Inside The Diamonds

In the first episode of the Inside The Diamonds podcast, we cover the Spring Breakout, Gerrit Cole Injury news, Joey Votto in Toronto, fantasy baseball thoughts, and much much more!
Tune in with us weekly as we cover the entire MLB season.

What is Inside The Diamonds?

Inside the Diamond is your one-stop shop for everything MLB! From in-depth analysis of the latest games and breaking news, to minor league prospects we've got you covered. Join us for insightful discussions on the game's history, current events, and future trends. Whether you're a die-hard fan or just getting into baseball, Inside the Diamond has something for everyone.

welcome back everyone to

inside the diamonds podcast

I'm your host jc and I'm

joined again tonight by

co-host cj how you doing cj

not too bad how are you

not bad getting ready

excited the season's

inching closer a lot of

stuff going on we had a

good uh first podcast

together talking about a

bunch of different stuff

and I think tonight's

episode there's a lot more

to cover uh as things are

starting to kind of shake

out with rosters and we've

got some exciting things

that are new to the uh

baseball world that are

coming up sets that stage I

believe this weekend are at

the end of this week so

Real excited to kick this

off tonight and kind of

talk it through with you.

Can't wait.

All right, so speaking of,

the newest thing in

baseball right now is the

MLB prospect spring breakout,

where each team is going to

have anywhere from 20 to 25

of their top prospects

facing off in a game.

And this is something that was new,

and I don't think they

really announced it until, like, January.

Yeah, it was under wraps for a while.

It was weird.

So it's – I mean,

I guess it's kind of new.

It's exciting.

It's kind of neat.

We've been kind of covering

it with the prospects that

we've been talking about for each team.

I know just today the Cubs, for instance,

announced that PCA, Pete Crowe,

Armstrong is going to join that roster,

which after being option two, Iowa,

makes some sense.

But there's going to be a

lot of interesting games,

and I hope that they generate enough –

availability to the fans, you know,

whether it be through ESPN, MLB Network,

just make it available

because if they really want to grow it,

it's not just about those

folks are down at spring

training to be able to see it.

This is something for these

baseball fans that.

you know,

maybe only get to read about

these guys or, you know,

maybe once or twice a year,

they come to a park near

them for a minor league

game that they can go and see them.

But I think this is really

big for baseball in general,

to be able to go and see

these top up and coming

prospects that some will be

in the majors this year and

others in the years to come.

So I'm really excited to

watch the Cubs in general, um,

a couple of other teams I'm interested in,

but I wanted to get your

take on it and what you

thought and any other details, you know,

about what's, what's to come.

I am very excited for this.

The second I heard about it, I said,

this is going to be fantastic.

Um, I, myself, I subscribe to the MLB TV.

So I watch all of the minor league games.

I can win.

My teams aren't playing

right before the big red

zone beginning comes on for

all the other games.

But, um,

One thing I know that they

did is they kind of jammed

it all together on,

I think it's the 16th.

I forget what day it is,

but they kind of jammed it.

15th and 16th, I think, yeah.

I think there's a game the 14th, too,

which is the big game.

It's the Orioles and Pirates,

so you get to see Paul

Skeens and Jackson Holiday,

which is exciting.

Yeah.

But then I think, yeah,

I'm looking at it right now.

On the 16th, everybody plays at 1.

They just jammed everybody to 1 o'clock,

so it's great.

It's going to be good for the game, but

you're going to miss good

prospects that aren't on your team that,

you know, a couple of years down the road,

you could be trading for at some point.

But I think from what I'm seeing, um,

you're going to get three

games on the one game on the 14th,

three games on the 15th,

it looks like five games on

the 16th and one on the 17th.

So you're going to get to

see a lot of the top

prospects in baseball, um,

You get a chance to see one

of the best pitchers, I think,

when he gets a chance in Paul Skeens.

I mean, that game on the 14th,

I'm going to be locked in.

I'm going to be watching

that game from first pitch

to the last out.

So it's exciting.

It's very exciting.

The White Sox Cubs will be a good one.

One that I'm very interested to see,

one player, is Blue Jays at Yankees.

It was on the 16th.

It's at 4.05.

Ricky Tiedemann, left-handed pitcher,

he will be taking the ball

to start for the Blue Jays.

I watched a lot of him last

year being a New Hampshire

kid for the Fisher Cats last year,

and he's exciting.

He is very exciting.

So I think that will be a good game.

And MLB hyped up Spencer

Jones being on the Yankees.

And I haven't seen – it's

slowly coming out day by day,

but they're slowly starting

to announce who the

starting pitchers will be for each team.

So that's something to watch

as you listen to us talk about prospects.

Look to see who's starting

for your team coming up

because that's something

you're going to want to

watch for the future

because it definitely could

be a potential guy you're

seeing on opening day four

years from now.

I was looking at the same

schedule you were looking at, and to me –

The timing obviously sucks

because you've got college

basketball that's starting to wind down,

right?

Getting ready for March Madness.

You've got ESPN that's

obviously locked into that.

So you've lost that avenue

to kind of propose and pitch these games.

You've got TBS that's not

going to be interested at

this point in time.

So to me, if this goes well this year,

if I was MLB,

next year I would look to do this –

First, first week of March,

second week of March and

kind of do it like they do

with opening day.

You know, ESPN,

that's that's one day a

year that I generally if

I'm not at the Red Sox opening day game,

I generally try to work

from home and or take the

day off and I'll start at

noon and watch all night long.

And if you've got that and

you've got this opportunity for me,

if you start early in the

year and I know that camps and this,

that and the next thing are

all kind of spread out.

But if you got this going and you did,

let's say,

especially for MLB network and ESPN,

if you've got it set up and

you've lined up your top 10

or top 12 prospects, like teams, right?

Here are your teams in the

top 12 with prospects.

Line them up, match them up.

Show the top 12, top 14.

If you do it two days in a row, shit,

you show seven games,

you can show 28 teams.

You know,

and really kind of showcase this

and kind of build it up and

allow fans to watch it.

You know, let it be on ESPN.

Not everyone is going to

subscribe and pay for MLB

Network or MLB TV like we do.

know so I think it's

something it's a great

thing that they're doing

but I think they've missed

the boat a little bit again

timing wise with all the

sports going on kind of

makes it hard but if you're

going to try and grow this

having it only available to

those that are actually

down in that area for

spring training or those

are going to fork over the

money to mlb tv not

everyone has that

opportunity not to mention the fact that

not everyone has the luxury

of pulling up a second

screen and popping it up at work,

you know, without getting in trouble.

So I really hope they,

it goes well for them this year.

I'm excited for it.

I know a lot of other people

that are excited for the fall baseball,

but I really think that to

capitalize on this opportunity,

if they could team up with ESPN MLB,

even if they showed five games,

you start at noon, noon, three, six,

and then a late game out in

Arizona on one day.

And then MLB network does the same thing.

A lot of people have the

opportunity to do split screen.

Yep.

There's a lot that could be

gained by structuring it a

little bit differently.

I know camp is a little bit

different and that comes into play,

but at the same time,

depending on what the true

goal is of this project to me,

spreading it out and doing

something like that with

the folks earlier is going

to make it that much more successful.

You know what I mean?

Cause now all of a sudden

you've got someone that is

watching a game, you know,

say they're a Mets fan and

they're watching them play the Mariners.

Well,

let's say they do end up getting MLB TV.

and the Mets are playing, they're over,

the Mariners are on.

They're going to go and

watch that game and follow maybe Brian Wu,

or they're going to follow somebody else.

It's just going to grow the

game that much more and get kids,

even kids,

more involved with some of the

– especially now that

baseball cards have kind of

come back into the scene

and it's kind of a big thing again,

collecting cards,

and everyone's going after the prospects,

you know, the Bowman cards.

You do this,

allow these kids to actually

see them play.

Give them an opportunity

because once the season starts,

unless they're called up

and it's on in market and

they're playing their team,

they don't get to see them

other than highlights.

And highlights aren't going

to show a guy that puts out

the effort time in and time

out if he's not getting on

base or hitting a home run.

Right.

So the more opportunities

kids and these fans have a

chance to see these top stars,

it's going to grow that

excitement faster.

not just for their team,

but baseball in general,

as it kind of goes through the years.

We talked last time in

regards to all the

different things they're

trying to do to grow the game,

but it's all about availability.

The more you make it available,

the easier it is to grow followers, fans,

and just fans not just of the team,

but in baseball in general.

So I kind of hope it goes well,

but I hope they structure

it different next time

because that was the one

thing I was a little

disappointed with and how they set it up.

Yeah,

you definitely missed the opportunity

where, you know,

if we did this a week earlier,

you could have it stretch

out the whole week and you got,

unless aside from hockey and basketball,

it's your prime time.

People are getting, you know,

once the calendar flips to

March and everybody knows, hey,

we're only three,

four weeks away from opening day.

let's take advantage of this.

Like there's a chance,

like that they do with the

world baseball classic,

the world baseball classic

starts in the end of

February and runs to the

early part of March.

You could do that with this

and you could have even, you know,

more than one game, you know,

you could have like, we're all excited.

I think that's the game to

watch on the first one is

the pirates and the Orioles.

Yeah.

But you know,

you could run in the Orioles

and the nationals and do a

rivalry game of prospects.

Like,

I think I came out with our

top 100 about a month ago,

and in the top 10 already

is one Oriole and two Nationals.

Yeah, two Nationals.

That's three of the top 10

prospects in one game.

I'd be tuned into that.

I want to see the future.

The future of the game is in hands,

especially with Cumming.

Advertise it.

You know, showcase it.

Yeah.

So...

It'll be good.

It's new.

It's kind of like World

Baseball Classic when they

rolled that out the first time.

They made improvements.

It's going to go.

I think it's big for baseball.

I think it's just exciting

in general to see these kids play,

especially with college baseball.

College baseball kicking off, too.

You know what I mean?

Not that the top prospects

are playing with minor league teams,

but now all of a sudden,

if you're paying attention

to some of your top prospects or even,

you know,

wondering who's available in

this year's draft,

depending on how big of a fan you are.

Now,

if you're watching some college baseball,

you're paying a little bit

closer attention to different players,

different positions.

So there's a lot of stuff

that it could grow the game in general.

And I'm looking forward to it.

Yeah,

it's going to be exciting and I can't

wait for that.

All right, so as we know,

Garrett Cole suffered an injury today.

What do you think is next for the Yankees,

given the news of Garrett Cole's injury?

The timing to me is what I

find interesting.

Yesterday,

for those of you who have Instagram,

if you follow Blake Snell,

he tweeted a story of just

a black screen with the eye emoji.

now all of a sudden about 24

hours later we find out

garrett cole is going for

an mri on his elbow a

little bit weird timing um

now I just found it I

looked it up real quick

garrett cole is also a

scott boris client so is

boris putting a little bug

in the year say a little

something going on here you know

Is your star race is going

in for an MRI on his elbow.

Could it be Tommy John?

Who knows?

I mean, they don't,

from what I've seen in all reports today,

they don't sound overly

concerned about it, but you never know.

I mean, you could be,

you're going in for

anything on your elbow.

Who knows?

So the question becomes if

Garrett Cole is done for

the years that opened the

door for a Blake's now one year contract,

you know, or are we talking longer term?

Cause right now, I mean, let's be serious.

I'm a big Red Sox fan,

but I didn't like the

Yankees when I was younger.

They've grown on me.

I like Judge.

I respect a lot of those guys.

But is Nestor Cortez really

going to be the guy at number one?

Or is Carlos Rodon your number one?

They've had great sprints, great sprints.

But, I mean, you're going to need a guy.

Stroman's not a number one.

Stroman's a good pitcher.

But to me,

a number one is somebody who's

going to come out and dominate.

Strowman has those starts,

but he doesn't produce it.

And you don't expect it night in,

night out from him.

Snell can do that.

He's won two Cy Youngs.

Is that the move?

But again,

now we're all speculating with

doing that with...

It's just an MRI.

It could be nothing.

It could come out tomorrow.

Level of discomfort is what he says.

There's a level of

discomfort that's concerning.

Now, it could be nothing.

It could be one of those

situations where they say, all right,

we're going to shut him

down for two weeks.

Two weeks goes on.

He's not there yet.

It could be one of those

situations where they drag

it out just enough that he makes a start,

two starts.

It's still not there.

And then the end result is Tommy John.

And again, that's jumping the gun,

everyone.

We're not saying that we

know something that you don't.

We know exactly what you do.

Garrett Cole has elbow discomfort.

He's going in for an MRI.

I know that Blake Snell

probably is having the time

of his life just screwing

with people left and right

with social media because

everyone bites hard.

I mean,

I myself put out an article there

the other day yesterday

about Blake Snell.

going to the Cubs because it was rumored.

Me personally,

I don't think Blake Snell

being a fourth left-handed

starter for the Cubs makes sense.

I also don't think Blake

Snell going to the Yankees

makes a whole lot of sense

unless they overpay,

just simply because he

stated he wants to stay on

the West Coast.

So that could just be a play

for get more money,

whether it be the Angels, Padres,

whoever.

But I think Boris, as you said,

being his client or his agent,

certainly could be pushing.

And I think Blake Snell could be,

if he were to go to the Yankees,

would be one of those situations,

whether it's similar to the

Bellinger contract or Matt Chapman,

where it's a three-year deal

with an opt-out after the

first and after the second,

and it's high money first year,

and it kind of teeters down

to level out the next two.

I personally think Jordan

Montgomery is the guy that

would end up going back there.

Familiarity, he's been there before.

I want him to go there.

I don't want him on the Red Sox personally,

but I'll be very interested

because you look at the

rest of that rotation, like you said,

Garrett Cole,

the one thing about Garrett Cole,

when he would come out,

you're guaranteed that he's

going to get you deep in the game.

So after the fourth and

fifth starter come out and

throw five innings and kind

of get the bullpen worn out,

you have Cole back up.

He's going to go seven,

six strong at least,

and it gets you to that eighth,

ninth inning guy.

So Stroman can do that.

I watched him all the time

when he was with the Cubs

and even when he was with Toronto.

He can do that.

He can get late in the game.

You know, he's a ground ball pitcher.

He's not a strikeout guy.

He's not an overpowering guy.

Generally, he will eat up innings,

but he's not that shutdown

number one starter.

He could, I mean, with that said,

on the teams he was playing

and pitching for before,

never really had the

potential or should say never really,

except for last year in the first half,

put up the run support.

I do believe the Yankees

could make a Marcus Stroman

into a number two.

Number one, he's not Garrett Cole.

He's not going to be that

shutout guy where he's

going to go in and just dominate.

Um, he may go in and pitch six innings of,

you know, four or five hit ball,

throw 95 pitches,

but he's going to give up two runs.

You know, he's going to leave a sinker up.

Someone's going to take

advantage of him in the

left field portion in Yankee stadium.

Uh,

The other name that we

talked about last podcast

was Trevor Bauer.

He just pitched in that

minor league game against the Dodgers,

was dominant.

He wants very little money.

The Yankees, if Cole goes out,

I could very easily see

them making two moves,

Bauer and one of the two,

Montgomery or Snell.

I don't want to see it, mind you,

just because I'm not a fan

of the Yankees either.

But I could see them being like, okay,

we need to double down

because Cole is our ace.

Cortez, you don't know what you have.

And then the rest of the rotation,

you don't know what you've got either.

So it'll be very interesting.

I don't think they want to

do that to Clark Schmidt.

I think that's the problem

of why they haven't signed

Snell is they don't want to ruin him.

He's young.

They don't want to ruin that

psyche on him.

So I think that's why you

haven't seen Snell.

That's why with this hit happening,

Snell might make sense.

I don't think they signed two.

I agree with you, Montgomery,

but the only issue with Montgomery,

like you and I have talked

about lengths on end,

he's not a number one.

You're losing your number one.

You got to replace him with a number one.

So it has to be Snell if

they go a route to sign somebody.

If not, they're going to go.

I think you got to go.

Strowman is your one.

I mean, granted,

we're all speculating that

Cole's injury is Tommy John.

It might not be.

It might come back.

And like you said, it might be two weeks.

They sent him out.

He comes back.

He's fine.

Yeah.

But if speculating that he's

out for the year now, that's interesting.

But.

It'll be very interesting to

see the next couple of

weeks in regards to what news comes out,

what's the results of the MRI,

do they slow play it,

do they – because

oftentimes a lot of these top guys,

we saw it with Sale,

drag it out for a little

bit just in hopes of seeing pitch.

So if they were to do something like that,

That would hurt, but at the same time,

it would get them there to

see because maybe it's not a signing.

Maybe it's a Dylan Cease,

Shane Beaver type trade.

Again,

Garrett Cole very well could be

there for opening day.

He very well could be there

for his second start.

We don't know.

It's all speculation and

probably wouldn't be

spending much time on it if

it wasn't the Yankees and

their number one ace.

So there's going to be a lot

of stuff that's going to

come out of this.

And now that you mentioned

Boris being Cole's agent as well,

because he's Montgomery's

and Snell's agent.

So you've got to think that

if it is serious with Cole,

he's going to want to push

that they make a decision

sooner rather than later,

because he can see dollar

signs everywhere.

back in New York and he's

comfortable negotiating with those guys.

Not that he's not

comfortable with any of the teams,

but it's very interesting

dynamic that Boris has a

role in all of this.

If there's a big injury again,

the if is the biggest thing here.

We're not, we're not doctors.

We're not reading an MRI

before it happens or it's made public.

It's just,

it's something interesting to

see how it plays out

because you've got to think

after last year,

finishing the way they did,

that the Yankees in spending

money and going to get Soto.

For one year.

Yeah, for one year.

You got to assume that they can't let him,

if it is worse than we're thinking,

they can't just sit idle.

They'll have to do something.

So that's the question though.

So say,

like I just pointed out and you said it,

Soto isn't here for one year.

Sounds like he's going to

test the free agency market.

Does Blake Snell sit there and go,

next year's free agent class is loaded?

I mean, the pitching, if you look at it,

is just loaded.

So does Snell go,

I'll take one year with the Yankees,

try to go win another Cy

Young if Cole's out for the year,

go do a one-year deal with the Yankees,

try to win another Cy Young.

Oh, and now on top of that,

I have a second straight Cy Young,

and I'm a free agent again.

Yeah.

Do I go get the bag?

It's, you know,

the Yankees are going to go for it.

This is kind of the

situation he's waiting for, right?

He's waiting for a team that's desperate,

that's willing to overpay,

but also on his terms, knowing,

like you said, in regards to next year,

similar to this year with Yamamoto,

there's going to be a need.

Someone's going to overpay.

So I can very easily, like you said,

see him play the market,

go one year deal.

This is what he's waiting for, right?

He's waiting for a number

one to go down so he can plug himself in.

Probably didn't want it to be New York.

I don't think he really,

truly wanted to go pitch there.

Um,

But it's going to be a very

interesting situation to

see how it plays out.

And again,

with it being the Yankees and

having it be Garrett Cole,

there's obviously going to

be a lot more attention on

it than if it was, you know,

someone pitching for the A's.

I did see two,

and I don't know if this is true.

I only saw it one place.

Cole was struggling to go

start to start in the spring.

So he struggled to make his next start,

and that's what brought this on.

They're just having him get looked at.

But the fact that he

couldn't go start to start,

even if it's not Tommy John,

that's a concern for the

regular season because you

might line him up.

If it lags on,

we're talking August and you

get a big game against Houston,

who you're fighting for a

wild card spot with, or Texas or whoever,

and now your best pitcher

can't go in a series where

he's going up against

Justin Verlander or

DeGrom's back for the

Rangers and he's going up against DeGrom.

And now you're talking,

I don't have my best pitcher.

Are we in trouble?

So even if it's not Tommy

John and he's having

discomfort this early,

it's a cause for concern.

I'm just making note because

now that talking about this,

you just kind of generated

some ideas and a thought

that I've got for at the

end of the show that I want

to bring up and kind of

just talk through with you

in regards to what would make some sense.

But we'll touch upon that down the road.

So like we said, MRI could be nothing.

But at the same time, like you just said,

if you're coming off an off-season,

you weren't in the playoffs,

you weren't taxed,

you weren't going into it.

You didn't end the year with

an injury and you're

struggling to go start to

start where you're starting and throwing,

you know, first start,

you're throwing maybe 30

pitches and ending maybe two next one,

maybe three innings, right?

If you're not being able to

bounce back from that and

you're having a level of discomfort,

There's some concern there.

So it'll be very interesting.

We'll make sure to keep an eye on it.

And I'm sure if you're

following us and check in

with the website at Inside the Diamond,

there'll be plenty of

articles and plenty of news to be broken.

And we'll make sure to be

covering it all and kind of

giving our analysis of

what's going to happen next.

But it's definitely

something that I'll be

paying attention to just

out of my pure dislike for the Yankees.

and seeing what's going to happen.

But with all that said,

one thing I wanted to kind

of hit on tonight with you

as we're getting geared up

for the start of the season is, you know,

we've talked about who we

think is going to be surprise teams,

who are players we're looking for.

And with me paying a lot of

attention to the NL Central team,

I kind of wanted to get your

feel for who you think is

going to be the bust,

the surprise bust team of the year,

similar to the Cardinals last year,

which to me, looking at their roster,

at least offensively,

and finding out and realizing that,

holy shit, you know,

you finished last in the NL Central,

20 games under .500.

Who do you think could be a team that,

on paper –

should be, you know,

fringe playoff team or

wildcard team or at least

top of the division that

you think is going to fall

flat on their face this year?

So this is the thing.

When you sent this to me, I was like, ooh,

I don't know if there's a

single team I can think of.

But because you just put

that aspect out there of

they not fall flat on their face,

but they don't make the

playoffs and they should,

is the Texas Rangers.

And the reason why I say that,

I love them in the second

half next season.

I mean this season.

I think second half,

they'd be the best team in baseball.

They might post a record as the best,

but they have no rotation

to start the year.

And they've already said,

I think we actually had an

article about this.

Maybe we didn't,

and we should if we didn't,

that they're not bringing

back Montgomery.

They can't afford him.

But they're going to be without DeGrom.

scherzer uh they signed

tyler I forget how you say

his last name mailey this

offseason he's out um and

so they what's your

rotation I trust you of all

the evaldi's not going to

go undefeated to start the

year he'll probably have

two to three losses but now

you're talking about

piecing together rotation

and you know they're

defending world series champions

But they still got to take on the Astros.

They got the Mariners.

You know, if the Angels get snout,

the Angels will be okay.

The A's okay.

The A's are the A's.

But then now,

because of the new schedule

that started last season,

you're only facing your

division 13 times.

You're facing everybody else.

And you don't have your two best pitchers.

You know,

they pieced it together last year.

Montgomery wasn't great in the playoffs.

I had an argument with a

friend the other day where

I thought Montgomery was

actually better than he was.

And I looked at his numbers

in the playoffs.

He wasn't great.

I told you that with the eyeball test.

I had to watch the Altuve at

bat against the Astros.

and then looking at his

stats like I think we

talked about this as soon

as I came on with uh inside

the diamonds and you were

big we were talking red sox

we were talking cubs we

were talking to everyone

and we were talking

rotation pieces at that

time because that's when

glass now that's when you

know cease all these trade

rumors were bouncing around

and you were very high

originally on montgomery and

Again,

last year I didn't pay a lot of

attention if it wasn't the

Cubs or Red Sox watching any games,

playoff games.

Just so happened to start

when my son's hockey does

and I'm usually not around.

So I'm listening to it.

So it's not an eyeball test

you get to hear.

So I went back on MLB TV and

watched game one.

And that to me was when I

started looking into stats,

especially at Fenway.

And I think we both agree

now that he is that number three.

He's a comfortable number

three for a stud team.

And the fact that the angel

or the Rangers aren't

willing to try to find a way, I mean,

after what the Dodgers did,

I don't think there's any

real excuse to not sign

someone that you want to be

on your roster.

There's creative ways to do it.

It all takes, you know, again,

you have to be a little bit

outside the box thinking, but yeah,

If they really wanted him

and they felt he was that

valuable and in the situation they're in,

they'd bring him back some way.

I would think so.

I don't know why you're not.

So you think the Rangers,

that was originally who I

was going to say as well.

I'm pulling up right now.

I'm pulling up fan graphs right now.

I want to see what their

rotation on fan graphs says

for the start of the season.

So we got Nathan Eovaldi, John Gray,

Andrew Heaney, Dane Dunning,

and Cody Bradford.

I'm okay with Eovaldi.

Gray, if healthy,

isn't a bad four or five guy,

but he's not a two.

Heaney was good last year.

I think he pitched primarily

out of the bullpen, but a three?

Again,

we just said General Montgomery's a

two or a three.

Is he really going to hurt that bad?

You're going to bump Cody Bradford out.

And think about come playoff time.

Because, I mean,

if you add Jordan Montgomery,

that might hold you over until, you know,

DeGrom, Scherzer are back.

And then at that point,

your playoff rotation, you're talking,

you know, Eovaldi, DeGrom, Scherzer,

and Montgomery.

It's not a bad rotation.

No.

Especially knowing the

background of both Scherzer and DeGrom.

Yep.

How many starts are they

going to make once they come back?

probably double digits,

at least the low double digits.

They hope.

Yeah.

So that's, you know, coming off of, again,

you got to wonder with the Rangers,

one of the reasons similar

to what you mentioned is

they're coming off the World Series win.

So the players may be very

highly motivated.

What about the front office?

Plenty of excuses there to

have a down year.

with a pitching staff, right?

They have to spend the money.

They don't want you to spend the money.

They've got the bats and

kind of just try to piece

it through that division,

which wasn't very good last year.

But I think the Ranger,

the Astros are always going to be tough.

I think the Mariners have

put themselves in a position,

and I think they have one

of the top three rotations in baseball.

And I'm not high on the Angels.

I just think that, unfortunately,

Mike Trout is –

you know,

getting towards the back end of

his career and they have

done nothing really to support.

I think they've tried to bring in pieces,

but they've all seemed to

being the wrong ones at the wrong time.

And as you said, the A's are who they are.

So we both agreed or both

were thinking right off the bat,

the Rangers.

So to be a little bit different,

And as you were talking and

I was agreeing with you,

I'm rifling down through each division,

right?

We just talked about the Yankees.

I wasn't very high on them

to begin with because of

their pitching staff.

I mean,

I think they have the offense to in

that division to compete,

but I think that division.

is Baltimore's to lose.

And I unfortunately don't –

I can't say the Orioles – some would say,

well,

you've got the sophomore slump coming,

but they've got too much talent.

Not all of them will slump

at the same time.

So for me – God,

I hate to even – I don't

think the Phillies –

If I have to go out now and

not say the Rangers,

if I have to say a team

that I think could be a surprise team,

I don't think the Phillies, I should say,

because in all honesty,

I do think that they're

going to have a great season.

But if I have to pick another team,

that's not the Rangers that

could pull off a Cardinals

like season on paper,

have all the players to compete.

I think that you could see

the Phillies fall in that category.

Noel is a great pitcher,

but he's not the same

pitcher as he was a few years ago.

Zach Wheeler has had two good years,

just signed that big contract extension.

And then you've got Suarez.

You've got, I think Walker's still there.

So the back end of that rotation,

if Nola and Wheeler

struggle or there's an injury,

there could be some trouble

in Philadelphia.

Now, offensively, they're stacked.

I really like that team a lot offensively.

But

I also thought that the

Cardinals on paper had

plenty of talent with what

they had and finishing dead

last in the central was not

something anyone saw coming.

Now I'm not saying the

Phillies will finish dead last,

but could I see a scenario

where battling it out with

certain things going wrong for them?

I could easily see the

Phillies being one of those

teams that's battling for a

wild card and perhaps miss out.

Very unlikely,

but if I had to pick someone

that had on paper talent

that should be way better

than where their standings put,

if the Phillies missed the playoffs,

that would be a bust given that roster.

Not saying they're finishing dead last,

they could finish second in the East and

Two teams from the Central,

two teams from the West,

or three teams from the

West if the Padres get

their head out of their ass.

And the Braves just dominate the East.

You could have the Braves,

you could have the Cubs and Reds.

And again,

the Cardinals could bounce back

and be that.

There's a lot of things that

would need to go right,

but the Rangers are my first pick.

I don't want to be the same as you.

The Phillies would

definitely be a team that I

think if things went

worst-case scenario for

them when they're starting pitching,

could be a team on the

outside looking in and

would be in that category of a bust.

I don't like the pick,

but it fits the narrative

of what we're talking about right now.

So right now, since we're on this topic,

I just got the notification to my phone.

The Tampa Bay Rays have optioned.

our seventh overall prospect

and their top prospect, Junior Caminero,

to AAA.

Now,

he was expected to be their starting

third baseman, I believe.

Yeah.

And so he's going to AAA.

And you and I,

I think we had this

conversation the other day

where everybody's talking about, you know,

how, okay, it's Baltimore's division,

Yankees too.

Yeah.

Rays and Jays fight for three and four,

and the Sox are five.

Are we crazy to sit here and

say the Rays may

potentially be the worst

team in the East this year?

They have a good – this is a

whole off topic,

but fall flat on your face.

I mean,

they have a good top five of their

lineup.

I'm excited about it.

The bottom four have a lot

of question marks.

Their pitching staff has a

lot of question marks.

It's not your – I mean,

the Rays are a pitching factory.

We can all admit that.

They just seem to call up a

pitcher and he's a stud out of nowhere.

It's just how they are.

Ask the Pirates.

They know all too well about it.

Everyone goes there from the

Pirates to Tampa and just dominates.

Let's also say they're

missing Drew Rasmussen.

They're missing Shane McClanahan.

They don't have all of their

arms this year.

Are they a team that could

fall flat on their face?

And now their top prospect,

who was supposed to be

their starting third baseman,

is going to AAA.

That doesn't say they can't call him up.

It could be a thing like the

Cubs did with Chris Bryant,

where he's in AAA for a

couple weeks for service time,

and then they call him up.

That could be the thing,

but he was slated entering

spring to be in the

everyday starting lineup,

and he's in AAA now?

What?

I want to...

You can take it away.

I'm going to look up what he

was doing this spring that

made this a move to do because it doesn't,

to me, it doesn't make sense.

So while you're looking that up,

I guess that makes Parades

their starting third baseman, right?

Yep.

So, you know,

Tampa Bay is one of those funny teams,

as you said, and as you're mentioning,

I did have them dead last in the East,

which we'll get into during our previews.

But at the same time,

as I was working through their roster,

looking at it,

and then looking at possible outcomes,

you mentioned it.

For some reason,

whether it's their – the

way they go about it,

their pitching coaches, their programs,

whatever.

It seems that whoever goes

there seems to do well.

And Eflin,

Zach Eflin is a pitcher on Tampa

Bay that when looking at it, to me,

is probably going to make

himself a lot of money over

the next two years.

Because I think he's going

to go and not be the guy

that Philadelphia fans and

the Phillies saw,

but the one that they wanted to see.

I think he's going to be a

guy that dominates,

and I honestly thought prior to this news,

I thought Candelero

provided more offensive

firepower and kind of that

spark plug that they're

missing with Wanda Franco

and that whole debacle being gone.

I thought there was no way

that he would go down.

Now, hearing that news,

I wouldn't be too shocked

if they're playing the –

service time game with him.

He'll go down for whatever

six weeks and then come back up.

I do believe it will be a

down year for Tampa Bay.

I do think they'll finish

probably at the bottom of the East.

I don't know what everyone

else feels about the Rays

coming into the year.

I know the East with the Red

Sox being kind of

up in the air,

even with the blue Jays

being up in the air with

their starting rotation.

And now with what we just

talked about with Garrett Cole, Tampa Bay,

there was a path for Tampa

Bay to finish at the top half of that.

Just sounds like it's a runaway right now.

So I found his stats.

Yep.

This is what's interesting to me.

So in February and three games, he went,

Three for seven with a run, a home run,

four RBIs.

And then so once the

calendar flipped to March,

he struggled a little bit to start.

But over the weekend,

that Dominican Republic World Tour Series,

he went three for eight

against the Red Sox in both games.

So he finished the spring

right now because now it

sounds like he's getting sent down.

He was hitting 269 with a 719 OPS.

Now,

would you like to see the OPS a little

higher?

Yes.

But hitting 269 is not bad.

And I just don't get the move.

It's an interesting one.

But I think it all goes back to,

like we said,

it's got to be a service time move.

It's got to be the Razor is

a smart organization with prospects.

So it's got to be they're

sending him down for I

think what's it I think you

have until like middle

towards the end of April

and then the service time cancels out.

So I think we have to.

I'd be shocked if we don't

see him back in a raised uniform by May.

Shocked.

But they did that with Franco, too,

in one of his first years.

And again, that's a.

that's a whole nother

situation that just

continues to get worse that

I don't think we need to

spend the time discussing that mess.

So yeah,

when looking at this question that

I put out there,

the only team that really

stuck out to me was the

Rangers due to the way they

start the season in the rotation.

Do they have enough

offensive firepower to win

those high scoring games?

Cause their bullpen's not bad.

But if the starting pitchers

can't get to the fifth or sixth inning,

then you're really starting

to tax that bullpen.

And, yeah,

it's normal in the early parts

of the season and tail end

of the season to shift guys

up and down to get fresh arms.

But it could turn real bad

real quick for the Rangers,

especially if Scherzer and

DeGrom don't come back as

at least 90% of who you

expect them to be.

I'd even say 70%.

Yeah, 70% would be probably a better fit.

But that bullpen is going to

see a lot of innings if

those guys can't come back and dominate.

And that team, I think,

can go from being one of

those World Series winners

to missing out.

And that would be just – it

was the only team –

that really stuck out to me

and I think the Rays make

sense in regards to how

they've been finishing.

I think that they're another

team that people also write

off and I could see them

being a team that's just,

they could be the

Diamondbacks just as easy

as they could be the

Cardinals this coming year.

I think it's more unlikely,

but I think that they're

just that type of team that

there's never a year that you're like,

holy shit,

the Rays are the clear favorites.

There's just never really –

not since Snell left.

They haven't been that dominant team,

but they're there,

and they just make it work.

I think, like you said,

this could be a year where

they finish dead last,

and it would be a

disappointment for that organization.

I think my take with the

Phillies is probably a piss-poor one,

but on paper, if things went wrong –

That could be one.

They could win 82 games,

82 to 86 games and still

miss the playoffs if things

went right for the other teams.

What about the Brewers?

What do you think of the Brewers, I guess?

I know we're going to get

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