Welcome back, everyone,
to Inside the Diamonds podcast.
This will be episode 11.
I'm your host, JC,
and I'm joined again tonight with CJ.
How are you doing, CJ?
Fantastic.
Glad you're back,
so it's not just me talking
for 45 minutes aimlessly
about random things that
I'm sure people are like,
where is he going with this now?
Yeah, no, I apologize.
As we've said in several of
the other podcasts,
we both have other jobs,
and mine has been rather
demanding as of late with issues getting
getting ourselves back to normal.
So I do apologize for that.
And I know that last week
there was no other days
that matched up for, for you and I to,
to connect.
So I appreciate you moving
forward without me.
And hopefully we won't have
to do that too often.
If we do foresee it,
that we can jump into another day.
So another great week of baseball,
a lot of exciting things.
Just wanted to kind of get
your feel to start and kick
off your thoughts on the past week.
Well,
I texted you on Saturday and said I
was going to start the
episode off with this,
and we're probably going to
name it the episode of this.
We're cursed.
You and me.
Everything we talk about on here,
it goes the opposite way,
like within a week.
So let's start a couple things.
Red Sox is going to be the
worst in the division.
Red Sox is going to be the
worst in the division.
Well, you said that.
I said fourth, maybe even better.
No, I'm just trying to jinx it.
I'm just trying to jinx it.
Yeah, let's hammer that down.
Red Sox are terrible.
Wyatt Langford,
we talked about him a couple weeks ago.
Jesus.
Max Freed, we talked about.
I think he was doing it
while we were talking.
And what a week later, hurt.
Nolan Jones,
you brought it up in
requesting his struggles.
He immediately went three
for six right after that.
And then now he's on the injured list.
Two weeks ago, I said to everybody,
let's see what the A's do.
Maybe they're not as bad as
we think they are.
Yeah, well, they proceeded to go, what,
2-5 that week,
and then since then they're
2-12 and have lost now
eight straight entering today.
Yeah.
Nice job on my part.
And then last week I said
the Padres may be sneaky good.
The first three games after
that they got swept by the Rockies.
But then they've had, you know,
changing the title a bit with the Braves.
But, again, you get swept by the Rockies,
it's a different conversation.
So whatever we talk about today,
make sure you watch for the
next week because it might
not be the same.
That's a beautiful play by Rafaela.
Well, I told you they stink,
so maybe they're going to turn it around,
although tonight they're already up 5-0.
Yeah,
we probably should have waited on
saying that until they were
down or something.
Yeah, should have waited.
Going to jump out too far ahead.
So, yeah, no,
it does seem that... And again,
this is not par for the course,
but it's early in the year.
There's still a lot going on.
There's still a lot of guys struggling.
A lot of guys...
uh working their way back
from injury or back on the
injured list there's a lot
of things happening right
now that neither one of us
uh you know really
predicted the one I won't
give you too much crap
about is your detroit
tigers and because I was
thinking they had the
pitching the bats just have
not supported it right now
and meta hasn't been what I
what I anticipated for them and uh
The Cincinnati Reds are the
other one that I really
thought that they were going to do well.
And I also am surprised by
the Arizona Diamondbacks
and their struggles.
The other one too, the Brewers.
I think we both had them
finish at the bottom of the division.
Yep.
That was another one.
I'm waiting.
I am patiently waiting for
something to happen there.
But I've done it when
writing the roster moves
for the Brewers –
You can see they're making the right calls,
and they're not waiting.
They're making a bunch of them,
moving them up and down,
and I kind of now,
watching a lot of what the Cubs do,
I see where Council's getting it.
He's making a lot of moves,
letting guys play the first six innings.
He'll play Morell at third,
and then Madrigal comes in
at the seventh to play defense,
and he's making all these
moves with what he has.
but they're also doing it
with what's in the minors
and moving people around,
pitchers up and down, giving them rest.
It's really interesting to see,
and I can still see that
effect in Milwaukee.
I don't know what's going to
happen there because they
still have Devin Williams coming back too,
unless something is
announced tomorrow that
he's going on the 90-day IL
instead of the 60.
We'll have to see.
So what for you was, you know,
other than the fact that we
can't seem to get anything right.
Go ahead.
Are the Astros back?
You know, I said to you a couple weeks ago,
they could be a team, you know,
that you don't count them out.
They might get off to a slow start.
Don't count them out.
Since then,
they've taken two or three from
the Tigers.
They swept the A's,
two or three from Milwaukee.
They were six and one last
week with a run differential of 22,
plus 22.
And in their last 10 games,
they're 8-2 with a run
differential of plus 25.
And they're right back in that race.
They're four games back.
That's entering tonight.
I don't think they might play tonight.
But they're a team that, like I said,
don't count them out.
Everybody was talking about
Verlander and Bregman
getting traded at the deadline.
That looks like it could.
Obviously, it's May.
I mean, we're approaching the end of May,
and it'll get interesting
when June hits where –
You're in the dog days of summer now,
and you get conversations
about who's really good,
who's going to compete.
And then everybody says it too,
that extra playoff spot now
where six teams make it.
That makes teams hold off a
little bit longer before selling,
unless you're the Marlins
and you trade Luis Arias when you do.
Yeah.
My next one,
it's somebody that you
actually probably know
quite a bit about because
you cover this team, Robert Gasser.
Okay.
I've been impressed by him so far.
If you're not familiar with him,
he was acquired in the Josh
Hader trade with the Padres.
He's so far for the Brewers this season.
He's made two starts.
He's 2-0 with a 0.82 ERA, a 0.82 whip,
six strikeouts,
which I'd like to see that
number a little higher.
He's pitched 11 innings.
He goes tomorrow.
He's previously pitched
against the Cardinals and Pirates,
so not –
Great teams, but, you know,
it's interesting to watch.
He's got nice stuff.
And there's a couple of videos.
I think it was Pitching
Ninja or something like that.
Somebody like that tweeted
out a couple of videos of him pitching.
He looks good.
Only one walk so far.
That's the other thing.
One walk and one hit batter.
Well, that's, I mean,
I think for any guy that's coming up,
From uh,
the minors is is being a be be
around the plate You don't
necessarily have to be a
paul skeens and strike out
a ton But as long as you're
not giving up the hits and
you're not giving up any free passes.
You're giving yourself a
shot So he's a guy that I'm
excited to watch I'll
probably have that on one
of my screens tomorrow And
tune into that start
because he's interesting.
I mean, that's you know,
that that pitching, you know
It's not big-name guys,
but it's part of the reason
why they're doing what they're doing.
I mean, yeah So he's in now.
Yeah him if he is the real
deal if he keeps doing what
he's doing He's gonna be an
arm to watch the rest of
the season and we know I
love talking about arms Yeah,
yes you do Next one and
this was an interesting one to me.
I wasn't expecting this and
as I watched Tonight
baseball last night and he
got a hit and it was an
interesting hit that not
many people are getting
Marcelo Zuna's off to a hot start
And if it wasn't for the
fact he's in the National
League with Shohei and Mookie Betts,
he probably is up there in
the MVP conversation.
Right now, I'd probably have him third,
and if not fourth,
because you never know what
Freddie Freeman's going to
do going forward.
I mean, he's still hitting the ball, too.
But Ozuna is riding a
12-game hitting streak
entering tonight's game.
I don't know.
It's 3-0 at the top of the ninth right now,
so I don't know if he's
even playing or if he's
getting hit tonight.
But entering tonight's game,
he had a 12-game hitting streak.
He's 16 for 41 in that time
with a 390 average.
He has a double, four home runs, 10 RBIs,
five runs, five walks.
In this season,
he's hitting 323 with a 1.020 OPS.
He has 13 home runs, 42 RBIs,
and 25 runs scored.
Now,
if you had told me before the season
started that that was
Ronald Acuna's numbers, I would have said,
yeah, that sounds about right.
Marcelo Zuno, I did not see that coming.
And that makes me question, like,
did the Braves not see that coming,
and that's why they brought Duvall back?
And now he's doing this,
and so now they're kind of in a logjam?
Well, he's only 33 years.
I mean, I think a lot of people,
just myself included,
and I think we talked about
it early on when we were
talking about another
person that's been
suspended that we'll touch upon earlier,
is that he was suspended a while back.
Right.
And kind of came back in
that first year back.
He was really kind of, he has the talent.
He did it when he was with
the Cardinals and has done
it with the Braves,
but he had that down year.
So kind of, again, you've got Riley,
you've got a Kuna, you've got LVS,
you've got Matt Olson.
He's typically,
if you're looking at normal stats,
he's the fifth, maybe sixth guy, you know,
with, um, uh,
Sean Murphy also in that lineup.
Yep.
That one actually loaded
from top to bottom.
Oh, it's unreal.
Yeah.
I mean,
and they got hit with the injury bug.
You know, Strider's out.
I think he's – I believe
he's out for the year, right?
I believe so, yeah.
So, I mean,
they got hit with the injury
bug in their rotation.
But next man up mentality.
Reynaldo Lopez,
who saw the journeyman
coming in and doing what he's doing.
Chris Sale stayed healthy,
and he looks filthy.
I mean – Yeah.
So,
that's – he was the most – he's the
most interesting bat in
that lineup to me to the hot start.
Like, it's just – Acuna is not Acuna yet.
And –
Right now, I mean, granted,
going into today,
I don't know where they're at right now,
but going into today,
they were five games back.
I think they're actually
five and a half after this
afternoon's game.
So five and a half back of the Phillies,
which is,
if the Phillies keep playing
like they're playing,
they got a good series coming up,
but I'll get to that later.
So that's going to be interesting.
That division, like we said before,
it's just a two-team race.
You said it too.
It might be the Phillies
division this year,
and it's looking more like that, but
One come playoff time,
you can't count this Braves team out.
And you know they're getting it.
Yeah.
I mean,
there's no doubt in my mind they're
getting it.
I mean,
they're my pick to go to the World
Series.
Yeah.
So, my next one,
and this is a little bit
because I like them as one
of my National League teams.
The Marlins had a good week.
Yep, they did.
Going four and two and three
straight shutouts.
Of all teams, I didn't see that coming.
shut out the tigers twice
with two what two nothing
or one nothing and two
nothing one whatever I
might have those flipped I
almost sent you a message
this weekend when I was
watching those I was like
man that was tough I mean
that's part of what we said
was the tigers lineup is
struggling but then I
couldn't believe saturday's
game I had the I had it on
for a little bit because I
believe at that time it was
the only game on and I had
to shut it off because I
was like this game's over
I'm gonna go find something
else at that point I think
another game had started
And then all of a sudden
they scored four runs in
the ninth to force extras,
and then they walked it off
with Otto Lopez,
which where did he come from?
He had a great week.
I shouldn't say a great week,
but he had a good week.
He went six for 22 with a double home run,
five RBIs, two runs scored, and a walk.
The big one, though,
for the week was De La Cruz.
He loved facing the Tigers.
I mean, he had a game-winning run scored,
and he had the walk-off home run.
So he had a hell of a week.
He's loving Miami.
He loves facing the Tigers.
So keep him away from the AL Central.
Whatever we do,
do not let him join the AL Central,
especially if they start
selling off more pieces in
the next coming weeks.
Don't let him be one of them.
Yeah.
Going into that, though,
let's feed right into the
Tigers for a second.
Terrence Google.
Unreal.
Is he, you know, I think, I believe,
I know he was in my top three,
but he was my Cy Young pick, right?
Yeah.
He was yours too, right?
Or do you have somebody else?
Oh, God.
I went with one of the Mariners.
I think I had Gilbert or Kirby.
So I was interested by this,
and I was like, I know he's been good,
but where does he rank
right now across all of
baseball and the American League?
The 6-0 record is the best
in the American League,
only second to Ranger Suarez,
who's 8-0 for the Phillies.
He's got a 1-8-0 ERA after
his start on Friday against
the Diamondbacks,
which now puts him entering play today,
the sixth best ERA in
baseball and the second
best ERA in the American League.
He's got a 0.78 whip,
which is the second best in
baseball and the best in
the American League, and 66 strikeouts,
which is sixth in MLB,
fourth in the American League.
Now, I know, like I said last week,
record doesn't really matter.
I mean,
your team could be terrible and
your record's three and eight,
but you have an ERA of one
something and a whip of just under one.
How are you not in the conversation?
So he's the reason why the
Tigers are even still in this right now.
And, of course,
I feel bad for Gage wrote a
great article about Reese Olsen and
And how that guy gets no run support.
And it seems like they just
took all their run support
from Reese Olsen and just
gave it to Tarek Scouble at
the start because it was 13-0.
Which I can't wait for.
And I think right now, from what I've seen,
it lines up that next week
they have a two-game series
against the Pirates.
And from what I've seen,
it looks like those two
games are going to be Jared
Jones and Paul Skeens,
which we'll talk about in a little while.
But I believe that Skeens
game is going to be against Scooble.
That'll be a good one.
So that'll be,
if you like watching
pitching and watching a pitcher's duel,
that might be the game to watch.
The future, well,
I guess technically the future,
both future arms,
because Scooble is very young.
Yep.
So, but...
Another interesting pitcher
that I wanted to talk about,
and I don't know if you
watched his start this past weekend,
is Alec Manoa.
Yeah, I didn't watch it,
but I did watch the
condensed game afterwards.
Could he be back?
I mean, so he got called up,
and his first start was not good.
He came against the
Nationals going four innings.
He gave up seven runs,
six of which were earned on six hits,
four walks, and six strikeouts.
Since then...
He's gone 14 innings, given up three runs,
none earned, five hits, two walks,
and 13 strikeouts.
And those two games didn't
come against bad teams.
One was the Twins.
The other one was the Rays.
So he's an arm that – and
we'll talk about this in a
little while with the other
Blue Jays stuff that you want to cover.
If he can get back on track –
I think he's good for baseball and he not,
he reminds me of a player
that we'll talk about later on, but he,
uh, I liked watching him pitch last year.
I actually had him as my Cy Young pick.
And then obviously that didn't go right.
And he's just been a
rollercoaster ever since then.
And they didn't have a spot
for him in the rotation to start the air.
They didn't really want to
have him as a spot for him
to start the year.
Cause they planned on,
from what I've heard,
they were planning on my
top prospect in the Blue Jay system,
Ricky Tiedemann, uh,
being in the rotation, and he got hurt.
And so then they went to – I
think there was a
competition between Yariel Rodriguez,
who they signed from Mexico, Manoa,
and Bowden Francis, and Francis won.
And then all of a sudden
Rodriguez got a look.
He came up,
and it was kind of like he was
the starter, but he would go four innings,
and then they'd go to Francis.
And then both of those guys go down.
So what do you do?
You turn to the third option
you have in Manoa –
And aside from the first start,
he's looked good ever since.
I mean, so right now through three starts,
his numbers are 1-1 with a 3 ERA,
a 4-7-1 FIP, a 0.94 WIP, 19 strikeouts,
and 18 innings pitched.
Not bad.
No.
But something to watch for
sure over the next couple weeks.
I don't remember when he pitched Saturday.
No, he pitched yesterday.
Yeah.
Yesterday.
I think Brios is today.
So he pitches again against the Tigers,
I want to say,
on Friday because they have
a four-game set with the
Tigers this weekend.
So I believe he'll have Friday's game,
I think.
Let me think.
Barrios, one, two, three, four, five.
Yeah, Friday.
Yeah.
I'll get Friday's game.
So I'll be tuned in for that
because it'll be Barrios.
I think it's going to be
Casey Mize or Reese Olsen,
one of the two.
Yeah, yeah.
I think Mize is Friday night, I think.
I've got him on one of my fantasy teams,
and I believe I was looking at that.
I think it's a Friday night.
If not Friday, it's Saturday.
I'm trying to think right
now who's throwing today.
It's Olsen today, Mize tomorrow.
So that means Skubal Wednesday.
So Mize might be Sunday.
Yeah, I think Mize,
because I think they avoid Skubal.
The Blue Jays avoid Skubal.
Yeah.
So it's got to be, I think it's Flaherty,
Manning.
or I might have those two flipped, Olsen,
and then Mize.
So Mize is Sunday.
Yep.
Because I'm going to miss
Scooble next weekend.
Ah, that's right.
That's right.
So my last one from the weekend,
or it's really not even from the weekend.
It's from the whole first, what are we,
eight and a half weeks in the season now?
Seven and a half weeks?
Eight and a half weeks.
Yep.
Um,
I wrote an article a while back.
It was right after you wrote
yours about Ellie Dela Cruz.
And I wrote that he could do
something we've never seen before.
And at the time I was like, this really,
this really isn't going to happen.
Like, it's just, it's not, I can't see it.
Something's going to happen.
But the things he's doing right now,
it very well could.
And that is a 30 home run,
80 stolen base season.
The home runs is now the iffy part.
The stolen base, he really might get 80.
Yeah.
Right now, so I did the numbers today.
He's on pace for 103 stolen
bases this year.
Yeah.
And at that point,
I got to say he's got to reach 80.
I mean, he graded in his last five games.
He's only got four,
and they all came in one game.
Yeah.
But if you can go five games
and steal four bases and
four of them come and run one game,
I mean, I'll take that any day.
Yeah.
So I wrote that.
If you go back,
I think it's like the sixth
or seventh article down on the Reds tab.
If you want to go read that.
But I'm curious,
do you think he could
actually get 30 home runs,
80 stolen bases?
I did the article before
just in regards to the pace
he was setting at that point.
I think he was at like 100
stolen bases per.
Over 100 stolen bases at that point,
and he was over 30 home
runs on pace at that point.
He was right in the middle
of his hot streak when he
was starting to get heating up.
I think it was 45 and 110.
Yeah, 45 and 110.
I think that my hope, I should say,
for the Reds in general is
I would like to see 80
instead of 100 because if he's at 80,
that means more than likely
he's starting to –
hit the gaps a little bit
and drive the ball a little
bit more and get some
doubles rather than steal
second and then third.
Um, that that's,
he has been walking more was,
and I think for him, the other thing too,
is I'd like to see some
runners on in front of them, you know,
that would kind of,
I think that's another
reason why he's had this
free reign on the base pass,
not just because he's got
the ability and the speed,
But there's generally no one else on base.
So he's trying to do it all himself.
Spencer Steer is kind of
slumping off a little bit.
Jonathan India hasn't done anything.
But I really think my hope
would be is that 80-30.
You know, I mean,
obviously to see someone
steal over 100 bases would be amazing.
But my hope would be for the
Reds and for him that they
get some more runners on
base in front of him.
So instead of stealing, you know,
both bags.
to get on third base that he would be,
you know,
maybe a single drive guy to
third or whatever,
and then still second to
get in scoring position.
But, you know, 80,
I think is well in reach
given what he's doing right now.
Can we just get him stealing home?
I was thinking about that the other day.
I don't know who the hell I
was talking to now,
but it was someone talking
about stealing home.
And in regards to, you know,
what it takes and how rare it is.
And I'm like, well, Duran did it, you know,
and I think,
I think that it's going to be
interesting.
It would be really cool as
if it's in a game that matters,
you know what I mean?
And the school is close and
he pulls it off.
Cause I think that right now
I could see that with the
reds that are sputtering so
much offensively,
that being the spark plug he is,
especially depending on,
who's at bat and who's pitching,
I can see him trying to pull it off,
especially if there's a guy
on first base because they
just totally forget about it.
Yeah.
Mike,
one last one I just thought of that
popped in my head just
because it happened tonight
and I forgot to write it down.
And I'm just trying to
crunch the numbers right
now to see if it's possible.
And I don't think it is, but I'm curious.
I want to see if you think
it could happen.
Jaron Duran breaking the
triples record this season.
The record's 36.
Oh, Jesus.
36.
And what's he at, like 10?
Eight after tonight.
After tonight, eight.
We're a third of the way.
What's he tripled in like
three straight games now?
So here's another reason why
this is very much so like
De La Cruz and hitting the 100.
Not a lot of guys are
getting on base in Boston right now.
Yeah.
So in terms of him being
slowed up and having to
settle for a double, he's got the,
you know, once he gets those wheels going,
if he gets a little bit of a window,
he's taking it.
And that's pressure on the
outfield arms and the relay arms,
and he's taking advantage of it right now,
and he's hitting the ball really well,
and he's utilizing the
green monster really well as well.
Let's be serious, though.
Yesterday's,
do we really want to count
that as a triple?
I don't know if you – did you see it?
Yeah.
They literally said on the Roku,
which I want to talk about
that towards the end of the
episode and your thoughts on that.
But I thought it was funny
that they literally said
right after the play,
let's see how they score this.
And then it just came right away, triple.
Yeah.
which I get like it was the
sun played a factor so that
is a hit it's not an error
but no it triples that's
wow to get a trip on they
said it too in the
broadcast that might have
been the shortest triple in
baseball history yeah
without a throwing yeah I
mean it was it's definitely
if not the shortest it's a
tie for second there
shouldn't be any others
quite like that that was
he's electric he's electric
yeah watching him is so much
fun and like you know they
were talking about I
started somewhere today
they were talking about it
he changed from a power guy
to he's just a contact guy
now he's got the speed that
he can make it an inside
the park home run too yeah
he's driving the ball to
all fields right now he
pulled one I don't know if
it was this weekend or
whatever he hit a home run
to right and that I don't
know if it was lou merloni
or or if it was uke in the
box at the time talking uh
through the game.
That's good to see.
He's going to all fields.
He's utilizing everything.
During that game,
he might have been the best
move that wasn't made this
offseason by the Red Sox by keeping him.
He is electric.
If he can keep this pace,
I think he's either going
to beat the triples record
or come close and maybe have over 20,
but he's going to
Some of these triples are
going to end up turning
into more doubles.
Right.
And more home runs.
And he's just going to be well-rounded,
which is what this Boston
team needs in the future.
And he kind of recently,
and I hate to bring him up,
recently he's been kind of
reminding me more and more
of Jacoby Ellsbury.
Yes.
Using the wall and it just,
I kind of see it a little
bit more and more each time
and as he's developing.
So, which isn't a bad thing, obviously.
But, yeah, he's a fun guy to watch.
They have a big question on
their hands for 2025, that's for sure,
with Abreu, Rafaela, Duran,
Anthony all coming.
And that's with Ref Snyder
and you got Yoshida.
I think Yoshida's gone.
But, you know,
you create a logjam now
where what are you going to do?
I think Rafaela's your
center fielder once you
have a shortstop back.
I think you really have to
make the conversation of
Duran and Anthony,
and then that kind of puts
Abreu in a tough spot.
But I also debated this the other day,
and I'm curious your thoughts.
This is completely off topic.
This wasn't from my weekend,
but both being New England
fellas and being Red Sox fans.
What about the idea of he
played there the other day, too.
Rafaela goes to third.
You get rid of Yoshida, Devers DHs,
and then you could keep O'Neal, Abreu,
Duran, and Anthony,
and you have four outfielders,
and you could rotate,
and then Devers is your DH.
So I haven't seen enough of,
or Meyer third.
Well, that's what I was just going to say.
Like Raphael seems to have more,
he seems just to be a
little bit quicker and a
little bit more reaction time and speed.
Now his glove compared to Meyer,
I don't know, or mayor.
I think in that situation there,
if I was going to do
anything and I don't even know if,
Jesus, now I'm looking in deeper.
What if you moved Marcel Mayer to second,
Rafael at short, and Story to third?
Then you question the elbow
of Story that he's had, I think,
a surgery or two.
Two of them.
So I would actually move him
to move Rafael at either
short or third with Mayer, vice versa,
and then put Story at second.
but then you could trade
Grissom for something.
I like Grissom, but who knows?
He's looked like shit to start the year,
and he hasn't had spring training.
I get that.
He was sick.
He lost 14 pounds.
That throws off your timing.
It's weird.
It seems like they've gone
away from him because right
now we've got Gonzalez at second.
He hasn't looked bad.
He's a good utility guy.
Compared to what we have,
he's not horrible.
He's not bad at all.
The other thing that, you know, with Story,
he's probably another big
injury away from thinking about things.
Right.
I don't want to wish that on
anyone because I actually
love Trevor Story,
and it sucks that he had
that injury he had this
year because it was a hustle play,
you know what I mean, an effort play.
It wasn't like pulling up a lame,
running down.
Yeah, it is what it is.
And I really think that really –
him being in this lineup every day,
especially right now,
changes the outlook of them
offensively a little bit more.
Because you think about it,
they don't really have –
they have Tyler O'Neal, they have Devers,
and then that's really it for power.
They're trying to just stay
afloat until Costas comes back,
which good news on him.
He's coming back in June.
He's coming off the first day.
He's actually allowed to be
off the injured list.
Which is good.
They need that bat and
hopefully he can get back
to where he was going.
But yeah, no,
that's an interesting one because I mean,
I've been trying to I'm
blacked out from watching the Red Sox.
So I have to watch every
game on replay because of
the network I've got.
I don't have nothing yet.
I'm going to figure that one
out and getting that back.
But when watching it, it's kind of.
I already know what happened
to a certain degree,
so I'm not paying as close
attention as I should be on
every play to see the positioning,
to see how he gets to the ball,
just to see how he is using momentum,
picking up the ball.
Does he wait on it?
Is he relying on his arm?
There's all those little
things that when talking
about Rafael at short that
he's obviously an athlete.
He's not Mookie Betts,
but he's a great athlete.
to be jumping around like he has been.
And I think it does open up that door that,
and I agree with you, Yoshida,
as much as I liked him last year,
just for some reason,
it seems like he has fallen
right out of interest with that team.
And now that saying that,
I wonder if there's a team
in California that might want him.
I'm sure there's a bunch of
teams that might be interested.
I just don't think they want
to take the money.
No.
The only team that has the
money for is the Dodgers.
You know who I wonder would
like the money?
It's the guy that signed him,
sitting in St.
Louis,
who might be the future GM of that team.
They are a hot mess.
I think he would be a guy this year,
if they become sellers,
he would be the bat other
than perhaps O'Neal that would be
on the market.
And I don't even like the
idea of moving O'Neal.
Me neither.
It's a one-year deal, but still,
I think he's so far, he's, yeah,
I'd be for that.
But like I said,
that further is the log jam
where you might have to put
Raphael in the infield or
you're going to move one of
those guys in the outfield.
Yeah, I don't, it'll be interesting.
I think a lot will be told
over the rest of the season.
and to see what Breslow's trying to do.
It'll be very interesting to
see when people come back.
That's all I had.
All right.
No,
I think the only thing I was going to
mention when you were
talking about the Tigers
that's kind of surprised me
is Jack Flaherty is 8Ks per
game right now, 8Ks per start,
which is good.
I mean, I think that.
He's starting to turn the
corner a little bit,
and perhaps he could be one
to watch second half of the
season if he stays healthy
for the Tigers to kind of
round into form and kind of
get back to his old self.
He's definitely missing some bats.
He's allowed 50 hits, but, I mean,
he's someone to watch out
for because they've already got school,
like we've talked about, Reese Olsen,
Casey Mize.
They've got the pitching,
and once those bats
actually start to heat up,
I'll be very interested
because those win totals will change.
I think he's gone.
Really?
I think he's gone at the deadline.
I think he's on a one-year
deal and the way they're going right now.
And this is the one thing
I've said nonstop.
If you read any of my down on the farms,
even my roster moves,
I mentioned it quite a few times.
The Tigers are like one of
the teams in baseball that
are just loaded with arms.
Loaded.
Where...
Ty Madden, yeah,
he struggled at AAA right now.
And Jackson Jobe, at least on MLB,
mine hasn't been updated.
It will be, I think,
on tomorrow's Down the Farm,
I mentioned it will be
coming up in the next week or two,
where I'll have a brand-new
top 10 for them.
But Jackson Jobe on MLB has
jumped into the top 10 for
prospects in all of baseball.
And he's hurt right now,
but he's looked good this year,
and he's just up and coming.
You know, and there's a couple more,
like Cater Montero.
Wilmer Forrest is more in a
relief role right now.
Think about that.
That's a top 10 for them.
Those forearms I just named,
they might be a fifth one
that I'm completely blanking on,
but they got nothing but arms.
Oh, Sawyer Gibson Long's out for the year.
That's another arm that's
coming back next year.
The whole thing with Casey
Mize and Reese Olsen
getting the last two spots,
and Olsen's looking like he
could be an ace of the future,
just like Scoogle,
and he's just not getting
the run support right now.
But Matt Manning got forced out.
because they signed Flaherty and Maeda.
And I was thinking about it the other day,
and it's just this Tigers
team needs a bat.
So it was a move for Flaherty for a bat,
a possibility with somebody.
And that's something I might
end up writing about in the
next couple of days.
We'll see what happens in his next start,
which I think is coming up here soon.
It might actually be against
Toronto in the first game.
But Maeda's here in a two-year deal.
So if it was the other way around...
you probably can't get Maeda
traded for that.
Whereas Flaherty with what he's doing,
you could.
And it's a great bounce back year for him,
especially after he
struggled last year in St.
Louis and then got traded to Baltimore.
And even when he got to the Orioles,
the Orioles put him in a
relief role after a couple of starts.
So I think it's just,
it's something to me that
it seems like he's going to
be an arm that could be
talked about at the deadline to get moved,
whether the Tigers are in it or not.
It could be something that's
floated out there.
Now, if they're in it,
I say you hold them and keep
them and try to make a run,
but if somehow they stay
where they're at right now
and that Central is so crowded together,
it's something that could be entertained.
So this is off topic and
definitely wasn't planned for us,
but as we're talking and
we've mentioned their
bullpen and the back end
specifically being not
desirable situation for them.
Flaherty has given up
more hits than I would like,
but he's striking out
batters and he's missing
plenty of bats and he's had
injury issues in the past.
Could he be someone in the
future that could move to that ninth,
eighth inning role?
I don't hate the idea of him
being the closer because
that's one issue they've got.
Although Foley's looked
pretty good there and took
it away from Alex Lang.
And there was talk of Shelby Miller,
but he's got something going on.
Who knows what that's going to look like.
But it's not a bad idea.
Like I said,
the only issue is you've got Foley.
And if Lane can figure his stuff out,
he's electric too.
Or he can be.
Can be.
So it really, at the end of the day,
becomes what are you seeing
in the next month,
month and a half or so.
Like I said, really at the end of the day,
all this conversation
should be happening in the
middle of June.
Where are you at and what do
you see your team looking like?
Yeah.
And, and then again, it would start really,
it's to me,
it starts your observation of
your team is the middle of
June till the all-star break.
And then you have all that
time to figure out, okay, who do we,
who are we moving?
And then you can dangle them out there,
see what's available.
And that's when you start to
see the trades happen.
Cause I mean,
realistically the trade
deadline has been quiet the
last couple of years with, you know,
a little bit of moves here and there,
but everything happens
before the deadline.
Yeah.
Everyone's trying to jump
ahead and get as much value as they can,
which the Padres did right away.
Yep.
All right.
No, I think,
I think my notes are going to
be a little bit similar.
And I think obviously
there's a few things that
we both would have wanted to talk about.
So I've only got a few
that'll be that we can talk about,
but in the meantime,
let's take a break and discuss, you know,
like we have so many other times,
If you're a baseball fan, you're listening,
and you want to get involved,
you want to cover a team,
or you just want to be able
to dabble in and write,
whether it be roster moves
or about the minor league
team affiliates that you're
maybe close to,
or even just cover a couple
of teams and write
different articles and just
get your feet wet, go to the website,
insidethediamonds.com, backslash join us.
And reach out so CJ can give
you an idea of what we're looking for,
what the need is,
see if it might be a fit for you,
and just kind of connect
and enjoy writing about a
sport you love and perhaps
a team that you're close to
and pay attention to,
or even just topics that you like.
Maybe you're a minor league
guy and you live in a town
where there's a double-A
team or a triple-A team or even single-A.
and you want to just kind of connect,
write about it, go to the games a lot,
anything that you're
looking to share with the
baseball community, reach out to CJ.
He'll let you know what our gaps are,
what our format is,
and kind of hook you up and
see if it makes any sense
for us to start dabbling
into this as we continue to
grow the website.
So just go back to the website,
insidethediamonds.com, backslash join us,
and reach out.
Or even comment in the
YouTube or wherever you're
listening to this podcast.
You can also email me.
It's clovalleyinsidediners.com.
There you go.
Perfect.
So I think my first note is
something that you and I
have obviously been talking
back and forth about.
Paul Skeens,
who was the number two ranked
ITD prospect to start the year.
Paul Skeens came up, made his first start.
in Pittsburgh against the Cubs.
In that start,
he started the game off by
striking out Mike Tauchman off a foul tip,
and then he completely
owned Seiya Suzuki in his first start.
Started him with a breaking
ball on the outside,
then came in and finished him with a,
I want to say it was a
fastball right on the corner.
He painted the corner on the
second strike and third strike.
He basically reverse-pitched him,
where he threw his strikeout pitch first,
came inside.
I think it was maybe either
the split or whatever you
were calling it.
A splinker.
A splinker, and he hit the inside corner,
and then he just pasted
another one on the outside
corner fastball.
Totally had him guessing the hole at bat.
The first start,
he didn't get the decision.
He left the game after five
innings when they were up 6-0.
They went in to a rain delay, tied 6-6.
So it was no matter,
wasn't going to be in the decision.
The biggest thing I took
away from that game for him
was he didn't have the
control of his fastball.
And I was a little
interested to see what he
was going to do in game two.
Well, game two,
he came out and just kicked their ass.
Struck out the first seven
batters he faced in Wrigley on the road,
ended up with 11 strikeouts,
and then ended up winning the game.
He got his first win.
was perfect he was perfect
he was electric his I don't
know if you saw the
interview in regards to
when someone asked him what
he was going to do to make
like when the batters were
going to make adjustments
to him and he just goes I i
I don't even know good he
said good luck something
along those lines good luck
and just the confidence he has
I mean, he's been doing this in AAA.
He did it in his college career.
You know, the Pirates do need a bat.
I don't think they'll pinch hit with him,
but he can hit the ball too.
He did that in college.
He can hit too.
Yeah, he's an athlete.
So when looking at this,
Jared Jones pitched the game before,
and Jared Jones has been lights out too.
And I was just thinking right now,
Is there a better duo, young duo,
in the major leagues than these two,
currently, the way they're pitching?
No.
I mean,
I think the future is very bright
in Pittsburgh.
Yeah.
And I mentioned this last
week with somebody that I
really like watching pitch, Tanner Houck.
Yeah.
Where I mentioned his numbers,
and I said along the lines of, you know,
so far this year,
he has his best starts in
his first appearance against the team.
Now that changed against the
Rays where he had his worst
start against them and
looked better tonight, obviously.
So my question was with Skeens,
it's really tough your first two starts.
You're going against the same team.
So how do you, in your first two starts,
how do you adjust to a
lineup you just saw five days before?
And he came out and he adjusted.
The thing I didn't like was
his first start.
And I don't know if I said it to you.
I said it to somebody.
But I didn't like how, you know,
obviously in the minors, he went, what,
probably averaged three and
two thirds or four and a third.
He felt he never went fifth
at five innings.
But he got into trouble early on.
Maybe it was the second and
he had the bases loaded or
second and third or first and second,
whatever.
And they let him get out of it, which,
good.
That's the second inning of
his big league debut.
Let him figure it out.
In the fifth inning,
when they took him out, wasn't it?
It was one or two outs.
I didn't like the fact that,
I don't even think, was it bases loaded?
But I thought it wasn't bases loaded.
It might have been.
But they didn't let him finish it.
Let him finish it.
You had the lead.
It was 6-2 at the time.
He was at like 89 pitches, I think, too,
if I could be mistaken.
And the guy just threw 116
all last season pretty much
every start in college.
You know, let him finish it.
And, you know, worst case scenario,
it's 6-6,
which is what it ended up being
anyways after you took him out.
So let him finish it, see what happens.
Then you're in line.
Maybe he's in line for a win
in his first start.
That's what everybody wants
to see is everybody's tuning in for him.
I get you got to win a baseball game.
I understand that.
But, I mean,
let him try to see if he can
get out of it.
That's your future right there.
So you got to figure out if
he can get you out of jams
when you need him to.
Yeah.
It was very interesting.
Very interesting.
Because I agree.
He only pitched four innings
in that first start because
they pulled him when they
got two guys on.
And he was only sitting at 84 pitches,
54 of strikes.
But they were hitting .353
against him that game.
The Cubs were.
But then the second game, he throws 100.
And the average dipped down to 171.
He had a .90 whip in that game.
But he was electric that game.
And I think it was...
part of me was thinking in regards to,
was he, cause he, you know,
like you had mentioned in the minors,
he didn't pitch for shit in regards to,
they didn't want to waste him.
Right.
But was he,
did he have a chip on his
shoulder in game two?
Because he felt like they
didn't trust him to get out of that.
So he never put himself in that situation.
So these,
these two guys in the last 15 days, uh,
Skeens is 1-0 in two starts
with 10 innings pitch, six hits,
three earned runs,
only giving up one home run, you know,
three walks, one hit batter,
18 strikeouts with a 2.70
ERA and a .90 whip.
Jared Jones has started two
games going 1-1 with a 3.75 ERA,
12 innings.
Five earned runs, two home runs, two walks,
and 11 strikeouts with a 1.33 whip.
There's a guy, Mitch Keller,
who's in the middle of it all,
who got his new contract this year.
It's 3-0,
1.29 ERA over the last 15 days
and three starts,
one of which was a complete game.
He's thrown 21 innings, 15 hits,
three earned runs, one home run,
six free passes with two of
them being by means of hit-by-pitch.
and 15 strikeouts,
and he also has a .90 whip.
So as good as Jared Jones
and Paul Skeens have been, Mitch Keller,
the veteran of the group,
has done just as well.
And this Pittsburgh team,
if they can start giving
the run support to Jared Jones,
which he has lacked, this team –
Give them a bat here.
I really think they need a first baseman,
a right-handed bat or a
switch-hitting bat at first.
I'm not a rowdy-to-leaves guy,
but they have some guys.
They're scrappy,
and Jack Swinski hit one
out the other day,
so maybe he's starting to heat up.
But this team,
I like watching the Pirates play.
They're scrappy,
and I like their pitching staff.
You know who's also turning
on is O'Neal Cruz.
So...
If you didn't know baseball
and you just knew Cruz was
the last name and you
watched O'Neal Cruz run and
swing the bat and make
contact and Ellie Della Cruz hit, swing,
and run,
would you be able to tell the difference?
No.
I thought the same thing
watching Della Cruz last season.
I thought that's the same
player it reminded me of.
I'm happy to see him back
hitting the ball.
I mean,
he got off to a little bit of a
slow start.
I agree with you.
The Pirates are now in the bright future,
great future,
and they got a couple
prospects that I like coming up.
But all of a sudden, to me,
they become a team now that
they're still in the
nationally central race.
Skeens is up.
They got their big three right now.
Like you said, Keller, Jones, and Skeens.
When lineup starts hitting,
they're a team that could
be a lot of fun to watch as
the weather gets warmer.
Yep.
They are an interesting team to watch.
And I'm here for it.
I just love – I think I said
it in another podcast.
The Pirates having a good
team is good for baseball.
It makes that NL Central
that much more fun to watch.
And having the pitching that they have,
to me, they've had pitching before,
but it's only been one,
and the team's been horrible,
so they get moved.
I think you hold on to these three,
and if you're going to move someone,
move one of these one-year
deals to try to see if you
can get a bat and make a
run for this and see if you can't get in.
Get some playoff experience
with these young guys so
that as you keep getting
some of these prospects up,
You've got that experience
and you just build off it.
And I'm really impressed with Jared Jones,
obviously Paul Skeens,
and Mitch Keller is just
finally getting some run support.
And he's not the only guy anymore.
You know what I mean?
They don't need him to be the savior.
They've got these two other
arms that can just jump in
and shut another team's
down and face an ace and hold their own.
So the Pirates are going to
be fun to watch the rest of the way.
And I think we'll probably
be talking about
Paul Skeens, Jared Jones,
and the rest of this
Pirates team quite a bit as
we move forward.
The other one,
when I was looking over and
just kind of picking up in
the last 15 days,
actually even just even better than that,
the last seven days,
let's bring it down the last seven days.
The San Francisco Giants
called up Luis Matos to
play in the outfield.
He's played in five games.
In 22 at-bats, he has only two runs scored,
but he has nine hits,
three of which are doubles, one home run,
and 13 RBIs.
He's hitting .409 with a .409 OPB,
slugging .682 and an OPS of 1.091.
I know they've got
Yastrzemski playing right.
They still have Soler.
They have – oh, what's his name there?
And who's the other outfielder,
for crying out loud, that they had?
It was Lee.
He's done for the year.
Yeah, Lee's done for the year.
Conforto, Michael Conforto,
who's been hitting the ball well also.
But Matos coming up and playing and,
you know, whether he –
takes that job and fills the
role of Jung-ho Lee,
I'd be interested to watch this kid.
I was one of my best friends
as a Giants fan,
and I think it was Mother's Day, perhaps.
I was watching the Reds-Giants game,
and I just like watching
the San Francisco Giants play.
I'm not a fan of their team, perhaps.
And but I like watching what they do.
I like their bullpen.
They have depth pieces.
They may not have the
superstars like they did in
the early late 90s, early 2000s.
But I'll be watching this
kid and to see what he does
and see if he carries it on,
because right now he's got, you know,
the next highest RBI total
is from Ramos and he's got eight.
So he's been leading the way,
doubling up and he's
hitting the ball well.
So I'll be very interested
to see what he does.
this coming weekend so Luis
Matos is one to watch the
other guy um that has
gotten red hot for Boston
is Devers who had his sixth
home run in the sixth game
but he only has nine RBIs
and this kind of goes to
previously what we were
discussing in regards to
Duran and even Eli De La
Cruz they're just not
getting enough people on in
front of him so that these
home runs are devastating
They're devastating in a
manner where it's one,
maybe a two-run shot.
But you get two guys on,
he's hitting three-run bombs.
That changes the course of a
game real quick.
Endeavors is just one of
these guys that when he gets hot,
he's red hot.
It doesn't matter if it's a
left-hand pitcher or a
right-hand pitcher.
He's going to take it to left field.
He's going to hit it to dead center.
He's going to take it to deep right.
He uses that ballpark amazing.
That ball was crushed tonight.
Oppo.
Oh, yeah.
He's just an amazing hitter,
and he's one of the funnest
players to watch when he
gets red hot because he
loves the game too.
That's the other thing.
He loves playing the game.
He's got that big energy, and like I said,
with Travis Story not being there,
it stinks not being able to
see more guys get on base
ahead of him to see him do more damage.
It's the story of the whole
Red Sox season.
Tyler O'Neal, I mean, he put 11 home runs,
17 RBIs.
17 RBIs, like such an awkward number.
Which is too bad because
they do have the power.
It's just that it comes at
the times when they need the home run,
but they don't have anyone on there.
The question I have, though,
is so over the last two games,
yesterday and today,
they've scored – what was
yesterday's score?
11-3.
So they got 16 runs in the last two games.
Is the offense waking up?
And Cutter Crawford said it
last week – or two weeks ago.
He made a start,
and I think he actually got
shut out where –
He's been part of the culprit,
him and Houck, where they pitched well,
but the team just doesn't
score when they pitch.
And he even said it after
one of his starts, and it might have been,
I forget what start it was,
but I think they got shut out,
and he ended up giving up like two runs,
and they just lost.
But he said, the offense wasn't going,
and when we do, we're a good team.
And, you know,
it was fun to see the other night,
Durant scored, and they tied it at twos,
and then obviously in the
ninth or eighth inning,
things got away from them
after they tied it, but
Now the question becomes,
is this offense waking up
and are the Red Sox
potentially going to be a problem?
I mean,
I'm not going to get ahead of myself.
It's two games.
See what happens the rest of
the series against the Rays
and get the Brewers this weekend.
Again, now I might have just jinxed them.
Hey, you never know.
The Brewers are a team that
I think is beatable.
I think their pitching has been good.
but I'm trying to think if we miss Peralta,
I can't, I can't remember, but either way,
he's a guy that if you just
are patient and don't swing at the stuff,
his breaking ball that just
starts in the middle of the
zone and dips out.
If you can be patient with
him and get him out of there in the fifth,
sixth inning, you can have a chance.
And sometimes that slider
will stay up and O'Neill
will take advantage as will Devers.
So it'd be a very
interesting series to watch.
Um,
I hope to see Devers
continue his hot streak and
maybe perhaps this weekend
see a few more runners on
base when he does.
My next note,
and I've been kind of holding
back on this, but holy shit,
Shota Imanaga might be the
best pitcher in baseball right now.
He started nine games.
He's 5-0.
His ERA is
.84 in 53.2 innings.
He's only given up 40 hits.
Five earned runs.
Of those five earned runs,
three home runs in that mix.
He's walked nine batters in 53 innings.
And he's struck out 58.
His whip is .91.
Opponents are hitting 200 against him.
Again,
we've had a conversation in regards
to what happens in Chicago
when it starts to get muggy
and humid in the summer.
How's his ball going to play
there when he's trying to
beat the top of the zone?
But this guy,
I was trying to think about
it in regards to if I've
seen a pitcher coming from overseas,
have this much fun with it.
He has got a lot of personality.
He, in one of his press conferences,
said that he was changing
his ringtone to the crowd
of Wrigley because he likes it so much.
And seeing him in the dugout
when he's not pitching and
standing there with Seiya
Suzuki and right now, you know,
Javier Saad has pitched
really well for the Cubs as well,
filling in
filling in these gaps.
Justin Steele is by proxy their ace,
you know,
because of what he did last year.
Steele's only pitched in four games.
His ERA is 5.21 in 19 innings.
He's got 18 strikeouts, five walks,
a whip of 1.21.
I think showed us the ace of
this team and he's the
number three in the rotation right now,
but he's pitching like an ace and he,
He is of the two high-priced
Japanese pitchers coming
from overseas this year.
I think right now, yes,
Yamamoto showed signs,
but showed us looked great
from start one to start nine.
And he is so much fun to watch.
And if you haven't been able
to see him start a game, try to dial in.
Or if you've got MLB...
you know, watch a condensed game.
He has a lot of fun to watch
pitch and he's kind of
quirky on the mound.
He does some different
things with his motion and
the way he'll stare in at
the ump trying to get a call.
Not disrespectful, not showing him up,
but he'll just wait and
then he'll smile and turn around.
You know,
he knows he's having fun with the game.
And for me, that's just,
that's even that much more
reason to root for a guy like that.
He doesn't take it too serious.
He's out there for the fans.
He just loves it.
And I didn't really know
what they were going to do
this offseason.
There was rumors about Otani, this, that,
and the next thing.
There was rumors about Snell
and Montgomery.
And I didn't really know much about Shota.
And then I started paying
attention a little bit more,
watched him in spring training,
and how he was shocked that
they wanted him to pitch up in the zone.
and we talked about this
where the Japanese hitters
generally are more level swing.
They're not playing the
launch angle game and he is
eating it up right now for the Cubs.
And like I said,
if you haven't got a chance
to see him pitch,
I highly recommend it
because he's a good one.
And I think he is going to
be the ace of this team
with Justin Steele or not.
And even if Justin Steele
comes back and pitches the
way he did last year, um,
I still think Shota is right
now the guy for this team.
And the Cubs will go as far
as he can continue to go, I think,
in my opinion.
Like I said,
I want to see what happens
when the weather gets warm.
And I just looked it up.
I don't know if he's going
to pitch this series
because it's too far away
to even figure it out.
When they face the Phillies in July,
Fourth of July weekend,
if he pitches that series, to me,
that's the decision right there.
Because, I mean,
what they have coming forward –
Could he struggle?
Maybe.
But the lineups that I've seen,
what they're going to have coming up,
I'm not overly concerned with.
And, again, that could change.
But, I mean, that Philly series,
that's the best team in
baseball right now.
Yep.
Or at least the best team, I think,
in the National League.
Facing them,
if he gets one of those starts,
that's the test for me.
If he comes out of – I mean, granted,
that's, what, a month and a half away?
Yeah.
So things could change by then, but –
if he's doing what he's doing right now,
and we're talking it's 4th
of July weekend, he's pitching game two.
Let's see what happens.
And he comes out of there, lights out.
He's might be the best
pitcher in the national
league or up in the top five.
So that is a good segue.
You know,
I want to talk about a guy in Boston,
but I'll,
I'll go down and talk about
Aaron Nola first.
Aaron Nola kind of had a,
few down years where he wasn't horrible,
just wasn't the guy he was
from previous years.
Right now, in the last 15 days,
Aaron Nola's made three starts.
He's 2-1 with a 2.49 ERA,
one complete game shutout, 21.2 innings,
15 hits allowed, six earned runs,
two on home runs, only walked three,
but struck out 20.
Zach Wheeler,
who is the strikeout pitcher
on that roster, has 19 in three starts,
but only in 18.1 innings.
So with a whip of .83 and
opponents hitting 190 off him,
this is a guy that if can
continue this route and
continue to pitch the way
he's been pitching for the
Phillies with Zach Wheeler, Ranger Suarez,
pitching the way they have been,
They're an extremely deep team,
especially – Who saw him coming?
I mean, 8-0 and nine starts.
What was it?
It wasn't last year because
he was injured.
It was the year before where
he kind of came on second
half of the year and showed
signs that he – World Series year.
Yeah, the World Series year.
He doesn't throw overly hard,
but he misses bats.
He is a bulldog, I guess,
is another way he battles –
He's 2-0 in the last 15 days
without giving up an earned
run in two starts.
He's pitched 12 innings,
so he's going at least over five,
six innings a game,
which is what they need.
Seven hits, only two runs scored,
none earned.
One hit by pitch, four walks,
and 12 strikeouts,
and they're hitting... He's
got a 0.92 whip and a 1.63
average from the opponents.
This...
This pitching staff is deep,
but Aaron Nola being that
guy who slotted in after
Zach Wheeler and Zach
Wheeler being their big
money extension this
offseason is the guy that
they look for for the future.
But Aaron Nola pitching the
way he has been along with,
like you mentioned,
Ranger Suarez is a guy that
kind of gets overlooked
because of Ranger Suarez's
success so far this year.
Zach Wheeler signed the new
contract and pitching well
Aaron Nola, if he can keep this up,
that's a pretty good 1-2-3 right there.
That's your player rotation.
Yeah.
And even, I mean, shit, even Walker.
Yeah.
Warren Walker hasn't pitched horrible.
He's not lighting the world on fire,
but this Phillies team is deep.
Chris Sanchez is another one.
Yeah.
Chris Sanchez is another one.
Not pitching bad either.
Yeah, they're a deep team.
Yeah, yeah,
and they got a lot of stuff coming.
Yeah.
People don't talk about the
prospects they have coming,
Andrew Painter, Mick Abel,
and they even have bats, you know,
Justin Crawford, son of Kyle Crawford.
Yeah.
And Aiden Miller, future third baseman.
They're going to have some
issues coming up,
and those guys are already
what they're going to do.
Decisions, oh, yeah.
Decisions, decisions.
They're deep.
They're very deep,
and they got a lot of players coming.
So the other guy that I
mentioned from the Red Sox
is Nick Pavetta.
You and I talked briefly
before jumping on in
regards to being able to
keep him afterwards.
When he's healthy,
he's a strikeout machine.
You know,
he's pitched 15.2 innings in the last 15,
struck out 17, only one walk.
His ERA, though, is 4.6-0.
Eight earned runs,
six of those were home runs.
You know, he gave up six home runs.
Out of the 12 hits he gave up,
half were home runs,
which inflates his ERA, obviously.
But with a whip of .83,
if he can eliminate, you know,
half those home runs,
his ERA most likely will
drop down somewhere in the three range,
if not lower, depending on the results.
how much of that do we
equate to him coming back
and getting accustomed again?
Because if you think about it,
his first two starts before
the injured list,
and he was the culprit of a one,
nothing win and a one, nothing loss.
Yep.
So I don't have it in front of me.
Did he give up a home run to
the Cardinals?
I think he gave up one.
I think it was that bomb.
Yeah.
I'm pulling up his game logs right now.
So as you mentioned before the,
before the injury,
On March 29th, he pitched against Seattle,
gave up one earned run,
pitched six innings, three hits,
struck out 10.
Then he faced Oakland, got the win,
gave up no runs, one walk,
only three strikeouts.
And then he came back.
He missed the rest of April
after the April 3rd start.
In May, he faced Atlanta,
gave up five earned runs,
three home runs right there.
and only struck out one.
The next two starts,
one against Tampa Bay and one against St.
Louis.
He won the game against St.
Louis.
Wasn't factored into the
decision against Tampa.
In the Tampa game, he pitched 5.2 innings,
struck out eight, no walks,
but he did give up two home runs.
St.
Louis, he gave up one home run.
It was a solo shot,
but he did strike out eight.
And
He only pitched 81 pitches against Tampa,
61 for strikes, and against St.
Louis,
only 72 pitches in those six innings.
He was very efficient, 51 for strikes.
That one.
Yeah.
He should have gone further in that game.
Yeah, I agree.
So they're obviously easing him back,
but he's a guy when he's on,
and I do agree that's a
tough start coming off the injured list.
to face Atlanta and that lineup,
obviously giving up five
home runs is not ideal, but you know,
he's obviously, he wasn't,
he's given up a total of
nine home runs in five starts.
So, and I,
I would like to think that would
improve over the year, but you know,
striking out 16 in his last
two and only 11.2 innings.
He's, he's a guy for me.
Hopefully they,
get situated and into this race.
So he's not an arm that gets moved.
Um, but he, he's a guy for me.
I just like watch pitching and I hope he,
he's another one to root for.
Cause he battles this year.
He looks a lot better this year.
And you can say the name.
Why does he look better this year?
Andrew Bailey.
Now CJ's right.
Andrew Bailey is the second coming of,
you know, the next best thing.
Matos is the giants.
I like,
But their pitching is not as
good this year.
Why is that?
It's not.
It's Andrew Bailey,
which is the Andrew Bailey effect.
You were the guy that brought it up.
We talked about before we hopped on.
I just got this breaking news on my phone,
so I figured we're talking about Pavetta.
We might as well bring it up.
We talked about,
I think I said to you right
before we hopped on,
that Pavetta could be a guy
that enjoyed the last year
of him out and he's coming back.
Yeah.
I think you have to bring them back now,
even with G Alito being back next year.
Uh, breaking news,
Garrett Whitlock has a
ligament damage in his
elbow and surgery is a real possibility.
So yeah, for those of you that don't know,
if you're not a Red Sox fan,
he actually was pitching
well as a starter this year,
went down with an oblique injury,
made a rehab,
a startment rehab start in Portland.
I believe it might've been Worcester.
It was either Portland or Worcester.
Um,
didn't pitch bad.
I think he went five and two
thirds or at least five.
And all of a sudden he was getting set.
They were going to go to a
six man rotation with the
way Cooper Criswell has
been pitching to just, you know,
give how could Crawford,
especially more time to
rest and get them situated.
So we don't deal with an injury with them,
but he ended up not being
able to make that start.
It was bail on Sunday
against the Cardinals and,
And Whitlock was flown back
to Boston for further
evaluation of his elbow,
and the news has come out
today that there is a
possibility of surgery.
So with that being said,
I liked him pitching as a starter.
I think it's time we end
that conversation.
And we've had this
conversation before the
season started that Ken Lee
is likely to get moved to the deadline.
It's clearly obvious he
doesn't really want to be here.
Disengaged big time.
Chris Martin is getting up
there in age where he's been good.
He's had his hiccups,
but he might be an arm that
is here for the rest of this year.
I forget how long his contract is.
We could talk about the
potential of a Slayton
Whitlock back into the bullpen,
and we also have Liam
Hendricks coming back in August.
Yeah,
I'm very interested to see him come back.
That creates a potential for
a three-headed monster at
the back end of that bullpen,
even if you keep Martin this year.
It gives you four solid arms.
If you can make the playoffs,
that's good arms in the future.
Obviously, I think Whitlock,
it sounds like,
is going to be done for the year.
I'm sure based on what they
did with Yoshida,
I'm sure there's a second opinion coming.
I'm sure they're going to
look more into this.
But he had an elbow injury last year,
and that's all coming from
him as a starter.
So I think it's time we got
to stop with the starter conversation,
have him be a reliever.
And let's go into next year
with a rotation of,
if you want to go find a guy, fine.
But let's plan for the
rotation next year of Bayo, Pavetta, Howe,
Crawford, and Giolito.
And I'm okay with that.
From what I've seen from Andrew Bailey,
and I've hyped up Andrew Bailey to no end,
what I've seen from him,
I'm okay with that rotation.
Yeah,
especially the way Criswell's pitched.
You can always, you know,
if Giolito is a guy that,
doesn't pan out and doesn't
come back and doesn't show
any promise um you've still
got him in the mix there's
a name in double a that
I'll actually like he's
been hot I think he was
actually just named uh
eastern league player of
the week zach penrod yeah
I'd like to see him move up
to triple a hopefully soon
and maybe he could be
somebody next year you're
talking as a such a long
reliever maybe even a
starter if something goes
wrong um but it's an arm to watch
I also talked about it on down the farm.
I've talked about it for a
couple of weeks now.
I think he had a bad start last week.
I like Luis Perales.
It's another name to watch,
but he's down in high a Greenville.
So you're talking probably
two more years before you
really see him start to
make a name and see what he can do.
Cause obviously, like I said,
for time Madden earlier,
he's struggling to triple a
just Jack lighter's.
Another example of he
struggled since he got
called up and he was a big
name prospect after he got drafted.
So yeah,
Because these guys that look
fantastic and they're down
to lower levels,
they get called up to a
couple of higher levels and
they don't look great.
But there's arms.
And clearly, like I've said,
Andrew Bailey seems to know
what he's doing.
So let's trust him.
But it's tough news for Whitlock.
Yeah.
We don't like that.
That's too bad.
Too bad.
Sorry to interrupt you.
I just had that brief.
No, no, no.
That's impact news.
And it played well with the Pivetta.
The last player that kind of
caught my eye is a pitcher
from the Angels, Jose Siriano.
Last 15 days, three starts, 1-0,
2.55 ERA in 17 innings.
He's given up five earned runs,
one home run, walked seven,
struck out 17 with a whip of 1.13.
Opponents are hitting 200
against him on a team that
really has not a lot going for him.
And that was something I
actually snuck up on that
when I was doing an article in regards to,
I was actually looking up
Taylor Ward's information.
I looked at their pitching
to see if there was
anything there for the Reds,
for the bullpen,
and it just stuck out to me.
So I want to shout out to him,
someone that I'm going to
just pay attention to
because I don't know a lot about him.
So I want to watch his next
start and see how that goes
for him because he's the
lone bright spot right now for that,
other than Tyler Anderson
and Sandoval who have been so-so.
But Soriano is a guy that
I'm interested in watching
to see what he can't become
for the Angels in a team
that's pretty much destined
for last place at this
point right now or in a
battle with the Oakland
Athletics or Sacramento Athletics,
whatever one you want to talk about.
The last thing that really
in terms of notes for me
was I caught John Heyman
breaking down kind of some
trades and some different ideas.
And he brought up the
blowing up of the Toronto
Blue Jays roster.
And this for me is kind of
more of a discussion with
you to see your thoughts on it.
And we did touch upon it
before we jumped on.
Again,
I did an article for the Reds and
how they could kickstart
their offense and
And I did include Vladimir Guerrero Jr.,
who might be a guy that
needs a change of scenery.
Now,
I don't think they blow it up completely.
Me personally,
I could see a piece or two
move to try to just
kickstart some things.
They have some pitching
starting to improve,
but it's the offense that
has been a little lacking.
So I want to get your
thoughts in regards to the news,
John Heyman, or the idea of
John Heyman brought up about
blowing up this Blue Jays roster.
So,
and I mentioned it when I talked a
little bit earlier about their pitching,
Ricky Tiedemann and Alec Manoa,
which I think opens the
door that you could see
Manoa as an arm that gets moved.
Yeah.
Gosman or Barrios.
Justin Turner's another one.
I've heard rumors of him to
many different places.
But realistically, I think that team,
you know,
they had the big three come up with
biggio guerrero and bichette
yeah things didn't pan out
and now the conversation
became what do you do going
forward and it's tough
because I like I mentioned
it with you I mentioned it
I think last week or
whatever but I like arovis
martinez I think he's a
good piece to come up and
could play that middle
infield and I think biggio
is a guy that you could see
get moved because he can
play any position you need
him to um except for pretty
much catcher in first base
But, yeah, this team,
they're in a series right
now where I think they won
today that if they can find
a way to sweep,
the conversation could change.
But they went out and got
Springer from the Astros.
They signed him,
and he hasn't looked right
since he got there.
He just looks old, and I get it.
And the reason why he left Houston was –
You know,
the whole cheating scandal in 2017,
he wanted to create a new
name for himself, same as Correa,
and show that it wasn't the
cheating that made them the
player they are.
Yep.
And in a way, I feel like maybe it is age,
but at the same time,
maybe it was the cheating
that made Springer the player he was.
He has moments.
Oh, no, he absolutely does.
It's just he just hasn't
looked like he did in Houston.
I mean, he was clutch that whole 2017 run,
and that makes you wonder.
He was healthy.
Right.
And they also, you got to remember,
they let Kiermaier walk.
You know, Kiermaier's not a bad... Oh, no,
sorry.
They got Kiermaier.
Yeah.
And, you know,
Kiermaier's not a bad...
He's a great glove, but... Yeah.
They make interesting signings.
Like... Strange signings.
IKF didn't make sense.
Justin Turner made sense.
They needed a bat to play
the corner infield.
I don't know why they didn't
bring back Matt Chapman, but...
Yeah.
Bring Turner in made sense.
He produced last year.
And so adding that to your lineup,
it makes sense.
He's the only one, though,
right now that really seems
– Vlade's gotten hot.
I mean, Vlade leads the team in RBIs,
and I believe he has one of
the best batting averages on the team.
He only has four home runs.
That's the sneaky thing to me.
Dalton Varsha leads the team in home runs.
Yeah.
But their pitching hasn't been bad.
I mean, think about it.
Jose Barrios, I just saw it tonight.
He got the start.
And he leads the league in quality starts.
Yep.
So, but is that an arm you want to trade?
Or is that an arm that you
build as an ace and you bring up to him?
Well, that's what they wanted him to be,
and he hasn't been until this year.
Right.
So I don't think,
I don't know if you move him now.
I think that goes back to
the Gausman hasn't looked the same.
No.
He was, I mean, granted,
I wanted the Red Sox to
sign him so bad when he was a free agent.
Yep.
But now he doesn't look right.
Manoa coming back to form.
However,
I do want to see Manoa face the Yankees,
and I want to see that
Verdugo rivalry just steam right up.
I don't know.
They could get hot.
They're a team with Bichette
and Vlade and Springer.
If two of those three warm
up at the same time, it's different.
I mean,
you talked about Barrios in having
the most quality starts.
What if he gets run support?
Now what are we talking about for him?
He did tonight.
Yeah, tonight he did.
Eight or nine runs tonight.
Yeah.
So I said – and that's the
team I said the other day.
I don't know if I said it last week,
but I said I gave four
teams that I was completely wrong about.
That's the team so far at
this point that I was
completely wrong about.
I had them finishing second.
I mean – That's still not far-fetched,
though.
Again,
if they don't make moves or if they
do make some minor moves –
they they can still get hot
and they do have some
pieces like you mentioned
down the minors that could
could potentially
contribute um so that was
an interesting one I think
it's too early to tell
right now I do think that
there if it continued down
this path and the way the
season's going I think
there will be some pieces
moved which ones all
depends I hate to put it on
one guy and one guy only
But – and I mentioned him before.
I actually mentioned him
when I did my thoughts.
If Alec Manoa really is back,
could that save their season?
Because before the injury,
Ariel Rodriguez looked good too.
So you keep him, he comes back healthy,
and you have him, Manoa –
Barrios, Bassett, Kikuchi.
Kikuchi even looks good.
And Gausman, that's six guys.
That gives you a chance to
potentially look into
moving somebody because
they want Tiedemann up soon.
And he comes back.
I believe the only place I
saw was maybe Juni comes back.
So that gives you the chance
to move somebody early and
get a sell high.
So if Manoa is good,
pitching at what he is, is he the guy?
I mean, really, his whole thing,
he could be the one that
saves their season,
whether it's he pitches
like he is and he brings them right back,
or he pitches like he is
and he's the arm they move
to bring in a piece that
makes them better and gets them there.
Because he's young enough to
still have an impact and draw.
Right.
So that's why I say,
do you put the Blue Jays
season on one player like that?
Because the lineup's there,
and you know Vladdy can get going.
You know Bichette can get going.
Bichette was mentioned at
the offseason about being
traded to the Dodgers.
I heard the Cubs at one point.
Yeah, which made zero sense to me.
There is that possibility.
Uh-oh.
That's not Taylor Ward, is it?
No.
It says Taylor Ward on my screen,
but there's an Angels
player down at second base,
and it doesn't look like Taylor Ward.
Oh, Jesus.
I just mentioned him in a
trade potentially to the Reds to, again,
another guy.
It's not Taylor Ward.
He's up right now.
Okay.
Who is that?
Rengifo?
Oh, Luis Rengifo?
Yeah.
So before we take our next
little break and get into
matchups and prospects,
I want a yes or no.
Will Trevor Bauer pitch this
year in the major leagues?
No.
I think the longer it goes,
the longer that is the correct answer.
He was bragging today.
I saw a tweet from him about how he was,
striking out and defeating
the um the home run
champion voight like geez
big deal you can strike out
lucas boy the best two
tweets I've seen from him
as of late I just I had one
in my head I just lost it
so maybe I'll go with the
one tweet he is the only
pitcher in the history of
baseball to be an all-star
in the mlb the japanese
league and the mexican league
There's no doubt the talent's there,
but there's something that
the rest of the GMs and owners know,
have been told.
Hire up.
You really think so?
Hire up.
I don't know if you saw that tweet.
You replied to somebody's tweet.
Yeah.
And he said something about
how the GMs want him,
the coaches want him,
the players want him.
Everybody wants him.
Yes.
Hire up.
That's the one we were talking about.
So what do they know?
He hasn't been charged with anything.
I think it's the sponsors to
Manfred saying we don't
want the backlash of bringing him back.
That's my personal opinion.
I think it's the sponsors
coming and saying we don't
want to deal with this.
Or it's Manfred.
It could be that too.
It could be Manfred saying I
don't want to deal with this.
I mean, let's be serious.
The guy... Nobody will ever
forget Terry Francona
coming out trying to take
the ball from him in Cleveland,
and he turned around.
It was not in Cleveland.
He was playing for Cleveland.
They were at Coffman Stadium
in Kansas City.
He turned around and threw
the ball over the center field wall.
I mean, the guy is an asshole.
But is he fun to watch?
Absolutely.
Is he a good pitcher?
Absolutely.
Could he still be a top
pitcher in the game of
Major League Baseball?
Absolutely.
But...
what happened has punished him.
And I, you know,
I've seen so many tweets
with people coming out and saying, well,
something happened.
Nobody's talking about it
and stuff like that,
which I'm not going to get into that.
Cause it's all, he said, she said,
and nobody knows the truth.
And, you know,
all we can say is we know
the truth of what happened
on the other stuff.
And the girl that he claimed she's going,
she comes back all the time
with him and his, um,
agent they it's just they go
back and forth on twitter
all the time and who knows
not a good look so that I
mean not a good look
because when we were
talking about someone
earlier who's been
suspended but you didn't
hear a peep from him when
he was suspended he was
convicted you know was
charged with what he did
and but he would there was
nothing said he served his
time came back all the
classes he needed to go to
yep and he did what he had
to do and came back and it's just
But I think that's part of
the problem is I think
Bauer has been blackballed,
and that's why you hear so much from him.
He doesn't shut his mouth either, though.
It's weird the girl has said a lot more.
She still keeps going.
That's where I have some issues.
Like I said, it's all he said.
She said,
we'll never know the whole story.
Baseball might know,
and that's part of the reason.
I don't know.
But it's an interesting
situation because I would
love to see him in any team.
I mean, there's so many teams –
I thought the tweet that I
found was interesting.
It said,
I'm better than any of the top
three on any team.
And I went through and I was like, well,
you're not better than the
whole Mariners starting rotation.
Right now,
I would take four guys on
Baltimore that you're not better than.
And the Red Sox had the best
ERA at the time, starting-wise.
I wouldn't take you over the
four that I expect.
I would still gladly take
them as a Red Sox.
Don't take that any different way.
But, you know, you just,
that's the thing he said.
And I just went through and I'm like, ah,
it's not true.
Well,
look at the competition he's facing
right now too.
Right.
That's, that was the other thing.
So, so that was just something that,
you know,
you and I touched upon briefly and,
you know,
I agree that I thought that
maybe after April,
maybe it was some of the
injuries that we saw that
maybe someone would reach out.
But if no one has now.
Yeah.
I'm a little surprised on that one,
but that's where we're at, I think,
is it's just... It could
get interesting to see what happens,
because if someone gets desperate enough,
come late July, early August,
because he's a free agent.
You know what I mean?
He can be signed at any point in time.
And he costs nothing.
A league minimum with incentives.
What do you have to lose?
That's where I scratch my head.
That's what tells me it's higher up.
You're right.
It's owners,
but who's saying it to the owners?
Who's telling them?
What's the fine?
What's going to happen if you do this?
Before we get into the key
matchups and the prospects,
I want to just touch again
on anyone that's listening,
anyone that reads the
articles on the site, visits the site,
fan on any social.
If you're interested in joining us,
and kind of teaming up and
writing about baseball,
whether it be the major leagues,
minor leagues,
or even any specific topics,
go to the website,
inside the diamonds.com backslash,
join us backslash and reach out.
Or you can email CJ at,
at cjlavalley at
insidethediamonds.com and reach out,
let us know what you're
thinking or what your questions are.
And we can get you any of
the details you're looking
at to see if this might be
a good fit for you.
We have plenty of teams that
are still looking for some
coverage and we have some
topics that need to be
covered and any kind of
support would be good for
growing the website and
growing awareness that what
we're trying to do here at
Inside the Diamonds.
So if you're interested,
Go to the website, insidethediamonds.com,
backslash join us,
and let us know what you're
thinking or any of the
questions you may have.
And if you listen to the podcast,
you can just write into
where you're listening, any questions,
and we can get you the
answers you need so that
you can join part of our team,
hopefully here at Inside the Diamonds.
We've got a good group of
writers and some editors.
So if you're interested,
reach out so that we can
get you some details so you
can see how you can come and join us.
All right, CJ,
what matchups are you looking for?
I actually kept it light
this week because I wasn't
really impressed with this week's slate.
The first one I want to talk about,
which isn't looking good right now,
is I want to talk about the
Tigers and the Royals.
I thought this was the
series for the test for the Tigers,
where if you can beat the
Royals in three games,
then you're back in the race.
Yep.
eight three royals right now
and granted they're gonna
have school won the finale
so I think that looks good
for them if they can steal
one of the other ones I
think we're looking okay
but right now eight three
yeah the one thing I did
find when I was doing the
preview for the series was
salvador perez leads all
the offensive categories
for the royals he just doesn't quit he
It's wild.
And I think Bobby Witt's the real deal,
too.
Like, this team could be a problem.
Yep.
Lugo.
Lugo has been unreal.
Lugo's a problem.
But Welko looked good tonight, too.
Yeah.
Although, it was interesting.
I don't know what's going on with him.
He was doing some weird
stretches in the dugout in
between innings,
like holding his hand up
his arm and stretching his
elbow and his shoulder.
So, I don't know.
I mean, granted,
I could be overlooking that
as a Tigers fan,
thinking something's going on there, but
He looked good, though.
Another one,
and the only one I have for
this week before I get to the weekend,
is Rangers-Phillies.
Yep.
Where I like the fact you're
going to see Wheeler and
you're going to see Ranger Suarez.
I believe Ranger Suarez has
the first game.
Wheeler has the finale.
Or maybe it's Chris Sanchez
I have in the first game.
But you're going to see
Wheeler in the series, that's for sure.
Yep.
And I said it last week.
I know you weren't here.
I don't know if you had a
chance to listen to it.
But I mentioned the Rangers
are an exciting team.
They're right there in the
race for the AL West.
And they're going to get
DeGrom and Scherzer back.
So going up against the
Phillies team without those two guys,
not great.
But if they can find a way
to take two out of three
from the Phillies, that's a good look.
But the Phillies are a lot
of fun to watch right now.
So if you've got anything
you want to watch,
like if there's a team you want to watch,
the Phillies are must-see
baseball right now.
This weekend, not thrilled by the slate.
I was going to say Red Sox
Brewers was one of them,
but the Red Sox had looked
bad against the Cardinals,
so I wasn't thrilled about it.
They've looked good over the last two.
So that's a test.
I will mention it because
I'm interested to see can the Red Sox –
go against a team that's
leading a division and come out hot,
whereas they came out cold
against the Cardinals team
that's in last place in their division.
The other one is the
Cardinals and the Cubs
because it's rivalry weekend.
As bad as the Cardinals are
and as good as the Cubs have been,
it just seems like whenever
there's a rivalry,
the bad team always gets
pumped up for their chance.
So,
and the Cardinals are up 5-3 on the
Orioles right now.
So I'm going to even more
back that up because the
Cardinals could be turning
the ship around right here,
taking two or three from the Red Sox.
And now all of a sudden
you're up 5-3 on the Orioles.
And they have pitching.
Yep.
So, I mean, Sonny Gray,
is it Sonny Gray tonight?
So Sonny Gray is going to
pitch this weekend against the Cubs.
Yep.
Probably Sunday night
baseball if it is him tonight.
No, that'll be an interesting series.
It's not one for me on the weekend.
I have two for this week.
One is Toronto going against
the White Sox.
If they sweep that series,
as Tampa Bay and the Red
Sox continue to kind of slip, slide,
and are wishy-washy in
regards to what's going on with them,
Toronto can start to climb.
And then...
Again, this weekend,
Toronto takes on Detroit.
And if the Blue Jays
pitching can stay strong
and the Blue Jays bats come alive,
that's a series if they win
that and they sweep the White Sox,
we could be watching
Toronto get hot right in
front of us this weekend to
ride into June.
So that's the break.
Then no school this weekend.
So that's correct.
So that's an interesting one for me.
The other one, uh, during the week is,
and I'm not going to
mention the Cubs Braves cause that's,
that's something that to me
is interesting and it'll
prove their worth.
But,
because they've got a tough
weekend with the three games with Atlanta,
which they lost that series most recently,
and then the Cardinals
being a home division.
That's just a division rival.
That's going to be a tough one.
But the other game for me,
or the other team for this week,
I should say, it's this week period,
is the Cincinnati Reds.
They host the San Diego Padres,
and then the Dodgers come to town.
So they have seven.
They play seven games.
No, they play six games this weekend.
There's seven.
They play tonight?
No, I don't think so.
So they play Tuesday, Wednesday,
Thursday against the Padres.
And then they face the Dodgers.
They're two and five in their last seven.
Taking one of
Four against the Dodgers and
only one of three against
the Diamondbacks.
If the Reds can't win one of
these two series,
they're already in last
place in the NL Central,
and they're eight and a half games back.
They could fall to 10, 11 games back.
Now,
the Mariners or the Marlins did beat
the Brewers tonight.
Yep.
That helps.
But those two series for the
Reds are big in terms of
they were a team that
everyone had high hopes for.
Yes, they're dealing with injuries,
but that to me is a very
crucial series this week
against the Padres and then
again against the Dodgers.
The other series this
weekend that I'm interested
in is the Red Sox Brewers.
They miss Peralta, and I think at home,
if the Red Sox can beat up
on Tampa Bay during the
week and can win the series
against the Brewers,
they keep that hope alive
while they're waiting for
Casas to come back.
They're waiting for, you know,
Grisham to kind of get his
feet under and get back into his body.
You know,
losing 14 pounds in a hurry due
to an illness, you know,
takes a toll on your body.
So that'll be a very
interesting series for me.
Um, and other than that was,
those were my only two, um,
except watching out for Kansas city.
Cause they do have Tampa Bay this weekend.
So if they can stay hot this
week and then get Tampa Bay
and can win that series, uh,
the guardians are going to
have someone knocking on
their door really quick.
What's with the reds get 19
games against the NL West right here.
Their, their schedule sucked.
They're just getting beat up, but I mean,
I get it, but Whoa.
Diamondbacks for three
Giants with three down
backs three Dodgers for
Padres three Dodgers three
and then back to the NL
Central It's a trial No,
I'm mixing the Rockies
there and get a little
momentum at least Here's the four teams.
They're gonna fight for that.
Well Three of the four teams
are gonna fight for the
wild card in the National
League Enjoy Yeah,
it's it's gonna be rough
It's going to be extremely rough.
The Reds have to find a way
to get their bats going
because their pitching
hasn't been horrible.
Their bats have been so inconsistent.
We talked about it earlier
with Eli De La Cruz.
Steer's not been horrible.
He just was hotter earlier
in the year and has kind of
cooled off and come back down to earth,
but there's no one else to
support them right now.
They've got TJ Friedel out.
the aisle again this time
with a fractured thumb Matt
McClain I'm not sure if we
see him until maybe after
August if if then and
Candelario has done nothing
CES is on I believe the IL
he hasn't done much will
Benson has not done
anything at all Jake Fraley
is a fourth outfielder at best.
And the same with Stuart Fairchild,
that they're not bad defensively,
but they're certainly not
doing anything at bat.
And Jonathan Indy has been
so inconsistent.
It's really tough to watch right now.
And the Reds do have the talent.
They just aren't all there
together and they're not firing.
So if they have a rough week this week,
it's going to be a big hole
to climb out of with the
way the Brewers and Cubs
have been playing.
And even the Pirates, as we mentioned.
So,
It'll be interesting.
So with those matchups,
it leads us right into your
top prospects for the week.
So the first one I'm going to go,
I actually did this week the right way.
Okay.
Last week I did two hitters
and I think what a couple
weeks ago I did two
pitchers and this year I
actually have a hitter and a pitcher.
The first one is now before
I get into this, I want to say,
That I'm working on.
I know I promised it.
It's not up yet.
But right now we still have
March for the top 100 prospects.
I'm hoping to have a new one up.
I guess at this point I
might as well say for June.
So we're going with the same rankings.
I have a spreadsheet that
has a new top 100.
Don't worry.
So when the time comes that
will be updated.
But for right now he's
ranked 25th in my top 100.
Shortstop.
In the Tampa Bay Rays system,
he's playing double-A Montgomery,
Carson Williams.
This past week,
he went 8-for-18 for a .444 average,
three doubles, a triple, three home runs,
six RBIs, nine runs scored, five walks,
and a stolen base.
On the season,
he's hitting .346 with a 1.057 OPS,
seven home runs, 20 RBIs, 34 runs scored,
and 10 stolen bases.
The pitching prospect is my
82nd-ranked prospect.
This guy has made his way to
a couple of different
systems in the offseason.
Right now,
he is currently pitching in AA
with the Birmingham Barons
for the Chicago White Sox.
It's Drew Thorpe.
And if you don't get the reference,
he was traded from the
Yankees to the Padres for Juan Soto.
The Padres then flipped him
to the Chicago White Sox in
the Dillon Seas trade.
This past week, he made one start.
He got the win,
went five and two-thirds innings,
gave up two hits, didn't allow a run,
walked two and struck out seven.
The interesting stat line is
his season so far.
In eight starts,
he's six and one with a 5.0 ERA,
a 0.93 whip.
He has 40 strikeouts and 42 innings.
Now,
I would like to see a call to AAA
coming soon for him.
Yep.
So that is my prospects for the weekend.
So I want to throw a twist
in for next week to be thinking about.
I want you to think about
someone that's in the top
100 that's performed so
poorly that could drop out.
Okay.
Just to be interesting.
Just one, one or two, whatever.
I can ask you for one.
I know we're going to get three.
You kind of remind me of Moneyball.
Here I did 52 player evaluations.
Actually, I did 57.
It's hard.
You're passionate about it,
and there's so much
information that you can't just pick one.
So it'd be interesting to
kind of get an idea,
especially I know it's a
little behind in regards to
getting the rankings out,
but it'd be interesting to
see who's falling out,
not because people are overplaying them,
but they're just performing so poorly.
Now, you want it from March's rankings?
Wherever is best for you.
Because I have a top 100 for
May that I haven't been
able to get out yet.
on the website that I have a
player that off the top of
my head right now is already.
Who is it?
Arjun Namala.
And I was very high on him.
He's the third rank prospect
for me in the blue J system.
He's currently playing at Dunedin.
He's hitting way under the Mendoza line.
He's at a buck 57 right now
for the season.
That's rough.
I had high hopes from coming
into the season.
I thought for sure he would, you know,
jump up into double a New
Hampshire at some point.
but he's just struggling
this season at the start.
He has his moments.
He's had a couple of weeks
where he's been hot,
which has been part of the
reason why I've debated, you know,
putting him in the top 100.
But to me, he's definitely falling out.
And I think he's going to
get replaced with a Marlins
pitching prospect,
which that seems to be all.
So it's crazy.
Well,
think it was a little longer
tonight than we had planned
but I think there was some
conversations that had just
in regards to what's been
going on uh it was good to
get back into the swing of
things I know that last
week didn't work out for me
and the timing was just
poor with work and
everything but I'm looking
forward to you know next
week I'm looking forward to
recapping a little bit of
what we the matchups we talked about um
Looking forward to seeing
some of these things we
discussed to see you know
How Dela Cruz does how
Duran does over the next
few weeks and just see how it plays out?
So and also hopefully to see
the new prospects list as
well to see who's moving
who what are some new names
that we can look at?
so Before I want to give my
final two thoughts.
Yeah,
that's some interesting ones for you
The Red Sox
I've discovered today after
listening to a couple
things and then doing some research,
they're God's team.
Okay.
And I say that because
they're the only team in
baseball this season that
are 8-0 on Sunday.
Really?
They haven't lost a game on Sunday.
And I went through every team.
Every team has lost at least
one game on Sunday.
That's good for those of you
who like to bet.
Bet the money line on the
Red Sox on Sundays.
And coming forward, or going forward,
I'm sorry.
I believe when I looked it up,
and I might be wrong,
but I know these four teams are correct.
It's the Brewers, the Tigers,
the White Sox,
and the Yankees the next four Sundays.
So do with that information what you want,
but the Red Sox are 8-0
right now on Sundays.
So I'm going to be hammering
the Sox on Sunday.
Yeah, money line all day long.
Yep.
I thought that was
interesting when I heard that.
Somebody said they were 8-0,
but they didn't say the
rest of the league,
anything about the rest of the league.
So I looked up the rest of the league.
Everybody else has a loss, at least one.
So they have the Brewers on Sunday.
I don't have the pitching matchup yet.
Actually, hold on.
Let me see if I can tell you
who's selling for the Sox.
I think it's Houck.
Hammer, that money line.
Yeah.
I don't know what the Y is going to be.
I don't know if DraftKings
or FanDuel or any of those
are going to hear us.
If anybody there listens,
the line might be minus 200
at that point if they hear this,
but I'm just telling you, there ain't no.
That's a good one.
The other one,
I wrote an article this past
weekend that was meant a lot to me, but
as the red sox struggled
they lost before sunday
they had lost four straight
again they won sunday
shocking um they lost four
straight and I think we
mentioned it earlier in the
podcast where it was two
two at one point and all of
a sudden became seven two
in the eighth inning and I
ended up laying in bed I
went to bed right after the
game which is not normal
for me on saturday but I
was laying there and I
thought why do I keep doing
this to myself
Like, I love this team.
Why do I watch 162 games?
Whether it's DVRing it,
going back and watching a
condensed game or finding
clips and going to watch.
But I find everything.
And so I know what's going
on every Red Sox game.
And, you know,
losing four straight and the
talk of the full throttle
offseason and everything that happened.
And I found myself asking,
why am I such a fan?
Now, granted,
the article is about the Red Sox.
But I think if you listen to
this as a baseball fan,
you could go read that
article and you could tie
it to your team.
It could be like JC for you,
Cubs related from what
we've talked about.
I can tie it in even for the Tigers.
I've done one for the Tigers.
I could have done it anyway,
but I wrote it the way that
I did because that's how I
was feeling that night.
But I think it's relevant to
all 29 other teams.
So if you get a chance,
go find that and read that.
It's called Why Do I Do This?
It's under the Red Sox tab.
It's under the Cardinals tab.
It's under the A's tab.
You'll understand why when
you read the article,
but that's the tab that's on there.
I'm going to find one more,
but I can't remember.
But if you get a chance and
you care about baseball and
your team's struggling this
season and you find yourself saying,
why do I do this?
It's an article I highly
suggest you check out.
Yeah.
No, being a Cubs fan, you know, and even,
you know,
growing to pay attention to
these other teams,
I could certainly share
first and foremost,
the Cubs struggles and what
it means to me.
And then even, like I said, growing,
even though they're in the
same division a little bit
more with both the pirates
and what they've done in
the past with some of the
young prospects and not
turn them into anything.
And then the reds this year, the reds,
particularly this year,
I was pretty high on them and,
And almost like them more
than I did the Cubs going into it.
So, no, it's a great concept.
And, no, definitely the Red Sox,
when I saw that pop up and seeing that,
especially knowing what
happened the night before,
I took a look and it hits home.
Yeah,
I was definitely in my feels that
night and was frustrated.
It's a good one.
So...
I appreciate you jumping on tonight.
Again, sorry for last week,
but for all the listeners,
we appreciate it.
Like, share, follow,
join any of our social
channels that you want so
you can catch up on any of
the information,
any of these articles that
we're mentioning so that
you can read those, get caught up,
check out CJ's Top 100 that
is listed right now so you
can at least see what's there currently.
all the player profiles.
And then, you know,
we've got several down on the farms.
So if your team is out there,
check that out.
Cause a lot of us have been
covering the top 10
prospects for those teams too.
So there's plenty of content
there for you to check out.
Um, like we said,
we really appreciate you guys listening.
There's eight teams now for
down on the farm.
That's perfect.
It's great.
You got blue Jays, Phillies, Red Sox.
Um,
Tigers, Reds, Cubs, Rangers.
Yankees has been missing for
a couple weeks.
I think that's coming back soon.
So we will have seven this week.
One actually came out today, the Phillies.
We will have eight moving
forward throughout the summer.
I shared that Phillies one
for you just so you know.
Thank you for the channels I had.
So no, a lot of good content,
a lot of interesting stuff there.
So there's plenty of things
for you to be interested in,
but it also gives you a
feel for what we do.
And like we've said, if you're interested,
reach out.
We're always looking to add
more people to the family.
So appreciate everyone for
listening and tuning in and
look forward to next week.
So thanks again, everyone.
Take care.
Thanks, guys.
Have a good week.