Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - Vladimir Guerrero Jr. signs $500 million Extension w/ The Toronto Blue Jays

Episode Date: April 7, 2025

Shop SKIMS Mens at https://www.skims.com/talkin #skimspartnerGo to http://shadyrays.com and use code TALKIN for 35% off polarized sunglasses.Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app and use promo code JMBASEBALLUse code TALKIN2025 for 10% off your next SeatGeek order*: https://seatgeek.onelink.me/RrnK/TALK.... Sponsored by SeatGeek. *Restrictions apply. Max $20 discountCoach Trev and Talkin’ Jake break down what Vladimir Guerrero Jr’s Contract means to the Blue Jays, If there’s a HOF path for Vladdy, The Yankees going off at the plate, and WHO should be your favorite Dark Horse team!0:00 Intro1:30 Trev’s coaching good2:11 Chicago Trip3:06 Jake talking with Taillon5:00 AL Burn10:11 AL Standings11:26 Vlad Guerrero Jr. extension15:25 What does this mean for Blue Jays?20:20 HOF Path for Vladdy?21:50 500 Homers is path for him to HOF22:10 Yankees are going OFF24:20 Why are the Yankees mashing?25:35 Aaron Judge has the amount of HR as Ruth thru 1,000 games26:30 It’s the Young guys and Judge - what can Young guys bring?28:30 Yankees are making young players comfortable - is it Jazz?31:15 Who is your favorite Dark horse team that started kinda hot?39:44 NL Burn44:20 NL Standings45:11 Dodgers/Phillies best teams in baseball?46:23 Japanese splitter is different than American splitter47:40 Biggest takeaway - matchups are so good / managers really tried managing49:20 Teoscar Hernandez50:00 Philly knows they have to beat Dodgers to win World Series52:10 Michael Conforto looks like he’s back52:36 Best Western Road Warriors53:00  Jose Ramirez at Angel Stadium56:51 Standout performances1:01:55 Awards  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. Vladdy, think he's staying in Toronto for half a Billy. Also, a lot of good ball played this weekend. Which dark horses are we into? Let's talk ball. Let's talk horses. Scoobal. Kyron Paris. You love him.

You love them. Hello and welcome to Talking Baseball. I'm Jake Storelli. That is Trevor Pleasible. Louf, Rob Chiraco producing his butts off as me and him just survived a trip to Chicago that we'll remember forever. Shout out to the good people of Wrigley Field. We'll talk about that a little bit throughout this.

And we'll talk about all the good ball that was played this weekend. Trev, Dodgers, Phillies, potential CS preview. Maybe Cubs Padres are saying the same dang thing. Trev how is your torpedo bat? World Series matchup, San Francisco, Seattle. Is that what everyone's saying? Hey, now. There was some good ball being played.

Weekend was great. The weather's turning here. It's beautiful. Like, I got to wear sunscreen now. Was at the yard all day yesterday with my youth team. I told you before the show, one of our kids, nicest kid out there started like hyperventilating. He was real nervous before the game.

And I was like, hey, just hang out and chill a little bit and his dad was like put him in yeah so like I had to deal with that but he you know he ended up doing well really dad was right you going to learn today that's just that's just coaching for you know good coach you're learning uh yeah you you can still that's good good coaching tref glad sure and i did see it in the comments last episode that now you're calling me coach a lot more so i guess this is just a coaching podcast um coach is the term of endearment people You don't have to really be a coach. Man, I'll leak it throughout the episode a little bit.

But yeah, we, if you have no idea, me, me, Rob and a couple other jam people, flights got canceled before Chicago. So we drove out there. If you listened to the last episode, you heard us at our peak fatigue, missing two bags of technology. But after that, we went to Cubs opening day, and it was incredible. and the Cubs kind of hook it up and Marquis, the network out there.

And it's just an amazing baseball town and an amazing series. Cubs Padres, man. It was pretty cool. Dapped up Jameson, before the game, Trev, an early talking baseball interview. And he was like, you know, we did the normal stuff. Hey, how are you?

Go, Cubs go. It was their fourth opening day. So he was like, dude, we've, we've, We've seen all the fireworks and introductions and all of it. But he also, and this will get Cubs fans a little hype. At the end of the combo, he was like, yeah, you know, kind of want to give these Padres their first loss. And I was like, okay, like, let's go. Let's go.

So sorry, Padres fans, although they were having a blast at Wrigley, too. It really was a special weekend. And there's a lot of ball to talk about, Trev. So I think we get into it, and we're getting into it with your friends. It skims, kind of your neighborhood. Let's talk about comfort where it matters most. Your underwear. Yep.

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Shop skimsmenz at skims.com. Let them know we sent you after you place your order, select podcast in the survey and select our show in the drop-down menu that follows. Treve, I mean, these are your friends. I'm wearing them right now. I wear the cotton ones. I have them all, but I would, I honestly would recommend these underwear.

I've said that on the show before. I wear them and I totally switch from what I used to wear. Let's see that thing. Let's see that bullet in. The logo is very, you know, it's not like a big flashy logo, which I also allow them.

Okay. Why don't, well, Trev shows that off, Bobby. Why don't, why don't you kick off the music and, oh man,

that is, that wasn't a sad trail. Let's, that's lucky for this. YouTube. That's why you should watch this on YouTube people. Let's do some American League. Oh, and look at this. The Minnesota Twins, Trevor. Hey now. They hosted the Houston Astros. Man, they lost the first game. Hunter Brown looked good on the bump. Christian Walker. And Brandon Rogers, it felt like everyone was worried about him kicking into gear with Houston.

He's had a couple big games for them. But the twins bounce back. Jose Miranda and the Minnesota Moose. Have a nice day at the ballpark. Bailey over the nightmare. But Trev, this final game, twins get a big lead at 7-1. We had it. Oh no, we've got an error from Willie Castro. The Astros chip away. Your Don with the two-run game tying Homer and then they win it in extras. We've got a double steal. Astros take the series, Trev. The Kansas City Royal and the Baltimore Orioles. They teed it up for three in the Royals. They took the Brad games.

You needed more than two runs to win this. And, man, Seth Lugo, back on his BS. Six innings, one earned run. Sugano and Waka. How about Sugano outpitching Michael Waka? Orioles. They win that middle game. Jackson Holiday, three-hit day at the office.

Tyler O'Neill in the swing of things early. but the Royals get it done on Getaway Day. Bobby Witt, triple. Chris Bubich, out of the pen from last year and shoving this year, 6.21 Ernie's. Texas Rangers, we might do some teams that we're buying stock on or sleepers. I tried to throw the Rangers out there. Tref said no one's sleeping on them.

And they just swept the Tampa Bay raise. A lot of close games. Tyler popped to Molly. I'm sweating. He's back. Five innings clean. The Rays get to DeGron, but it's not enough to win that game. Wyatt Lankford with the big Homer late to win that one.

And then give Heim some time. Jonah Heim with the walk-off sack flying game three. Tons of walk-offs this weekend, especially Sunday. Guardians and Angels. Trev is hot to trot on this series if you didn't hear the Kyron Parish shout-out at the start. Guardians, hey, that first game, Jose Ramirez, the error, you probably remember that. Or you might remember the three homers.

He went nuts in this series. But so did Mike Trout. This Mike Trout hype train has left the station for this season. He keeps homering. Logan O'Hoppy, Luis L. Ortiz versus Tyler Anderson. That's a sneaky little talking baseball matchup to wrap it up. Horace, So Lair homers in that last game in, and Kyron Paris, as you well know at this point.

Halos, is Trev in? I'll tell you who we're both out on the White Sox. The Tigers swept him 7472-4-3, including in that final game, a walk-off. Don't forget the Kerry Carpenter at bat that led to Torkelson getting it done, and Torkelson's been getting it done. If you were in on the Tigers this year, I don't know if he was a part of the formula. He is now. He looks really good.

Jack Flaherty with a good start, Trev's Guy Guy, Riley Green. Havi Baez, the shortstop center fielder, knocking it around the yard. And our final AL series, you might have seen it on Sunday night baseball. Yikes. The Boston Red Sox offense. Oh, my God, kid. Wicked Pissa. Cards thought they were going to get game one of the double header.

They did not. The Red Sox rally. Go look at, Wheelier-Breyu cannot stop if he wanted to. Trevor's story looks good. Oh, yeah. Endeavors and Bregman combined. What is that? That's eight for nine in the last game.

Sox offense clicked. Sorry St. Louis. That's what happened in the American Bundesliga. I've been trying to tell everyone about Willier-Abreu. Thank you for finally listening. We'll get into more of that. Wilier. Whittier.

Wittier. I love it. He's like a good Oswald Arcea. He's thick. He had a nice outfield assist this weekend. It was one of those he was pretty cool. Dude, that was he hammered that thing. He did.

It's one of those outfield throws like when you see how close he was to the infield. But still, he yammed it. I would say he's, you know, a little running start, but that's still like the equivalent of throwing like in the hole from shortstop to first base, probably a little bit longer than that. And that thing was on a rope. This will be pathetic as I set you up for the standings. But that was a classic Story Ellie high school outfield.

assist. I would just charge the ball as hard as I could. So my throw would come from basically the shallow outfield. It's like, wow, what a throw. And it's like, well, that was, that was 71 miles per hour. Trev, give us the standings. Okay. I'll let you have that one. Thank you. In the American league, the Yankees on top of the ALE, six and three, Boston, right behind six and four. Toronto at 500, five and five. My Tampa Bay raise four and five. And Baltimore at four and six. So they're all jumbled up there in the east. Same thing kind of in the central, although those white socks. Oh my goodness. Five and four for Detroit on top of the division. They're the only team above 500. Kansas City, four and five, Cleveland and Minnesota, both three and six and Chicago doing Chicago things,

two and seven on the bottom of the division. Twins are way ahead of them, aren't they? In the West, this is why the Rangers are not a sleeper team. They won the World Series in 2020. People were all over them. They're not a sleeper, not a dark course. Eight and two at the top of the division. Then my Angels, six and three. Those are the two teams over 500. Houston, four and five. The athletics, four and six. And then Seattle, who actually picked to win the division,

sitting at three and seven. And those are the standings in the American League. Ran into that buzz saw in San Francisco. You mentioned World Series preview. Trev, thank you for that. It is funny because they ended up facing the New York Metropolitans, which we're going to talk about them and their pitching coming up. Vladdy Guerrero Jr.

And Trev, I'm going to give ourselves some pats on the back here. Actually, I'm going to give you some credit. He gets the extension done. It's over. I kept saying this is going to be one of the storylines of this season. And can they keep Vladie? And they need a big first half to try to hold on. No, he just needed half a Billy.

14 years, $500 million to Vlad Guerrero Jr.'s. Well, I was going to say Vlad Garero Jr.' or senior son, who's setting his own MLB career. And hey, shout out to anyone who ever gets that kind of money in their lifetime. Trev, I couldn't help but laughing. You and me, and I might have Robbie dig up the clip. When you were in town, I think it was for ball and play weekend. You and me were at the bar of the hotel.

And we were talking, Vladdy, and I gave the speech of, I was like, dude, he's, he's made it to the final year he's going to hit free agency. And you said, no, everyone has a number. Like, you just got to hit it. And the number you put out was 500 mil. And I took a second from my old fashion. And I was like, yeah, 500 million. That's got to be it.

And that's literally what it is. Look, anyone that says they have a deadline and we're not going to talk during the season is lying. Like, that's just a negotiating tactic to try to get it done. sooner, but like these two sides, if the two sides are willing to tango, the conversations will linger on to the season. Behind closed doors, they'll try to keep it out of the media as best as possible. But yeah, I mean, everyone has their number. This is a huge number for him. I believe Quick Math 37 and a half, AAV over those years, no deferred money. That's what we know. And I'm happy for Vladie. These couple Dominican dudes going north of the border in Canada and

making careers for themselves, him and his dad. That's awesome. That's baseball right there. I love that. And Vlad, you know, for all the talk that we've had about Vladdy and, hey, man, and we said this on the show, we're like, hey, maybe Vladdy's like an 8-10 OPS guy. Maybe that's what he is, and that's a fine major league player. Maybe he's not an upper echelon type hitter who's going to make $500 million. Then he had the season that he had last year, 940 OPS.

but really when you look at the underlying stats and metrics, and I'm sure obviously the Blue Jays understand this better than anybody, Vladie's been an absolute masher. He's been an absolute masher. Jake, from 2021 on the expected Wobah, 99th percentile, 86 percentile in his bad year in 2022, 94th, 98th, and 23 and 24. You can go down the line.

All of his expected numbers. his exit velocity, the barrel percentage. I mean, it's just all blood red on the baseball savant. So he's been hitting the ball hard. He's been a fear, fearsome, fearful hitter, fearsome hitter. Fearsome hitter for quite some time. Even when he was hitting the ball on the ground and the numbers didn't look great, he was still, again, making quality contact, having quality plate appearances.

and that's what they expect to continue over the life of this contract. I mean, look, he's a hitter. I know he's won a gold glove at first base, but we're focused on Vladdy, continuing to square balls, continuing to just hit the crap out of them, and that's what they're going to get.

So 14 years, man. 14 years is a long, long time. Sure is. But, you know, I guess that's what they had to do to keep him there. And now you're happy for Vladdy. What does that mean for the Blue Jays? I'm actually not quite sure what that means for the Blue Jays. I mean, they have, they have a team. We've talked about us for quite some time on

this program. They've assembled the team that thought was going to work. It hasn't necessarily worked out perfectly for them. But again, they've made adjustments. You know, Andres Jimenez is now there. And maybe he's kind of like, you got Vladdy over there at first base. Jimenez is going to play shortstop most more than likely following this year if bachette isn't back like there's a lot of things to like about this team and i mean they get the job done and they've they've taken big swings in the free agent market huge swings haven't come up sodo otani we hear it all the time um but this is one way to get a marquee player and is just keeping them there offering 14 for 500 yeah and i couple things you mentioned Alejandro kirk they also they they they they extend

extended him, so that that's part of their core. Let's see what goes on with some of these young guys that, hey, Alan Road and Will Wagner getting some run early and they look solid. Like, hey, let's see. Andres Jimenez is currently hitting a lot. I know everyone's skeptical, but hey, Toronto's a nice place to hit. Maybe they saw something in him that works. Or like you said, the money he's about to start making, maybe that's their Bichette insurance

plan that he could, I don't doubt for it. I don't doubt that guy could play shortstop at all. That they have attacked this. And even when you look at their rotation, I mean, Max Scherzer got banged up, but like Chris Bassett was a free agent they brought in. Kevin Gossman got paid real money. Burrios, they locked up. So this franchise does, they've put their best foot forward.

And one of my bigger head tilt moments of Vladdy's free agency, because I've been hammering the table, like, If you can get the guy to sign there, you do it. And then we started talking some numbers and how crazy does it get? And are Steve Cohen in the Mets in? And they just buy every player. And how about the Mets fans giving it up for Vladdy in his first at bat this week? And that is, talk about a fan base that has made the turn.

I mean, we see it with Jolly every day and the punk he's turned into. But these Mets fans, I love it. I doubt that had too much. I think the 500 mil was the final decision make. But Blue Jay fans, I put out a tweet and I was like, you know, blah, blah, blah, the money, this and the other. And they were like, so you're, they said, so you're telling us, we're going to come up short on Shohei and we're going to offer him 800 mil. And we're going to come up short on Soto. And these big free agencies, he's like, but our guy who's about to have a big free agency, that's the one we should be hesitant about.

Screw it. And they did. And they have him and you have a cornerstone piece. And yeah, 14 years is daunting. And I don't know what years 11 through 14 are going to look like. But also, it's going to be thick. It's going to be thick. But hey, I mean, look. Marcello Zuna has loved D.H. And anyways, hey, with Soto and his contract and we did right field and Soto doesn't play great defense, blah, blah, blah. Hey, at first base, where Vladdy has shown signs of sticking, like, that's a position you can stick a little longer, that if you're worried about moving him to DH, like, it's just one less thing. But also, who cares? He's on the team. He's going to hit a lot.

I know this isn't really how we should judge, but it is, you know, a big part of me in Trev's games. The body looks good. Like, it looks like he's growing up a little bit. sometimes we forget, we got introduced to Vladdy at 19, 20. He's 26 now. So like this guy is going to become more of a man, an adult, and a leader. How could you not love it for Toronto?

He'll end up $570 million in his career. This contract will run through his age 41 season. I'm imagining boats and yachts. That's like his thing. No, no. Right. But I'm just imagining that. I don't know why.

Like in his basement or like? Well, they wouldn't be in his basement, but because they're going to be too big. Well, that's what I didn't know if it was like in the glass bottles or something. No, no, no. Like a real one. Okay. Yeah. Okay.

God. Okay. I mean, that would have got the job done too. I, my, I went, Vladdy, they sent that clip over to the Blue Jays, meat in the middle. Real quick, we'll move on to something different. Snaps for Vladdy, obviously. Is there a Hall of Fame path for him? Yes, dude.

He's 26 and he has 21 career war. Like, I think that's the bizarre thing where he, his measuring stick went up here. And, dude, we all know who his father is. If you're listening to this program, you know his dad is a Hall of Fame baseball player, that the expectation has always been a little shook by that and his 2021 season, that a 25-year-old Vladdy ran that back, and he might do that for the next seven years? And if he does, yes, you're looking at a Hall of Fame baseball player.

160 career homers. That's got to be his path, right? So you're talking, you need another 340 over 14 years or 15 years, I guess. Hey, that's 20 a year, 22 a year. Gets a little more backspin on the bowl. I don't know how the defensive metrics are going to grade out. Let's go rad. You get to the HOF, baby.

Right. I mean, hey, Paul Goldschmidt seems like he's going into the hall and he's probably going to land around 400 homer. So I don't know. I think some of those old baseball numbers, if you got this, you're in now that we have war. And, I mean, honestly, the big thing is that Vladdy probably needs, if you get that MVP season,

that really jumps off the board these days. I think 500 homers is the path for him. I don't know about the war and I don't know about the MVP season, but 500 homers will do it. And he's just, yeah, you just got to continue to hit and stay healthy. It's being a hit. Okay. I think I think I need to start this segment because I know you're always hesitant and

talk yanks. Another big thing that's happening in the American League is the Yankees, absolutely going off. And this was one thing that I questioned. I think most people questioned with this Yankees team was, hey, you got judge, who else you got? Kind of a bunch of guys with question marks throughout the lineup. And that was a fair assessment.

Okay, you got Jazz Chisholm. And was he good for the Yankees last year? Sure. But, you know, I don't think he's really known as a banger, middle of lineup guy. You had Austin Wells come up and do pretty well last year. But, you know, sophomore campaign. What's that going to look like?

What is Anthony Volpe as a baseball player? we like him as a shortstop. He's definitely a valuable baseball player, but what does that mean offensively? What's Jason Dominguez going to look like? And they've just really answered all of our questions right now. Not to mention a guy like Trent Grisham, absolutely tearing the cover off the ball,

made what, one mechanical adjustment opened his stance up, and now all of a sudden he's just banging the ball. Sometimes that's all it takes. He's feeling it. Ben Rice has been great. We got a bunch of guys, one dotting on this team. Ben Rice, Aaron Judge, Trent Grisham,

and Volpe are one dotting it. Oswald Parraza only in, you know, 11AB, so you won't count that one. But Jazz is a 9 OPS. You guys are just absolutely tearing the cover off the ball. And if we're talking about team hitting statistics, Yankees are a 950 OPS. The next closest team to them is the,

is this right? The St. Louis Cardinals? Cardinals. At 862? Cardinals have some teams hit. I think they have 10 hits in each game. They're setting records. They're hitting 301 as a team.

But the Yankees are absolutely slugging the ball. They have the most homers in baseball. Now, even more than the Dodgers who have played more games than them, 25 homers in nine games. Is it the torpedo bat? A little bit, actually. But they're putting together good swings. And I guess I'll dish it to you. What's been the biggest difference?

Is it just like confidence? Like, has there been something that sparked this? It's all torpedo bats. No. And Trev, I need you to do a video on bat technology because I've seen a couple more crazy ones around the league this weekend. I saw someone who had like a crazy design at the top of their bat. No, man.

And I, hey, Cubs are starting to click. Red Sox, big weekend. Cardinals can't stop hitting. The Yankees are mashing. And we, it was our whole speed. They're athletic. These Yankees are going to play ball differently. they are mauling off the lesser pitchers.

The Yankees on opening day before torpedo bats became a thing. Freddie Peralta dealt with them pretty good. Zach Gallen had a 13 strikeout day against the Yankees. Corbyn Burns, the Yankees got two of their runs off him off error from Nailer. So there is a little bit of like, hey, let's see where else this goes. That being said, I mean, what else can be? you ask for? And I think for me, the big ones are, well, Aaron Judge, everyone knows. And if you really don't and you just, like, he gets kind of lumped with Shohei in a way that's insane,

because no one should be lumped with Shohei. He deserves to be. He has the same, in the same amount of games, a thousand games of Yankee baseball, him and Babe Ruth had the same amount of home runs. Three hundred seven, three twenty one or whatever. Bay Bruce. Like the guy when you go look at his baseball reference, you're like, that's never going to happen again. So it starts with Judgey. If we're just being completely honest, and he has six home runs. Like if you swapped him out with another right fielder that had two home runs, which would be a good start to the season, those numbers start to move a little bit.

For me, it then becomes the young guys. It's the lifeblood of every team. And when you start looking around and the Cardinals are having a hot start, It's like, well, a couple of their young guys are clicking. And even the Cubs, every team in the league, Jackson Merrill for the Padres, the young guys coming up and being a part of it. Why do you think the A's have made a turn? How many free agent hitters have the A's brought in?

None. Well, that was a couple moons ago, Trev. Why are we? For the Yankees, Anthony Volpe, Trev, you've seen me and Jimmy have to bite our tongues. We want to believe in that kid so badly. His dad is a WFAN Yankee fan. Met him at the airport. Bout my height.

Couldn't love a guy more. Anthony Volpe, the prince who was promised at shortstop, he's been one of the worst hitters the past two years. We're not able to step in front of our talking Yanks microphone and be like, I think Volpe's going to have an 850 OPSs here. No, he's been one of the worst hitters in baseball. He's shown signs. He had a really nice postseason.

He's had good stretches that maybe he's gotten older. You know, 23 is turning into 24. Austin Wells, like you said, he finished top three of rookie of the year. You could dream on that. Ben Rice, circle the name for me. He has minor league stats that if he was a first round pick, you'd be like, whoa, watch out for this guy. He did the classic.

He put on 10, 15 pounds of muscle. The exit velos and swing speed stuff are in a very real place that, hey, Trent Richem, probably going to come back down to Earth, if we're being honest about it. I think Jazz is great. and his goal this year was to win the silver slugger at second base. I don't have him as a 9.0PS guy. Jason Dominguez, the Martian.

When I'm doing my whole young guy's speech, that guy's a legit prospect who's done stuff at the major league level that I think the young guys, it's the young guys in Judge. Judge is going to hit at a historic level. What are the young guys going to bring? Because I kind of know belly. I kind of know jazz.

I kind of know Goldie. What are the young guys truly going to be? so that's a lot of yanks talk all right but i do want to say this as an outsider looking in not a yankee hater not a yankee fan just a baseball fan i think when you get young guys like that performing it has to be sparked by them feeling comfortable and i don't think jazz is a young guy but i do i do feel like he's still like trying to prove himself and he may be the leader of the young guys

or like he does whatever he wants. Right. Like he acts like he's got 15 years in and him doing that lets those other guys kind of like feel comfortable. Like I think a lot of the attention is on jazz and judge and he's, I don't know, there's something about him

and his personality that I think lets these young guys feel almost more at ease. That's just an outsider looking in. You tell me if I'm wrong. I don't know. Trev, I, this isn't the reason you hit home runs,

but guys have beards. The Martian is wearing a, a yellow alien belt. That's not your father's Yankees. Jazz, I mean, he's covered in anime. Like he's,

he's turning into an anime character on the field. The videos are just like, Yes, like literally peas in a pod that, yeah, maybe for some Austin Wells, are you competing with Jose Trevino for the catcher's job? No, you got it, kid. Volpe, year three. I've seen the chain come out after a big double or two. Like, I think there's some comfort stuff there that, yeah, sure.

I think it's the way he talks. I'm going to win the Silver Slugger. I'm going to do all these things. The confidence rubs off. I think that's more where I'm going with it. So, you know, kudos of jazz, man. I think, again, he was one of the question marks. what's he going to be, how is he going to fit in the Yankees?

It's been perfect. I think the opposing starter does matter a lot too. And, well, hey, they've been knocking around the bad starters, which has been ruining bullpens. It's what you're supposed to do. Right, right. People can't get mad at that. It's what you're supposed to do.

Not mad at it. But, you know, I'm wondering the conversation later this week when they play the Tigers who their games got moved up because of cold. and they're going to see scoobel and Flaherty, and Casey Mice too, and the tiger's bullpen. And then San Francisco, like Robbie Ray, Hicks, and Webb, Lugo, Waka, Boobich coming up. So how could you not be happy with...

How could you not be happy with the start, but also there's going to be another side to the coin. It's just where does it land? Can they be the Cardinals? Speaking of the Cardinals? Oh. Okay. I think this is a fun one to talk about because we have some teams, you know, that we almost dismiss. We don't dismiss teams during TPPs, but we do rank them and we do decide if they're going to go over under.

We do make our playoff predictions, who's going to be in, who's going to be out? So I think my question to you here will be who is your favorite dark horse team that started the season off kind of hot? I told you you you can't use the Rangers. They're like a lot of people's World Series team. So they're not involved. I put them in the world. I have one that's a little, that's a deep cut. Do you have a dark horse team?

And you can include giants. I think Blue Jays are in there. I don't think the Red Sox necessarily can be, but maybe you can convince me. Do you have one? How about I, I have a layup and a half not layup. The listeners of this show know that I have developed a slight crush on the San Francisco Giants.

I've called them my dirty little secret. They are dirty. Right. And that division is brutal, but like Elliot Ramos is going, Matt Chapman, Jung Hu Lee. How could you not love Willie Adamas? But the bigger thing for me was a lot of these rotations to start the year, I'm looking around the league and, you know, the Yanks were scrambling to put together five.

And like every team by the end of the year, you're running out of pitchers. When I saw the start of the season and my giant sent down, Kyle Harrison, Keaton Wyn and Tristan Beck are down right now. Like those are three guys that are MLB pitchers that, for me, it was just a little bit of an eye-opener like, wait, if these giants can pitch like that and maybe have some good competition, Landon Roop makes the rotation instead of those other guys, I like a lot of the names I know in their bullpen. Hayden Show Me Your Bird Song was my guy.

He's currently in the pen. that if that Giants, offense, and defense is enough, and hey, I have the advantage of saying they're off to an eight-and-one start right now. But that division is brutal, but I really liked all of that. And then if you really wanted the hot take, it would be the formerly the Oakland Athletics, excuse me. It is a hot take. They've got a couple more hit.

Nick Kurtz is killing it in the minor leagues that he might get called up soon, that everything I said about young talent for the Yankees and every other team, they've got it. Tyler Soderstrom is going nuts. That Jacob Wilson's put together a couple big games that there's a lot of young, really good talent on the field. I don't believe in it coming together for this year where the Giants, I mean, they have some vets.

But those, that would be my less sexy, more sexy ones. Just Bay Area hype rap video right there? Formerly. Or do they still count as Bay Area? I think Sacramento is like very, very. not Bay, it's Bay adjacent. Okay. Like the Hafey rap movement is definitely in Sacramento.

Willie Adomas posted his first walkoff, and he put it to some Bay Area music, and I got to tell, I was like, hey, doodle, don't look over here. There's probably nothing more, like, fun and electric than Bay Area Rat. When it hits, there's nothing you can do. It's, like, hilarious.

Go listen to them. If you don't know who, Dreyes, please go browse the catalog. It's phenomenal. There's a bunch of great artists. I like it. I like San Francisco. I think that they, they're like a veteran, like, solid ball club who can win games in a bunch of different ways. I didn't know Tyler Fitzgerald was that fast. Is he that fast? He came home on that Willie Adama single. He looked really good. But yeah, they have a bunch of good players. I'm going to go with another deep cut. And I'm going to stay out west. Is this just the West Coast? It's a West Coast pond, girl. I'm going to go with

by Angels. Three series, three series wins for them. Sitting at six and three right now behind the Rangers. But look, if you're an Angels fan, I think you went into this season with trepidation. You were just like, all right, is this going to be just another year like we've suffered? I think it was 99 losses last year, I believe. Let me check that real quick. Big, big. 63 and 99. So, you know, look, it just hasn't been great. There's been some fluctuation in the roster, you know, is Mike Trout going to be healthy. He's healthy. He's playing. He hasn't really done a lot this year. He's hit some homers. But it's been other guys. It's been my guy, Kyron Paris out there. You know I like a guy that can go second base into center field.

Like, I love that. He's also banging the ball around. Logan O'Hoppy looks like the real deal. Are we like in the golden age of catchers offensively? We're talking about Austin Wells. We're talking about Wilson Contreras. We're talking about Will Smith. We're talking about Cal Raleigh, Adley Rushman, like, Oh Hoppe's joining this crew. I missed somebody. I know I did. I'm sorry, J.T. Romuto. But, like, I think right now, catching.

I just had that thought in my head. I really haven't put the whole thought together, but into that. And they've gotten some pitching, too, like Jack Kohanowitz. Like, are we in on this guy? 11 innings pitched with 3-2-7. We know what Soriano can do. Kyle Hendricks has actually had a good start. Like, is this sustainable?

I don't know. But right now it's fun. Three series wins. Maybe Ron Washington's just tapped into a little something there. And we might go on a little run here. I said, no, I didn't ever say this. Never was just like they might be in contention. I never said that.

Yeah. It's fun right now to start this season. I'll tell you what. Their lineup is a lot of MLB guys. And that's pretty cool. And they're even missing our guy Nito. netto right now. The pitching, I just, it's tough to look at that and say that's going to hold up.

But I'll tell you, Ben Joyce to Ken Lee and you have another guy or two in the bullpen, we can work with that. So I almost, I wanted to go into Ben Joyce. I'm like, okay, this guy hasn't even given a run yet. It's been four innings. Only one, or one un-earned run. He's only struck out one hitter in four innings. I don't understand that.

But okay. seeing Reed Deppmers and Ian Anderson in that bullpen That'll give you a jump scare I Treve the fact you wanted to say that is Is fantastic The angels have hurt me too much in previous years And last year I gave them the Ron Washington He has an crazy managerial record

And all of that Hey maybe it was a year late But I just I can't let myself go there Karen Parris is like top six in War for baseball right now I will say this I'm looking right now at the baseball reference page 12 people listed top 12 players Mike Trout isn't one of them okay

so like Mike Trout comes on bang bang bang first place AO West they're trying to the mayor of Anaheim wants them to be the Anaheim Angels again it's on the streets Yes I'm open to that change The LA thing in the name clearly didn't seem to do anything.

I don't know. That's why I don't make those decisions. But the decision I do make every day is I put on my shady rays. Shady rays, sunglasses. Trev told you at the start of the show. The weather's turning. That means the sun is out more. That means you've got to protect your eye holes with shady rays.

They're an independent sunglasses company offering a world-class product rated five stars by over 300. thousand people. They've been a partner with us for a bunch of years now. They're huge in our warehouse. We just had our Blitzball Battle 6 premiere last night. If you haven't checked that out, you should. They made matching glasses for each team. Trev's forgotten rotten. I've got my baggage ones right here with the matching hat. Whoops, sorry about you. They have whatever you're looking for. Go to Shady Ray's lost or broken replacement guarantee. If you don't love your shades, you can exchange for a new pair or return worry-free for 30 days.

Go to Shadyrays.com. Use code talking for 35% off your next pair of polarized sunglasses. That's code talking at Shadyrays.com. Go get yours now. Should we do a little N-L? How about we head out to beautiful Milwaukee, don't you know? They hosted the Reds for a four gamer. And hey, they took three out of four from,

Cincinnati. Nasty Nestor. What a bounce back start. Unfortunately, he has to head to the aisle after his six-inning one-hit performance. Tyler Anderson follows it up. 5.2. Shut piece to help the Brewers get a 3-2-1. Reds. They put up a crooked number 11. Friedel, Trevino, Lux, Encanacion Strand. But in Brewer's fashion, they take three out of four. Jackson Trurio might hear more about him later. The kid with a two-homer game. you. Arizona in the Nationals teed it up for three D-backs. They win the first game. Feeling fought, fought, fought. You guys can use that. Corbin Carroll, two homers per domo, three hits, but how about a little natitude? They win two one-run games. Look at our friend Trevor Williams back on the bump and Mitchell Parker with a really good start to get the season going for them.

Anyone else I need to shout out James Wood is big. Alex Call. There's puns to be made there. Padres and Cubs, man. I know because I was, yeah, Wrigley Field, baby. Go Cubs go. Three one win on opening day. Shioda Imanaga shoved for 7.1. They followed it up the next day. They got my guy Piv. I kept flaunting him how much I loved the signing. Well, how about the Matthew Boyd signing, six innings. Colleen, a crazy game on the final day. Padres come back. They were down big A crazy first inning. Cubs were up 7 to 3 and they come all the way

back. Tough error by the Cubby's late Padres salvaged one. Blue Jays. Hey, you sign Flattie. Don't listen to the rest of this because the Mets can share pitch. They shut them out in game one. Tyler McGill. How about the McGill, bro? Should we talk about them more? Chris Bassett pitched great

but the Mets come back late. Lindor, walk off sackfly. And Pete, man, he is just driving people in. I think Trev might have had a bet on that before the season. These Mets, they're pitching a lot. We're going to talk about it. The A's and the Rockies, some fun base. We got snow on the field.

The A's comeback, they win in 11 innings. Jacob Wilson with a homer in that game. He's got a couple this series. Shebang Jaliers. You bet. Shout out to Ryan Ruko, women's basketball hot in the streets. Let's go Huskies. Rockies, they salvaged the final day.

Chase Dolander makes his debut. Tennessee. Tough place to pitch. But the Rockies put up 12. Doyle Tovar. Chris Bryant with a couple nice swings. Jake, show me your bird. You heard about my yanks.

They took two out of three from the Pirates. Actually, the Pirates, they win in extras that final game. Trent Grisham all over the place. Tommy fan with the walkoff. How do you like that? Mariners Giants. Trev mentioned World Series preview. We've got another Luis Castillo for Seattle.

There's two of them now. Mark that down. Giants went a crazy one. 10 to 9 and 11. I mentioned the Willie Adomas walkoff. Go check out his Instagram. They walk them off on the final game to Wilma. Wilmer Flores.

What a start to the season. I'm telling you these giants, their stock to be had. Man, the Mariners hit a little bit. bit too tough. Giants playing great baseball. Dodgers, Phillies. Speaking of great baseball, Phillies hand the Dodgers their first loss. Yamamoto and Lazzardo in game one. Mmm. Yum. Dodgers bounce back. Roki Sasaki, looked like he figured some things out after that bounce back. Him and no. Dude, this series,

look at the pitching matchups. Glass now, Sanchez, struggling with the weather. Sanchez, struggling with Teosker. Absolute bloodbath back and forth game. Castellanos with a deep drive to left. Phillies, they end up winning the series against the Big Bad Dodgers. And hey, Braves Marlins, they split two because the final game got postponed.

If you got shut out, you lost. Braves 10-0, Marlins 4-0. That's what happened in the National League. Get off me, ball. You're crushing it. Get off me. I got the standings if you want him. In the National League East, the Philadelphia affiliates are sitting at 7 and 2.

One game ahead of the New York Metsuers, 6 and 3. Miami, okay, over 500, 5 and 4, Washington, 3 and 6. And Atlanta got that one win, but they also got eight losses, 1 and 8 at the bottom of the barrel. In the central, the Cubbies, 7 and 5 ahead of the brew crew who are 5 and 5. The Cardinals, 4 and 5, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh, both sitting at 3 and 7 on the bottom of that division. And then in the West, is it the Dodgers? No.

The San Francisco Giants are in first place in the West sitting at 8 and 1. The Dodgers, 9 and 2. The Padres, 8 and 2. Your Snakes 5 and 5 sitting in 500. And then Colorado sitting at 2 and 7. And those are the standings in the National League. Great stuff. Coach, in the National League, where do we want to hop, Treve?

I mean, Dodgers Phillies is, you know, these are the two favorites, I think, in the National League, especially, I mean, crazy, because I think we both kind of felt the Braves were going to be there. And after a week and a half, are we ready to say it's the Phillies again? But after this showing this weekend, it's tough to argue against it. Yeah, I mean, the National League is absolutely stacked. I think both of us probably had the Dodgers and then the Phillies. And then, yeah, there was a bunch of teams jumbled up. We thought the Braves could have a bounce back year.

Obviously, I didn't pick the Mets to make the playoffs. but the Mets were obviously in discussion. Padres were there. A lot of teams, right? But I do believe this is kind of the marquee matchup right now in the National League, Dodgers, Phillies. And this series, I mean, kind of had it all. We can go into it a little bit.

Sasaki gets his start there. I believe he only goes four and a third, if that was the line, but looked better. The command was there. The splitter was absolutely filthy. You saw some of the swings and misses by some of those Phillies hitters. Um, it's just the pitch, again, I've said this many times. You just don't see it that often, um, in the big leagues.

And I also think that a Japanese splitter is different than like, maybe an American splitter is. Okay. Don't have a lot of research on that, but the eyeball test will tell you that. Uh, just a, just so much more depth and it's, it's, that pitch is filledy. He's going to figure it out. Sozaki's stuff is too good. Again, he looked better.

Uh, just, uh, in this in this game but but there's still a lot more in the in the tank there i have one question for dodgers fans in that first game uh leave his runners on second and third um and stott hits the ground ball pass mookie so they're the infields in there gets past mookie then's first and third and then they're not playing double play depth so stott ends up taking off I don't know if it was a hit and run or not but ground ball to second base and another run score it's like

if you're in you can kind of have the decision at that point it was two nothing like you can have a decision whether to go home or not or turn the double play and they just were back and let the run score I'm not really sure about there's been a lot of defensive

positioning that I'm like not a fan of in the big leagues but Luzardo was great I think my biggest takeaway here is the matchups in are so good and we saw both these managers where they try to outmanage each other which is fun

like Trinan was coming in early we saw Jordan Romano get a save and also come in in like the fifth inning of one game early it was just all about lanes and matchups and I do think with the lefties in the Philly pen

it can kind of create some matchup problems for the Dodgers I just I just think these two teams really match up well against each other. And I think baseball will be so lucky to have this as like the NLCS. Not discounting all these other teams. And what about our team? It's like, I just think this is good baseball. No, I agree. It's a different brand of baseball. Like, there's, there's a lot of teams you like and can do it for a weekend as we're, we're hyping

up the angels earlier in this episode. Hey, three series in a row. But this is, this was different. This is a different level. and yeah, you start daydreaming playoffs. And, you know, if the Phillies could keep this rotation healthy, you know, guys kick into the bullpen. Like, because right now that Dodgers bullpen almost feels illegal, although they got gotten to just a little enough this series for the Phillies to win, that, yeah, that that Phillies bullpen can look horrifying. That it's every spot in the lineup and even the Dodgers who they just put Snell on the IL.

So let's see how that goes down. And, you know, we're going to talk at some point. the Otani throwing program because that's been one of the fun conversations in baseball, probably not today. But this is just different, man. Teosker in right field makes a great defensive play doubling upstop. That it's like, you know, when do we talk about Teascar Hernandez's defense? In the nicest way, it's not his calling card, but like you just saw dudes on the field making

plays. And if I'm a Dodgers fan, you know, am I asking questions about Andy Pahas and center right now because he's made a couple field days out there that, you know, what this series might go the other way if he catches that Harper ball. The talent coming out of the bullpen is insane. The talent starting the games is insane. And up and down the lineup that this series felt different and especially the undefeated Dodgers going into Philly when we laid out before the year that this, how important this

year is to Philly, they're getting a little older. Philly knows if they want to win this thing this year, they have to beat those guys. So for an early April, you know, messy weather games, this mattered to Philly big time. I think it matters to both teams. You can kind of tell they get up when they're playing each other because they know, like, this is,

these are two quote-unquote juggernauts of the sport right now. I love, so when was that? That was Friday. the strike him out, throw him out to end the game by J2 Rio Muto, which is awesome. They had the challenge that. They had the city connects on. Replay comes in. Boom, he's out, game over.

Before that, he also threw out Shohei, I believe it was first and third two outs. And Muki's up to bat. And Shohei, who stole bases at like over a 90% clip last year, just gets absolutely lasered by Rio Muto. So it's the interesting time to steal, if I'm being honest right there. Don't love it from Shohei. But again, it's just all these little situations made for some really good baseball. And you're right.

Like Dodgers come in, undefeated. Philly's like, all right, let's go take care of business. They went two out of three. Beautiful, beautiful baseball. This is a dumb comment. Trey Turner, I think he made the last throw in one of the games. And he had to really whip it. And I don't know.

This is just a lazy reminder. Like, short stuff's so hard to play. I know people have been tough on Tray Turner. I was like, wow, that's a missile. To make that throw is crazy. And this is a dumb one, but I've got a theory forming. Michael Conforto, who's been going nuts for the Dodgers, and when the Dodgers signed him, we all did a head tilt.

Like, oh, shoot. The Dodgers moved on from Gavin Lux after he had a 900 OPS in the second half last season, and the Dodgers can do whatever the hell they want. And that kind of got a head tilt out of me that they brought in Conforto for 17 mil. Maybe a new shoulder theory forming. Conforto, Cody Bellinger.

Conforto looks back to that guy on the Mets that he was a problem. And that if the Dodgers casually added that for one year, 17 million, I don't know. Maybe if you're a fantasy baseball player, go out and get your Conforto on because the stats obviously make this seem obvious. He looks the part. Let's keep it moving. A couple of these teams we're going to be hitting

in some of these final segments. So let's get there. And one of ours, we're road dogs, Trev. We are road warriors. And that's brought to you by Best Western. Life's a trip. Make the most of it at bestwestern.com. Quick anecdote, because this is real Best Western.

We stayed at the one outside of Riggly. Incredible. If you're going, like you should 1,000% stay there, walking distance to the stadium, beautiful rooms. Also on our chaotic road trip where we were in survival mode, 3.30 a.m. We pull off the road. We're in the middle of Pennsylvania Bumbleep.

You can figure out that for another reason. It's one of those that's so late in this bumbleep town that the McDonald's is closed, the gas stations are closed, The only place that was open, Best Western, let us in, let us use the bathroom. Trev, you would have pissed your pants because, like, this tough guy was working it. And I was like, hey, there, we're with John Boy, Me. We're actually doing something with Best Western. Can we use the bathroom?

And he was like, please stop talking. Just get out of my Best Western. 30 in the morning. So with that, Trev, you've got a road. You have the Road Warrior. I do. So a guy that gets mentioned. quite a bit on this program. Jose Ramirez,

you start digging into some of these stats. There's one place in particular that he really, really likes to play. He showcased that with a three homer game on Friday night. At that point, it was nine homers in his last 11 games at Angel Stadium. The dude loves Disneyland, I guess, down there in Anaheim.

He loves to play. The career stats are insane. He's played in 20, 28 games has 99 at bats, 13 total homers, but he's hitting 313. He's on base is 456 and a 707 slug gets it to a 1.163 down there against the angel. So I don't know what it is. They actually have a really good spread for teams after the game. They do a good job. It's always you're going to get some Mexican food down there.

You're going to get in and out along with everything else. So maybe he's comfortable there. Maybe it's the hotel. I don't know what it is, but he loves playing at that ballpark. And there's something about that, Jake. When you feel comfortable going into a place, like you just know what's going to happen.

Then the confidence comes. And then it's just like success begets success. He's absolutely filthy at Angel Stadium. God. How many times has Jose Ramirez gone to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? I could see it being zero or every Thursday night. that's what I was thinking. It's an extreme.

It's one way or the other. Trev, great Best Western Road Warrior. Make sure you guys go check out BestWestern.com. Coach, it's that time of the show. Stand out. Who stood out for you? You know, I don't always do this, Coach. I'm going with a starting pitcher.

Atlanta came into this game 0 and 7, and then our guy, Shwellie. Spencer Swellenbach stepped up for them. He goes eight innings pitch, two hits, 10 Ks. You know I love this. No walks. And Peter Moreland's been all over this guy for us, our local Braves reporter. Correspondent, whatever you want.

This guy's been awesome for them. I knew he's been good, but then I started diving into the stats. Last year, 21 games started to a 3-3-5. This year, he's pitching two games. He's got 14 innings pitched. He's got three hits, one walk, 14Ks, no runs. He stepped up when the Braves surely needed it. They're sitting now at 1 and 8.

But to go out and give that type performance, the guy knows against the Marlins. Doesn't matter. He's been doing it his entire big league career so far. So I wanted to give him a shout out because it's not easy. I mean, you want to be that guy that gets the job done, and he was that guy. So shout out our guy, Shwellie.

Keep doing your thing, man. He's people in Atlanta rave about him. Do you like a 0.286 whip? Is that good? I do like that. I like any kind of whip. Trev, I'm jumping over. You mentioned the old dogs, the young dogs. Brew Crew Red series, that final day, to either split a four game or win three out of four.

and Jackson Churio has a two homer game, a couple nice defensive plays. And, man, we kind of got obsessed with Jackson Meryl. Everyone did. And Churio, I realize there's a couple, some of the metrics. They lean Meryl and how steady Eddie he was, and he's getting compared to Freddie and what an athlete and all this. Hey, I know Churio there's, okay, whatever.

In the second half last year, just a reminder, it clearly looked like the light bulb went on. He was 310, 363 with a 9-1-4 OPS in the second half last year, which outplayed Jackson Merrill. He also struggled versus lefties last year. Jackson Churio in 176 plate appearances, 696 OPS versus lefties, which meant 833 against Ritees,

which you prefer, but for the righty hitting Churillo, you'd assume there'd be some growth there early on versus lefties, two homers, a 1.150 OPS. I don't know, for some reason, this guy with the two other Jackson's kind of got overlooked at first, and now after his massive second half, and maybe the Brewer's getting knocked out of the postseason, somehow feels like he's getting overlooked again.

That two-homer game puts his numbers to the start of the season in the right place, No walks yet, so I'd like to see one of those if I'm a Brewers fan, but 21 years old. He's 21 years old. I'll never forget. Kristen Yelich, sit me down and telling me this guy's supposed to be the best player we've ever seen. A little facetiously, if we're being honest. But, you know, that doesn't get said about players all the time. Right.

So when you hear it, you're like, all right, let me check this guy out. And yes, obviously the second half of last year was awesome. he is a player and he's going to be a mainstay, and this is why the brewers are who the brewers are, man. Being able to develop like this, sign like this, scout like this. It's awesome. How good is contract extension going to look pretty good as all these young guys are getting money?

Eight years, 82, and there's two team options on that for 32 and 33. That's 2032, 2003. Jesus. Brewers getting their business done. And Treve, I also need to, I don't know if you saw it. They were rap, your guy, Ravi, Carl Ravich, was interviewing Christian Campbell on the Sunday night game because it turned into a blowout, so they were just using everything they got. And they were talking about how Cora and sometimes the Red Sox players quiz him on some of the old ball players,

Yaz and stuff. And he's like, dude, I was born. He's like, I'd just be honest with them. I was born in 2000s. I never seen any of these guys. He's like, you know, guys I grew up watching were like, judge and Yassons. And that was a little stab to my chest. So I don't know.

If you need to forward that to Yelly, maybe motivate that. I actually would like to show him that. Motivate that lower back for a day. Trev, let's wrap up the show the best way we know how. Give me yours. Straight up. I'm going to call this award the You Know Nothing John Snow Award. Nice.

John Snow really was dumb. Really being honest about his character in that, at least the show portrayal. Like he just made some silly decisions. Thought with his sword a little bit too much if we're being honest. You decide which one we're talking about. Okay. But we know nothing.

And the collective baseball world knows nothing. Because for the last two years, we've said the exact same thing about, the Mets. Where's the pitching going to come from? Our guy, Max Maness, throughout probably the worst tweet of the year so far, talking about Clay Holmes, whispers,

you know, I'm sure it's still all over the interwebs. Shout out Max, the internet's a rough place, bro. Last year, what's going to happen? Severino, what, Manaya, what? They had great

starting pitching all last year. Kintana was doing it. Like, they just figured it out and like, okay, that's a one year thing. This isn't going to, it's not going to happen again this year. Who are their starters this year? Mania's already hurt. Montas is already hurt. Oh, Peterson, McGill Canning and Holmes.

Yes, Sango will be fine. But the question marks were there again. And honestly, like, I had the same exact question mark. I did not have them in the playoffs basically because of that. Okay, but I know nothing. Right. Me and John Snow. Great job, Trev.

Great job. Let's go, Matt. The last and final award of this show is brought to you by the Draf King Sportsbook. Right now, people, the weather's warming up. It's baseball season. There's one college basketball game tonight, and then that's over, and it's like baseball, every night. And you're probably already doing that. But at the Draft King Sportsbook, right now all new customers who bet just $5 will get $150

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Trev, my final award, it's a theory I'm brewing on. So if there's people that want to add to the theory or take away from the theory, let me know. I think I'm going to do a Waken Jake episode about it. I'm giving out the protective friend award. Treb, you know, I'm not a lot of things, but I'm loyal. My buddy said, let's do a Yankees podcast. It's turned into whatever this is. I'll, you know, Trev, you told me to drive to L.A. I'd fly there.

I don't know why you tell me to drive, but I'd, you know, I'd get out there. Drive to L.A. I'm giving out the Protective Friend Award. Because, Trev, I know you guys are buddies now, but I'll just always hold it against Matt Chapman for staking your job. That's just never going to sit right with me. I'm just a pit bull, bro. Besides that, lame joke and setup,

I mentioned I like the Giants. I've told you guys how much I like baseball, and it's probably too much right now. But I was going through, okay, do I really believe in the Giants? Like, I'm giving myself that speech. If I'm going to talk in front of the microphone, like I want to believe in it. I'm not going to ever BS people or, you know, get the Stephen A notes and just start talking.

Like, that's respect to Stephen A, hardest working man in sports next to John Boy. But like, I want to no ball or believe in what I'm saying. If I'm going to believe in my Giants, I need Matt Chapman to be a guy guy. And last year he was. Like he had a seven-war season. This guy has finished up there in MVP voting. Trev, you've said on this show, if Matt Chapman has his best complete season,

he will win the MVP. There's a little show hey asterisk there now and some of that stuff. But the point, you said that with confidence and not protecting one of your guys, like a guy you know, you believe, like you've seen the skill set, you've seen the power,

you've seen the defensive ability. I started going into a Jakey wormhole where I wanted to go through the recent World Series winners and just seeing, you know, we've landed in this weird spot with free agency where some of these teams aren't paying for the big guys and you need a good team and collective war and yada yada yada.

Every team, and this might seem obvious to people, pretty much every team has a guy that finishes top three in the regular season MVP. So regular season in baseball, which doesn't matter as much. Dodgers, Shoah. Next question. Texas Rangers, Simian and Seeger that year, both were top three. Both were top three that year.

The Houston Astros. Yordan finished third. Altuve fifth. So the Braves are actually an outlier in this exercise because they got hot towards the end of the season and the bullpen, blah, blah, blah, that whole thing. Dodgers the year before, Mookie had the most war. Nationals, Rendon, if you'll forget.

The Boston Red Sox. Mookie again. Altuva, World Series, or MVP that year. So this probably sounds obvious that you need great players to go to the World Series. But Trev, in a way, the conversation of baseball has taken baby steps away from that of like, well, you need the collective and would you rather have three good guys? You need guys who kill it. And not only in the postseason, five games, seven games,

you need guys that crush the regular season. And so for my giants in this little case study that I've just done, and I do want to do a deeper dive-in, there's one guy on that team who can really do it. I know Ramos is balling and maybe he's setting a different tone. And you can like Junghuli and you can like Willie. Matt Chapman can give you that eight war third in MVP season that can carry. So if I'm going to believe in my giants,

I kind of need to protect my friend and I need Matt Chapman to do that. Yeah, you need show ponies. That's the truth, man. You need a guy to follow. You need a leader. And Matt Chapman is that in all facets of the game. We know what he can do defensively. we know that he can do it offensively as well he's doing it this year 942 oPS but uh i i think

beyond that he's just a guy that guys gravitate towards if you ever been around them it's kind of like he's electric without like really trying like he's he just has it right um so yeah i mean i believe in him from the day that i met him i was like this guy is incredible he's different and i do i do agree with you that you know as much as we got away from let's go get the big free agent and that's instead of instead of paying this guy 15 million let's go pay two guys league minimum and maybe we can platoon this and get the same more it's like no you need dudes man you need guys and we're seeing that that's why we're seeing a bunch of these extensions teams want players that know like the culture that can pass on that identity and culture and they identify these guys and they're signing him they're swooping them up right now chapman going to san francisco was was huge, I think, for their culture. So I agree with you, man. I love them.

The MVP's probably out the window now because Shohei is there. And Juan Soto is back. So he's going to be there as well. But I think Showhays is obviously the biggest one. But yeah, top three for sure. I like Matt Chapman. Baseball's back, baby. You can watch that final hoops game tonight.

But baseball is so hot in the streets. We are going to be back Wednesday. Kind of back to regular programming on this show. No trips coming up. Cake sucks. Let's talk ball. Let's yuck ball. Well, check the warehouse.

Rotten versus ice coming up. Wow. Big matchup. Classic warehouse matchup. First time in a while. Everyone's disappointed in me. Willie Adamas is like mad at me. I'm trying, Matthew.