The Cutoff Episode 2: Wild Card Preview

Dan G and Mario preview the MLB Wild Card as well as make their predictions for each series.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
A hundred and sixty two games are in the books
and we have a postseason bracket in baseball. Welcome into
another edition of the Cutoff Podcast. He's Mario. I'm Dan.
October baseball is here.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
It's here. The air is crisp and the baseball is playoffy.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
Playoff-y.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Is that our word of the day? Okay.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
It's been raining for the last three days in Connecticut,
but it's kind of given you that fall feel, 50s,
low 60s. I mean, I'm ready to go. The wild
card round is what we're going to take a look
at today. It's going to be a lot of fun.
These are some matchups that I think have a lot
of firepower to them.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
Yeah, it's going to be a lot of fun. You
have your traditional Yankees versus Red Sox rivalry. I don't
know if it has the same juice that it did
at one point, but I'm excited because you got some
young pitchers in there, some star pitchers. You have White Sox-Houston.
Houston backed their way into the playoffs all season long, 81-81.
White Sox have a young team that you never know

(01:10):
what happens when you get a young team in the
playoffs like this. Philly fans, I know, are irate at
what's going on in Philadelphia. They kind of seem like
they backed their way into the playoffs as well, going
against the Braves, who had a great season. And Cubs-Padres,
you know how I feel about the Padres.

Speaker 1 (01:27):
That is, yes. You shared your love of the Padres
in the first episode of this podcast. But all right,
let's go down. We'll go through all the previews. We'll
give our picks for who we think are going to win.
We'll start with the top one that you said. Red
Sox-Yankees meet again in the wild card round. It's the
second straight year they're going to do it. third time overall.
The Yankees won in three last year. Obviously the storyline
from there, Cam Schlittler, who pitched magnificently against him in

(01:50):
game three, is going to get the start in game one.
Everybody knows the history. He grew up near Boston. He
went to Northeastern. He's a Yankee. He doesn't like the
Red Sox anymore. He doesn't like Boston, all that kind
of stuff. This is going to be a series where
it's not the veterans you're looking for. It's the young
guy's Peyton Tolley and Cam Schlittler, game one matchup. That
is star power.

Speaker 2 (02:12):
That's what playoff baseball is about, right? These are where
the stars are made. In a couple years, we'll be
looking back and saying, this is where Schlittler really became
that ace of the staff for the Yankees. Or we
may say the same thing about Peyton Toll becoming the
solidified ace of the staff for the Red Sox.

Speaker 1 (02:29):
Yeah, he had a great year. He's probably going to
have a say when it comes to the rookie of
the year. He's not going to win it, but I
think he has a shot to finish in the top three.
The fastball usage was what was really good for him,
and he limited the home runs compared to what he
did last year. It's more than just that pitching matchup, though.
You got Roman Anthony for the Red Sox. You got
the George Lombards, the Spencer Joneses, those guys are going

(02:50):
to get at bats. They're going to be in crucial situations.
That's something you don't really see when it comes to
Red Sox Yankees. Usually you're leaning on the Aaron Judges,
who we still don't even know if he's going to
be on the postseason roster with that calf issue.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
Yeah, I mean, like we talked about it a little
bit last week with Boone coming out and calling it
a moderate injury. So, you know, you never know. But
This is a new wave of baseball for New Yorkers
and Red Sox, right? They developed their systems, and now
we're starting to see a lot of that come to
fruition with George Lombards and Roman Anthony, who hasn't played

(03:23):
much this season, but he's probably going to DH for them,
you'd say?

Speaker 1 (03:28):
He'll probably DH. maybe play left field depending on what
the split comes in. But he didn't play in the
matchup last year. He missed a lot of time this
year because he had a sprain, strain, torn ligament. They
kept misdiagnosing it all year.

Speaker 2 (03:43):
He came back. He struggled.

Speaker 1 (03:44):
He found his footing a little bit. I'm excited to
see him on the big stage. His first ever game
at Yankee Stadium, he hit an absolute moonshot, which went
viral on social media when it happened. So I'm excited
to see him back on that stage. We're already talking,
you know, we have this baseball podcast and we're trying
to expand it around the studio. We're getting questions from
guys at the studio now that are asking questions that

(04:05):
we should talk about. We're growing. We're already doing what
we're supposed to do.

Speaker 2 (04:08):
We are. I got a tweet the other day saying
Mario's my hero, which I don't know.

Speaker 1 (04:13):
Did you tweet that on your burner?

Speaker 2 (04:14):
I did. Okay. Yeah. All right. It was from my account.
I didn't switch over. Oh, okay.

Speaker 1 (04:19):
It quickly deleted.

Speaker 2 (04:20):
All right.

Speaker 1 (04:20):
But the question that was posed was the Yankees are
going with Schlittler, who best pitcher in the American League.
He's going to win the Cy Young.

Speaker 2 (04:25):
It's not even close.

Speaker 1 (04:26):
Do you start him game one, or do you go
with the option of starting him in a game two
where if you're down 1-0, he can help you extend,
or if you're up 1-0, he can help you close
a series?

Speaker 2 (04:38):
I honestly would probably have him close the series. Yeah.
Because you're at home already, right? And you don't want
to go to Boston. Sorry. You want to close it out.
You don't want to go to that third game at
Yankee Stadium. Your bullpen starts to crumble or you start
just running your guys. I would give him game two,

(05:00):
see if Freed can get you there in game one.
Freed's been hurt a little bit this year, but I
trust Freed that he can do something to help them
pull the win out.

Speaker 1 (05:10):
Yeah, so right now it says it's totally against Schlittler
game one. Sonny Gray, who has had a really great
year with Boston, he goes against Max Freed. And then
if necessary, Ranger Suarez against Garrett Cole, which I think
was interesting. You could have made the argument Carlos Rodon
instead of Garrett Cole. Cole doesn't have great numbers against
the Red Sox in his career, but at the end
of the day, this is a guy that way back

(05:31):
in 2019, you paid $ 320 million for. I think it
would be a really bad look if he was off
of the roster or even available out of the bullpen.

Speaker 2 (05:38):
Yeah, no, this is the reason that you pay him
that money, right? I mean, he was coming off of
that fresh off of that season with the Astros when
the Yankees decided to pay him, and he had a
dominant series in that playoffs. You pay him for these reasons.
He has to be on the mound. You have to
give him the ball. You've got to live by the sword,
die by the sword.

Speaker 1 (05:56):
Yes, that's very true. All right, give me your prediction.
Who wins how many games?

Speaker 2 (06:01):
I'm going to go all three games, and I'm going
to go Yankees.

Speaker 1 (06:04):
I'm going three games, too, but I am... whether it's
bias or not sticking to my fandom. I think the
Red Sox pulled this out. I do think this Aaron
Judge question mark, he still may be on the roster.
They haven't come out with those yet. I think that
is going to be a difference maker. You're asking a
lot from these young guys. You don't know how they're
going to meet it. The Red Sox come with a
lot of lefties, which have kind of been the Yankees'

(06:25):
Achilles heel at times. They have a lot of velocity
in that bullpen. I think this is the year that
they get that revenge from last year and they advance
to the division series. So it's going to be interesting regardless, right?
It's Red Sox-Yankees.

Speaker 2 (06:35):
Yeah, so, I mean, Red Sox-Yankees is always interesting. I
think the pitching. I think that the Yankees have the
pitching advantage. I think that, you know, having a guy
like Garrett Cole, having the young guy you mix in
with Schlittler, who's going to win the AL Cy Young
this season, Rodan, Freed, you have those extra arms. One
of those guys can come out of the pen, give
you a couple innings. I think that's ultimately going to

(06:57):
be the decider in this series.

Speaker 1 (07:00):
And let's go to the other side of the American
League wildcard bracket. The White Sox, who are the sixth seed,
the Astros, who we talked about last episode, back their
way in, and they get rewarded with home field advantage
in the wildcard. It makes no sense. I already went
on my soapbox about whether we should do recent, so
we're not going to do that again. I think this
is a very intriguing time. Jordan Alvarez probably is going

(07:24):
to win MVP. He was pushing a triple crown for
a while before it kind of fallen off. The Astros
record included, they just haven't looked good, haven't looked consistent
all year, where this is a series where I think
the White Sox, who are young and full of this
youthful energy, can pull off an upset here.

Speaker 2 (07:40):
Yeah, I agree. I mean, there was points in the
season where the Astros were saying that Jose Espada, their manager,
was not going to even return. That's how low it
got for them this season. Some of these guys do
have the experience of being in the postseason. Jeremy Pena
has been there. Christian Walker. You have these guys who
have played in postseason baseball, which is the complete opposite

(08:03):
of what the White Sox have. You have a bunch
of young guys kind of oblivious and kind of, not
knowing what this feeling is going to be like, can
they match it? I like the Astros. As we've discussed,
they did back their way in. But I like the
experience there. I like, one, you know, two, being at home.
And if they can get to game two with a win,

(08:24):
I think they just finished the series out in two games.

Speaker 1 (08:26):
Yeah, they were in this wild card series, I believe,
two years ago. They were against the Tigers. They lost
in three games there, so... They've been in this situation
before where they have the best of three at home,
probably with more firepower back in 2024 than they do now.
Did you see the Munataka Murakami?

Speaker 2 (08:45):
I did. Electric.

Speaker 1 (08:47):
If that doesn't make you want to root for them, right?
Sort of channeling the Kawasaki when he was with the
Blue Jays. That was great stuff. I think an underrated
factor is the White Sox bullpen. They have This guy,
Grant Taylor, if you haven't heard about him, this guy
blows smoke. 100-plus strikeouts out of the bullpen, which is

(09:07):
incredibly hard to do. I think they have more of
a bullpen than the Astros. Astros, obviously, have Brian Abreu,
who's a solid setup man, Josh Hader, who they paid
a bunch of money to. If they can get to
that point, I'm going to jump to my pick. I
think the White Sox win in two.

Speaker 2 (09:22):
Two?

Speaker 1 (09:22):
I don't think the Astros win a game at home.
I think the way that they backed into this thing,
And I think the White Sox are going to pitch
around Jordan Alvarez. They are going to say, anyone else
in this lineup, you can beat me. We're going to
challenge anybody. I think Payne is probably the biggest factor.
Christian Walker, as you mentioned as well. But I think
the White Sox jump into this postseason. Youthful Energy, as

(09:42):
I said, excited to be there. They lost 120 games
last year or two years ago.

Speaker 2 (09:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (09:48):
I think this is where they kind of upset and
turn some heads a little bit in the playoff picture.

Speaker 2 (09:54):
I love Jeremy Pena. I think his stretch down the
season here has been great. He's kind of been the
reinforcement behind that outside of Jordan Alvarez, who's been the
guy there. I know Altuve hasn't had a great season.
I think having that veteran experience is what's going to

(10:14):
weigh out here. We were talking a little bit before
the show, and we talked about how their pitching rotation
is not really set up to win this series. A
guy like Hunter Brown is not going to go probably
until Game 2. So they may be in the hole
already by Game 2. We talked about the rookie going, Amai.

Speaker 1 (10:33):
Not a great signing this year.

Speaker 2 (10:34):
He's had an awful season, and that's putting it lightly.

Speaker 1 (10:38):
Yeah, and we talked about the hypothetical of do you
start your ace game? The Astros are not going to
have a choice. They're going to have to start them
in game two. So we may see that answer play
out in real time. Who's your pick for the series?
My pick for the series is the Astros. I'm going
to say they're going to finish it in two. Their
bats are going to come alive in game one. That's
going to get them there. And Hunter Brown's going to

(11:00):
come in and shut that lineup down in Chicago, or
that Chicago lineup. I like this. We've done two matchups,
and we haven't agreed on a pick yet. Somebody's winning.
Somebody's going to correctly pick this. Let's go to the
National League. Let's start with the Phillies and the Braves.
We talk about teams backing their way into a playoff spot.

(11:20):
The Phillies, who have all the talent in the world,
you know that they paid so much for that roster.
They get in on the last day of the season
by winning. They barely eke out the Diamondbacks. This is
a situation, we talked about it, probably the best rotation
in baseball. Chris Sanchez, Zach Wheeler, Jesus Lizardo, even Aaron
Nola is your four. It's as deep as it gets.

(11:42):
But they've been so inconsistent all year. Their bullpen is
outside of Yohan Duran as their closer. You don't really
know what you're getting. And their lineup is very inconsistent
for a lineup that has a bunch of veterans.

Speaker 2 (11:53):
Yeah, I mean, and that's why I feel like they
keep taking steps down every season. I think we hit
on that a little bit last year. They went from
being in the World Series to only being in the NLCS.
I think that they continue to take step downs. They've
only showed that at the end of the season that
they weren't up to the task. Guys like Trey Turner,

(12:14):
you gave $ 300- plus million to. Schwarber, Harper, those guys do
not show up in the playoffs anymore. they didn't set
up their rotation right going into these three games.

Speaker 1 (12:24):
Out of necessity. I mean, you get in the last
game of the year, you have to start Wheeler. You
have to put Lizardo in the bullpen, who, by the way,
was coming off of an aching shoulder, which when you
hear pitchers and shoulder issues, it's not great, let alone
at this time of the year. On the brave side,
we harped on them last episode, too. A lot of
similar veterans, guys that have been together, a lot of

(12:46):
those guys won a World Series together. But they also
weren't as consistent. Austin Riley struck out 200 times this year.
He was not good. Michael Harris was good. Acuna was
good when he was healthy. But it's not that similar
team that you were used to in the past. Matt Olsen,
of course, who was just a staple at first base.
If they're going to win this series, it's the bullpen.

(13:07):
And I'm giving you a name right now. I'm going
to throw it out there. And hopefully in like two
weeks or so when the Braves maybe make a late run.

Speaker 2 (13:12):
Everybody's talking about him.

Speaker 1 (13:13):
Everybody's talking about him. And I look like a genius.
Didier Fuentes.

Speaker 2 (13:17):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (13:17):
He's a reliever. He's 21. If they were celebrating last year,
he would not be legal to do these things. He
would have to sit in the corner with like an
apple juicer.

Speaker 2 (13:26):
Just like if we won a sports Emmy on the
Dan Patrick show, we probably wouldn't allow you to have beer. See,
here's the thing.

Speaker 1 (13:32):
I was like 22, even though everybody thought I was
in high school. We can play that joke. I'm a
little bit older now, so I don't know if we
can run with it. But the point being, this guy
is 21 years old and has been such a crucial
part of that bullpen at such a young age. They
have Robert Suarez, who has been great. They have Rysel Iglesias,
who is their closest. So you have two guys that

(13:54):
have close-knit experience. And then you have a 21-year-old who
technically was brought up as a starter, but they put
him in the bullpen all year. He's been dynamite. He
has high velo. I think he's going to be the
make or break with this bullpen. Because once you get
to the back end, I think it's pretty set. But
this guy's going to be the stopgap. Yeah, between the
starters and the bullpen.

Speaker 2 (14:10):
Yeah, I mean, a guy like that, you know, he
comes up as a starter, and he's not used to,
you know, he throws fast, but he's not used to
doing that, you know, in only three out spans, right?
And I think a guy like that benefits from it.
We've seen it, you know, with Chapman. Chapman early on,
they had him as a starter, and he used to
throw gas. He really didn't survive as a starter because
of how hard he threw, and he couldn't do that

(14:33):
for a long time. So Fuentes, I like that X
factor a lot. I like Robert Suarez, who's a veteran.
He came over from the Padres, right? And Rezo Iglesias
has proven to be consistent for them at the back end.
I love having Sale, right? You put Sale, you put
that number one ace. Everybody needs that number one ace.
He's that guy for them. And I like their bats.

(14:56):
You know, Acuna has been hurt. You know, he's been
on and off, but when he's been on the field,
he's been great. You have a bopper in Matt Olsen,
who's been awesome. You have Michael Harris, who's had a
pretty decent season. You have Albies, who's there, you know,
a consistent guy. I like the Braves.

Speaker 1 (15:12):
Underrated part, Matt Olsen hasn't missed a game since 2021.
I think that's fun to put out there. No one's
ever breaking Cal Ripken's streak, but I want to say
he's up to like 915 straight games. Since he signed
with the Braves in 2021 slash 2022, he hasn't missed
a game for him. I just think that's such a
fun thing. It has nothing to do with the postseason,
but I think it's a cool stat. I'm going Braves
in two. I think the Phillies' bats have been so
helter-skelter that they're just going to disappear. And that bullpen,

(15:34):
like we talked about, I think that's going to be
too much for them.

Speaker 2 (15:36):
I think this is the first time we agree.

Speaker 1 (15:40):
Wow. Do we have like a breaking news button or something?

Speaker 2 (15:43):
Yeah, right?

Speaker 1 (15:43):
Do we have something?

Speaker 2 (15:45):
Yeah, I think this is where the Phillies start their rebuild.

Speaker 1 (15:48):
Whoa, you're going all the way. Not even just their
season's over. You're saying the regime of what we've known
the Phillies to be the last five years is done.

Speaker 2 (15:55):
I think it's done. I think this is going to
push them over the edge. They're going to decide that
they've got to make some major moves here. What they
have hasn't worked. paying Trey Turner's, paying, you know, the Harper's,
the Schwarber's. That has not worked. So I think this
is the beginning of the end for this Phillies team.

Speaker 1 (16:12):
Breaking news. A Met fan is hoping for the downfall
of the Phillies.

Speaker 2 (16:15):
That's that's completely unbiased. OK. All right. That's all right.
We'll talk after.

Speaker 1 (16:19):
We'll confirm that.

Speaker 2 (16:20):
All right.

Speaker 1 (16:20):
Let's go to the last one. Brewers and Cubs. I
know you love your Brewers, Padres and Cubs. See, I'm
already I'm not. foreshadowing at all. I have brewers on
the brain. I like them. But that's next week. I'm
not jumping ahead. Padres, Cubs. I know you love your Padres.
They won you a little bit of money.

Speaker 2 (16:38):
Love the Padres.

Speaker 1 (16:39):
You love them, right?

Speaker 2 (16:39):
I'm all in the Padres.

Speaker 1 (16:42):
This is the series I think that we're going to
talk about when the wild card series is over. And
we're going to say this was the one that had
the most juice, the most action-packed games. There's so much
star power here between these two teams.

Speaker 2 (16:53):
Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (16:55):
Who do you like?

Speaker 2 (16:57):
I like the Padres. I've said it last week. Breaking, right?
I said it last week. I'm sticking to it this week.
They don't have the traditional aces, right? They don't have
the Chris Sayles. They don't have the Hunter Browns of
the world. They don't have those guys. But they have
guys that have experience. And they're guys that have been

(17:17):
in these postseason moments. Walker Bueller, he's done it, right?
He did it with the Dodgers. They have Michael King, who...
He's been... Experience. Yeah, he has a lot of experience.
You know, in the early 30s, he was with the
Yankees for a while. And then they have the best bullpen,
I'd say, in baseball. They do. You know, when you
can put Mason Miller, you can put Matui, who's been

(17:38):
great this season, you know, Jeremiah Estrada on the back end.
Those guys really only have to give you five innings,
six innings, because you have so much depth on the
back end of that bullpen that you know those guys
are going to shut it down. I would see even
a Mason Miller coming in for, like, a four-out save. Yeah, I.

Speaker 1 (17:56):
I think we haven't seen it yet. We didn't see
it from the Padres last year because they didn't make
it too far. They only lost to the Cubs in
this same round last year. I think if the Padres
can get to a division series or even a championship series,
I think we're going to see Mason Miller use like
Andrew Miller was back in 2016 with Cleveland.

Speaker 2 (18:13):
Good callback.

Speaker 1 (18:14):
They brought him out in the 4th, 5th, 7th, 9th.
It didn't really matter. It was more about the matchups,
where in the order. Nowadays, the game is so analytical
now that I.

Speaker 2 (18:24):
Don't love it. I don't love it being so analytical,
but I do get it when, you know, the middle
of the lineup's coming up in the eighth inning, and
those are the guys that you have to get, and
it's 7, 8, 9 that's going to come up in
the ninth inning. Throw your guy. Throw your best horse
against their horses and see who comes out on top.

Speaker 1 (18:39):
See, the interesting storyline here is Pete Curl Armstrong had
a great year last year, sort of fell down the stretch.
He had a really bad postseason.

Speaker 2 (18:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (18:51):
Now he's coming into this, Mr. 40-40 man, MVP. You
obviously picked the Padres to win, but do you see
him maybe having more signature moments? Because it seems like
this is the breaking point, although it's very early in
his career. You're coming off of that year where you
were the talk of baseball for pretty much the entire season.
You have to do something in October. Otherwise, that season's

(19:13):
going to have a little bit less of a shimmer.

Speaker 2 (19:15):
Yeah, a little bit more of a sour taste to it,
for sure. Exactly. Yeah, I can see him. He's come
up big. The people in Chicago love him. You see
they have the flags, and he's waving, and he's saluting
everybody in the outfield. But it's baseball at the end
of the day. It's going to take more than one
guy to make it happen. I think that the Padres
have more than one guy. Tatis started off slow. He's

(19:38):
picked it up a little bit. Machado did not have
the season that we're used to seeing him have. You
have a guy like Jackson Merrill. You have Ty Frantz,
who kind of came out of nowhere this year. hitting
in the middle of their lineup.

Speaker 1 (19:47):
I was doing research, and I saw... I had known
that he was playing pretty well, but I will give
it to the Padres. They find guys at these league minimums,
and for some reason... they find the success or just
enough where it's good enough to help them. Like last year,
Gavin Sheets.

Speaker 2 (20:05):
And Ramon Lariano.

Speaker 1 (20:07):
Ramon Lariano, who cashed in, I want to say, a
multi-year deal right after that. And now this year, it's
Ty France. They are good at doing that. Now, part
of that is because their payroll is atrocious and they
have to just find anybody to play for the league minimum.
But they do that year in and year out. I
like Jackson Merrill. I know he's sort of been on
and off since that great rookie season in 2024. Tatis

(20:28):
is a playoff performer. I'm picking, you know, we're agreeing
on both the National League matchups. I'm taking the Padres too.
I'm taking them in three selfishly because I want three
games of this series. I want to see a winner
take all. You know, the pitching matchups are going to
be thrown around The Cubs starters are better than the
Padres starters. The Padres bullpen is better than the Cubs bullpen.

(20:51):
Something's going to give. So I'm hoping we get to
three games. I would love to get to three games
for most of them, except the Red Sox. Maybe they
could take care of two and I could just watch
stress-free baseball. But these series, I think, have a lot
of juice to them, where in some years you may
not get that.

Speaker 2 (21:04):
You know what I really appreciate about this year's wildcard
series is all the young guys that are in it.
This kind of new wave of baseball that we're seeing.
We're seeing the Roman Anthonys. We're seeing the George Lombards.
Even Ben Rice may not be super young prospect, but
he kind of broke out these last two seasons of
becoming a star for the Yankees. You have the Morikamis.

(21:25):
You have the Pete Crow Armstrong.

Speaker 1 (21:30):
He's only 24. I mean, the game is a young
game now.

Speaker 2 (21:34):
It is. So you have all these young stars, and
I'm just looking forward to seeing one of these guys
or multiple of these players you know, have their breakout
October moment.

Speaker 1 (21:43):
Yeah, there's a lot of opportunity for those young guys.
It'll certainly be fun. It kicks off on Tuesday. Tuesday, Wednesday,
Thursday are all the games. Some of those, if necessary,
the schedule may get messed up on Thursday based on that.
But either way, it's going to be a really great
three games. But that'll do it for us for the cutoff.
Enjoy the games. We'll be back next. We'll be back
on Thursday. We're doing two episodes.

Speaker 2 (22:03):
Thursday, two.

Speaker 1 (22:05):
If you really like us, you're getting more of us.
If you don't like us, well, I'm sorry. We're still
here on Thursday. We'll take a look at what hopefully
are some concluded wildcard series. We'll take a look ahead
to the division series. We'll kind of put a bow
on all that and see what we can do. But
thanks for watching again. This is a lot of fun.
Can't wait to keep it going.

Speaker 2 (22:22):
This has been great. No World Baseball Classic talk.

Speaker 1 (22:25):
No, no. But that was much. We can't squeeze it.
No Puerto Rican plug today.

Speaker 2 (22:31):
So if you had the over.

Speaker 1 (22:33):
I'm sorry. You may want to rip up that bet.
But for Mario, I'm Dan. Thanks for watching. We'll see
you guys next time.