Hey, welcome back everyone.
This is episode 8 of Inside the Diamonds.
I'm your host JC and I'm
joined tonight by CJ.
How you doing CJ?
I am fantastic,
especially with everything
going on right now.
Yeah, I bet you are.
Just for you, just for you out there,
so you know, right now we're watching,
it's 8.30 right now on, let's say Monday.
Okay.
And right now we're paying
attention on what's going
on in the top of the eighth
inning at Citi Field,
where the Chicago Cubs are being no,
you know what?
No something.
No something by Severino right now,
who has looked pretty damn good.
The Cubs haven't put a lot
of decent at-bats together.
They just had Michael Bush walk,
but it's 1-0 Mets.
Brandon Nimmo actually led
the game off with a home run,
and that's been about it.
So it's 1-0 Mets, top of the eighth,
runner on first,
and we're going to keep an
eye on that right now.
So I got that game on my phone up above,
paying attention to that,
and perhaps for the second
time in our podcast recording history,
we could potentially see a second one,
which is,
would be pretty unique this
time we're watching it,
but I just want to kind of
throw that out there that
that is kind of may distract us a little.
There it goes.
Yeah, there it goes.
Dansby Swanson.
So nevermind.
And we cursed it.
We did.
Hey, I'm okay.
I'm okay with that right now.
Being, you know,
rooting for the Cubs in this one.
I'm good with that.
So Severino on a plus side,
I thought he looked really,
really good this spring.
His first start against the Brewers,
who were red hot to start the year.
But ever since,
he's looked pretty damn well.
And this Mets team just got J.D.
Martinez over the weekend, called up,
and they've been playing good baseball.
Mark Vientis had the game-winner.
I believe it was yesterday.
Home run.
Yeah,
that was a line drive shot that he
just drove the fuck out of.
I liked him.
I didn't think that was out
when he hit it.
I thought it was just going
to be a routine fly ball
center and then all of a
sudden it just went.
Just laced it.
But I liked him this spring
too and I was a little shocked,
especially after the
signing of Martinez knowing
he was going down to
uh, or going to Syracuse to,
to get his spring training in,
if you will,
that he didn't stay up with
the club as like a DH type.
Uh, you know,
I know he can play third bases.
Uh, I believe he's, uh, he's left-handed.
Um,
so to kind of alternate and kind of
maybe perhaps spell Beatty, but, um, yeah,
this Mets team isn't as, as bad.
It hasn't been playing as bad as of late.
Um,
that's only just recency
bias right now with what's
going on and what was going
on in new york so speaking
of uh I want to jump right
into it and kind of speed
things up what were your
biggest takeaways from this
past week I know you've got
a lot that you've got uh to
talk about but what was uh
some of your biggest
takeaways so the first one
was um a little surprising
this weekend uh last week
I'm gonna start with
chocolate white socks
Last week,
they were swept by the Minnesota
Twins in a four-game series.
Outscored 25-11.
And so, you know, the Twins are the Twins.
They got off slow.
They're fourth in the
American League Central.
Correa's on the injured list.
He's coming back.
Yeah, he's not back yet, though.
No,
I think they're going to call him up
this week, is what I heard.
Red.
But then, this weekend, they face Tampa.
And I was like, oh, that might be
they might be lucky to win one.
No, they come out and sweep the race.
I was scoring them 21,
13 and the rays don't look good.
They don't look good.
No, I will take credit for that.
By the way, my preseason prediction,
I said,
the rays aren't going to be as
good as everybody thinks they are.
They don't look at so far, but no,
they're a strange team to me.
Just they, they've,
they're always a strange
team to me because they
somehow are either at the
very top or right at the very bottom.
And,
They get red hot,
and they're tough to figure out.
But right now, you're right.
They do not look good.
They don't have Josh Lowe,
who's still out there with
an oblique that's missing.
And their pitching has not been great.
I mean, granted,
they're missing a shit ton of arms.
Zach Eflin's been all right,
but they don't really have the offense.
They don't have that power bat.
Not a lot going right for them right now.
Obviously,
if you get swept by the White Sox,
it's not a good sign.
Yeah, I mean,
I'm not saying the White Sox
are back or anything.
I'm just saying that was the
most surprising thing from the week.
It was taking all three
games against the Rays.
And like I said, the Rays aren't good,
but the White Sox are very not good.
Yeah.
So that was the biggest surprise.
Number two I had on my list.
Now,
who had this on their bingo card to
end the month of April?
Now, granted, there is one more day,
so this could change.
I don't think actually any
of them are pitching tomorrow.
Who had your American League
ERA leaders being Jose Barrios,
Cutter Crawford, and Tanner Houck?
Did I not say it in the
preview episode of the American League?
Andrew Bailey is going to
have an effect on this rotation.
You've been big on Cutter, though,
for as long as I've known
you and spoke about the Red Sox,
you've been big on Cutter.
I've always said I thought
he was the best number five
or one of the best number
five in a rotation starters.
I'm not saying top five overall.
I'm saying in a rotation,
you're one through five.
He was number five,
especially if you went and
signed somebody.
He was the best number five
guy going into this year, I thought.
And I like Tanner Houck.
I've always liked Tanner Houck.
I think he reminds me of
Chris Sale with his arm delivery,
which makes me nervous for
an injury in the future,
especially with all this elbow stuff.
But from what I've heard,
and I'm not going to go
into the dimensions because
I can't remember them,
but his slider is falling
off more than it ever has.
His splitter is dropping
more than it ever has.
And the problem is it's
starting right in the zone,
and it's going out,
and everybody's chasing it.
I don't know as a hitter if
you can adapt to that.
I think that dominance that
he's posted this year is
going to continue.
I think he is proving that
he could very well be a
top-of-the-line starter.
I'm not going to say I'm not
giving that label out,
but he could be a
top-of-the-line starter if
he continues this and keeps
working on what he's got and
From what he's done so far,
I don't see how he can't be.
But the big one I wanted to
touch on was Jose Barrios.
This is a guy that came over
from Minnesota a couple years ago.
He was expected to be a
top-of-the-line starter.
Then they went and signed Kevin.
I believe Kevin Gosman came
after he got there.
I believe so.
Kevin Gosman was expected to
be the ace of that staff.
But Barrios this season, the start –
He looks good.
A 1.23 ERA.
Let me give you the numbers
on the three of them with your ERAs.
Crawford, by the way,
went in with an 0.66 last weekend.
Got lit up.
Didn't have his best off.
I mean,
you could see that from the first inning.
So, Berrios has a 1.23 ERA.
Crawford has a 1.35.
Tanner Houck has a 1.60.
Most of you don't know.
The last two are two Red Sox pitchers.
And, again, I'm not being biased.
I'm looking at the stats.
No, stats.
Two.
I mean,
who would have thought Shota would
have had the ERA he has for the Cubs?
Yeah.
And, you know,
he leads the National League.
Funny, though,
he doesn't show up on the
stats page on MLB.com when
you pull it up.
I think it's because there's
a certain quota to meet,
and I think they're at that
point in the season he
doesn't have enough starts
to meet the quota.
Because I think it does go
by qualified players.
Yeah.
But then you hit all players,
and now you're getting
bullpen guys and stuff like that.
So you've got to sort it out.
But when I was doing my Red
Sox series preview over the
weekend because they played the Cubs,
Imanaga didn't show up,
and that's what tipped me off to it.
I was like, huh, he's got a very low ERA.
Even when you look up on –
Like ESPN, same thing.
Like you go pull up a series preview,
like a first game of a
series or whatever.
He's right there.
He's not there.
He's not.
So you go to pitching and
you go to ERA and it says
somebody else from the Cubs.
And I was like, I mean, I've got a point.
I think it was, what was it?
0.84 going into the game.
Didn't show up.
It was somebody else.
And I was like, there's a better ERA.
How is it not showing up?
So I included it in my
series preview for that one.
But I think it's a quota, a quota issue.
but I mean,
if you had those three on your bingo card,
having the best ERA in the
American league going into this year,
kudos to you.
Cause I thought Brios was
going to be good.
I didn't think he was gonna be that good.
I really liked him.
I don't mean to cut you off.
I really liked him when he left Minnesota.
I did not,
I didn't like him going to Toronto being,
you know, you know, Red Sox, uh,
supporter.
Um,
But I think this is the best
he's looked so far in that
Blue Jays uniform.
Agreed.
100%.
I mean, something clicked.
And he's just on it.
I mean, who knows if that continues.
He had a rough start against
the Royals last week.
I believe he's facing them
on my series preview keynote today, too.
I should know this off the top of my head.
I believe he's got them
again on Wednesday.
Wednesday.
So that'll be the start to watch for him.
If he's on,
then I'm going to put the count.
I mean, it's May 1st,
so April is going to be one
of the best ERAs in the month.
But, I mean,
it goes to the question of one
of these three or Tarek
Skubal are going to be the
pitcher of the month, I think, for April.
They should be at least.
They've got a good argument right now.
I mean, Scooble's just been as dominant.
I mean, his ERA is not there,
but it's close.
I think he's actually,
he might be in the top like
10 for American League.
I think it's 1.84 off the top of my head.
I'm not pulling it up right now,
but I think it's 1.84.
He's been impressive.
But I mean, when you, and I didn't,
I looked at this briefly.
I didn't dive into that,
those numbers that you sent over,
but you've been harping on this
since we've started talking,
Andrew Bailey.
You can't deny it right now,
especially with these two arms.
Hulk in that complete game
he threw was lights out.
The most impressive thing
for me was Cutter's start
against Pittsburgh where he
struggled to get through six innings,
but he battled.
How many pitchers will end
up in those situations
coming out and not being
able to get the outs that
he needs to extend his outing?
My favorite moment from that
series was Cora coming out.
I think it was the bottom of
the sixth with two outs, and he said,
this is your last batter.
Go get him.
And Crawford unloaded the tank,
and he looked good in that last batter.
The other thing, it will come out tomorrow,
my series preview.
The Red Sox are facing the
Giants for three games this week.
That'll be good.
I'm excited for it.
I will be there tomorrow.
It'll be Logan Webb versus
Cooper Criswell.
The one thing I thought was interesting,
though,
and I'm pulling it up right now
because I want to have the stats here.
So before joining the Red Sox,
Andrew Bailey was the
pitching coach of the Giants.
And it's funny when I was
putting all the stats in
for the like where they
rank or whatever entering.
I did it for today,
so it's not updated for
tomorrow because things will change.
But the Giants without
Andrew Bailey now are in
the bottom of the league.
Lower half of the league in
every pitching category.
Whip, ERA, and strikeouts.
They're in the bottom half.
One of them, they're 16th.
But the other two, they're in the 20s.
So, again, I go back to,
is that the Andrew Bailey effect?
He's not there.
I also have seen things,
and I don't know if we've said it on here,
but we've talked about this,
where my bold prediction is
Alex Cora is going to be
the manager of the Dodgers
if they don't win the World
Series next year.
Is Andrew Bailey the manager
of the Red Sox next year?
Because if we go back to
that Oakland series to start the year,
there was a game where I
believe the runner would
have been a pitcher and
Bailey was the one that said to Cora,
that can't happen.
You can pull this off.
Cora didn't know that rule.
So Andrew Bailey knows those rules too.
He's not just a pitching guy.
He knows his stuff.
So I'm just pointing that out.
But I'm big on Andrew Bailey.
I have been for a long time.
I like what he did with Logan Webb.
I want to, you can take it away from me.
I'm going to pull up Logan
Webb's numbers on baseball
reference and see how he's progressed.
Yeah, no, I mean, you've,
you've harped on it and I
think it's easy to kind of
just look at these teams.
And you mentioned Logan Webb,
Logan Webb's always been decent,
a decent pitcher,
but something just clicked.
And for the average fan,
just looking at it and not
paying attention to who's
there and maybe not giving
credit where credit's due.
You just assume that with age and,
you know,
veterans around him that he just
figured something out and
maybe picked up another
pitch or picked up a different arm angle.
But, you know,
oftentimes what that is is
just collaboration between
someone in the bullpen or
the pitching coach.
And who better to have than
a closer who only was there
to get three outs, right?
And this guy, but he had to know,
here's the other thing, he had to know
as a closer you have to know
every batter that you could
face right it's not like
the starters who are going
to learn and pick things up
they don't have to pay as
close attention because
they're going to see them
two three times in an
outing the closer has to
know at detail at length
who they're facing what
they need to throw where
they like it and know it
from top to bottom because
they're only going to maybe
see them once but they have
to know right so
in regards to Bailey's
intelligence that you were just saying,
knowing the rules and all this,
I think that it's an
interesting aspect to look at, you know,
some of these stats and see
how the rest of this year goes.
But I like Andrew Bailey.
I liked him when he was a
pitcher for the A's.
And then when he came over to Boston,
I think it's interesting.
I always like to see,
catchers become managers I
mentioned steven vote out
there with the cleveland
guardians I think veritech
if he ever wants to would
be great but I think that's
another dynamic out in the
bullpen you've got veritech
that's out there working
with people you've got
you've got andrew bailey
who threw to veritech I
believe unless I'm totally
off off base here I don't
know if bailey was there
with veritech throwing I
believe he was but it's
just an interesting dynamic the minds of
the pitchers,
especially a closer and then
a catcher and how they
succeed or how they,
how successful they are as
managers and in the thought process,
you have to really be a
cerebral player to become a good manager.
And I'll just, I think Andrew Bailey being,
being a head coach is not
far fetched as I just see
an error made by the Cubs
that make me want to choke on my chew,
but,
So perfect example,
I pulled up Logan Webb's numbers,
and 2019 was his first
season with the Giants.
He made eight starts.
He went two and three with a 5.22 ERA.
Andrew Bailey got there in 2020.
And now, again,
Andrew Bailey is not making
his stamp of approval yet in 2020.
Three and four, 13 appearances,
11 of those starts.
Now let's go to 2021 with Andrew Bailey.
11-3 in 27 appearances,
26 starts with a .303 ERA.
Yeah.
2022, 32 starts, 15-9 with a 2.90 ERA.
Last season with Andrew Bailey,
the Giants weren't great.
11-13 in 33 starts,
but still he had a 3.25 ERA.
Finished second in the Cy
Young Award voting last year.
Yeah.
Finished 11th in 2022,
and 2022 was his better season.
Yeah.
You know what would be interesting?
Again, I'm cutting you off,
but it would be very interesting to see,
go back in Baseball Savant,
look up Bailey, look at his best pitches,
and see if he has any of
these guys that he's worked
with that have all of a
sudden started either using
more or getting more strikes or avoiding.
That would be a much deeper
dive to look to see where
his impact's coming from.
from but that that was
something when you when
you're going through those
numbers to me and again a
lot of my reaction is to
things that you make me
think of and that would be
something interesting to
look into in regards okay
what is the andrew bailey
effect even better one I
just pulled it up because
it popped in my head while
we were talking kevin cosman
his last season before he
became a free agent was 2021.
Yep.
He made 33 starts, had a 2.81 ERA,
which is his lowest of his career.
Yep.
Also was 14 and six,
which before his time with the blue Jays,
which is where he is now.
Yeah.
Was the only season he
finished above 500 as a starting pitcher.
No shit.
Andrew Bailey,
teach him something and got
him into that mode.
And now here we are, got him paid.
He's a big sinker ball pitcher,
if I'm not mistaken.
If you look at the Red Sox,
look at what they're throwing.
They're throwing sweepers, sliders,
splitters, sinkers.
Keeping it down.
They're going away from the fastball,
and they're going more off-speed.
They want him to top it and
hit it into the ground and
let the defense do their job.
So, the numbers are there.
I mean,
that's why I was so big on him as
I've looked into all of this.
Yeah.
I think he is a pitching guru,
which is not somebody you'd
expect to be a pitching guru.
He's not a Randy Johnson, a Pedro.
He's a reliever.
But he knows what he's doing.
I mean,
that's evident with what the Red
Sox staff.
I believe they're still
maybe they're in the top
three of almost most of the
pitching categories.
They're up in the top three.
I believe they're still in
the top two strikeouts.
They've dipped off.
I think they're 10th now in strikeouts,
but
And that's including the bullpen.
That's how much it starters.
So there's the effect of
Andrew Bailey to everybody.
No, that's interesting.
I mean,
I don't think we intend on spending
that much,
and I don't mean to steer you
in directions because I
know these are your thoughts,
but when you speak about that,
these are all things that
are real and appear to be
real at this moment.
So those are three impressive,
as you mentioned, potential –
Definitely have a big
argument for April Pitcher
of the Month along with Schuble.
But what else caught your
eye this past week?
The Atlanta Braves.
And they're 19-7 entering play tonight.
I don't think they actually play tonight.
But they're 19-7 right now.
And that's despite their
reigning MVP's slow start.
I think he just hit his
first home run maybe last week,
if not the week before,
but he still only has one.
Yeah.
And I came out,
I don't know if you read it, but I had,
I asked you to share it.
And I mentioned about how
last year he had a 40, 70 season.
And I mentioned Ellie Daly
Cruz potentially having a 30, 80.
If you haven't seen it,
it's on the website.
Yep.
Ellie Daly Cruz is on pace
to do something we've never seen before.
And something you should check out,
but I don't want to
sidetrack from the brave.
So the reds here, um,
But my biggest takeaway,
and on top of all of that,
is I had them to – I don't
remember if I had them off
the top of my head to win
the World Series,
but I know they at least
were in the World Series.
Yep.
And that was a big part
behind their pitching with Max Fried,
Spencer Strider, Chris Sale,
Charlie Morton.
And those were the four I talked about.
Yep.
The one name I didn't talk
about who's the number five
starter is Ronaldo Lopez.
And he's made five starts.
He's 2-0.
With a 0.72 ERA.
And sorry, four starts.
With a 0.88 whip and 24 strikeouts.
What a difference when you
don't have to go out,
like in a mindset wise,
if you have an offense that
you know can support three, four runs,
maybe five a game,
you don't have to be
perfect and you can just fucking pitch.
The guy's got talent.
And you're doing it without
your best pitcher.
Yeah.
And your best hitter is not
even getting hot yet.
Which, again, goes back to me.
This team is just so deep and so talented.
That's why I picked them to win.
Again,
we're going to probably run into
something with them where I
like the Braves.
I've always liked the Braves.
Again,
I grew up with them on TBS every day.
They were always on TBS.
But it's back to, like,
people – if you're not a
big fan of that team, like,
they're not your number one team,
you get tired of seeing teams win.
People got tired of the
Yankees in the 90s.
People got tired of the Astros, you know,
a couple years ago.
You know, and we'll get into them later.
But, you know,
that's the thing with the Braves, though,
is they – it's – I just –
I said Braves-Orioles for
the World Series this year,
and I'm wearing an Orioles hat now.
I know as a Red Sox fan,
it's probably a bad idea,
but they're playing the Yankees,
and I can't send the Yankees.
And so Red Sox aren't playing,
Tigers aren't playing,
so I'm with a different hat.
Yep.
But we're going to run to a point, I think,
in a couple of years where
we have the potential, or even this year,
starting this year,
we have the potential where
every World Series for the
next three to four years
could be Orioles-Braves.
That's just how good those two teams are,
and they lock up the young talent.
Look at what the Braves did.
They locked up Acuna.
They locked up Albies.
They locked up Austin Riley
to a team-friendly deal,
but it's still good money.
Michael Harris locked up.
Those are good to see, though.
Right.
The team-friendly deals are good to see,
especially after the
bullshit we saw out in L.A.
Not bullshit, but the creative way.
I'm assuming you're talking
about the Angels of the L.A.,
I'm talking about the Dodgers.
Granted,
Otani's deal was probably
orchestrated by his
interpreter who knew he was
going to need more money
further down the line.
Well,
I don't think he liked the idea of
we're going to push it down
the line more.
Yeah, no, we need that now.
How about a bigger signing bonus?
I have a big bet on that.
What a fucking debacle.
I mean, Acuna this year isn't hitting bad.
I mean, it's nothing, I'm not saying he's
Just hasn't slugged.
He's not hitting the long ball.
I mean,
we saw 30 bombs from him last year.
Actually, more.
I think it was close to 40.
He's only got one.
And he's played in 26 games.
He's got one.
His RBIs, he's got six.
Like, that's not what you expect from him.
And I'm a big Ronald Acuna fan.
I'm not saying he's terrible.
I'm not saying that whatsoever.
I'm just saying he's off to a slow start.
How many runs does he have scored, though?
Cause he hits lead off most
of the time for them.
That, that to me is, you know, that,
that almost shows a little
bit RBI wise shows a little
bit more of a struggles at
the bottom of the order than it does or,
or success at the bottom who, you know,
you had Darnell hitting those home runs.
So he does have 26 runs.
He has 11 stolen bases.
So he's not, like I said,
he's not struggling as a hitter.
It's just along the lines of,
he's not a pop bat that
you're used to seeing from
Acuna to start the year.
You said the same thing I think it was two,
three weeks ago about Julio Rodriguez.
Same thing.
I mean, there was a thing I heard,
a graphic from MLB.com or
MLB Network or something
where it was like,
who hits the first home run?
And it was names you don't
think you're normally going
to see on that list.
And that's just, you know, I mean,
he's getting on base.
I mean, he's got a 7.15 OPS,
a 3.82 on base, and a 3.33 slugging.
He's not hitting bad.
but he's just not producing
the home runs that you
expect from Ronald Jr.
That's where his RBIs would
come from right now because
I think if you look at it,
and this is just eyeball
test in regards to seeing
what's happened with the
rest of that team,
I don't know if he's had a
whole bunch of
opportunities with guys in
scoring position.
That's an assumption, but
It's going to be impressive
when we're here talking in
September and he ends up
with 35 home runs and 65,
70 stolen bases.
And April, he did nothing.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, like I said, by the way,
Correa is back tonight.
Okay, so I did read that.
Yeah.
But, yeah, it's not out of the question.
He does what he did last year.
It's just you're not used to seeing it.
And like I said, they're doing it.
They are 19-7 entering play
tonight with the best record in baseball,
and your best player isn't doing that.
Get the fuck out.
Get out.
Chris Morrell just went deep for the Cubs.
Love that.
Take the lead,
3-1 in the top of the ninth.
The other one,
and this is going to pain us
as Red Sox fans, Chris Sale.
Five starts, 3-1 with a 3.69 ERA.
An under one whip with 33 strikeouts.
Again,
I've said it in my prediction that
they're going to go as far
as Chris Sale stays healthy.
Yeah.
If he stays healthy,
they're my pick to be in the World Series,
if not winning.
And to feed into that,
we're going to get a great
preview of what this team
is this weekend.
Yeah.
They're going to get the
Dodgers for three games.
Now,
the Dodgers are not going to see Sale.
Sale goes – and this is a
good week for the Braves.
They get the Mariners for three,
and they get the Dodgers for three.
And so,
Sale's going – I think it's Wednesday.
I think it is three.
Oh, no.
Actually, I don't think they play tonight.
So,
I think Thursday it's going to be Sale
on Thursday.
Okay.
So,
it's Charlie Morton versus Tyler Glass
now Friday.
Okay.
Saturday is Bryce Elder.
I put Michael Grove in what
I sent you because he was
the opener for the Dodgers the other day.
And then it's Freed versus Paxton.
So, I mean,
that's three arms right there
besides the two I named of
Lopez and Sale that I want
to see against the Dodgers lineup.
You know, can you guys get there?
Freed, last time I think we talked,
went that night and he went 9-8.
Can we game shutout?
Yeah.
So...
Can Freed do that against the Dodgers?
I want to see it.
Actually, I want to look now.
Is that Sunday Night Baseball?
I would assume so.
Nope.
It's not?
It must be a 4-10.
Is it in L.A.?
It is in – where is it?
It's in L.A., 4-10.
4-10 game.
Sunday Night Baseball is Giants-Phillies.
That's a missed opportunity.
I agree because you're going to get,
like I just said,
it's Freed versus Paxton.
Paxton is not pitching bad.
No.
So it's not a bad matchup.
I mean, granted,
this all comes out before the season.
So they sit in there going,
we give every Sunday night
baseball game to the Dodgers.
We give every Sunday night
baseball game to the Braves.
Correct.
Let's just not overdo this.
But I think it's a missed
opportunity for a series
that's going to be really
good with two teams that –
everybody has finishing one
and two in the national league.
Yeah.
You know, I mean,
the Dodgers potentially the, you know, to,
to play for the world series.
Yeah.
That first game will be interesting.
Glass now is one against that lineup.
That's interesting.
And then on the, the backend of that,
that series is freed versus
the Dodgers lineup.
It's a great test and great, you know,
it's going to be a great
series to watch and pay
attention to because the,
both high powered offenses,
but both have great pitching as well.
Yep.
It's going to be a fun matchup.
And again, I mean,
the Dodgers still aren't at
full strength.
No, we haven't, you know,
Clayton Kershaw is still out.
I don't think has Bueller come back yet.
No.
So those two big arms.
I mean, I said, when we did our preview,
the Paxton is going to feed
right into Kershaw.
Yeah.
So, I mean, that's just replacing, I mean,
Kershaw is better.
So it's just, what if he's healthy?
Yeah.
I mean, I don't want to sidetrack you,
but what if he's healthy?
There goes Grove to the bullpen.
Now you've got Paxton and
Kershaw right there at 4-5.
Or there goes Gavin Stone
back to AAA if he's not already there.
I haven't followed the
Dodgers as much because
they're the Dodgers,
and I think they're just as
good as everything.
So I haven't been like, oh, the Dodgers.
Their depth is in their pitching,
in the minors at least,
that is ready to contribute
right now where,
The so is the Braves have so much depth,
too.
So this will be a very
interesting early May
series to see what we see
from both teams pitching lineups,
how they go.
It'll give us a good preview of, you know,
potentially what's to come in October.
It'll be a fun, fun one to watch.
Here's my bold prediction for the weekend.
All right, let's hear it.
Acuna gets hot and hits two
home runs this weekend.
I would not be surprised if
we see him go hitless
against Glass now and hit
one off of Grove if he's to start,
and then lefty being Paxton.
Paxton's got that history of
keeping the ball up.
He's a power pitcher.
Acuna is going to catch one
up in the zone and just drill it up,
you know, 12 rows up in left field.
And I easily see I can
easily see him hitting to be in game.
You know,
I'll be interested to see how he
faces glass now,
but definitely in game two, game three,
especially against Paxton.
I think he will light Paxton up.
I might take it on Sunday
night baseball leadoff home
run if he's batting leadoff.
That's a that's a tough one on.
Yeah.
It'd be interesting to see
what the odds are because, I mean,
that's going to be a fun one to watch.
I can't wait until next week
to kind of recap that one
where we've already
addressed it a little bit,
talk about that series,
and then also talk a little
bit about the
Yankees-Orioles series
because that's the other
one on the American League
side that's a big series
preview of the top two
teams in the American League East,
which tonight I don't know
what the score is now.
Two-nothing, top nine.
Yankees had a guy on second with one out.
Is it Kimbrell?
No, it's Colombe.
Okay.
I was going to say,
they have a lot of nerve
going back to Kimbrell.
But, yeah,
there will be two interesting
series for us to recap next
week when we meet up on Monday next week.
I was going to make a bold
prediction saying if the
Braves win that series,
I'll wear a Braves hat next Monday,
but the Tigers play,
so that ain't happening.
Yeah.
Hector Nias is in for the close.
The Braves get the Red Sox next week,
so that ain't happening even more so.
Yeah, you'd be torn.
No,
interesting that the Cubs brought in
Hector Nias to close the game out.
Against the Mets.
That's interesting with
Adelzai being there named
closer to start the year,
but has struggled.
I saw he was done out of the role.
I think I saw that last Thursday.
I wouldn't doubt it.
Because I think at that
point he'd given up four
home runs and four innings
or something like that.
I saw council said he's all done.
All right.
So anything more about the
Braves-Dodgers series?
Nope.
That is about it.
I'm excited for that series.
It's probably what I'm going
to watch on my little TV,
although it all depends on
what happens with the
Bruins and Celtics because
that changes everything
with the Red Sox as well.
A Bruins series is over tomorrow,
so you'll be freed up.
All right, then.
Well, with that said,
we're at the time now.
We've been talking about
this for the past few weeks,
every episode.
If you like baseball,
you're looking to join.
our party and just kind of
team up with us and talk baseball, right?
Baseball.
If you've got a favorite team,
reach out to us on the website,
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Join us.
Let us know who your team is
or a area you live in or
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Reach out to us.
Let us know what you're thinking.
We still have some teams
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And let us know what you're thinking,
and we can kind of talk you
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So always looking to add
more people with baseball
minds to kind of add to the content.
All right, CJ.
So what else?
I know you had eight total.
We've gotten through three.
What was number four?
We had none, actually.
I remember I added one.
Oh, that's right.
That's right.
So the fourth one was one
you actually want to talk about as well.
I want to go to the Marlins
and the Nationals.
What a shit show.
My biggest interesting one
was yesterday where they
went up 7-0 in the first two innings.
Yep.
And then, you know,
most times you would sit
there and good baseball team.
That's the game.
I'm glad I tuned in for this.
No, no.
Not the Marlins.
Not that dumpster fire.
Forget that.
Who's the Nationals?
Who's the fucking?
Not that the Nationals are
horrible because they've
got some young talent.
But Jesus.
7-0.
The Nationals came out of
nowhere and put up five in
the fourth to make it a 7-5 game.
And then in the fifth,
put up four more just to make it 9-7.
Then just for a little insurance,
I had one in the sixth.
The Marlins, they come back,
make it a better ball game
in the seventh with two
more runs to make it 10-9.
And then the Nationals put
away in the eighth with two more runs.
And the Nationals came out on top.
And I saw on Twitter people
were commenting with the 7-0 lead.
Yeah, we'll find a way to blow this.
They've lost all hope.
They've now,
even though they have six wins
and so do the White Sox,
they actually physically
have the worst record in baseball.
just because they've played
more games and they've got
more losses than the White Sox.
It is sad.
Now, with all that said, Lizardo's out.
Yuri Perez is out.
Yeah,
basically anything that they have is
gone.
And it's sad for me because, you know,
the Marlins are a team that
in their history, what they do,
they pile up and they make
a run deep into the playoffs,
whether it be the World
Series or whatever,
then they sell everything off.
They have some nice pieces,
and I think if Perez,
you think about who's injured, right?
Sandy Alcantara, you've got Lizardo,
and you've got Perez that I
can think of just off the top of my head.
They're not horrible in the field.
I'm not a huge fan of what other pieces.
They've got Chaz Chisholm.
They've got Luis Arreaz,
and they've got Jake Berger.
Tim Anderson's not a bad one.
Josh Bell.
Nope.
They've got some talent,
but it all shows you that
if you can't pitch,
you don't have the pitching,
you're not going to go very far.
You can only put up so many runs.
When you come into a season with A.J.
Puck as your number two.
He was your closer.
How many saves did he have from last year?
He was your closer last year,
and he's your number two
starter entering the season.
You've got a problem.
And why they didn't sell off – I mean,
as Red Sox fans,
we were all calling for Jesus Lizardo.
Why you didn't sell off – I mean, granted,
did you expect to lose Perez?
No.
And Eduardo Cabrera – or Edward Cabrera.
And, you know,
it was – the one thing I
will say about them is it
was nice – I forget what day it was,
but it was nice to see
Sixto Sanchez make his
return to the mound for the
first time since 2020.
And from what I saw,
I don't think he actually looked bad.
I don't remember off the top
of my head what day he
pitched and how bad it actually was.
But, you know, there's something there.
They do have the pitching.
It's just everybody's hurt.
Like,
you're dealing with everybody being out.
I'm trying to pull up what
day it was he pitched.
I think I thought it was.
He was a top prospect for
the Phillies that everyone
was talking highly of.
He didn't really pan out in Philadelphia.
And I forget.
He was part of that JT Rilamuto trade.
Along with Olifaro.
And then he's been hurt, I think,
pretty much ever since.
And they've got, between Cabrera, Perez,
Lizardo, and then Sandy Alcantara,
they've got,
if everyone was healthy and
pitching the way they could,
they've got probably one of
the more talented, pure talent potential,
one of the better younger
pitching staffs in the National League.
Ryan Weathers is good, too.
He's pitched well lately.
And I was wrong.
Sixto actually didn't pitch well.
He faced the Braves.
He gave up three runs, two thirds,
five hits, three Ks, and one walk.
The fucking Cubs are going
to blow this game.
God damn it.
It's all right.
Two runner on second, runner on first,
one out.
Nearest is lost DJ Stewart.
Nope, nope.
You got to figure out who won there.
Oh, God.
It's pretty bad right now,
but that's that.
Yeah, the Marlins right now, unfortunately,
due to their pitching injuries situations,
I think it won't be too long.
The two big names that I see,
Chisholm's not going anywhere,
but I did an article
earlier for the Reds in
regards to a cheap power
bat at third to kind of
solve some of their issues there.
Jake Berger,
and uh could be moved
eventually and then luis
arias both have decent
contracts burgers on a
one-year deal under a
million dollars so it's
going to be fairly cheap
for someone to grab if
they're looking for a power
right hand bat um but
unfortunately the marlins
just have too many injuries
right now and I don't even
know where lizardo's going
to end up you know with
this injury he's got so
they say it shouldn't be long term but
How often do you hear that?
They come back, make one, two starts,
then not the same,
and then they're done for a
little bit longer.
I think he was thrown today.
Hopefully he makes a healthy
return because that's good.
He's a good arm.
I do think he's a trade piece too,
unfortunately,
given the fact of what they're doing.
The Marlins are a mess.
That was just something to
me going up against the Nationals.
Again, the Nationals aren't horrible,
but to pitch
Which leads us right into
this other shit show, the Chicago Cubs.
Well,
I wrote when they were facing the Red
Sox that, you know,
they were one of the
hottest teams at that point.
They had won five of their last seven.
And then, you know,
they swept the Astros
coming into the series and
they won Friday night.
to go six of their last eight.
And then all of a sudden,
the Red Sox decided to, you know,
have the lineup wake up a
little bit and put up 17 on
them on Saturday.
I'm glad you were there and not me.
Yeah, I was having a great time.
Especially with all the
tough fans sitting around me.
The only I was hoping for
was Joel Rodriguez to come in the game.
And then last night,
I don't know if anybody
watched that's listening to this,
but that was a tough play by Gansby.
I mean, that should have been...
You know, I've heard people say,
why didn't Duran still second?
Well, then they walked Devers,
and it's first and second.
Nobody out with O'Neal, whatever.
Ends up being Devers at first,
Duran at third.
And Duran's your best base runner,
I think.
Yeah.
And then it was that fly ball to Dansby.
Granted,
I don't know what Duran was doing
halfway down the line.
He should have been at third,
at least trying to tag.
That ball shouldn't have
been tried to be caught by Dansby.
No, that's Ian Haps all day long.
Should have been.
But he was playing at the
wall for a double.
which, again, the guy's at third.
I don't know why you're
playing for a double.
Yeah.
So a double, you lose the game.
Yeah.
So I think it was a missed
defensive alignment.
The Red Sox come out on top.
They take two or three from the Cubs,
and the Cubs seem like they
might have cooled off,
except for right now,
unless they blow this game
with a one-two count,
two outs in the ninth inning.
We'll see.
I don't know.
That's an interesting pitch.
Yeah.
The Cubs were, you know,
they looked good going into
the Red Sox series,
and all of a sudden they
seemed to have cooled off in that weekend,
and then now they're back,
seem like they're going to
do what they're going to do.
But that's their bats this year.
Their bats have done that.
Watching every single game
they've had this year,
their bats cool off,
and the good news is is
Justin Steele is going to
be making a rehab start, I believe,
Wednesday down at Iowa.
They did just win.
Thank God.
3-1 against the Mets to open the series.
Thanks to Murrell.
Murrell's home run.
But yeah, they are a very,
they still have a good
chunk of their lineup, the Cubs,
that isn't hitting.
Swanson's not doing real well hitting.
I think he's hitting under two.
He's hitting,
or he was opening the day at 238.
Corner's not really hitting.
He was starting against the Astros.
Didn't do much against the Cubs.
And Bellinger's out.
So up the middle,
they're not really
supporting the team the way they can.
They've gotten some timely
hitting like they did tonight,
but they've yet almost like Acuna, Acuna,
that a lot of their players
have not yet warmed up.
And in order for them to do
what I picked them to do
and win the central,
they're going to need to
get everyone firing on all
cylinders because their
pitching has not been horrible.
And they stand to get...
So it'll be interesting.
That was a very disappointing weekend,
Saturday, Sunday, against the Red Sox.
Against a team, on paper,
in the way they've been playing,
the Cubs should have taken that series.
Yeah, except for Saturday.
Saturday was just... Well, no,
Saturday... When you have
to have two position
players pitch... I mean,
that was a 17-0...
The Red Sox gave Pablo Reyes
a going away present.
Here's a pitching appearance for you.
Yeah, I saw that.
Again, like I said,
I'm glad I wasn't there.
The debating back and forth
I had of going down there,
as much as I want to be at
Fenway to see the Cubs,
because most likely the
next time they come around,
it'll be during a weekday
and I won't have tickets.
But it was a good decision.
I still got some stuff done,
and I'm glad you got to go
and enjoy that.
Yeah, thank you for that.
Hey,
you enjoyed it more than I would have.
I had a great time.
And then I watched,
we had the phone propped up.
I watched the Celtics on my
phone on the ride back.
There you go.
The Bruins on the radio.
Yeah.
It was a great Boston day.
I think I saw somebody said
today that they outscored
their opponents combined
between the three.
What was it?
39 to nothing or 39 to yeah.
They had plus 39 for a run
differential for all three games.
Unreal.
So it was a good day.
The next one.
The biggest Astros series to
this point of the season is right now.
I mean, they just,
I think they came out on
top this weekend when it was the Rockies.
Yeah, they needed that to get right.
I said it last week that
they're a streaky team.
If they get hot,
they're right back in this.
Now they're facing the Guardians,
who have the best record in
the American League.
You can come out of the
series winning two out of
three before you go to a
division opponent.
You could turn things around.
But that's the question.
You're facing a good
Guardians team this week.
Got to win two out of three.
And the pitching matchups
line up to where it's
Hunter Brown versus Carrasco.
Carrasco hasn't impressed me,
but Hunter Brown has not been good.
You're looking at game two
is Verlander and McKenzie.
McKenzie's on a pitch count, it seems like,
still.
Verlander,
I don't know what they've done with him.
He's 1-0, 10.1 innings pitched,
10.3 innings pitched.
A 1.74 ERA, 11 Ks, and four walks.
So he's back to being Verlander,
it looks like.
So I think the Astros win
that game no matter what.
And then the third game,
there's no starter yet.
So the Astros have a very
good chance to win two out of three.
And if they do, I think here they come.
Yeah.
I just don't know what to
think of the Astros yet.
But I think very much like we said,
you just said,
and then last week we said that they –
They'll get hot.
They've got the bats to get hot.
The biggest thing for them will be,
can Verlander be a spark
plug for that pitching rotation?
Can he be that?
Yeah.
Which he's 41, I believe.
He's up there.
I don't know, 41.
I thought he was in his 30s still.
Maybe he's 39.
That may be just wishful thinking,
but it's pretty impressive
what he's done year in, year out.
But they need that kind of
veteran presence to be like, hey, look,
get your shit together.
Let's go and like feed off each other.
And they are a team that I
think that could very
easily struggle all April
and get shit together in
May and then June, July and August.
Okay.
But they could very well,
they could definitely piece
it all together and they
can be right back in the thick of this.
I mean,
nobody in that division is running
away with it.
No.
so I mean and I mean what
are they sitting I think
they actually are not
almost eight games out yeah
six okay six games out but
they're not out of it I
mean by any stretch of
anything even if it even if
the division does get away
like I know the rangers
have shares are coming back
to grumby back like they're
gonna get their arms back
the ashers can make the
wild card spot and they
could make a problem in the
playoffs they've been there
they have the I mean that's
what the story is you've
been there experience yeah
yeah so don't rule the
astros out I mean we can
all as people who don't
like the ashes for the
whole 2017 season enjoy
this because they could
very well get hot and be a
problem I don't know how
much you laughed but I
laughed my balls off when I
sent you that little reel
of that kid that little
mime or the little
mannequin that that to me
it just goes to show that
was pretty funny a lot of
people disliked that but unfortunately
cheating, whatever they did in 2017,
they're still a very
talented baseball team.
Yes.
And they can do it.
So it'll be interesting.
So that leads us right into the next one.
It does.
I'm going to go with, this is a bold one.
This is interesting from
what I've seen so far.
Are the Oakland A's not as
bad as everybody thought?
I enjoyed watching them
against the Orioles.
I enjoyed it.
And I actually wrote this
down before we actually hopped on.
And just from what I've seen
from the season,
and everybody went on about the Red Sox,
oh, congrats, you swept the A's.
Nice job.
They stink.
Yeah.
Let's go through after that series.
They took two or three from the Orioles.
They split with the Yankees in four games.
Yep.
They took two or three from the Rangers.
Also took two or three from the Tigers.
Are they?
I'm not saying, well,
let's hold the phone on the A's,
but like.
Yeah.
We all had them as, you know,
they're going to lose 100 games.
So, uh, good.
Yep.
So I saw something the other
day and I can't remember where,
and I meant to send it to you,
but I saw it and just in
quick passing in a lot of
these memes are coming out right now,
but like for the A's and
the ownership and what
they're trying to do, you know,
send to a minor league park next year.
That is just a dumpster fire,
but major league,
when that owner was trying
to tank to move to Miami,
a lot of that stuff was
showing up this past week.
And, you know,
what better like motivation
than just effort, you know,
screw management.
Let's prove we're better
than what we are or what
people think we are and
just go out and win.
And their team,
we've talked about Tampa
Bay that just is very kind of,
don't know what to think of
them and confusing,
but the A's always just
find a way to compete.
They're always either they're in a game.
You can never count them out.
They don't have a true, like, I guess,
superstar, if you will,
but they're always just, they're scrappy.
Yup.
And now they're pitching is
like impressive.
Yeah.
Aside from the guy we talked
about last week, Mason Miller.
Yeah.
The only guy, well,
a couple other guys here, but
He's got a 1-4-6 ERA.
It's just their starters.
Paul Blackburn, I think,
is a nice name to watch.
I like watching him when he pitches.
Stripling's been okay.
He still can't get a win.
Sears has been all right.
Alex Wood has been terrible.
He's got a 7 ERA.
They're hanging around,
but that just tells you that division.
The Angels aren't that great.
And the Astros, the Astros, like we said,
they'll get hot.
They'll be fine.
They'll probably end up switching spots,
but right now, I don't know.
The A's might get finished
fourth the way they're going.
Yeah.
Well, the angels are just,
I feel bad for Mike Trout
and what he's doing so far
and leading the wealth tied
with Gunnar Henderson for
the league lead and home runs.
But you know, it's,
it's pretty interesting.
Um,
And the A's, they're fun to watch.
The A's are fun to watch.
The Astros are starting slow,
but they will, you know,
unless they suffer a
serious injury or someone
just doesn't turn it around,
they are a tough one to watch.
And I'm watching Tampa Bay,
as we just talked about, bottom seven.
They're beating the Brewers.
The National League Central
leading Brewers won nothing.
Yeah, they're here to miss, though.
Peot's pitching or whatever,
however you pronounce his last name.
He's the one pitching right now,
but very interesting.
They went to the bullpen.
I got Armstrong in the
bottom of the seventh.
Yeah, you're right.
I'm pumped because I thought
there was an injury,
but I might be wrong.
I thought they were missing somebody.
I guess not.
What did you think of the
Met City Connect jersey?
I don't mean to extend it any longer,
but what did you think of
that jersey they had?
I wasn't impressed by it.
Me neither.
I mean, I'm excited for what's coming.
Detroit,
I think the Tigers come out next Monday.
Yeah.
That leads us into the last one,
and we'll skip the other one I had,
and we'll talk about that in a second.
I think the Ray City Connect, I mean,
my favorite.
Yeah.
That was pretty impressive.
I like the fact that they
went back to the old
double-raised look with the
purple brim and the logo and everything.
I like the black unis.
I think that's a nice, that's a nice, uh,
design.
Yeah.
It might be in the top five for me.
I don't know.
I might have to sit down
after they all come out
this year and do a top 20.
Take a look at them.
Yeah.
The Red Sox is always in the
top for me as a Homer.
Cause I like the yellow,
I like the Boston marathon, you know,
Patriots.
The connection.
So, all right.
The last one of my thoughts is,
the series I actually really
like right now that I want
to watch this week.
And it's not a series.
It's going to jump off the paper,
everybody.
But I told the story,
I think the week you were actually out.
And I talked about the Oh
six season with my
grandfather and everything.
And we get a rematch of that
world series this week with
the Cardinals and the Tigers.
And it was supposed to be on right now.
And I would be wearing a tiger's hat.
I'd have my tiger shirt on.
Like I would've been watching that,
but got rained out.
They had a double header tomorrow.
but that's a,
I like watching throwback
world series matchup.
That's the one thing I do
like about this whole,
everybody plays everybody
at some point throughout
the season is you get
something like that.
Like at some point when you
get Red Sox Dodgers, 2018 world series,
you know,
we're going to get throwback
matchups from world series.
And I like that.
So I'm,
that's a series I'm excited to
watch this week.
I obviously won't be
watching tomorrow cause I'll be at,
I'll be at Fenway, but, uh,
Actually,
I'll probably watch the first
game at work.
I think it's at 340 or something.
So I'll probably watch the
first game at work.
And then game three I'll
probably watch whenever I get home.
I don't think the Bruins play.
The Celtics probably are on,
so I'll probably have
something on my phone.
The Bruins play tomorrow night.
So I think they're Tuesday, Thursday,
Saturday.
So I'll have the Celtics on
my phone probably.
I'll put the Tigers on the
little TV and the Sox on
the big TV and we'll roll with that.
But that is the last of my thoughts.
And I killed an hour trying
to not kill an hour.
Hey,
there's a lot of stuff that kind of
comes up.
And I think that's the
biggest thing here when
we're talking through this
is like there's so much that goes on.
We can have an agenda and we
stick to that agenda.
But there's always going to
be something that pops up,
goes on throughout that
just kind of pops up and
makes us think about
different things that we
want to dive into.
It's only two of us, right?
And we're trying to cover as
much as we can.
And we can't write about
everything that we talk
about because we just we have other jobs,
too.
So to end it out, you know, basically,
I interjected with a lot of
my thoughts throughout the whole process.
There was a lot of stuff you
covered that kind of
connected with what I thought.
But I'd like to end out each
week with your top prospect
in the prospect of the week.
So who do you have there?
All right, well,
so I really said I hate last week.
I hate doing two,
but I just couldn't eliminate a guy.
So maybe I have to find a
way to do this differently,
whether I do three hitters
a week and three pitchers
out of the top 100 or something.
But I got two hitters and I
got two pitchers.
And I actually went away
from Paul Skeens for once.
Okay.
He gave up his first run.
So you're done with him?
You're done with him?
No, no.
He's still going to be a stud.
I mean, it's just digest.
I like what else.
I wanted to avoid him.
So I looked up his numbers,
knowing he still gave up one run.
And I was like, you know,
I'm just not going to do him.
So my hitter of the week, the first one,
is I got catcher Harry Ford,
who is the 42nd-ranked prospect.
He's playing for the Seattle
Mariners AA affiliate,
the Arkansas Travelers.
This week, he went 6-for-19.
in five games with three home runs,
six RBIs, eight runs scored, seven walks,
and two stolen bases.
Wow.
So on the season,
he's hitting 203 with a 758 OPS,
three home runs.
All those came this week.
Seven RBIs, so six of those came this week,
and four stolen bases.
My next one is a guy that
you'll actually appreciate.
The 98th ranked prospect in
my top 100 until next week.
I'm hoping to have all that updated.
Okay.
Is James Trientos.
Yep.
He's playing a double A for
the Cubs and the Tennessee Smokies.
This last week,
he went 23 with two doubles, a triple,
two home runs, five RBIs,
four runs scored, and two stolen bases.
On the season,
he's hitting 288 with an 818 OPS,
three home runs, 12 RBIs,
and six stolen bases.
Yep.
He's impressive.
So far, so good.
Yep.
We're going to go to the pitchers now.
And the first one I have
before we get really
in-depth is the 36th-ranked prospect,
right-handed pitcher Rhett Lauder,
who I watched a lot at Wake Forest.
Yep.
Pitching at high A, Dayton,
for the Cincinnati Reds.
Last week, he got the start on, geez,
I really wish I wrote the
date down instead of,
or the day instead of the actual date.
He pitched on the 26th, which was Friday.
He got the win, going six innings,
gave up three hits, one run,
wasn't earned, one walk,
and nine strikeouts.
This season, through four starts,
he's 1-0 with a 1.86 ERA, a 0.98 whip,
20 strikeouts,
and 19 or 30 innings pitched.
Wow.
He's going to do pretty good.
He's their top pitching prospect, too,
so that's great.
I'm high on him.
I'm very high on him.
The next one is another guy
I think you actually wrote
the player profile for.
39th-ranked prospect,
and I don't know how to
pronounce his last name,
but it's right-handed
pitcher Jacob Misurowski.
Yeah.
For the Brewers,
he's pitching at AA Biloxi,
and he made two starts this week.
So in the first start on Tuesday,
he went 4-3, gave up a hit,
didn't allow a run, walked one,
and struck out seven.
And then he got the ball again.
Usually if you get the ball on Tuesday,
you get the ball again on Sunday.
He pitched again on Sunday,
going three and two-thirds.
Didn't allow a hit,
but he gave up a run on one
walk and six strikeouts.
So he ended the week going,
combining it all, eight innings, one hit,
one run, two walks,
13 Ks for a 1.12 ERA and a
0.37 WIP for the week.
He's a big boy.
He is a big boy.
This season through five starts,
he doesn't have a decision
yet with a 3.44 ERA, a 1.09 whip,
28 strikeouts,
and 18 no fair games pitched.
Yeah,
he was one that when I wrote the
write-up that I started
paying a little closer attention to,
and I saw one of his bullpen sessions.
And I could be getting this wrong,
but I think he's over 6'8",
and he's a right-hand power pitcher.
And that's probably why the
Brewers were okay with
getting rid of Corbin Burns,
knowing that he probably
wasn't going to resign anyway.
But this kid is one to keep
an eye on because he's
going to move his way up.
He'll probably pitch half
the year in Biloxi and then
move up to AAA and see what
he's got there.
Cause he,
he is a talented kid throws hard
and just is a great arm for the Brewers,
uh,
you know, organization.
So that's, that's a good one.
He had a great week and
Rhett louder is another one
that's to watch in the NL
central that for the reds, he's going to,
he's going to be another good one.
I also saw,
and I want to give this
prospect update really quick.
He's not in my top 100,
but a right-handed pitcher
time adding for the tigers.
He's in my top 10 for the tigers.
He got promoted to triple a Toledo today.
And I saw,
I'm trying to remember all these
Tennessee guys.
I was a big Tennessee baseball guy.
I liked watching them the
last couple of years.
Drew Gilbert got promoted.
I believe he's actually to
the big leagues now.
Really?
For the Mets.
If I remember correctly.
Christian Scott's the guy
from the Mets that I'm waiting for,
for them to pull up from Syracuse.
Making sure,
but I believe he was called up today.
And I saw somebody talk about, oh,
there's all these other
guys from Tennessee that are waiting.
And there's a lot of Tennessee talent.
Like Chase Dolander from –
he's with the Rockies organization.
Maybe it wasn't Drew Gilbert.
I thought it was.
Maybe I'm wrong.
There was somebody called up
from the Mets.
Yeah.
I thought it was a Gilbert.
But I believe he went to
Tennessee as well.
But he got called up today,
whether it's to AAA or to the Mets.
But he got called up.
there's a lot of talent from
college that's moving up
more than I think probably
the past 10 years.
Um, that's going to be coming in.
Um, I can't wait, you know,
hopefully you get a chance
to get that done.
The updated list top 100 so
that we can maybe, maybe next week,
if you,
whatever week you get it done the
following week,
I'd like to have you kind
of just discuss a little
bit of who moved in,
who dropped out and why.
Um,
Cause I think that's,
that's one of the fun things,
especially now with MLB
being able to go and watch
these minor league games.
And I get yelled at in my
house when I turn it on and what's,
what's wrong with all the, uh,
the graphics.
It doesn't look right.
The, the, the TV, why is this,
why are they showing that angle?
I'm like, well, you know,
this is Myrtle beach Pelicans, you know,
the Cubs single aid team.
Why are we watching this?
Well,
I want to keep an eye on so-and-so and,
it's, I'm watching more baseball now,
you know,
at home and I'll turn off a
major league game just to
keep an eye on something
else that's going.
So I'm looking forward to
your updates with this and kind of,
you know, seeing who moves in,
who moves out and, you know,
we've had some discussion,
but this prospect thing for
me is one of the more
exciting things to kind of
keep an eye on.
Cause I don't think a lot of,
Major League fans,
I think they focus a lot of
the time on what's on the
active roster and maybe
missing what's to come.
And that sometimes is just
as exciting because some of
these people don't have a
clue what's to come because
of the coverage.
But I think what you're able
to do for Inside the
Diamond hopefully can be
useful to these fans so
they can get a look at
what's to come up the
pipeline and get excited.
And if they've got a chance
to go to a game
to a minor league park to
see some of these guys.
It's well worth it.
It's great baseball.
It's fun to see.
It's cheap.
And it's exciting.
So I really enjoy getting
your point of view on these
prospects and kind of seeing it.
So looking forward to seeing
what's to come with the
moves in the top 100.
Well,
that's the big thing is the future is
the minor leagues.
And so, for instance, we all just saw,
and we didn't touch on it tonight,
but Jackson Holiday just
got sent back down to AAA.
And so I think I mentioned
last week when we were
talking that Paul Skeens
will be the soon-to-be number one.
He ain't coming anytime soon
because Holiday's not graduating.
But as a perfect example,
there's a lot of talent in the minors.
Um,
I'm going to the Fisher cats next
Wednesday and I'll be covering that game.
Um,
the reason why I circled that game and
one of the big reasons why
was I want to watch the Fisher cats guys,
but also Harrisburg is in town.
And so my number five prospect,
Dylan Cruz is currently on
the Harrisburg senators and
I want to go see what he does.
Um, I was really hoping my eighth,
my ninth rank prospect,
James would be there,
but he actually is at triple a, but,
if you had MLB TV, you got anything,
any way that you can watch it,
I suggest you tune into
whether it's your team,
whatever your prospects, um,
you do a good job.
We got Jamie.
She has a good job.
Um, Brett does a good job.
We cover it's down on the farm.
It comes out every Monday.
I want to make a plug for
this really quick.
I wish I had more, but,
We do it down on the farm every week.
It comes out on Monday.
So if you're not familiar,
minor league schedules are
Tuesday through Sunday.
Mondays are all off.
And so that's why we release
it on Monday or early
Tuesday before games start
so we can get – and we cover, you know,
who the, you know, triple A, double A,
high A, single A affiliates are playing,
who they got coming up in the next week,
and what our top ten
prospects for each team does.
and how they produce and
what their numbers are for
that week and for the
season so far so if you're
a fan of I do the tigers
the red sox the blue jays
jc does the reds and the
cubs jamie does the rangers
and brett does the yankees
so there's seven teams that
get minor league prospect
coverage and I'll do a plug
for joining us if you want
to cover and do it down on
the farm once a week
there's an opportunity
right there yeah I mean
I'll gladly I'll do
down on the farms for all 30
teams and do one coming out
every half hour on a Monday.
Yeah.
We've got the format laid out for you.
So it's pretty easy to do.
It's, it's simple,
but it also gets you involved.
I mean, for me, you know,
paying attention to the Cubs and the Reds,
I wish I could do more,
but it gives you an idea of
what's to come.
And it,
it makes you end up watching more
minor leagues and,
on specific days than you would normally,
and it's just more baseball.
And if you love baseball,
CJ's got a great format for it.
He's done a lot of hard work
on the top 100, and it's going to be,
for me personally,
I'm looking forward to as
the year evolves and how
that list evolves and then
working into next year.
So that, to me, is one of the bright spots,
and I look forward to doing each week.
And if you're not familiar with it,
I don't know if I have the
website still up here.
I don't.
But we had the link.
It's right on the homepage.
So if you go to InsideTheDiamonds.com,
in the top bar,
you'll see it says Home
American League National
League Prospects Shop.
On the dropdown of the prospects,
when I come out with them,
it will have each month's top.
and I'm working on,
I'm hoping we can get this done,
that once the season ends,
it'll go to 2024, and then once 2025 hits,
it'll roll into the new top
100 for the next year.
So it'll be something that's
archived forever.
So 10 years from now,
you want to go look back and see.
I'm going to do an article, I think,
probably in the next couple weeks,
where I take a look back
five years from now,
who was in the top 30 for a
team on MLB.com for prospects,
and where are they now?
It's a good idea for an article,
a good idea for a piece.
For anybody.
For any team.
Where's my favorite team at?
You can even do the top 10.
It doesn't have to be the top 30.
I just know it maxes out at 30.
Where's my top 10 at from there to now?
Honestly, if you do that,
it takes a look at where
your organization is in the
standpoint of your top 10
prospects could have been
all gone by now.
It could all be somewhere
else as part of trade bait.
And it could be gone.
And, you know,
your team developed and they
just trade prospects to get better.
Prospects are a fun thing to follow.
And I got made fun of a couple weeks ago.
I came out.
I put all my baseball
sweatshirts away in the closet.
And once the baseball season comes,
I rotate hockey and
baseball sweatshirts and
football sweatshirts.
And I have my baseball
sweatshirts all out.
So I broke out my Fisher
Cats sweatshirt two weeks
ago on a Friday night,
and I threw a Fisher Cats game on the TV.
Being from New Hampshire,
I'm a big Fisher Cats fan.
I was there in 2018 when
they won the Eastern League Championship.
So I threw the game on, and it was funny.
They were down.
I forget what it was.
I wrote about it, too.
It was like 9-1 going into
the sixth inning or whatever,
and they came back and won 10-9.
What a great game to watch.
I mean, it's good baseball,
and it's young talent that
you're going to see
At some point, like, for instance,
I'm watching the Blue Jays
game on one of my screens.
Actually, it might have ended by now,
but it was 5-4,
and I just noticed who scored a run.
It was Addison Barger.
I forget how you say his last name.
Barger?
He was in New Hampshire last year.
So there's a perfect example.
Somebody who was in New
Hampshire last year got called up,
was at AAA Buffalo to start the year.
He's in the Blue Jays now.
because of Kevin Kamar being injured.
So it's somebody who's in my
top ten for the Blue Jays prospects.
So there's always something
to watch with the prospects.
Always a team.
If you have MLB TV,
you pick your favorite team,
and you scroll down a couple pages,
and it's right there.
It tells you triple-A, double-A, single-A,
high-A, and you can watch all of them.
If you're a baseball fan,
there may not be a better value.
I mean,
I know the Sunday ticket's great
for football.
But if you're a baseball fan
for dollar per game that you can watch,
there may not be a better
value because you don't
just get the major leagues.
You get that all the affiliates.
It may not be quality wise
in regards to the TV quality,
but you get to watch everything.
It's still great.
There's still commentators, the angles.
You may not get all the
reviews and angles that you
would in a pro game,
but there may not be a better value.
for a sports package than
MLB TV when you think about
all the prospects that we're discussing.
Also, the other thing I wanted to touch on,
and I've heard it from Paul Skeens,
he was on the Pat McAfee
show a week or three ago,
something they're trying
out in the minor leagues.
So they do everything,
even the pitch clock,
everything that we're seeing now,
they test in the minor leagues.
So I've heard,
and I don't understand fully how it works,
but I've understood that
three out of the six games a week,
is real umps, and they have robo umps.
So they're testing the robo
umps out in the minor leagues.
So if you want to get a test run on that,
which my understanding is it's simply,
it's still a normal umpire behind you,
but I believe, again,
this is all my understanding,
so if I'm wrong, please, in the comments,
tell me I'm wrong and explain it to me.
But for three games at least,
a batter gets to,
if he doesn't agree with the call,
just taps his helmet and they review it.
And there's literally like
you see on a strike zone
where they show the pitch where it went,
and it says that was a ball,
and it changes the call.
The pitchers can do the same
thing where the pitcher
doesn't agree with the call,
and he just sits there, taps his hat,
and they review it.
I've watched a couple times.
It's actually a really interesting thing,
and I'm actually a fan of it.
So that's something that, again,
if you're interested,
see where the game is,
not just the players,
but the game itself and the
way it's going.
And where it's going to be.
Right.
Check it out.
If you want to see when
Angel Hernandez is soon to retire,
as soon as this gets
brought to the major leagues,
you'll tap of the hat.
You'll be done.
There'll be no more Angel Hernandez.
Funny you say that.
So I said Saturday, the Sox game,
I was sitting in the section.
It was all Cubs fans around me.
And every single fan,
when they showed the
umpires for the game,
All of us snapped our heads
up to the screen to look to
see who was umpiring,
and I heard at least four people say,
please don't be Angel Hernandez.
Yeah.
So just to give you an example, though,
this is the way we're going.
I mean, if you want to see it in a game,
if you have MLB TV, tune in.
If you don't,
I don't know how it works if
you select team by team
because there is an option
to select your favorite team.
but or wait till the
all-star break at the
cheaper value and you can
still tune into you know
everything but There is so
much that MLB TV does offer you.
Yeah,
I mean I'm watching beginning right
now Yeah,
you want to do what we can plug
it right now if you might
as well So right now the
plan is and I'll probably
post it if it's confirmed
we're planning right now to
do a watch party on Wednesday and
where we're going to watch
beginning like this.
Cause MLB MLB is a, uh,
can't show the games.
So I can't tell you what we're watching,
but we're told how the way
everything going on for an hour,
maybe an hour and a half, two hours,
but probably max at two
hours just so people don't
get bored of us.
Um, I'm going to do it.
I think Emily beginning
starts at seven 30 on Wednesday.
So the plan is,
My son's still awake,
so he might make an appearance.
My girlfriend might make an appearance.
Your kids might make an appearance.
Yeah, never know.
Who knows who's going to show up,
but there is a plan.
As of right now,
we're going to try this out.
I'll make an event, I think, on Facebook.
I don't know when we're
going to get this out.
My guess would be probably tomorrow.
Tomorrow, yeah.
Our plan is if you're
available Wednesday and you
want to come watch baseball with us,
we'll sit here.
We'll talk about everything.
I don't know how the live works,
so I don't know if we'll see comments.
If we do, I'll tell you.
comment we'll talk like
we'll gladly talk um but so
if you're available
wednesday night 7 30
between we'll say 7 30 to 9
yep and come tune out come
to or come tune in jeez
words um but it happens
yeah so it'll be fun we're
gonna do that and again you
know like cj said if you're
interested in joining us
just go to the web page
Join us and let us know what
you're thinking about or reach out to us.
Comment here or even on
Facebook for Inside the Diamonds.
Just reach out to us.
We're looking to add to this group.
Kind of excited, not nervous, but excited,
anxious for Wednesday.
See how that goes.
And watch those games.
But, again, another fun episode.
We try to keep it.
as short as we can.
So everyone can listen to in
one short car ride,
but there's so much going
on with baseball and
there's only so much we can
write about that.
It seems like as we start
talking more pops up and
we're trying to keep them
shorter for you guys and
produce more content.
So, you know, like subscribe, you know,
write in the comments what
you'd like to see us do and
we'll keep it up.
And next episode,
we'll kind of hit on the,
the Orioles-Yankees,
the Braves-Dodgers series,
and then we'll have some
more interesting content.
And I'm sure Wednesday,
depending on what's going on in the games,
but we'll probably also
have some series preview
talk and just talk about
different series coming up
for the weekend.
So if you hear this and
you're interested and you
don't have much going on Wednesday,
join us and see what we're all about.
So another great episode,
fun to talk about.
Just to give people an idea,
on Wednesday night, we're looking at 730.
What will be going on?
We'll have Red Sox Giants.
We will have, wow,
probably the end of Philly's Angels, Reds,
Padres.
We will have the third game,
which will have Corbin Burns.
We have Yankees, Orioles.
We will have Rockies, Marlins, Cubs, Mets,
Nationals, Rangers, Guardians, Astros.
That's the Verlander game.
And we'll probably end up, no,
we'll be done before then.
So that's probably the last
game that we'll start while
we're on live.
So if you're interested in
any of those teams,
you want to come talk with us,
come on in.
Last thing I'll say is Ellie Daly Cruz,
another home run.
1-1 for the Reds and Padres right now.
I mean,
I won't be shocked if he doesn't
steal 100 bases this year.
With the new base rules,
his walk rate is up,
strikeout rate is down.
This guy is something to watch.
He is electric,
and I would not be shocked
if he doesn't steal upwards of 80 to 100.
That's something that's real this year,
and he's got the power,
and he's got his eye going
for him right now.
So another great episode, CJ.
Really appreciate it.
Like, subscribe, comment,
whatever you want to do, let us know.
But thanks again for tuning in.
Thanks, guys.
Everybody have a good week.
We'll see you next week.
See ya.