Bryce Rainer Heads To West Michigan, Yost to Lakeland

Chris and Rogelio recap the Tigers and Red Sox series, Bryce Rainer heads up to West Michigan and the injury news is getting better as Thayron Liranzo is set to come back.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I don't have to do a game this game recap.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Oh, I'm sorry that out loud.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
Well, welcome to another episode of Tire's My Report podcast,
presented by FanDuel. I'm Raelcas alongside me is Chris Brown. Shortly.
You can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Glistens Podcast,
and please subscribe to a YouTube channel. Thank you for
putting us over with the three thousand mark. As we're
sitting in three thousand and forty, as we continue to

(01:08):
mix up more of the major league content because that's
what everybody's looking for, all Tiger content. So that's the
name Tigers mL Report. I know we do minors, but anyways,
got up today quite a bit to talk about Boston,
the game that was going on today back Guano. So
if for those familiar days, prints are on that reference

(01:28):
there you go. Talk. Did go to Eerie but it
was rained out, but I did get some good got
a good conversation with Zach you broadcast over in this
Eerie Dingler's a dude. We've said this numerous times. We'll
continue to see that, but yeah, plenty to get to.
We'll start with the Tigers today in a really ugly

(01:49):
lost eight to six just a sloppy, not clean baseball,
not clean Tigers baseball, as Hinch always indicates that, and
just six walks by clarity. It was, uh, it was.
It was pretty ugly. The Tigers did show some come back,
some fight in the comeback, but just fell short. But

(02:10):
just the jaw Anderson, there's a lot, there's a lot
of things going on with the Tigers that are just
really kind of We'll get into that here in a second.
But also I wanted to thank the Seawalls for the
water City kiddie gear that Chris is also rocking as well. Yeah,
so aship kitties. I have this, and then I have
this cool T shirt. So yeah, respect to the merch

(02:35):
staff older hooking us up as always. And they also
got Harrison a nice little sweatshirt too.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
Yes, thank you very much. That should he's very happy
about that.

Speaker 1 (02:44):
Yeah, so good evening to all our usual YouTube guys,
Kevin and Bruce and the chat as well. But yeah,
today was one of those games, Chris that you know
they're just talking about this in the broadcast eleven o'clock games.
I do feel like the most ultimate weird little League,
I don't say little league. Yeah, it is a little league,
isn't it. And by the way, Brandon's not gonna be

(03:05):
with us tonight. Hopefully everything's well with Brandon.

Speaker 3 (03:08):
And guess uh yeah, I mean I played baseball and soccer,
you know, growing up, and every now and then you
would have a game that's like at eight in the morning, right,
and it just like it takes like half of the
game before you even feel like you're wake up. And yeah,
it was cold, and Jack Flaherty just could not throw strikes,

(03:31):
and you know, it just ended up being one of
those rough games for both teams, basically that you know,
Sunny Gray got hurt. So it was just a glorified,
you know, pitching chaos game, even though that wasn't the plan.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
And yeah, the Tigers just made too many mistakes, too
many walks, and some some bad defense, and they battled
back on offense, you know, they kept coming back. It
just wasn't quite enough.

Speaker 1 (03:55):
Yeah, and this is how you leave you guys. First
major league hit, he finished two hits on a day
and I was going to see and there was already
this kind of wall about sending him back.

Speaker 3 (04:05):
And yeah, yeah, it's you know, you know, he made
a couple of dad plays on defense in his first game,
and we falcked he's not an ideal third basement and
but he can hit a little bit. He's gonna be
able to help the team a little bit while he plays.
You know, it's it's not going to be you're getting
completely spoiled by Kevin McGonagall.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
Okay, this doesn't happen very often. Most rookies come up
and struggle a lot, and you know, Lee has has
looked overmatched at times.

Speaker 3 (04:35):
But yeah, he got an RBI single and then he
got a double off the wall and it would have
been a home run at Wrigley Field. And then McGonagall
came up next and hit a ball that was a
double that would have been a home run at thirteen
parks including co America, just not at Fenway.

Speaker 2 (04:47):
So yeah, they were hitting the ball hard.

Speaker 3 (04:49):
Rodley Green smoked the ball off rolled As Chapman, and
just you know, when you get down by that much
that late, it's it's tough to come back. But they
kept Batlan and ultimately was it was I think it
was a very good week for the Tiger right, like right,
you know, they blew that huge lead against the Royals
in Game three, but came back and won it in
a very enjoyable fashion. And then you go two and
two against the Red Sox, so it's a five.

Speaker 2 (05:08):
And two week. Nothing wrong with that. Splitting on the
road is always okay.

Speaker 1 (05:13):
Yeah, yeah, definitely. And I do like what Devin Ninjabe
said here. Boston used eight pitchers. They really wanted to
win this one. Yeah, they did want to because they
have the Yankees that are coming into town starting that
we've starting tomorrow, so and you want to have it.
And that double by the way by Riley, he was
one O nine off the bat. I was absolutely awful lefty,
which is left on lefty crime. And the thing about

(05:36):
McGonagall too, let's talk about that for a quick second.
Chris like, yeah, it's how you lead, by the way,
one O seven six off that double for him, it's yeah,
Kevin witnessing Kevin McDonald's batting three ninety almost four hundred
from the lead off spot. That is ridiculous. That is
that is something that is arcade like baseball, arcade like numbers.

(06:00):
So I want Tiger fans to understand something very very clear.
We are witnessing the greatest start by any Tiger rookie
in the modern era by by none Like I I like,
you're almost at the thirty game mark here. Well, yeah,
I mean we're getting there.

Speaker 2 (06:18):
Yeah, I mean, yeah, go ahead. You can compare it
a little bit to Austin Jackson.

Speaker 1 (06:23):
Start.

Speaker 3 (06:23):
Austin Jackson was hit. It hit like a madman when
he first came up. He did not walk and hit
the way McGonagall is. But yeah, I mean it's it
is pretty unprecedented what he's doing. And yeah, it doesn't
feel necessarily.

Speaker 2 (06:41):
Drew my ad up. Yeah you feel necessarily I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 (06:44):
That is a good rhyme to it. Drew my does
sound like it does sound like his name. It does
sound like his name. I know it's not, but I'm.

Speaker 2 (06:51):
Sorry that it's go ahead, Yeah, I know, I yeah,
what what mcgonagiall is doing doesn't necessarily feel flucish, right,
Like you know, you need a certain amount of luck
to hit over three hundred or whatever, you know, hit
close to four hundred from leadofs.

Speaker 3 (07:06):
But like you said, and he'll have his ups and
downs like any baseball player. Hopefully he stays healthy. Yeah,
but yeah, like this is this is a kid who
who has all the ingredients to continue hitting at a
very high clip because of his eye and the way
he swings and just all that good stuff.

Speaker 2 (07:22):
So just enjoy it. Hopefully he keeps keeps it up, right,
He's already like one and a half wins about replacement.

Speaker 3 (07:28):
So yeah, that's been fun. But yeah, you know, Drew
Anderson is a bummer. It for For a guy who
looked very good and dominant at times in spring training,
he looks absolutely.

Speaker 2 (07:40):
Kind of useless.

Speaker 3 (07:42):
I hate to say that, but it's like in the
ra above eight, I think, uh, and it's hard to
find a role for him at this point. You know,
sometimes it helps to have mop up guys, but they
do need to mop it up a little bit instead
of continuing to spill.

Speaker 2 (07:55):
And right now it looks a little rough. And yeah,
I dont know, man.

Speaker 3 (07:59):
I don't think they'renna cut him, ight, they're paying him
seven million and he's got a ten million dollar option
next year, but it just who knows, Maybe it'll be
one of those phantomil steps.

Speaker 1 (08:09):
Yeah. I mean, they really don't have much of a
choice at this point, because I mean they in order
to make room for a potential call up like Riki Alasko,
for example, we'll get to him, then we get to
the Toledo slides. It's yeah, and that's and Adam, that's
that's the right there. Thank you. The question I was
going to ask, you know, like, look gives him long up, Nick,

(08:32):
I'm sorry, you know what. I would have said that
maybe last week, but then after a couple starts of
something against Louisville, it gives along still needs little work.
So sorry that from watching him all week that first
I think it was like the first starting against Louisville
was he got let up for like nine runs, and
that was concerning me because he came off a start

(08:53):
where he was throwing his slider really well, he was
throwing his playing off his fastball, and then against the
Pats just lit him up. And I don't know, and
I think the ra A is close to north of
seven right now. No, and Adam, I agree with you. You can't.
There's there's certain things you can do and certain things
you can't do. But you can look at an option

(09:14):
if if they're gonna give Anderson all the role he
can get. I mean, it's not we're not we're not
reaching Oh god, what's the guy's name, Mike Uh what's
that guy, the Mike Mike. We're not we're not reaching
Mike Pelfree status yet. The Sillah, David David Percy, the

(09:36):
you know, look, my look, there's we're gonna call it
the Pelfrey, the Pelfree effect. He hasn't reached the Pelfry
effect yet.

Speaker 2 (09:46):
I don't.

Speaker 3 (09:46):
I think everybody tends to, you know, focus too much
on their own uh sixth, seventh, and eighth relievers and
and doesn't notice that basically every other team, their bullpen
is rounded out guys who are particularly good. They have
some skill, they have some promise, they'll have some good outings,
but they're not consistent. That's why they're in a bullpen.

(10:07):
And that's why they're at the back of a bullpen.
They're in by back of it. I mean, you know,
not the closer. I mean, you know, like I said,
a twenty five, twenty six man on the roster, that's
just the way most teams are.

Speaker 2 (10:17):
Like some teams have a very very good, very deep bullpen,
like San Diego, but most teams don't. We say, you know,
you thought we saw everything that the Red Sox had
to throw out the Tigers, and it's like there are
a couple couple of decent arms there. But it's nothing crazy,
you know, It's it's you just hope that you have.

Speaker 3 (10:33):
A little bit more swing and miss eventually from guys,
you know, when you get the second half of the season,
and again that might requires more trades.

Speaker 2 (10:44):
It is frustrating to me, at least to.

Speaker 3 (10:47):
Look and see that Paul sea Wall leads baseball and
saves so far this year, the guy who could came
up and could do anything for the Tigers, and Melton
has been throwing bullpen I believe on the backfields.

Speaker 2 (11:01):
Uh brisky. I don't know.

Speaker 3 (11:03):
They're both on the sixty day so Melton, I don't
think either were moving back until June. Yeah, so no
immediate help there from those guys. And yeah, like I said,
like there's some guys in triple A, but they're not
going to be demonstrably better than Drew Anderson.

Speaker 2 (11:19):
And it's like, well, they can't be worse. And it's like, yeah, okay,
they might be, you never know. It's it's it's not great.
By the way.

Speaker 1 (11:27):
The Paul Seawall thing is ridiculous. His chase free is
forty two christ fastball velocity ninety one point five. So
it goes to show and vlostit as at matter but god, man, like,
where was this? It's all it's for steamer and a sweeper.
That's it. That's all he is, you know. And Ham, Yeah,
Ham would be nice, but I, like I was talking
to there's been no sight of Ham at all down

(11:50):
even in Lakeland. So but like here, okay, so I
brought here's the reason why I went to go back
through per second. So Drew Anderson, this is a bad example.
This is the only thing I can think of. He's
doing a This is like a softer ball he's doing
in Korea. Okay, and then this is not exact ball.
So don't you know, I don't have an example of
a Korean baseball, but you have much. He could still

(12:12):
be adjusting to throwing a different ball, you know. So
you go from this a softer grip to do your thing,
and then you go to this again, bad example, bad balls.
But my point is there's there's maybe still a period adjustment.
But yeah, yeah, crazy clown with the it's just a
reclamation project kind of thing.

Speaker 3 (12:34):
Well, you know, it feels a little bit like, you know,
Scott Harris kept going after Matthew Boyd. Right, he went
with the Giants and then the Tigers, and you know,
he kept getting hurt and then he Boyd finally kind
of figured it out at the very end with Cleveland
and then with the Cups and he's been better. But
you know, sometimes you see guys and you feel like
you could make it work. It just doesn't right. Whatever

(12:54):
the timing is isn't right.

Speaker 2 (12:57):
It is a shame, but that's the way it goes, right,
some of the guys when you go after these kind
of reclamation projects or guys you think you can maximize,
it's uh, it's real, you know, swing and misproposition.

Speaker 1 (13:09):
Right.

Speaker 2 (13:09):
Sometimes it's just a big with.

Speaker 1 (13:11):
Well I mean speaking of with though, I mean the
segues in see Bull he's got forty percent. He's got
four percent chase rate and so the with rate's a
little down, but still, I mean he's been a pla.
That's the guy that got off the scrap heap, like
literally just off the scrap heap. And oh, Sammy Samy
Mac if you're going to a game tomorrow, let mean
I might I might have to meet you up down
there tomorrow. That that'd be nice. I actually the Tigers, Yeah,

(13:34):
Tigers and Brewers are hosting tomorrow or the Brewers coming
town tomorrow. So but yeah, see boll has done done
a lot, but you still want to see him in
high leverge situation. How does he handle high leverage situations?
And there's still some time to see what he can
do from there. But another takeaway I had from a
series is that, yeah, Toronto, would you know Nick Toronto

(13:59):
could definitely use him right about now? A big, a
big takeaway I have from a tire series has been
well in terms of Lee is Lee could the throw?
The throws are there. It's just it's kind of like,
you know, he needs to just work on plants that throw.
The arm strength. I think the arm strengthe is there.

(14:20):
Like I think the strength is there. It's just a
matter of him just it made a really good play
in the rain yesterday, and he was on Sunday. He
made a good play in the rain where he like
he had like he had a long way to go,
and he made a solid throw over to turkles In
and and get speaking of Tortosen though, this is where
the other observation is, there's nobody to replace him right now.

(14:40):
If you trade him who's gonna want torkal Sin right now?
The idea of training him right now is kind of
I understand why fronts were frustrated, but it's then again,
I just did an article on him. He's not chasing
bad pitches. He's also missing, but he's not not as
bad as it was last year. It's just a it's
a matter of where. It's just a matter of him
snapping out of it. And you want to give him

(15:01):
as much leeway as again because there's no really an
alternative intoledal right now? Are you not a fan of
the blue jerseys? Is that what we're talking about? They
haven't won in those yet apparently?

Speaker 3 (15:16):
Ooh yeah, yeah, I mean it's that you saw cold
Keith was the first baseman today and the defense wasn't
particularly stellar over there. It wasn't great. You couldn't dig
the ball out of the dirt. He's certainly hitting better
than turkle Sin so far this year. Tourtlesen's walking a bunch.
But yeah, like there isn't a clear alternative. You would

(15:37):
be Okay, you're sending Turtlesen down to Toledo and how
you lease your third basement and cold Keith is your
first basement.

Speaker 2 (15:42):
I don't know. That might make you slightly better, but
I don't think it's the highest ceiling for this team.
The highest ceiling for this team is tortlesen figuring something
out and hitting for power like you did last year,
and that would help a lot for him to hit
for any power. It's it's been a real confusing one
and just a strange career for him so far, right,

(16:02):
like just up down up down up down or I
guess now down up down up down b A b
A yeah. Yeah, it's a real economic code of a career.
That's it's funny, yea. All right, there's turtles and the
snickname the economy code the bad he's having bad abs
and it's given him a low ba.

Speaker 1 (16:23):
There we go. See, yeah, there's the ultimate economic code.
There we go. We're gonna do a graphic. We need
a graphic for that. No serious, so that that is.
That's genius on our part. Okay, that's genius on the fly.

Speaker 2 (16:37):
There the contra to popular opinion. We got to sell down.
We go to sell down here.

Speaker 1 (16:42):
Yeah, yeah, we have to get back, but give many
non secretors go ahead.

Speaker 3 (16:46):
Sorry, I think I don't know, like the pitchings just
completely change the subject here. The starting pitching has been
excellent other than Jack Flaerty today where he just couldn't
throw strikes, but the number of one run outings it
has been crazy, right, Like it's it's basically Montero had
the one game where you give up four, but again
that was sort of like it. Had it been closer,

(17:07):
I don't think Hinch would have tried to get more
innings out of him. You know, you still got to
try to get the runs out or the outs. But yeah,
a lot of great starting pitching that the Wolfen has
largely been okay, Like they've had a couple of ball
ups this year, right and and games like today where
they just can't hold the hold the edge or keep
it tied. But yeah, I think the one area of

(17:30):
concern that I'm not sure is going to get better
is the defense. We just kind of a lot of
sloppy defense. And part of it is you're just gonna
expect it, right, like you got. Torres is not a
good defender, right, He's passable. Torkelsen and Keith are passable. Like,
I don't know if there is a good defender outside
of Dingler on the roster right, like McGonagall is capable

(17:53):
of making lots of good defensive plays, but we do
think he's ultimately best at second base. And then beyond that,
it's it's like, yeah, I guess bias and center and
and short sometimes, but he's got several errors too. So
it's it's just you hope that doesn't come back to
bite him too much this year, but it does seem
like it's going to be a consistent problem.

Speaker 1 (18:12):
Well, your camera has been acting a little weird again.

Speaker 2 (18:14):
Yeah, So it's that's acting like that to you too.

Speaker 1 (18:17):
Yeah, I see everybody's everybodys seeing it right now.

Speaker 2 (18:19):
Yeah, I think the beer. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (18:22):
Or you look like you're witness protection hiding your identity
right now because you've been too hard on Jasey Young.
That's what's going on, you know, Corey. There's a that's
a good question about his bat speed. Why Laborer's bat
speeds so low. It could be the fact he's so

(18:42):
recovering from his herne hernia surgery, correctly having another issue there,
it's a side of you there you go. It could
be it could be a number of different things. I'm
not really sure. According to all reports, it's all healthy. So,
I mean, Pulside hasn't really diden' hit a lot of pulseide.

Speaker 2 (18:59):
Has he at all? No, it's been heavy.

Speaker 3 (19:01):
It's it's it's reminding people of Aglio and what like
two thousand and eight, two thousand and nine, where it
was just all singles to the opposite field.

Speaker 2 (19:10):
Let me tell you the truth.

Speaker 3 (19:11):
Uh yeah, so, and honestly, it's it's okay, like he's
so yeah, it's obviously not the the the best version
of labor Torres. But if he's walking and getting hits,
you know, he said what two forty right now, So
it's it's it's close to an average bat right now

(19:33):
with the locks and the hits.

Speaker 2 (19:34):
There's zero power. But if you know, if the power.

Speaker 3 (19:39):
Bats are doing their job, then having people on base,
you know, that's that's decent work for Soarez, right, Like,
I don't know, he's not doing himself any favors for
a potential free agent contract unless he starts hitting for
more power. But he's been a you know, a contributor,
right and if Green and Carpenter are torgle center behind
him hitting for power, then that's fine. But it would

(20:02):
help to have another bat that could do some extra
base damage.

Speaker 1 (20:05):
Especially a right handed bat. And I'm with you, Kevin.
We Carroll gets on base, we do not. I don't care,
we do not. We do not know, we do not.
We on the show. Are we avoid the mob like mentality.
There's there's enough stats there to indicate something that's a miss,
and there's something a miss, but the bat speed, as
Corey mentioned, yes, that is something to be concerned about with.

(20:26):
But he continues to be on base, he continues to
drive counts, and that's the important thing. There's one thing
about the Tigers that has changed last four or five years,
and we can we can preach just to everybody. They're
working counts, they're deep in counts. Riley Green has been
hitting really well. So it's not always like gloom here.
I mean, today's lost. It suck. And as somebody mentioned

(20:46):
earlier earlier, the Tigers beat themselves today, same time, but
they have to host a pretty good Brewers team coming
into town, and all Central as a whole stat.

Speaker 3 (20:55):
Yeah, they're all all five teams over five hundred, I think,
and we'll like the Brewers. Speaking of the that defense,
the Brewers are gonna put to put a ton of
pressure on the Tigers defense.

Speaker 2 (21:06):
They do it, they did it last year. That's that's
how they play. They put the ball in play, they
run like you know, deer and the Yeah, the Tigers
are gonna have to clean it up a lot here
and we'll see, we'll see. I maintained that the Tigers,
I think they would like to be like the Brewers
as a team ultimately one day down the road. But

(21:26):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (21:26):
I mean, I think you can get to the Brewers pitching.
They're not going to face uh take him as Rowski,
I don't think. I don't know if Brandon's Brote is
still in the rotation, but he has it pitched terribly well.

Speaker 2 (21:38):
So it's a good team. You gotta beat good teams
if you're gonna be good. So it should be a
fun series for sure.

Speaker 1 (21:44):
Yeah, they'll be. And the Tigers, by the way, as
far as what the pitching matchup looks like here, well,
Evan Woodberry has just tweeted it out earlier. So yeah,
the pitching matchup so sunny Gray by the way, is
going on the aisle. It's unfortunate. Austin Montero, yep, craft
Montero against Harrison Wednesday, is Miz versus Chad Patrick and

(22:09):
Thursday is spro Out versus Schooble.

Speaker 2 (22:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (22:13):
Yeah, I whenever you look at these things on paper,
you go, well, that looks like wedds and then it
doesn't work out the way you think.

Speaker 2 (22:17):
Right.

Speaker 3 (22:18):
Everybody was complaining about that right handed lineup against Garrett
Crochet and they.

Speaker 2 (22:21):
Beat him up real good.

Speaker 1 (22:23):
So the Brewers.

Speaker 2 (22:28):
Fair enough.

Speaker 3 (22:28):
Yeah, yeah, but yeah, it should be a fun serious
like I said, but it's a Tigers have played really
well at home so far this year.

Speaker 2 (22:37):
Keep that up. The weather's supposed to take a real
nice turn here in the next couple of days.

Speaker 1 (22:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (22:41):
So, uh, fortunately I have to fly to New York
on Wednesday night now, but I'll be there Thursday, but
I'll be back for the weekend, so that should be fun.

Speaker 1 (22:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (22:52):
Tomorrow is a uh Macedonian heritage mess.

Speaker 1 (22:55):
Oh really, Oh that is awesome. Yeah, and then I know,
like that's awesome. Yeah, I did not know they had.
I do like the fact that they're celebrating the various
days like that. That is really cool. They're getting very
specific with it, and and that's awesome because there's so
much diversity in the tray area, and the see of
them a hunt at all is really cool. Some of
the jerseys have been I've seen some of the jerseys already,

(23:17):
so I.

Speaker 2 (23:17):
Would like to if they did like a hill Belly night.

Speaker 1 (23:22):
You know, you know there's somebody out there wants a
Downriver night. You know there's a fact that everybody wants
some well, yeah, like for I have a couple, we
have a couple of people on our discord and live
down River. I technical, well, I live in where I
live is people.

Speaker 2 (23:37):
Have said it down here on the gate of down River, right, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (23:42):
I'm on the outline. I'm on the outskirts of down River.
Where I live is pretty much like it's literally a hop,
skip and jump away, like you go next, go across
the way and it's like right there.

Speaker 2 (23:52):
But uh, it's actually a Wikipedia article about it.

Speaker 1 (23:55):
Yeah. And I did not know, by the way, I
always thought that Christina here, I didn't. I did not
know that. I thought they were I thought they were Greek.
I didn't know. That's that's good. I don't thank you,
that's uh.

Speaker 3 (24:06):
I mean Greek and Macedonia are fairly closely related. I'm
sure that they would yell at you if you'd say that.
We'd have to ask Greg. But you know Alexander the
Great was famously Macedonian.

Speaker 1 (24:15):
Right, yeah, Greg Ingia would probably yell at us. You know,
it's like, oh, dare you.

Speaker 2 (24:21):
Whatever?

Speaker 3 (24:21):
We're all Americans now right, American. They're having the Calbean Knight, right,
which is those are Assyrians, which is fun. But like
I said, like I don't know, I don't do they
do like French Canadian Night?

Speaker 1 (24:32):
They do, actually I think they that They do a
French Canadian Knight. They have a they have Wayne State Knight,
they have a U M Knight, they have their yeah
you're you know, alum your Eastern along Eastern. Yeah, although Michigan,
it's Michigan, but they you know, they put all the
red you know. So yeah, so the Tigers are doing
Canadian Night one of Jason Town think you say. See,
so there you go, that's gonna be yeah.

Speaker 2 (24:54):
Yeah. So there's a whole Wikipedia article about about Downriver
and h yeah, Dearborn is not part of it. There
you go.

Speaker 1 (25:04):
Yeah, I went, yeah, I went. That's where I went
to high school. So well, you know we'll get check night.
Is there a check Night? Wolves? You have to check
that a non second or.

Speaker 2 (25:17):
Probably I'm not sure if there's a Slovak Night, but.

Speaker 1 (25:22):
To the internet, we do, Yeah, the night with detO Chris.
Will we uh move on? Here? An idea when Holman
and Current will be outside of the f CL. Neither
I'm doing any outside of spring Treening.

Speaker 2 (25:37):
Uh, no, home, I confuse him with Huntley, right, yeah, Holman,
I'm sure they're both recovering from injury right now.

Speaker 3 (25:43):
Right, Yeah, That's that's why they're on the FCL roster.
They're you know, weird roster regulations. You can't have too many.
There's a cap for your total number of players you
can have in a system. Uh, but each like full
season level, you're only allowed to have a certain number
of players on that roster. And so anybody's just goes

(26:04):
up the FCL roster for now.

Speaker 1 (26:07):
Yeah, there's a yeah, we'll get you know. And speaking
of By the way, the Tighters did sign a outfielder
today who was Sur. So that's a how do you
say is I don't want to butcher his name?

Speaker 2 (26:21):
I actually have never heard his name pronounced, but it
looks like Spur.

Speaker 1 (26:25):
Caleb Spur, who was at the University of Connecticut and
he's a another the Tigers outfield injuries have been you know,
he's five, you know, like he's kind of an undersized guy.
But this gives a the ability for another another body
essentially for the Tigers. About the thirty year when Lakeland

(26:49):
f cl.

Speaker 2 (26:50):
You know, I'm not really sure where. It just depends
on where they need right Like, I could see it
being I could see it being Lakeland. I can see
it be in West Michigan. The number of kind of
indie ball.

Speaker 3 (27:01):
And the outfielders that were cut loose from other organizations
this year, it's it's exactly what we predicted. Actually, Yeah,
like a month ago, you got you know, Tyler Jeffree,
You've got Nolan McCarthy. They had Steven Rustich, but he
got hurt, so they brought in Andrew Soka. Just just
lots and lots of outfielders, Patrick Lee.

Speaker 2 (27:22):
So I don't know if they feel like there's if
it's just an area of need in the organization, or
if they just feel like it's not worth drafting outfielders
because you can take in fielders and move them to
the outfield. I don't know. Yeah, well we'll see where
they put them.

Speaker 1 (27:36):
By the way, taking Charles for the Thouve dollars. That's wrong. Well,
building any chance of ask Venascar or Smith will get
a chance of pitching Tigers in your future. Both are
picking well in Toledo, that was just a matter of injury,
and maybe it's a Tigers look. Smith is dominiting. Both
those guys are dominating, and they have no bit Like
Smith has no business being there. He's thirty five years olds,

(27:58):
so he's a little bit older veteran, but Nasco, I'd
like to see him. I like to see him. Tigers
give him an opportunity. But it really depends on you know, yeah,
it depends on injuries of course too.

Speaker 3 (28:11):
So yeah, neither of those guys are on the forty
men roster right now, so you would need to create
space for them.

Speaker 2 (28:16):
Somehow, and that usually does happen via an injury.

Speaker 3 (28:21):
But who knows, Like maybe at some point they do
bite the bullet and say, you know, it's not working,
and to be honest with you, are like, I don't know,
Like we haven't seen Emmanuel the Hazer's pitch a lot.
I think that, you know, I think they like him
and I think he's a valuable piece of the bullpen.
But there's a chance that at some point he's got options, right,
so they could send him down to Toledo. You still

(28:42):
need to create room the forty men roster, but like
they've got some guys they can move around, so it's possible.
But like Rod said, you know you need you need
something to happen where those guys have room.

Speaker 1 (28:54):
No, but Charles, I can see them being contributors though.
I mean it's easily, but just like I said, just
a matter of when they can fit in there. So
let's get to the of course, the our slide presentation,
like you know, what's funny is for day jobs. We
do work with slides all the time, but I like
to think our slides are a little different. I like
to think that they're not like your typical PowerPoint presentation

(29:15):
because there's also a video and and not. Yeah it's fun,
it's fun slides. It's fun slides.

Speaker 4 (29:23):
Uh yeah, there's a lot of the dsls we started
so well, uh yeah, was back and be happy a
little bit. But the big news today was Vice Rainer
West Michigan will be tomorrow, Jordan's to late and the

(29:46):
s c l uh So.

Speaker 1 (29:48):
I think you're talk about this. They kind of treated in.

Speaker 3 (29:53):
On a oh yeah, yeah, you're you're in the submarine Roger.

Speaker 1 (29:59):
Oh is that better? Yeah, much better? Okay, sorry that yeah.
By the way, it's good to see that Troy Watson's
back in rehabit. What I'm saying was, is that do
we treat price reaiders stint in Lakeland as a rehab appearance?

Speaker 2 (30:16):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (30:16):
I mean, that's the generous interpretation of it, right, is
that that you know, when you see a guy doing rehab,
you don't necessarily care about the performance. And it just
it felt like it was a rehab because they would
play him for like two thirds of a game, and
the next day he'd be the d H and then
you come back and play a full game and then you.

Speaker 2 (30:36):
Have a day off. And that's the sort of thing
you see when guys are rehabbing.

Speaker 3 (30:39):
They just kind of they push them in slowly to
see how their body is responding. Because just based on statistics,
he certainly did not earn a promotion, right, But if
you look.

Speaker 2 (30:50):
At it, like he was gonna go to High A
no matter what.

Speaker 3 (30:54):
He was going to start the year there, and this
last three weeks has just been him, you know, getting
physically then yeah, it was like a reabstent, and that's
I think that that's kind of the way you have
to look at it. The other alternative is is, you know,
everybody's been complaining about his swing and his hand movement
and his load and all that stuff. I don't think
that's a Tiger's production, right. I don't think the Tigers

(31:17):
told him to swing like that. I think it's kind
of been his his his a version of his swing
for his whole life, and you don't want to change
that too much. But sometimes you got to push guys
to get to the point where they start running into
a wall before they're willing to change. So I don't know, like,
I don't mean to suggest that he's you know, unwilling
to change or hardheaded or whatever like that, but it's

(31:39):
it's like, you know, sometimes you got to challenge guys
and then they can figure out, yeah, I need to
do something to make this work, or he might get
up to West Michigan and Rake who knows. It's it's
a small enough sample. I don't like that he's striking
out fifty percent of the time this year. That's not ideal,
But again, it's but ten games.

Speaker 1 (31:56):
So yeah, by the way, thanks to Jake who give
us an intel on Willie Hayden, who's gonna be out
for a while. He's got a hamstering hamstring injury that's
gonna put him out for I think maybe it could
be it could be weak, it could be six weeks.
Who know it's with those hamstring injuries. But I said
it could be out for a while, so so yeah, yeah,

(32:17):
and uh, we saw a lot of activity with like,
for example, Luke Ritter who signed a minor league contractor
I think it's starting in Toledo. Yeah, he's starting to live. Yeah,
and then Nolan Cardy got called up to West Michigan.
Compost is also on the AL which is kind of
unfortunate situation for him. But the the full season, Uh Petrie,

(32:39):
who we just saw him pitch too, So.

Speaker 2 (32:41):
Yeah, that's a bummer. You know, he's an interesting because
he's a lefty who doesn't throw it particularly hard, but
he really spends the ball.

Speaker 3 (32:47):
He's got a really high span curve ball, and I mean,
you show me if he's on the full season injury
list that it's probably an elbow and that's not great.

Speaker 2 (32:54):
But yeah, that's what happens when you're you're pitching. All
my pitchers are gone.

Speaker 1 (32:59):
Yeah, so oh my pictures. It sucks. It's an unfortunate situation.
And uh so to get into an unfortunate situation, let's
go in Toledo. Who just uh it was a The
Weber report this week is one of various interest numbers.
You know what I mean by that is a sense
that like what I mentioned earlier about Sawyer Gibson long

(33:22):
two starts, eight innings, thirteen hits, ten runs, eight of
which were earned, four home runs including uh, who was
j J Baday hit one like deep center field? Like
he lowed Bob's week, and he just did not look
confident out there after a really good appearance last week
in Toledo and then the rest of the the bullpen

(33:44):
was kind of like shaking a little bit. But in
terms of offensive performances, the one that really sucks is
Trey Cruse his knee buckle. We still have had an
update on that, what's going on with that. But did
not look good. He kind of crumpled. It was on
a throw it a second right, it was a type steal.

Speaker 2 (34:00):
Correct, Yeah, he was.

Speaker 3 (34:01):
He was in the batter's box and I'm kind of
I don't remember who was trying to steal, but yeah,
he just kind of turned and it looked like his
his uh he was batting right handed, and his right
knee and gave out and he fell down and he
left the game, and yeah, like, you don't know, maybe
that was just a weird thing and he just needs
to rest for a couple of days or maybe something.

Speaker 2 (34:20):
Tor It's it's impossible to know from just watching.

Speaker 3 (34:23):
You hope it's not the latter, because it's been a long,
you know, run to get to where he is now,
and he's awfully close to getting a call up to
the big leagues, and we thought he might get called
up rather than Lee. And we didn't know necessarily well,
I mean we thought, you know, with the Kincher getting hurt,
felt like Cruise was more of a one to run
replacement for m Kinstry, But with all the lefties that

(34:44):
they're facing, they felt like Lee was a better option
because Cruse, you know, despite being a switch hitter, he's
he's generally speaking more does a lot more damage from
the left side. I guess that they were just looking
for another right handed bat, but yeah, you hope he's
healthy because, like I said, to get all this way,
get so close and then get hurt would be a
real road bummer.

Speaker 1 (35:03):
Yeah, that we're really and especially too because I mean
he might have been considered for being called I mean,
I know there were some questions like why wasn't he
called up instead of instead of wee because he can
play more positions and what have you. But you know,
it is what it is. Maybe he would just date

(35:24):
the Tigers team like he was ready. And look, I
know this, I mean we we know for a fact
that Harris loves how we like we Every time I
talked to him, he get his eyes would lit up
like crazy. So so yeah, that that that's something to
consider it. But I mean, in all seriousness, so he

(35:44):
does hit that hit the crap out of the ball
to when he does make contact. So yeah, you know,
at any rate, let's move on. Was there anything else
you want to know? Oh, Ben mal Jerry, I was
gonna say, Ben moult Jerry. The numbers will indicate that. Well,
but he's off to a good start to eighty eight
batting average.

Speaker 2 (36:00):
Yeah, he's looked very solid. He looks like a legitimate contributor.

Speaker 3 (36:04):
There and again somebody that if the outfield injuries keep
happening and something happens at big league level, he could
get a look.

Speaker 2 (36:11):
He could get at it at the end of the year.
We'll we'll see. Clark had a solid week. He didn't walk,
which was unusual.

Speaker 3 (36:16):
But this is just kind of it feels like people
were starting to he had his first home run and
it was a bomb to dead center on like a
low line drive, so it looked really nice, and then
so people start clamoring for him to come up and
it's actually, well, like he was better last week than
he was this week. But that's just the way it goes.
But he's still playing well right and still playing well
in defense. So just amounter of time for him.

Speaker 2 (36:37):
I don't think it'll be too much longer before we
get a look at Clark, but maybe another month or so,
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (36:44):
Yeah, to answer Mitchell's question, yeah, probably about maybe another
month or so perhaps, So we'll see out there, you know, Adam,
I'll talk about Earier here in a second, I'll talk
about my trip Charles. Jack Rogers hasn't hit over two
hundreds and twenty three. It's a defensive value. Jack Rogers
is a leader of that club. He adds a lot
of things that are not really discussed, like the intangibles

(37:06):
and such a good framer and everything. Defensively, he had
a couple hit, he had a good he had an
RB a double. Today. He's been hitting better. I mean,
he seems like he's hitting the ball better.

Speaker 2 (37:15):
Yeah. Basically, any offense you get from a backup pitcher
is a bonus unless it is unless your main catcher
is a you know, elite glove defender who can't hit
and you want an Eric Haas type backup right who
can hit for power.

Speaker 3 (37:29):
Yeah, Valencia is is not good enough catcher to comp
and you know, replace Rogers.

Speaker 2 (37:36):
And he hasn't like this was his first good week
this year.

Speaker 3 (37:40):
Yeah, to be to be blunt his his WRG plus
is still like eighty four on the year, and it's
thoroughly enough. And to see him getting more walks and
strikeouts and hitting a bottom is nice. Just, you know,
a couple more weeks like that and maybe we could
discuss it.

Speaker 2 (37:53):
Maybe, you know, you don't like to think about this,
but if we'll go like three four more weeks without
porkleson doing anything, maybe if let's is the first base option.
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (38:06):
Yeah, no, And look and that's you know what, Chris,
that's actually so yeah, go ahead, Chris.

Speaker 3 (38:14):
No, they've they've found that at least so far, and
then this, they've done their studies in the miners that
framing is still basically ninety nine percent as important as
it used to be. And now instead of fooling the umpires,
you're fooling the batters. At times you're framing the ball
so they don't even challenge, right, and you only get

(38:35):
two and there are only certain times, so you're still
stealing strikes throughout the game with good framing. It's if
it were a full ABS system, then I agree, framing
would no longer have any value. But it's it's this
is relatively minimal compare you, like you're talking maybe four
or five pitches throughout the game that are now not
being framed because of challenges. So it's not out of

(38:58):
however many pitches you one hundred fifty.

Speaker 1 (39:02):
Yeah, and you know the one thing too, well, just
think about like this, his glove defensively on first base,
it's a liability too, So I mean, hededs, he's still
a liability defensively no matter where you put him to
a certain extent, I mean, catching is better position. But
if you had to try to replace him at first,
that's that's not exactly the greatest idea either.

Speaker 3 (39:24):
Yeah, again, it's maybe something you could consider if he
were absolutely raking, but he's been off to a slow start.

Speaker 2 (39:31):
So it's again, give another month or so and see
what happens.

Speaker 1 (39:35):
Yeah, plenty, plenty of time. Yeah, there's I know that. Uh,
it's just maybe perhaps too early to talk about it.
But again, we'll see what happens. So let's move on
to Erie. And I was out there. I got there
late Friday because work was a little crazy, so I
went to hang out Saturday and then start raining after
really really hard, after I think the third inning, and

(39:58):
I was I couldn't stay on Sunday because I had
going on, and so yeah, I couldn't stay like I
wanted to. But I enjoyed my trip because I got
to go to my favorite restaurant, Federal Hill Smokehouse. Wladies
and gentlemen. Let me just tell you something. And I
don't get paid them. They don't pay me as a sponsorship.
I don't get paid by them at all, but we

(40:19):
have very few sponsors. We just have our Patreon donors.
Thanks to you and you find folks who listen to
us and give us donations. Federal Hills Smokehouse in area
Peach Street is the best Barbie is one of the
best barbecue plays seven read it is so good. It
is just and they have a punk five to them.
So I got a Dead Milkman T shirt with the

(40:41):
Federal Hill Smokehouse to it. They also have like a
Misfits one two theme one as well. They're great people.
They open eleven of three. They're limited and they once
they are out there out so if you're in Eerie,
Adam can attest to this. Anybody, that's if you go.
If you go to Erie. This year, we saw Chef

(41:02):
Reacts at the opening day and I even told Chef
Reacts like, dude, when you go, because he's talking about
doing my only tour, I'm like, go, do yourself a favor.
Go to Federal Hill Smokeouts. I will pleach it to
the choir, I'll preach it to everybody.

Speaker 2 (41:14):
Actually, yeah, he like took it a minute to write
it down, like yeah, yeah, so yeah, yeah, the place
was I've only been there once, twice twice.

Speaker 3 (41:23):
What it's delicious. I'm glad you got to go there.
And we had some bad luck on the road this week. Yeah,
you know, it rained everywhere and I went up to
Lancing and to wash what I thought was gonna be
lucas Ela salt pitch, and it got rained out.

Speaker 2 (41:38):
And then I was going to try to go the
next day, and then they called up, how you leave?

Speaker 3 (41:41):
So I wanted to write a quick article and that
I'm not as quick as I would like to be,
and I missed it.

Speaker 2 (41:46):
So that's just the way it goes. And Roger drove.

Speaker 3 (41:49):
You know, there was a double header on Friday, but
work got involved and so you're driving through the rain
all the way there, and then you get there on Saturday,
you get one inning with one and two thirds innings
or something like that.

Speaker 2 (41:58):
Yeah, and then it gets rained out.

Speaker 3 (42:01):
But we don't, you know, as much as we're going
to these places to see the baseball, it's also good
to see the people who have been friends to us
and and connections we've made with actual people in these towns.

Speaker 2 (42:13):
It's it's still fun to go do that.

Speaker 1 (42:15):
So yeah, shout out to the entire crew there Chris
Christy two. I had a chance to hang out with Jason,
you know, Saturday for a little while, and then Zach
I got the new broadcasting crew out there. Zach and
Luke have done a really good job of carrying the
mantle up there. So yeah, you know, it's really they're

(42:38):
really really good stuff out there, and they they're just
a fantastic I bought them. I bought Jason and Lana
barbecue because they it was the first hot meal they
had had a game, because they're.

Speaker 3 (42:49):
Always yeah, yeah, people who I don't know if the
average fan realizes, and I'm sure it's the same way.
You know, the big leagues is such a such a
much larger operation, but in the minor ladies that there
are people doing basically every job and they don't have
time to eat. And I remember specifically, you know, the
movement of this game right where you brought food for

(43:10):
several people because that otherwise they were not going to eat.

Speaker 2 (43:14):
And so yeah, and then I got to hang out
with with Dan Aht and Jesse Goldberg Stressler and then
Gasca Jaxa.

Speaker 1 (43:22):
Yeah, those guys are fantastic.

Speaker 2 (43:23):
Yeah, it was it was we were up in the.

Speaker 3 (43:27):
In the press box there waiting for the rain delay news,
and so we were just chopping it up talking about
famous rain delay incidents, and then we got.

Speaker 2 (43:33):
To talking about TV and it was good, good, good time.

Speaker 1 (43:36):
Yeahs we're talking about shrinking. Yeah, those conversations.

Speaker 2 (43:40):
Yeah, it's yeah good.

Speaker 1 (43:42):
But so what was good was Pactor looks like he's
back in the swinging things a little bit. Showed some
really good paces at the play as I'm good at bats.
Steph Stevenson two was kind of the ringer of the
offense and just as big me back to the kind
of dominating the level a little bit to a certain extent.
But the checko and so Saturday one at bat I

(44:02):
saw him. They threw him three straight sliders. He swung
on all three pitches. It was just a matter of
like he just it was not it was an ideal.
You will still look like he's adjusting to the level
a bit. But man, that was rough. Sorry it was rough.

Speaker 3 (44:20):
Yeah, I mean had another opportunity with the I think
it was yesterday was the bases loaded and won out
and again struck out on I think three or four pitches.

Speaker 2 (44:28):
It's it's just the pitch recognition.

Speaker 3 (44:30):
Is not there. Right now, and you hope it does
come with more reps. But you know this is year
what four five for him?

Speaker 2 (44:37):
Uh yeah, you know, you don't want to close the
door on anybody, but it's when you're striking out at
that level, you have to hit more power or walk
more and he hasn't done that yet.

Speaker 1 (44:47):
Yeah. And as far as like I like Charles's question
about Callahan being the next call up, Yeah, if more likely,
I would think if yeah, that or they will give
big They probably give big b I think that because
this is callahanm his first year in double ay, they
would probably just move somebody over and I'm minor exite,
like maybe kel Stevenson or the center and be Bigbie

(45:10):
or or Myers because those guys have been in Eerie
for a long time.

Speaker 2 (45:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (45:15):
No, My guess is they would just continue with the
kind of the veterans they have around there, Toledo or
you know, who knows, they might bump Nolan McCarthy up,
you know, or Soyka or somebody something.

Speaker 2 (45:28):
You know. I just don't think when when it comes to.

Speaker 3 (45:32):
You know, guys that they view as kind of and
we think they view callahanis is a pretty legit prospect
that you're not going to go ahead and like force
a promotion there if you don't think he's necessarily ready.
And he just got the Double A, right like, this
is his first taste of double A. Who maybe, but

(45:52):
we haven't really seen them push any promotions outside of
Rayner right like this. This is the only one that
seems a little bit fast, and and a year ago
we would not have thought this was fast. If he
if he had stayed healthy, we were like, yeah, you
go up to West Michigan. So I just I don't
think they'd push it with Callahan just to replace Clark.
I think they would use the veterans there and then eventually,
if Callahan keeps playing well, they'll put him up.

Speaker 2 (46:14):
But I don't think it would be a one to
one thing.

Speaker 1 (46:16):
By the way, Go has adjusted to double A very well.
Four innings, two hits, nine streakouts, So that's A. That's A.
He dominated double A when he was in San Diego.
So this is no surprise to anybody who's I mean
for siples like us who watched the minor leagues as
much as going back and looking at numbers, I was like, oh,
well he did this before. It's just when he got

(46:36):
to triple A, it was a different story.

Speaker 3 (46:39):
Yeah, and some you know, sometimes that's the way it goes.
You just mentioned Justice big By, right, Justice big By
has great career numbers in double A and has not
done a whole lot in tiledo. Like sometimes that's that
what appears to be a relatively small step to us
for whatever reason, is one that that certain guys just
can't make that next leap.

Speaker 2 (46:57):
So maybe Go was one of those guys.

Speaker 1 (47:00):
And by way, Zach was very complementary at Bennet Lee,
Who's he's saying he's seen the ball better and I
would agree with that, and Wee is adjusting to double
A to be fair, I mean, when Lonso comes back,
we know what Lee Stas is gonna be. But I
think he's done a good job all things considering being
at this level.

Speaker 3 (47:18):
Yeah, it's you know, I don't yeah, I don't think
he would have been an Earie and Loronzo and Bersini
you have been healthy, right, Yeah, But yeah, I mean
he's never been a big offensive performer and that doesn't
have a ton of you know, outstanding offensive tools. But
he is holding his own right now, and that's that's

(47:41):
that's progress for him, right, He's still twenty three in
double A catching.

Speaker 2 (47:45):
You know, catching.

Speaker 3 (47:46):
It takes a long time for these guys to figure
it out. And honestly, you know, if you don't have
to hit a ton, right, if you're a good defensive catcher,
and he is so, if he could just continue to
make some small stride on offense, then yeah, that's he becomes.
It's you know, interesting Brian hall Day level sort of prospect.

Speaker 1 (48:01):
Right And speaking of catchers, by the way, the Christy, yeah,
so's lemone games, lemone eleven am games, bad idea, not
for those who work in afternoon shift. Fair enough, fair enough,
fair enough. I'm not gonna argue that. I'm meant for

(48:24):
those fakers. The amount of complaining that any drinks was
doing today was completing. I don't complaining highlighting it.

Speaker 3 (48:29):
I love, you know, at the very beginning of the
minor league season and then you know at the very end,
they have games at eleven am or new or one
am during the week because they're like school kids' days
or whatever.

Speaker 2 (48:42):
And I love that.

Speaker 3 (48:43):
It's a nice thing to like, Hey, I got a
baseball game in the middle of the day that I
can watch uh, Major League's not not quite as much fun.

Speaker 2 (48:49):
But whatever. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (48:51):
No, so West Michigan, by the way, continues to dominate.
I mean, it's the story of the web Caps to me,
is one of endurance because they are a team like
you look at them on paper. Sorry, long, long, long
they I've been up since four thirty. Also, it's been

(49:12):
pitching well, can still pitch well. But the offense, I mean,
how it's going? What again? What is it about Lancing
the Lancing ong nuts, Chris, I don't understand it, man.

Speaker 2 (49:23):
It's something about that ballpark. It batters love to hit there.
It's I think it's the Giant you know, Green Wall
and Center that they just pick up the ball really
well or something. But yeah, you always get these kind
of wild games, and they weren't necessarily like this wasn't
pure dominance the way we saw last year at times
from the white Caps team. But it's still very impressive,

(49:44):
you know, to win six straight games against anybody. They
have seven overall in a row.

Speaker 3 (49:48):
And they just they got the lead in like every
single game, and even a couple of times when they
fell behind, they just came right back. And it is
kind of Yeah, they're just they're a veteran club if
you will, you know, so Soca and these guys are
erosively old for the level.

Speaker 2 (50:05):
Pennington's kind of old.

Speaker 3 (50:06):
But Carlo Hurtado was a guy now We talked abou
him a little bit last year because it felt like
he was breaking out at this time. He was sitting
for a lot of power and it was seemed like
he was throwing somebody out on the base pass damn
near every game. Right, So he's he's got a good
defensive tool set there, especially with the arm, catch and
throw skills. But what he never showed was any kind
of plate discipline or patients in the past. Right, it

(50:27):
was like twenty walks all of last year and ninety
strikeouts or whatever. In this year he's got more walks
than strikeouts. And again it's early, and guys really do
seem to see the ball well in Lancing, So who knows,
but if if his you know, sudden plate discipline discovery
is real. And again he's jumped up a level from
low A. He suddenly becomes a very interesting prospect because

(50:50):
the power is there and the catch and throw skills
were there, Like you can and you can continue to
approve the framing and blocking and all that stuff. But yeah,
it's a it's he's definitely one to watch early on.

Speaker 1 (51:02):
Yeah, because he's the guy. I mean. The reason why
I was I wanted to mention him too is I
was looking at some of his The contact he makes
is hard. He makes really good consistent contacts. Sorry, when
he makes contact, it's really hard contact. I mean, the
numbers he had last year in Lakelin were pretty impressive,
but he's always had you. I don't know, maybe some

(51:25):
of these, like his arm and catching a little bit
a little rough round, I just been improved. As far
as like older, as the white Caps older, I think
they're probably one of the oldest teams in the Midwest.
Without without really looking, they're they're one of the oldest
teams in the Midwest. Lea last year and.

Speaker 2 (51:43):
I'm looking right now. Twenty three point one for the
hitters is the second oldest, behind only the Cubs, Okay,
and twenty three point six for the pitchers is tied
for the oldest, So they are the oldest team in
the best league.

Speaker 3 (51:57):
It's something that Tigers have done at every level basically
since since Scott Harris got here.

Speaker 2 (52:04):
And it's not necessarily. I don't know.

Speaker 3 (52:06):
We've talked about before, Like it's it's not like they're
taking guys who should be at Triple A and putting
them in High A because.

Speaker 2 (52:14):
You know, because they want to win.

Speaker 3 (52:15):
They just like, you know, when they're going to get
guys who aren't necessarily prospects. They like guys who are solid,
competent baseball players, who are like professionals, and they're not
necessarily like these kind of random toolboxes who are learning
how to play. They have a couple guys like that,
but they generally go after like these twenty five to
twenty six, twenty seven year olds. They got to look
at Erie Eurie's got Joe Campaigna is a twenty nine

(52:37):
year old indie ball signing Wantyson Charlis is twenty nine
years old.

Speaker 2 (52:42):
Like these teams, they just have a lot of older players.
That's just the way they've done this, not to men.

Speaker 1 (52:47):
Yeah, is it tell? I mean charl Is saying that
it sounds like a cheek hot of dolding one culture.
I would say, I think also if you think about
it though, for the fans in that town, whether Toledo, Erie, Constant,
Grand Rapids, or Lakeland for that matter. I think that
bodes well because then shows the Tigers are saying like, hey,
we want you want fans to show up at least,

(53:09):
because when these teams are not good, no one shows up.
I mean, I'm sorry, it's it's the case. And Toledo,
I know for a fact. For I mean, we remember
that they had a spell during the was in twenty
ten when they were really bad, you know outside when
they won after I think they after won the Governor's Cup,
it was up for a while before they got winning again.
So hey, you know, if I'm a fan of Toledo,

(53:32):
I'm excited. I'm sure.

Speaker 3 (53:33):
Go ahead, Chris, I'm just looking through. So like Lakeland
is the oldest pitching staff in the Florida State League.
Their hitters are twenty one point three, which is tied
for like sixth.

Speaker 2 (53:43):
So not not the oldest, but not the youngest. Yeah,
I bat you.

Speaker 3 (53:47):
Eerie is the oldest team. Remember a couple of years
ago we were laughing at Altoona because they had like
four thirty five year olds in the team.

Speaker 1 (53:53):
Yeah, yeah, I remember that. Yeah, they had their whole infield.
It was it had a couple of infielders too that
were like didn't they have a couple is or they
they brought down in the second half to help him
win the second half title.

Speaker 3 (54:04):
Yeah, so yeah, Eerie is the oldest hitting team in
the Eastern like twenty five point two, the only older
than twenty five and pitching, Hey, there's the second oldest.

Speaker 2 (54:14):
The Redding Fighting Fills are twenty seven point four. Eriies
twenty six point three.

Speaker 1 (54:18):
That sounds see that's the Nebrowski signature right there. That's
a Nebrowski senator right there. If he he always had
that kind of stacked up to when he was here
as well.

Speaker 3 (54:28):
One last one, I will check Toledo, uh at twenty
six point four for the hitters in the middle of
the pack, twenty eight point seven the oldest pitchers that's uh,
you know you got Burch Smith out there, so yeah,
I mean it is kind of across the board that
they are one of the older teams at every level.

Speaker 2 (54:44):
And that's just the way that they've done this.

Speaker 1 (54:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (54:48):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (54:49):
But in terms of stand up performances though, Sorka who
they just signed what last week? Yeah yeah, Rainer will
be making his d tomorrow against Lake County. Lake County
is one of the better teams in the Midwest League.
So this will be a good challenge for the white Caps.
UH Flying Tigers this week split against on the road
against split against Fort Myers, which, by the way, we

(55:12):
have the we all have an interview closely with the
broadcaster tomorrow. I've been just been, like I said, I've
been slamming everything. And so between that and some other
the interview I have with we have we talked to
Covi Clsato a couple of weeks ago. I just not
had a chance to transcript the interview. But that's something
that's uh could be released on the website in an

(55:34):
article form. But yeah, the pictures were really good and
then what what Whiskey Whiska got injured. We have no
opdeas on that at all. And that was just it
was just bad because he was pitching really good. He
was pitching ninety six ninety seven.

Speaker 3 (55:48):
And then yeah, yeah, I mean that was that was
tough to see. You never like to see a picture
call for the trainer and come out. It wasn't necessarily
like an obvious injury, right, he doesn't hold his arm
or a pointing to something on his body, but he
was clearly uncomfortable. Something was wrong, which you hate to see.
And yeah, like again he gave up two long home
runs on fastballs. He's still a primarily fastball pitcher. He's

(56:10):
got an interesting change up and he was throwing some
breaking balls in there, and the fastball times gets whiffs.
But it's kind of a kind of like a Burlin anything, right,
Like sometimes you get a lot of whiss with it.
Sometimes they hit it and it goes far. So you
hope that he's healthy. It's nothing serious, but I imagine
he's gonna be out for a little bit. Yeah, and
it was it was, you know, it was an up
and down week for them, kind of continuing the last

(56:33):
four games from the date the Daytona series last week
where it was you know, there were times where where
Fort Myers looked dominant and times where Lakeland looked dominant.

Speaker 2 (56:41):
And I guess that's what you're gonna get. In low way.

Speaker 3 (56:44):
Rainer did not have a particularly strong series. It was
better than the week before, had a couple of hard
hit balls, and but again, you know, he's moving up
and we'll see what happens. Yosts coming up is fun. Obviously,
it's their first round pick from last year. I want
to see see that Loronzo immediately got two hits in
his first two play appearances, which is nice to see,
and then he caught in the next game, didn't get

(57:06):
a hit, but I think he walk walked in one
of his three plate appearances. Sergio Tapia, that's tapes, tapes, nice,
nice performance for him. And then you know, Zach McDonnell
is the guy that kind of and you wrote an
article about this, so I don't know if you want
to dig into it, but yeah, he's starting to race
and eyebrows there for sure.

Speaker 1 (57:22):
Yeah, so Zach donal thinks of Zach who from here
gave me some in terms of like I went back
and looked at his h where his hand placement was,
and he has changed his hand placement and he's hitting
the ball with authority. The strakeouts are a little high,
but still he's hitting it really well. He can play
all three offield positions. That's valuable. You want to see

(57:43):
the strikeouts again, I cannot stress enough. Don't see the
straight outs get there. But still he has been a
really good plus he's a good defender too. He's made
some really good catches so far out there and I
and what I liked about what I like about McDonald
two is the fact that he the these Tigers are

(58:04):
getting these guys in like these late round draft picks,
and they're and they're they're they're they're filling some sort
of role, whether it's and they're at least intrigued enough
to where you're going, Okay, it's either it's it's either
it's one extreme or another. But they're not just minor
league fodder anymore, you know what I mean. Like, it's
not like just there's some loud tools that these guys
where I mean, we talked about this before with like

(58:27):
the ill era was there's some loud tools, but it
was like, well all of them have one thing in common.
They struck out a lot, you know. But these guys
are seeing the plate more, they're they're seeing more pitches,
and there's some good things to that. I mean, Rocks,
Carson Rucker, Rocks is uh even like even like you
look at the numbers like that though he's still I mean,

(58:48):
he took a ball off the head though.

Speaker 3 (58:49):
That was that was a brutal Yeah, that was not Yeah,
it's been up and down for him. You know, you
had the four hit game or whatever. But other than that,
it was a roughly yeah, you know, with McDonald. The
difference between I would say between McDonald's kind of like
we've seen players like this, these tooled up players that
do a little bit of everything but have some swinging misissues.

(59:13):
Gage Workman comes to mind, right, Gage Workman was awesome
last week. This week he had like eleven strikeouts. That's
just kind of been his career. And part of that
is is Gage Workman chases. He doesn't walk a ton,
He walks a little bit, but he chases a lot,
and he swings and misses in the zone. McDonald doesn't
chase much. He just his problem is making contact in

(59:33):
the zone. That's not ideal, but it's something that you
could theoretically hopefully work on. Right, if you have a
good idea for the strike zone, and and if you're
doing enough damage on pitches in the zone that when
you do connect and you can play center field and
you can run, You've got a pretty long leash there
to figure things out. He's only twenty two.

Speaker 2 (59:53):
We won't turn twenty three until August, I think, so
an intriguing name, like you said, that's that's the kind
of fun tools you fly, you'd like to see. Who
knows what will happen.

Speaker 3 (01:00:03):
Maybe he tops out at double A, maybe he becomes
a fourth outfielder. Maybe something crazy happens. He's regular.

Speaker 2 (01:00:07):
Who knows, But just getting a guy like that and
having him off to a fast art is fun to see.

Speaker 1 (01:00:13):
Yeah, I mean another example of another McDonald's uh situation too,
where I was looking at Matt, like, I remember he
used to have these commercials like the the you know
you created a Mac attack? Yeah, so I don't know
you have you know Kevin McGonagall and I know, yes,
I know it's cravvy fast food leaves, gentlemen. I'm not
trying to compare because I'm a fat dude. But it's, uh, well,

(01:00:34):
it's weird. It reminds me the other day you were
talking to me.

Speaker 2 (01:00:36):
I don't think we're doing this something the air, but
you're telling me about that Whodini song that what's his
name worked on the Blinded Me with science?

Speaker 1 (01:00:45):
Oh, Thomas Dolbey, Yeah, Thomas.

Speaker 2 (01:00:47):
Who DEI song? And then who Deni's on They're talking
about rap attack and the guy's like, I've heard of
a heart attack and a big mac attack. But I've
never heard of a rap attack Zach macattack.

Speaker 1 (01:00:58):
Yeah, full circle.

Speaker 2 (01:01:00):
I mean he's crushing, he's crushing the ball, he's stealing bases,
he's playing defense. It's fun. It's fun. If it doesn't
if nothing happens, he's gonna be a fun player in
the system.

Speaker 1 (01:01:08):
For if you have if you missed it. By the way,
for those who are not subscribers to our Patreon, so
we have a Patreon. We have a two tiers. Well
we basically have a paid tier. On free tier, we
do a newsletter every week that comes out. We do
other We do a lot of stuff on there. We
do Scott and Ports, We do a bunch of things.
But for those who are just want to check out

(01:01:31):
our newsletter section, I will post the link right here
to share. But uh, it goes over the Tigers, it
goes over everybody in there. So we put the let
Lincoln here for everybody to check it out. So that
part is free for everybody to join. So if you
join our Patreon, sign up to get that weekly newsletter
in addition to Jerry's Jerry gonna have vacation this week.

(01:01:52):
But we got some other content for you there. But
we post some of the good stuff on there.

Speaker 3 (01:01:58):
But yeah, it's just a quick rundown because this is
where all the fun pitching is not awesome. Most fun
pitching this quick. Malki Witherspoon had his worst outing. He
could not get out of the first. It was he
hit his pitch limit. Basically, we've talked about a bunch
of tigers.

Speaker 2 (01:02:11):
Don't let guys go too far, and he was having
trouble getting swings and misses, putting batters away with his fastball,
which is going to be an issue for him at
least for a little while.

Speaker 3 (01:02:22):
And so that's what happened there. But it wasn't like
a disasterrous outing, right, He just threw too many pitches.
Jacobs was very good again, still not quite as much,
you know, as efficient as you'd.

Speaker 2 (01:02:33):
Like to see.

Speaker 3 (01:02:34):
But it's like every time he goes out there, it's
seven strikeouts and just a matter of you know, do
they make any contact at all or does he walk
guys and get into trouble.

Speaker 2 (01:02:42):
Grays and Gritzl was unhittable. I think he's going to
remain that way for a while.

Speaker 3 (01:02:46):
I think he's going to have to move up before
he starts to get challenged because it's just such a
unique arm angle, such a unique look fastball with ride
and a really good change up. It's just that low
a hitters just can't handle that kid. Lee's had his
best pro outing. Nice to see, you know with him,
we talked about it. It's there's nothing that jumps off
the page, but it's three quality pitches from with like
seven feet of extension and you know, pretty good delivery.

(01:03:09):
And then Charlie Christensen, who was kind of we highlighted
him last week. He ran into some pitch efficiency issues
as well. Defense didn't particularly help him out that much
and he was struggling to throw strikes in a way
that he didn't in his first outing.

Speaker 2 (01:03:23):
But he's still too scoreless. So that was fun. And
I have that Lee's start, l Selt start, Christensen start,
and with Whiskers start. There will all be going up
on the YouTube soon. And it's just point we got
to look at the l s al Moto because he's
off to a good start. He's a lot of whiffs
with a sinker, which is not normally something you would expect.

Speaker 1 (01:03:41):
Don Verberg, friend of the front of the podcast, you know,
if you guys look if there's a follow that you
should follow on Twitter that you should did those Tigers,
those prospects. It's in general Don Verberg, who's if you
go to MC all capital letters MCB and then underscore
John Berberg on Twitter, it's just a picture of a

(01:04:02):
Taco Supreme. He is a fantastic The guy knows his
baseball and he was one of the original founders of
the Motor Sat Bangles not what the crap this whatever
the crap is now he is the original founder of
that site. Knows this stuff, knows this stuff inside and out,
and he's a good follow. But yeah, he he was
asking us about some John Calabaro cala Baro.

Speaker 3 (01:04:24):
Yeah, but yeah, I mean I watched him. He's he's
a big, tall dude who looks like he should have
a little funk. It's like, so, well, thank you, I
do my best.

Speaker 1 (01:04:37):
Yeah, hudd up. Yeah that was good stuff. But nevertheless, yeah,
so there is there's a as far as with the
that's not what I wanted to do it too big.

Speaker 3 (01:04:50):
Yeah, you know what we all Yeah, yeah, I'll be
honest with you, Like, I don't know how much Evan
wants to put out there. But there's some things going
on with him in the Free Press, and I don't
I as of right now, I don't think that podcast
is coming back. I apologize like it has nothing to
do with me, and I think Evan would like to

(01:05:10):
continue doing it. But I think you can tell you know,
he's been doing video recaps after each game on YouTube.
I think that's kind of his answer to continuing to
get out there as it were. And of course you
can always hang out with us here, right like, yeah,
we do this. I'm at this podcast ninety nine times
out of one hundred. I think I do miss the
Motorcymetrics podcast a little more than i'd like. But sometimes

(01:05:32):
Thursday Night's just aren't great for me. But yeah, I
mean I appreciate it, but yeah, it is. We were
just talking baseball. I don't think we said anything different
on days of Roar that I say here.

Speaker 1 (01:05:42):
I have to mention two week we have actually who's
been doing a really good job on Thursdays and it's
really actually was as a part of our staff. But
the reason why we're warning out one on Thursdays is because,
yeah it we I don't want to burn myself out
like I can. Here's the thing I do this. We
do this six seven days a week, and sometimes, like

(01:06:03):
I said, it's just we do it for a lot
of love. We do it for love and what have you.
But both our day jobs becoming a little more hectic,
and Ashley just does a really good job of hosting
and uper and there's an audience for youper, there's an
audience for Mike, and Ashley is going. She went to
South School, she has a lot of scout, she's a
wealth of knowledge, and she's responsible for some of her

(01:06:25):
reports right now and she's she's been done a fantastic job.
So it's nice to have a death on bench if
you will. So, like I said, Brandon normally be here.
But like I said, I mean hopefully all is well
with Brandon what's going on with him? But yeah, yeah,
look Days and Wars out outside of doing the podcast

(01:06:48):
with Tiger's territory of Cody, I really you know, it's
it's a it's a good listen and it does kind
of suck that the Freep is doing their thing, but whatever, you.

Speaker 3 (01:06:56):
Know, it's we we have been welcomed and uh I
been participating in in this kind of you know takers
Baseball Twitter podcast community for years now, right, and it's
it's there's a lot of vitual respect, right, there's some
friendly rivalry, but nothing like crazy, right, like you look
at the charts to go gotcha, but like you know,

(01:07:16):
we've had all these guys on our show before, they've
had us on the show before, and it's it's fine, right,
Like there are other shows Scott Bentley.

Speaker 2 (01:07:24):
You know Scott Bentley, Scot Scott Bisley. We've got Alex
and uh Jordan, Jordan.

Speaker 1 (01:07:31):
Jordan, there's two Jordan by me a hat bought me ahead. Jordan.
We did a podcast before with Jordan. I love those guys.
Like I will say, we are very lucky and very
fortunate to have the community we have with the and
within the Tiger's community, because there's markets like New York
and Boston very competitive and they I mean some you know,
there's a camaraderie there. But when you know they invited
us to the Baseball Writer Association that and for two

(01:07:53):
guys that have been doing blogs and podcasts to be
on that selected group. Like you when you have a
number of like five twelve, like number I'm only five
hundred and twelve on my card. No, and Chris I
was gonna give some love of the casonality Casinelli. I
work with him on the Round Table. He's a fantastic,
fantastic human being, and he has been he's been working

(01:08:15):
really hard on getting better as a writer, and he
does a really good job. And we what I like
about it, like what I like about the round Table
is he brings a different style than I do. I'm
more of analytical guy. He does his style and it
works really well. So I was gonna get there. I
was gonna get there with Chris.

Speaker 3 (01:08:29):
No, it's it's like, I don't know, like, yeah, we
don't want to turn it into a total LoveFest, but right,
like we appreciate and respect all these people who do this,
right it's it's and and the people who do it
for like they're a living. It's it's a hard job people.
You know, obviously any of us would love to have
that job, but it is hard work. Uh, And you

(01:08:49):
don't really realize that. I guess, take out there and
you see these guys at the park and you know,
sprinting down to the locker room after the final pitch
so he can get the quotes and then get back
up so they can file their story they've got like
a five minute window.

Speaker 2 (01:09:03):
Yeah, I don't know. Like, like, I very much enjoyed
hearing you on Foul Territory with Cody and Ax and
it's it's good stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:09:12):
So yeah, yeah, like I said, the depth isentor but
I appreciate that Christ just that point out. I wouldn't.
I would never forget him. Like I said, it's good
to call him a staff. It's like I said, it's
really it's interesting too because he also does a lot
of um stuff too. A lot of people forget that
he knows uh Michigan basketball and football too. But uh nevertheless,

(01:09:36):
so yeah, we will be around this week as far
as I'm gonna head down to Leader this week at
some point, probably Friday or Saturday for sure, to check
out the mud Hens for the first because supposedly what
it is supposed to be nicer and uh yeah, it
should be a good time. I might be, like I said,
I might go down the Brewers game tomorrow and go
from there. But otherwise, go check out everything over at

(01:09:58):
Tiger's emil report dot com our Patreon, like I said,
subscribe to that for free. We have a lot of
content on there. And then we have to pay content
as well and stay class. Everybody, have itself a good week.
We'll see you on Thursday for emergency metrics and yeah,
have a good night.