not an easy thing. Going to a whole new organization. But right now, if you're with the Dodgers,

I think a lot of guys in the minor league system are saying, heck, we're either going to be anointed in like some of the golden kids, like Outman has been and Gavin Lux has been, or we're going to be blocked. That's basically what happened to Michael Bush and Pepio, to be honest with you. I mean, you know, both these guys have seen a little bit of action with the Dodgers, but get new opportunities with new teams. And Bush, a great start to the year,

but even better to do it against your former. team. That's a lot of fun. Pepio with the one tough start against the Rangers to start the year, but then another great start at Cores, like you mentioned. You root for these guys in their new organizations. Might as well.

We're always rooting for each other. We're supportive kings here at talking baseball. Hey, guys, let us know. I know we missed some in the series this week and comment below. If you have a solution to the pitching stuff, I'm all ears, man. I'm all ears.

to be surprised if we're talking about that midweek a little bit. Hope your team wins all of their games. Yeah. Hey, twins, just a little bit of with runners-and-squering position. That's all we need. That's it. Twins? Ale Central?

Jigsawks. Stink. Old Centrelles. Hots. Imagine dealing with Jake Store reality and then straight into Chris Rose. People pray for it. Yeah. Hmm.

It's difficult. Coles. NL Central, no one under 500.