Kevin McGonigle Has Graduated From Prospect Status

The Tigers take the last game in the Queen City before continuing their I-75 trek to Atlanta to take on the Braves. Ben Malgeri flexes power as Toledo hits a hot streak and Erie tries to get revenge against the Rumble Ponies.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I don't have to do a game this game recap. Oh,
I'm sorry that out.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
I'm so glad you're here, Brandon, because we're about to celebrate,
especially a special occasion this evening.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
Oh all right, unaware, bring it on me a very
special Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
Years of hard work, dedication, late nights, and pictures wondering
why nothing they throw words. Kevin McGonigal, when was drafted
by the Tigers, had a lot of hype, you know,
the once in a blue moon prospect. Give it time,

(01:24):
let him develop, don't rush it. Yeah, we shall see
what happens. Yeah about that, Guys everywhere on Bay Street
like this daily routine. Break your balls, handle it, fastballs,
thank you very much. At some point to stop looking

(01:44):
like a development and started looking like a problem for
everyone else. So today we recognize we're all been thinking
this isn't a prospect anymore. This is a guy who
just hits a lot. What honors. By the way, congratulations

(02:05):
instead mcgonagal, you just didn't pass the test.

Speaker 3 (02:12):
You skipped the damn class.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
Magnus. I mean, the dude has graduated and become an
abject monster immediately. And you know, I don't like to
say this very often, but we kind of told you so, yeah,
you know, I mean, for once we were one hundred
percent right, And you know we told you coming into

(02:43):
camp he's potentially the best hitter on the team already,
and he pretty clearly is. I mean, I love me
some Riley Green. No offense, Riley Green, You're doing great,
having a nice season, disciplines up, things look good. But
Kevin mcgonagill is a beast. He's a different sort of beast.
He might already be one of the ten best hitters
in baseball. I need more pop. I mean, come on,

(03:04):
it's been a month. I need I need like eight
homers by now.

Speaker 3 (03:06):
Come on.

Speaker 1 (03:08):
We're getting greedy. We're getting real greedy. But yeah, I mean,
he's graduating in as much style as any prospect ever has.
He's the prospectist prospect who ever prospected, and opposing hitters
know to be very, very afraid, very afraid. I don't
know if he should be hitting lead off anymore. I'm
ready to just drop him in a three hole every day.
But whatever, Give him as many advanced as possible too,

(03:30):
because the dude lives on base. He's setting records. People
are tripping over himself to tell us he's the you know,
the greatest rookie on Tuesdays in April, you know, on
you know posing, you know, against right handed or left
handed pitching that has ever happened, you know, since Willie
mcgoda Cuddie in nineteen twenty two. It's you know, everyone's

(03:51):
you can you can dig up stats galore because the
deeper you dive, the crazier it looks. And yeah, it's
been an absolute blast. You wouldn't know it from my
reader ship. Half of them seemed to think the team
is cooked and nothing is working. But I don't know,
I feel pretty good, tell you the truth and feeling
all right about things. You know, we got issues like everybody.

Speaker 2 (04:08):
But yeah, no, it's uh, look the bottom. I had
to do the graduation because I mean, he's number one
prospect quote unquote in our system. He's the highest war
among position players in MLB at two war. I mean,
that's that's there. But it was just a matter of
By the way you're listening to Tiger's my own report
for it was presented by Fan Duel. I'm a hello
because so long time is Brandon day and Chris will

(04:31):
be along shortly here's the thing. I was so excited
to do that because I was sitting there today at
work going, you know what he is not yea stopping.
He's like Taylor's Kelsey and play coud grafter Kevin mcdonaldll
Kevin mcgimmy. Look, I mean, here's the thing, Like, I'm
sitting there at work today.

Speaker 1 (04:49):
Kevin doesn't need that chaos.

Speaker 2 (04:51):
No, it doesn't need that. We don't. We don't want
that chaos.

Speaker 1 (04:53):
And no, Travis can handle it.

Speaker 2 (04:54):
That's fine, Yeah, he's fine with that. But uh, no,
is at work today and I'm sitting there and I'm
looking at our top our top twenty five twenty you know,
a list, and sit here going, you know McGonagall every day,
like there's the stat sheets, mcgonaga, mcgonag. I'm like, what
the hell are we doing here? We know who's gonna
be the next prospect?

Speaker 3 (05:13):
Is?

Speaker 2 (05:13):
I mean Max Clark is number two in number rightfully,
so it's been one one A we We've discussed this before,
despite him having a little bit of a wall right
now in Salio. But that was expected and that is
why you don't rush prospects like that. But kept, McGonagall
is not a prospect. He is a dude. He is
a dude, And literally I was just going, you know what,
We're just we haven't. We haven't. We've never done the

(05:35):
graduation theme. I've always wanted to do it. I've never
had a chance to screw it. He has one of
the best months I've ever seen a baseball player in
a Tiger's uniform. Ever, doesn't matter what season rookie does.

Speaker 3 (05:47):
The matter.

Speaker 2 (05:50):
And I look at the body of work in terms
of even like position player wise, in terms of his
defense a little bit that play it made yesterday where
he was like kind of almost stumbled a little bit,
still dunk it out and just threw it. It's a
guy who's continuously working his ass off to get better
at his position. Is he better second base? Probably, we
don't know, But I will say this, it was that

(06:14):
that home run he had, He had the second home
run of the year. He had off fastball. You can't.
It doesn't matter. I mean, I know the breaking ball
batting average is a little you know right now, but
it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter strikeouts walks. When you're
walking at a striking out at twelve percent clip at
twenty one years old, jet's jaw dropping. You are and

(06:38):
literally where the Tigers are right now. Yes, Cleveland lost today.
It is a you know what, Charlie, thank you for
bringing this up, and thank you for the ten dollars.

Speaker 1 (06:49):
By the way, exquisite, exquisite.

Speaker 2 (06:54):
You know, fid Rich, stop'll stop it. We'll talk about
that in a second. Because I've never seen I wasn't
born with the widows here, So for me, I should
say the best player I've ever seen in my life,
I should say clarified. But Charlie asked that question because
I know that Jeff Moss posed this question on Twitter,
and it's a good question. I don't think he was
ready to go with September Brandon. You and I have

(07:16):
talked about this. When we saw him and I saw
him in Eerie. I mean he was rolling the ball over.
Chris saw it too. He's rolling the ball over to
the right a lot. He struggled in the series against
Bingington a little bit. Yeah, I didn't think he was
ready then. I think after Arizona fall ball, yes he was,
but I just I mean, in hindsight, I don't think
he would have been able to come up. I think
that would have been a lot of pressure for him

(07:36):
to come up in September too, you know, be a plus.

Speaker 1 (07:41):
Yeah, I mean I think here's what I'm gonna say.
I I do think that the Tigers would have been
better off if they'd called him up. Yes, but would
he be this guy? No, probably not, you know, I
mean it was still Kevin mcgonag go back then, he
probably would have. You know, maybe he's the guy who
you know, slapped the ball through the infield during the
endless extra inning marathon against the Mariners. I don't know,

(08:05):
but there's a lot of pressure. There's also the fact
that he really has improved his defense a lot. You know,
there's a lot of talk like, you know, maybe people
overrated like some of his defensive struggles, or that he
wasn't as good as you know, we were hoping for.
I don't think that was inaccurate. I think he got
a lot better. We've all. You know, if you've watched
a lot of Kevin McGonagall, you know, he used to
double pump a little bit. There'd be extra steps. He

(08:26):
didn't always take the best route to the ball and
get himself positioned to throw. And he doesn't have a
big arm. You know, he has enough arm, but he
has to kind of do all those other things right
to make it work. And he learned a lot. I
think in the Fall League. I didn't care at all
about how he hit there because he was no doubt
going to just destroy that league. I mean it was
a step down in competition really, but going out there
and working all that time with Alan Trammell and then

(08:47):
taking that into the offseason, he's a completely different defensive player.
And you know, I don't know if he's going to
grade out a you know, average or better at shortstop.
He might not, but you know, he's plenty good enough.
I mean, Hobby Bias isn't a plus shortstop anymore. So
it's perfectly fine to play him there. I do think
he moves, you know, to second base eventually, but you know,
next year, Labora Torres has gone. You know, you're probably

(09:09):
thinking Colt Keith and either how You Lee or Max
Anderson there or maybe they signed someone God forbid, and
you know, and you know, Kevin can stay at shortstop.
But I think another thing that's that's been really impressive
is that they haven't just like babied him and like
and like, okay, we've got to stick him at one
position because we don't want to overwhelm him. I mean,
they've played him at third, they've moved him around, and

(09:30):
he just seems entirely comfortable and confident. And you know
a little thing too is that you watch how the
team responds to him now, and they're looking to him already, right,
and it's been a month, you know. I mean, I
think they all realized in spring camp, like, Okay, this
guy is the fricking man, and you know, I mean
Riley's the man too, in his own respect. They all have,
you know, their their elements, but you know, this is

(09:52):
this is the Kevin McGonagall show now, and everyone else
is a contributing, contributing player I think at this point.
So yeah, I mean, it's it's been a awesome. I
haven't even really been talking about him that much because
it just feels so inevitable. You know, he's like fanos.
I'm just like, yep, he's He's everything we hoped he
would be. And he's twenty one. He's probably going to
get significantly better, which is kind of hard hard to imagine,

(10:14):
but I mean, I do I think Kevin mcgonagall's going
to hit thirty home runs. I think Kevin McGonagall is
going to figure out how to steal bases a little more.
I don't know if they're going to turn him loose,
but he's clearly got the speed to steal twenty a
year if he wants them. So I don't know, there's
there's still upside, and it's already pretty bananas. So yeah,
I mean, we've never seen this before. I mean, we've
had some prospects work out, but we never We've never

(10:36):
seen him, you know, We've never had the fricking guy.

Speaker 2 (10:39):
No, We've never No Brandon been not one.

Speaker 1 (10:42):
It's almost like Mike Trout hitting the league or something,
you know. I mean, you know, you see like the
sudden panic from national writers everywhere to be like, oh
my god, I got to praise this guy ad infinitum,
you know. I mean the same people who you know,
you know, decided they can't write their sixth article of
the last six months on whether or not tark School
will get traded or or who he'll sign with in

(11:02):
free agency because they literally can't think of anything else
to right about. They're like, write about Kevin. Yeah, Well,
I mean I got national people, I mean John Hayman
just keeps going back to that freaking well over and
over again. But yeah, anyway, Yeah, I mean Kevin McGonagall
just doing it all, doing it well, looking completely composed.

(11:23):
I mean, he's got to have a slump at some point, right,
He's got to have a little little bit of a slump.
I don't know. Maybe maybe it'll happen or maybe this
is like baseline now. Yeah, but you're crazy to think about.
It's crazy to think about.

Speaker 2 (11:34):
And you know what, here's the thing, Like, it's people
who talked about like the Brendon Bosh or the Chris
uh Chris Shelton Shelton thing and all that stuff. But look,
that is nothing because he was thing. Those guys eventually
got the weaknesses figure out and they were exposed that,
but they weren't doing what Kevin McGonagall was doing right now,

(11:58):
And they.

Speaker 1 (11:58):
Had all those weaknesses. In the minor leagues. Everyone knew
they had those weaknesses, and they came up and teams
didn't do a very good job exploiting those weaknesses. Kevin
McGonagall doesn't really have weaknesses. You know, he doesn't hit
breaking balls quite as well if you give him something
soft and outside. He might lift a fly ball to
center field or left center or pop out once in
a while, but otherwise, I mean, it's it's it's pretty

(12:19):
much just you know, tons and tons of hard contact
and incredible zone judgment and just doing it all right.
And that's a wholly different thing. You know, a guy
runs into a bunch of you know, homers. Early on,
we didn't know if Kerry Carpenter would be for real.
We didn't know if j. D. Martinez would be for
real when he broke out. You know, those were a
little bit more questionable. Kevin Kevin really isn't. I mean,

(12:41):
there's there's nothing in his game that you can really
point to as a weakness. There's just elements that aren't
quite as strong. Maybe mention, I mean to.

Speaker 2 (12:49):
Mention, there's teams already in spring training, in spring training
that are already adjusting to him. This wasn't this wasn't
happening during the regular season.

Speaker 1 (12:59):
Yeah it was.

Speaker 2 (13:00):
You know, it was one of those things where it
was it was happening already.

Speaker 1 (13:04):
Yeah. I mean, after he bombed on uh who is
that Louis Sebarino, it just seemed like from that point
on it was all spin like, you know, they were like,
wait a minute, all right, let's let's just junk ball
this kid to death and then we can handle him
and he'll he'll walk all day if you if that's
the way you're gonna, you know, gonna approach him. So
he already had that part figured out pretty quickly. And
we've seen lots of teams try it. He's seen a

(13:25):
lot of major league pitching now, he's seen plenty of
good pictures, and nobody's got the answer. I mean, maybe
maybe Paul Skeen say us an answer. You know, there's
a few guys, but yeah, I mean who it's been.
It's been fun to watch and yeah, I mean, I
admit I'm not even writing about him because I'm already
somewhat taking it for granted that he's this good. My
question is like, how much better, you know, is he
gonna get?

Speaker 2 (13:46):
Yeah, I mean in I did write an article the
other day about Riley Green's because Riley Green right now
has three home runs similarity did last year. But it's
a lot, a hell of a lot different a three
home run vibe than it was last year. You're talking
about a guy who has done every little thing to
cut down his strikeout rates. I mean, you look at
his Baseball Savot page. It is like a completely different nitter.

(14:09):
And I know that mcgonagall's gaining all the attention and
right now even Toklesen right now. Last week, well when
we were doing the show, people were like, oh, he
needs to go down all of a sudden. Now he's
sit five home runs in a row. But you know,
when you're you know, Ralegreen's strikeout rate a little bit
creeped up a little bit, twenty four percent, but still
he's walk rate, he's at fourteen percent, taking advantage of

(14:30):
the high strike zone. Like and I know I got
some grief from people about like, well, I still you know,
it's the top three of MVP in the league. I
think he's capable of it. And he's showing better at bats,
better approach to plate. The Reds yesterday, the Reds are
better than what people that the record is like just
fits to what kind of the team is. The Reds

(14:51):
are really good young team. Yeah, and the Tigers had
their hands hold yesterday or all weekend against them, and
now they go to Atlanta where Atlantas have a pitching staff.
But yet they're they're they're the best of a mess
of a crappy division.

Speaker 1 (15:02):
I mean that division right now is just, yeah, we
can kind of talk about ads brain a little bit
because there's been so many weird things going on to
start the season. I mean, you know, I mean some
preseason favorites and divisions like the Astros, the Phillies and
the Mets have been basically atrocious. I mean, there's been
kind of a lot of lot of weird things going
on like that, and I don't know if if maybe

(15:23):
they'll start to balance out as things go on, but yeah,
I mean I think the Reds are a pretty good team,
and they're a team that's that's built pretty well for
that ballpark. I mean, they just have a ton of
guys who hit fly balls, and you know, they've got
a bunch of talented hitters. I mean, Stewart is really
really good. You know, anytime Ellie or you know, low
squares anything up in the air, it's probably gone in
that park, especially, And you know, I mean they're they're

(15:45):
built to win there. I don't really know that, yeah,
that they have the pitching to to you know, win
that division. You know, I tend to think the Brewers
will you know, figure figure some things out and be
a big problem there. And the Cubs look, you know,
pretty good, like pretty good. But yeah, I mean I
don't really take too much from the NL Central being
like the hot you know, the hot division to start

(16:07):
the year in April. I don't know if that's going
to continue well Bradley.

Speaker 2 (16:11):
I mean, the advanced metrics show that he was good.
He was just a matter of dude versus just before
he was missing on everything. Cork was just missing in
terms of like just missing center cut fastballs, what have you.
The advanced metrics show that he was just a matter
of just a little bit just really timing was just
kind of a timing thing there.

Speaker 1 (16:32):
But yeah, and he might just not you know, I
hate to say it because like it just sounds like
a thing to just throw out there, but sometimes guys
just aren't seeing it very well. And you know, there
isn't that much you can do. That's why all but
the elite hitters, you know, slump and streak and slump
and streak. And the thing that was different about Toorkolson
last year is that he did take his walks and
he held his own a little bit better when he

(16:53):
wasn't hot, and maybe we're just seeing a continuation of that.
I wouldn't be surprised if he had a little bit
of ads brain going on, because he you know, we
could kind of compare contrasts like him and Bryce Rayner,
where they're just not swinging at enough strikes. That was
kind of what was going on with Torkelson. He was
missing a lot of you know, center cut pitches too,
but he was also just taking a lot of strikes.

(17:14):
And obviously we're seeing that with Rayner quite a bit too.
But yeah, I mean, I don't know that Torque has
like figured it out and he's gonna be a different hitter,
but you know, he does kind of look like he's
going to do at least what he did last year,
whereas Riley is a little bit more of like just
has that feel for getting the barrel on the ball
with loft and killing the baseball. And he's twenty five.

(17:34):
You know, we tend to think of these guys as
finished products, maybe too soon these days. It's getting more
and more that way. You know, Jordan Walker has like
a huge start to the season with the Cardinals, and
then he starts putting the ball on the ground again
for a week and everybody's like, I'll see, it was
just flash in the pan. It's like he's twenty four
in like a couple of weeks.

Speaker 3 (17:51):
You know.

Speaker 1 (17:52):
You know, sometimes it doesn't come together. Kobe Mayo, maybe
he's not going to work out, but you know he's
had flashes too. But you can't just punt these guys
that quickly. So you know, even even a guy who's
been successful like Riley Green has already and I know
his defense is down, his speed is down, there are
reasons to like be concerned with his overall you know,
profile as a player, but as a hitter, I mean,

(18:14):
Ridley Green's a really dangerous hitter and kind of has
been the last couple of years. And there's still a
chance that he's actually figured something out. You know, back
in twenty twenty four, like late in that season, he
started talking a lot more about discipline and taking his
walks and that if he stopped chasing, he knew he hit,
the home runs would come and you know, he'd be
a better hitter for it. And he tried to do
that early last year and it just seemed like he

(18:36):
was killing everything and got way too swing happy and
you know, sort of lost the whole approach and flamed out.
And now it feels like he's kind of dug in
even harder and we'll just see if he can sustain it.
You know, these are all still pretty small samples. Guys
get hot in April and cool off in May. I
can't really guarantee anything with with Riley except that Riley,
you know, should at least be regular Riley. You know,

(19:00):
people were ready to like chuck him the spring when
he didn't look very good. You know, it was like
the first couple of weeks. I mean, whatever, I shouldn't
bring those people up because like the loudest, kind of
dumbest voices sometimes. But yeah, you know, I mean those
guys are going to do their do their business. You know,
Carry Carpenter has worried me a little bit more just
because Carrie's been injury prone and he is older now,
he's like, what twenty eight, But you know, he's trying

(19:22):
to do the same thing and be a little bit
more selective as well, and maybe that's throwing him off
because he likes to ambush first pitch and he's been
taking them, taking more pitches a little bit. But you
just sometimes you just have to go through that and
struggle with it to get good at that approach and
not just be like, oh, this isn't working for me.
I've just got to, you know, stick with being the
guy with the low OBT who hits a lot of

(19:42):
home runs. But you know, otherwise, isn't that much of
a contributing factor. So yeah, I don't know. I think
I think they're all doing the right thing, trying to
be more patient, trying to get better pitches to hit.
The Tigers, you know, have the lowest chase rate in baseball,
or they did like two days ago when I looked.
And as long as they keep that, uh, you know,
this team's gonna do plenty of damage.

Speaker 3 (20:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (20:02):
Speaking of doing damage though, as Jake mentioned, Travisana has
been called up to Cleveland as Cleveland wants to get
on that Cleveland wants to get in on that rookie action.

Speaker 1 (20:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (20:12):
So you say that Chris Travis Bonanza.

Speaker 1 (20:15):
The Bonanza, the Bonanza that got called up.

Speaker 3 (20:18):
Yeah, uh no, I didn't see that, but I was
just talking to him my buddy Rob about him earlier
today and how yeah he's fine. Uh you know, he
just I will see what happens. We'll see what happens.
I was never overly impressed with him whenever I watched
him in the minors. They just kind of felt somewhere

(20:40):
between Labor Torres and jayse Young. We'll see, we'll see
what happens. But good for them. Yeah, I'm sure it's
a very exciting time to be a Cleveland Guardians fan.

Speaker 2 (20:51):
Yeah, there's a half game back with the Tigers right
now for first place in the Central but it's really Yeah.
And then, as Mitchell pointed out too, they didn't really
have anybody uh locking into the middle dfield. But no
in Cleveland's got pitching.

Speaker 1 (21:05):
I mean, it's just it's partner basic looks really good.
David Williams, you know, is like hinting at like becoming
a cy Young type contender if he, you know, can
command everything just a little bit more. Joey Tantillo is
pretty good. I mean, it's yeah, I mean, they just
always have the pitching, and they generally play good defense
and are irritatingly pesky and defy the pie th egg

(21:27):
and blah blah blah. Suck at Cleveland. I hate you, Yeah,
exceptly with supper U Rosie Jose Ravera's do you I love.

Speaker 3 (21:35):
Well, yeah, I fear you. The funniest thing about them,
at least from what their their position prospect perspective as
it were, is that like seventy five percent of their
prospects are they sort of slick fielding middle infielders often
switch hitters, who have great contact skills and zero power.
And then the other twenty five percent are these corner

(21:56):
outfielders who can't feel a lick and swing at everything
and have a ton of power but zero patients. And
it's like, what a weird economics farm system. But yeah,
they find ways to compete.

Speaker 1 (22:08):
So that's often like it's like they take the guys
that there are the most of, you know, you know
what I mean, like platoon corner outfielders with power and
who don't have good good discipline and light hitting, good
defensive infielders, you know.

Speaker 3 (22:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (22:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (22:24):
As far as the over the weekend, the biggest concern
of course is obviously Jack Clarerty, who is continuing to
have control issue to command problems. But there was interesting
the one thing that has looked out. I was looking
at some of his stuff today.

Speaker 1 (22:37):
His arm angle is.

Speaker 2 (22:38):
Down is at twenty six degrees, which is down two
from a couple of years ago, from the twenty twenty
four season where he had a really good season. So
it was at twenty eight that year that year rather
and his arm angles down a little bit, so maybe
that's something to do with it, or the fact that
you just cannot get anybody to chase after anything, and
his fastball lost. He was up on his start against Cincinnati,

(23:00):
but man, it is it's just cringe to see the
walks like it's just it's it's and I know, maybe ABS.
I know, Brandon, you use the term abs brain there.
But for Flarity, Oh.

Speaker 1 (23:12):
Yeah, he's I mean, he's missing. It's not the ABS
with him, I don't I mean maybe I don't know.
Maybe a little bit, but yeah, I mean, and there's
the cat and dog thing like it is his arm
angle down two degrees and that's causing a problem or
are his mechanics out of whack and that's you know,
making him throw from a lower arm angle because he's
getting out in front with his lower half and lagging that.

(23:34):
You know, I'm not exactly sure which which is the issue,
And it's hard to know what Jack, because this is
Jack Flarerty is this guy, you know, he's gonna give
you like three terrible starts three times a year, and
the rest of the time he's going to pitch like,
you know, a pretty solid you know, maybe even number
two starter, whatever that means anymore. But you know what
I mean, Like he's gonna go out there and have

(23:56):
like a three e er most of the time, and
then yeah, inexplicably he's going to go to hell for
a couple of starts. And you know, guys like that
are tough. Like is Doctor Jekyll still in there or
is it full hide now and he's crumbling into dust.
I don't really think it matters that much at the
at the moment, because he's guaranteed I think, to get
like at least two or three more starts before the

(24:17):
Tigers start thinking of anything. They need melting back, they
need JV back, and then maybe that forces some kind
of a decision. I'm sure the Tigers, you know, in
their hearts, if if they knew they didn't need Jack
Flaherty would love to ditch the money and back away
from the luxury tax threshold and the potential draft penalties
and all that kind of stuff. But I mean, you know,
no one's going to take him right now unless you

(24:39):
like give them to him for like, you know, four
million dollars or something and eat the rest. And it's
too early in the season to dump start starting pitching,
you know the type. You know, we just see this
every year April and May litany of starting pitching injuries.
We saw it last year with job go down and
you had Olsen go down at mid season. Mice had
an injury early last year. You really do need to
kind of get deep in in May at least before

(25:01):
you start thinking about, you know, actually cutting a guy
that you can't just option down. Now. You might move
into the bullpen. You might try that and just see
if if that kind of helps him out, if he
can go out there and just just amp it up.
But I don't know. I don't see that much out
of Jack Flerty. That is different that we've seen in
his bad stretches last year. So I don't really I

(25:22):
just don't really know if he can get it back
together or not. The body language isn't good, but the
body language is never good when you're pitching that bad.
So yeah, I don't know. I mean to me, like
it just gets back to like, Okay, let's let's get
back to basics and throw first pitch strikes and then
go from there, because you know, when you're when you're
falling behind dudes, especially a guy like Flarty who doesn't

(25:42):
have the fastball that he can blow you away with,
you know they're there. You start to run out of options.
You're either going to have like precise command of your
slider and knuckle curve and be able to bang the
edges and get back and counts, or you're going to
be throwing breaking balls into the heart of the plate
and hoping they don't kill him and the reds kill them.
So yeah, I mean it's all kind of simple. It's

(26:02):
just also like completely up in the air at the
same time, and I don't really know quite but the
answer is going to be there.

Speaker 3 (26:09):
Yeah, I mean, to me, it's it's it's all about
the walks, right and and but how do you like
he became like a three true outcome picture in that
red start. It was like he's either walking guys, he's
giving up bombs, or he's getting strikeouts. And it's like,
I don't know what it is like if you could
still get the swing and miss it's in there somewhere
right like it's it's I don't know if it's location

(26:31):
issues sequencing, but there's something particularly frustrating when pictures walk
guys and it leads to a big inning. It's it's
one thing to give up a bunch of Cleveland hits
or you know, even if you get hit hard to go, well,
you just obviously didn't have it that day. But when
like when they load the bases with walks and then
give up a couple of home runs, you're like, you're
the worst picture of all time.

Speaker 1 (26:52):
Yeah, it looks like you're watching watching Lakeland or you know,
play Jampa or something, you know where yeah, where there's
like some guy out there that you just feel bad
for and like get him out of there.

Speaker 3 (26:59):
You know. Yeah, I mean you do see that definitely.
When you watch the minors. You see guys like Pedro
Garcia the other day through i think twenty four pitches
and like three were strikes or something like that. It's
just they just completely lose his zone. And he would
hope that big league pitchers who've been All Stars could
figure out a way to get it back. But it's
a mysterious thing, and I mean flairty is one of
the two. The other guy I'm concerned about with walks

(27:20):
is Tyler Holton. Tayl Holton had seventeen walks last year,
like seventeen. He's never had one like seventeen eighteen walks
in these years when he's got eighty innings and he's
already got eight and twelve innings this year. And hopefully
it's just like an early season aberration and he doesn't
walk anybody for the next two months. But yeah, it's
very frustrating when one of the starters you rely on

(27:42):
and one of the relievers you rely on can't seem
to throw quality strikes and keeps, you know, putting you
in tough situations that are hard to go out of.

Speaker 1 (27:50):
Yeah, we know. And Holton, you know, Holton has to
have command. You know, he's got a deep pitch mix,
but he's not just gonna with guys you know, left
and right in the zone. So yeah, he becomes pretty
useless pretty quickly if he's not powering the zone and
hitting the edges. So yeah, I mean that's a bit
of a concern. Obviously, there's plenty you know, there's plenty
of concerns. I thought we were gonna have more options

(28:10):
to like be cute and like, Okay, we're gonna give
Jack an opener for a little bit. We're only gonna
let him go through the order, you know, really strictly twice,
and then we'll turn to de Jesus or Anderson. But
you know, Dejesu's kind of flamed out for the time being,
kind of mentally broke down in that one outing, and
I don't blame him for sending him down. Anderson's look better,
and Anderson has the stuff, but you know, we'll kind of,

(28:33):
you know, I need to see a little bit more.
I think I think that much is fair with Holton.
You know, I just can't remember. But the weather has
been kind of grim this spring. There's been a lot
of pitching through through rain, and I don't I don't
know if any of that has contributed to any of
these guys. And it's why I'm always a little bit
weary in April of getting too panicky about that. But yeah,

(28:53):
I mean for Holton especially, he's he's got to have
command of, you know, six pitches to be Tyler Holton,
the Tyler Holton that we know and love.

Speaker 2 (29:01):
Yeah, especially because you look at even though Brent Herd
is pitching better, his whiff rate you see, like in
a lot of whiffs, so you need you need a
left you that gets you that whiffs. And that's what
Hold was able to do before for.

Speaker 1 (29:13):
A little while. Yeah, a little while.

Speaker 2 (29:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (29:15):
Yeah. I mean he's never been a super ice strikeout
guy either, but it was like he gives me at strikeouts, yeah,
strikeouts for every walk.

Speaker 1 (29:23):
No.

Speaker 3 (29:23):
It's just one of the odd things about this bullpen
now is it does feel like like when when Sebold
got hurt, I was like, Okay, now they can call
somebody up, because without that, like you could technically send
Herder or Holton and I think even will Vest down
to the miners if you want, I think, yeah, but
you know, you're locked in with fin again, You're locked

(29:44):
in with Jansen, You're locked in with Anderson. So it's
it's like your options are a little bit more limited
there and yeah until you get some of these yeah,
And it just makes it makes the Troy Melton stuff
all the more fascinating to me because it's like bull
adding him to the bullpen would would sure make the
team better, but I don't know, And I think that

(30:07):
that may ultimately be what they do, because yeah, that
just makes no sense. But it would be nice to
have him as a starter next year too.

Speaker 1 (30:15):
Yeah, and maybe maybe they can work him back into
that next year. I don't want to give up on
him as a starter either. But you know, when we
when we sit and think about, like, why can't the
Tigers ever have that killer reliever, you know, part of
it is because we haven't stumbled into like a Joelsamaya.
And and that's fair, like we don't, we haven't. We
just haven't had that one monster Mason Miller type dude

(30:35):
come along. But most of the best, you know, most
of the best relievers are pretty good starters who get converted.
And that that may be the story for for Troy
Melton as well, at least at least for this year,
because that's probably where they need him. But it is
tricky because you know, I mean, Justin Berlander apparently his
last bullpen finally, finally was pretty good and they were
pretty happy with it. So maybe he starts to go

(30:56):
out on a rehab assignment at the end of this week,
but he hasn't paid in six weeks and is well
maybe not quite that much, but for a forty three
year old guy. He's gonna need at least two rehab
starts to build up, you know, to throw in seventy
five pitches at least, so there's time. But you know,
how much do we trust JV? You know, I you know,
I like having JV. But to me, it's like as

(31:19):
the stash guy, you know, like that's that's my theory
about him is, you know, like you can put him
on the il pretty much whenever you want, because you know,
like all of us old fellas, you know, we wake
up in the morning and something hurts every day. You know,
there's always something wrong. You just don't go get treatment
for one day and he'll be injured and then they
can sash him again. But yeah, I mean they might
need him. And if Flarerty can't get it together, and

(31:40):
you know, tider Montero's look really good, that's been encouraging
and obviously overall the rotation's been, you know, pretty great.
I mean I think we're top five or something like
that in baseball because you've got two dogs at the
front and Casey Mayes is pitching the best baseball of
his career right now. Yeah, so you know you can
you can float a fifth spot, you know, with some creativity.

(32:02):
But all that creativity they showed in twenty twenty four
is a little bit you know, absent right now, both
because yeah, they don't have the options necessarily, and you know,
they apparently promised Kenley Jansen that he was going to
be the full time closer.

Speaker 3 (32:15):
I don't know, I think, well of that just does
seem to be the way it's worked out, like.

Speaker 1 (32:23):
Yeah, it might be just the just the flow of
the games.

Speaker 3 (32:26):
Yeah, and you know, I think Will vest is their
most dominant reliever when he's on, but he's also his
command has also been a little bit iffy to start
the season. So and that's one thing I think you're
generally gonna expect from Kelly Jansen is going to throw
it over the plate for the most part, maybe not
double up with sinkers over the middle of the plate.

Speaker 1 (32:43):
But that's exactly what I wanted to get to, is
I don't know what they were calling there Againander who
likes to get his hands extended, Like, what are you doing?
You have the cutter? Is your bread and butter? Throw
it in on his hands? Yeah, that was got too
cut Yeah, that was a little too cute. Yeah, sneaking
it through first pitch was fine, but then it's like,

(33:04):
all right.

Speaker 2 (33:05):
That was cute.

Speaker 1 (33:06):
I like that. Yeah, go back to the replete and.

Speaker 2 (33:08):
I've agree with the problematic here. It sounds like another
bullpen deadline here in the bullpen game's idea. Look, here's
the thing, Like, as I'm about to shore slides here
in just a second, it's not I mean, the Tickers
are maybe trying to get Grant Holman ready to go.
I don't know what the Tigers are doing right now
with Like there's of course the Riki of the Nasco situation,

(33:29):
the guys they call the Burch Smith who hasn't looked
that bad but effective. Yeah, but he's not a strikeout guy.
He's a guy who uses his heavy sinker and he
gets ground balls and that's what he does, and that's
and that's fine.

Speaker 1 (33:43):
He's been great and great American Ballpark.

Speaker 3 (33:45):
Yeah, but you know, I was watching down in Toledo.
He was he seemed to be throwing his change up
a lot more like he's really trying to get that
going so you can actually face lefties. But yeah, I
believe it when I see it, basically, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
and and you.

Speaker 2 (33:58):
Know, and doesn't the I L continues to be if
you look down in the minor League's I L. It's
just continuous, just be a daily addition. Here. You had
kill with Whiskey on the I L. You have Scott e.
FROs who's supposed to be helping out if you will,
on the I L. Oh, yeah, I'm sorry he just
came back even shuffle bomb to the I L, which

(34:21):
is sorry, I had to save it for this, but
I mean he hasn't He's only pitched nine games, yeah,
four months, curse, Yeah, no, it's okay.

Speaker 1 (34:37):
But no, well, I know, and like you know, and
where Ore Andrews and Jake Miller, Like they could have
put Jake Miller on the sixty day by now for
for you know, for all the word we have of him.
But I thought I thought he would be back at
the end of the month here, But I don't know.
Maybe it'll maybe he'll just pop up next week because
they don't tell us anything really.

Speaker 2 (34:54):
Uh we Two, here's the thing. Jack Rogers has come up,
does get hit every once in a while. He's a
good defensive catcher. Dingler. You can't put Dingler out there
every single day. I mean, catching is a brutal thing.

Speaker 3 (35:06):
Well, yeah, and that one that was that was an
interesting choice there too, because it was, like, you know,
and Rogers has largely been fine in situations like that.
He's normally not a guy who's going to just sit
there and take strike three on the inner quarter like
and had it been later in the game, I think
they would have pinchhit Dingler. But like you said, you know,

(35:27):
you can't burn out your catcher. It's such a difficult position.
You gotta be mindful to give those guys legitimate days
off because you put you put Dingler in what was
that the fifth or sixth inning? Sixth inning? Maybe? Yeah,
I think you know you're, yeah, you're catching another three, four,
or who knows if it goes into extras, Like you
really don't want your if you're catcher catching too much.

Speaker 1 (35:48):
Because then you're saying he's got to have Tuesday off
because you didn't actually give him the day off, you know,
And yeah, it's maybe not, but you know.

Speaker 3 (35:55):
You know what I mean is it's the one position
in baseball where you app so like all these guys
needed off every now and then, but catchers need to
have days off, like regularly, right, Like, it's it's just
it's it's in need and so you trust Jake Rodgers
there for the most part. You just didn't get the
job done. But that's why it's a team, right that
the rest of the team picked him up, including a
fine young rookie and how Lee.

Speaker 2 (36:15):
Yeah that one, that home one trot was awesome. That
was Yeah. We two said, you know, look, I know
the weas is scoring opportunities. You're not regardless, it's it
is a long season. I think that you have to
consider to put there in the consideration. Catching is a
very difficult position, and I'd rather the Tigers have Ingler's

(36:36):
best interest. Look, I'd rather have Deegler doing home runs
in September and October versus early April. No, no one
remembers the early game of who they win in April
or not or lose it.

Speaker 1 (36:47):
Yeah, yeah, I mean it's one thing to pinch hit
for Colt Keith and and put how you lee in there,
and then how you lead plays a few more innings
like that. It's not the same thing, you know. I mean,
I understand people are seeing a ton of pinch hitting,
and we talked about pinch hitting and AJ Pinch. It's
a lot and that to situation. You would really like
to see Dylan Dingler come up, but for one at
bat where he may or may not do something. Now
he's catching the rest of the game again, and now

(37:07):
you have to think about like does he need a
day off you know later on, you know, and you
also have to think about and I'm sure AJ will
say this, and it irritates everyone, but you kind of
have to play everybody at least a little bit. You know.
You can't just let a guy sit and uh and
not not swinging the bat and hardly ever play and
and think anything is going to go better. So you know,
we can go back to Carson Kelly. And I mean,

(37:28):
I'm pretty sure I said at the time we should
probably keep Carson Kelly, but you know, at the at
the at this point, we just don't have that and
that other catching option either.

Speaker 3 (37:35):
So and I think that that's just that's just the
one situation where Hitch is not necessarily going to do it, Like, yeah,
you see a couple of times where he won't he
won't pull Carpenter early in the game just because you
know there's another lefty in the bullpen. Later and he
can use that later. But yeah, just just in this
it's like playing chess, and like, you know, you got

(37:55):
to play the long game, right you can, you can
get you can take a pun, but if they're to
come back and take your night right away, it's like
what's the point. You've got a point or whatever, you know,
however you want to score it in chess terms, but
you've lost the more valuable piece. So yeah, it's a
mix of trying to win every game right now, but
also understanding that that you can't push these guys too

(38:16):
far too soon.

Speaker 1 (38:19):
Yep. And you know the Tigers are you know, we
just played thirteen straight days. Like it's that they they
didn't have a day off for thirteen days. That might
play into it too. And I will note that they
went eight and five during that stretch. You know, it's
not like things are going badly. You know, we went
three one and one in the last five series, you know,
I mean they had to kind of erase that that
Twins debacle and they haven't been very good on the road.

(38:40):
We all, we all know that. So it was good
to win yesterday. And just you know, I mean, if
you're not getting swept this team is going to be
one hundred percent fine, Like I'm convinced of that unless
there's a major injury to obviously one of the few
key guys. But you know, they kind of did what
they needed to do there. They blew up on Monday
or not on Monday, excuse me, on Friday, and you

(39:01):
know they should have won that one probably, but you know,
they came through. They won the game they needed to
win at the end to avoid this weep, and we
got on the road to Atlanta, and you know they're
playing pretty good ball.

Speaker 2 (39:13):
Yeah, that's a good point there, gd there you go. Well,
by the way, I'm going to comment how I wish
that I couldn't win for the Tigers to leave the ballpark.
And somebody was like, well, it's not the it's not
the ballpark's fault. Yeah, I know the Tigers.

Speaker 1 (39:28):
I just hate that ballpark.

Speaker 2 (39:29):
Yeah, exactly, Like a fly ball to right field, you're
just like cringing the whole time, like, man, it's anything
can go out and right field it's just like it's
just you.

Speaker 1 (39:37):
And the Tigers don't really have a ground ball, you know,
pitcher other than Framburg. You know, right now, you know,
even Casey's you know, big fly ball guy and Tider
as well. You know, Kyder didn't get hard yesterday at all.
Pitched pretty great, but every time there's a ball in
the air, you're like, well that Mike that might get
out and then comes up two feet short, not by
a hit right now, you know, his process has been great,

(39:59):
He's not striking out at all. His hard hit rate
is up like eight percent from last year, and his
babb is I think like zero point eight right now.

Speaker 3 (40:08):
Yeah, It's it's absurd, It's like, yeah, that's the one bummers.
I was hoping. I was hoping Keith would get a
home run and it's a Zaddie because it seemed like
a place to do it, and went's a little but
everybody else basically homeward so.

Speaker 2 (40:18):
And I think he grew up not too far from
there too. I think he was born in Ohio, like
not too far from Cincinnati. I believe possible. Yeah, yes, cold, yes,
so obviously Yeah, sorry, I went to Yeah, but uh,
you know home runs by the way, Ben mel Jerry
had back to back days where he hit two home
runs in a game and they were not cheap shots,
you know, they were there were massive ass blasts and uh,

(40:41):
you know, Chris, you can go ahead with the Weber report. Well,
I'm gonna pull up this home r. I'm gonna pullup
that home run here real quick.

Speaker 3 (40:47):
Yeah. I mean they were both for once. The first
one was four forty five and the next one was
four forty six. They just just bombs to left center. Uh,
and he's he's a strong dude, and it's it's not
necessarily like an uppercut swing. It's kind of one of
those levels things that just kind of produces like back
spends the ball really well. Yeah, that was fun like
to see him go deep four times in two days.
He's I don't necessarily think of Malgerry as like this

(41:10):
big time power hitter, but it's clearly in there. He's
got some pop like and so yeah, that that that
helped them for sure. You know they they're back over
five hundred. So yeah, hear the swings.

Speaker 1 (41:21):
It's a does Tiger's bat speed training for the win again?

Speaker 3 (41:25):
Yeah, I mean it would be interesting to see. I mean,
we don't necessarily I don't think they make the bat
speed public for triple A. Yeah, I mean these things,
both of these bounce onto what is the name of
that street.

Speaker 2 (41:38):
Washington isn't Washington Washington Street.

Speaker 3 (41:41):
I'm not true, but yeah maybe yeah, but yeah, just
just just majestic, no very fun and yeah, like you know,
he's creeping closer and closer to being like, well, I
guess we'll give Malgerry a chance.

Speaker 1 (41:53):
Yea better get it going. Matt Verling.

Speaker 3 (41:56):
Yeah, I mean if Rling's only going to play the
outfield then yeah.

Speaker 2 (42:00):
But so yeah, there's the interesting thing too about al
Jerry too. He's also hitting for better average too. He's
he's not striking out as much he is continuously. He's
always been a good to plus defender. His defense has
never been in question. It was just a matter of
him adjusting to a higher level and he's been able to.

(42:21):
He's holding his own. I mean, if he you look
at all attention, Clark's been getting everything but quietly that
Nevagado has been doing his Sorry I must take of
Andrew the Tigers return return of twenty three man if
you will, Yeah, al Jerry's been holding his own.

Speaker 1 (42:39):
And that is.

Speaker 2 (42:42):
We've seen this before. Not he's but he's been consistent
weekend week out so far in the season.

Speaker 1 (42:51):
Someone's mentioning, Yeah, like Keith's bad angle, and I mean
I agree, like Keith just doesn't have any kilt. You know,
he's just really flat. And I do wish he would
just watch carry for a little bit. You don't have
to go full teacher man on me, but just stay
on your back side for a minute, like like let it,
let it, let it tell just a little bit for
me cult because he's hitting the ball really hard, but

(43:11):
you know, singles, let's get you at bats against lefties.

Speaker 3 (43:14):
Sorry, it is, it's such a weird That was a
great article about what he wrote about about him and
but you know people are upset he's not starting against
lefties or whatever. And yeah, I mean it makes it
stands the reason that if you're not going to hit
for you know, damage, damage against righty's, then they're not
going to feel compelled to because when they're bringing in
Jami Jones, it's to hit home runs, yeah, right, or

(43:35):
how they want you know, you want multi extra base hits.
And I mean the thing is, though, like whatever this
change that Heath has made, it's been like pretty awesome
for like his like production and seeing the ball he's
smoking it. It's just like, man, could you can we
get like somewhere like a happy medium where you're not
having a terrible April, but you're hitting for some power. Yeah,

(43:55):
but who knows like he has.

Speaker 1 (43:58):
I mean he hit a few shots, you know, to
the and off the wall earlier this season. It might
have gone out if it was warmer.

Speaker 4 (44:03):
You know.

Speaker 1 (44:04):
I assume they'll they'll show up to some degree.

Speaker 3 (44:05):
But yeah, and I'm sure you guys talked about this
before I popped on. But like you know, Torkleson had
no home runs and now he has five. Now Torkleson
has a much different swing and it's kind of built
freighting home runs. But baseball is weird, and Keith could
have four home runs in two days like good mal
Jerry did. So who knows. We'll see what happens.

Speaker 2 (44:24):
Yeah, yeah, as far as like the rest of pitching
goes like so options for potential pictures. So he keeps along,
his roller coaster season continues. He was doing really well
then go for whatever reason. Just it was it Syracuse,
I think it was. I don't know, I can't remember.

Speaker 3 (44:43):
Where he got bombed. Yeah it was Louisville.

Speaker 2 (44:46):
Louisville.

Speaker 3 (44:46):
Yeah, I'm sorry hit him home runs off them twice
in the week and then came up and went off.

Speaker 2 (44:52):
Yeah, Montero and the velocity from mansaw has and gotten
back there. He's still throwing ninety one ninety two. You
got asked about that last weekend and he's still lacking that.
So as far as like forty options starters relievers go,
that's where we're at with that.

Speaker 3 (45:07):
Uh, Ryan Sammons, Yeah, he's eating things down there. That's
that's an emergency arm that's still available at some point
if you need it. They'd probably call it the Jesus
before they called up Sammons. But you know, strange things happen.
Everybody gets injured at times. I will mention that that
edwardo Valencia got hit twice in one game. The second

(45:27):
one looked like it hit him in the hand and
I looked like he wanted to stay in the game,
but they made him come out and they were looking
at his hands. So I haven't heard anything about that,
But you're hoping that there's nothing you know, broken in
there too bad. It's probably just precautionary.

Speaker 1 (45:42):
But there's that Kevin didn't leave the game when he
got hit on the hand.

Speaker 3 (45:47):
That's true, but he was no he was right.

Speaker 1 (45:49):
He was. I was ready to rush rush the picture
from here though, I swear to God.

Speaker 2 (45:53):
Valencia though, I mean, ever, he had every right to
be pissed though, I mean, what the hell omahas is
a bunch of four A guys anyways.

Speaker 3 (45:59):
Well, yeah, so that was That was Eric Sarantola, who
was a guy that I really liked in the draft
many years ago, and heading into that draft, I thought
he had a chance to be like a top ten
pick because he has some crazy stuff, but he never
has been able command it at all. And this is
like the first year he showed any command, and like
his top command is still hitting guys inside.

Speaker 1 (46:22):
Well, he's not afraid to pitch inside. You know, I
always icked that in a in a pitcher. But oh yeah,
well you don't charge them on then probably at least
take your jersey.

Speaker 2 (46:32):
Got of course. Uh. While Ockhart surprisingly was sent down
the Eerie, I mean, Eurie does need some pitching, as
they've been using their bullpen quite a bit. But uh,
you know, I wasn't expecting that quick to be him
to be sent down.

Speaker 1 (46:47):
Yeah, I mean, he's kind of an ord territory, so
it's just like, you know, he and you know, Carlo's
Painia every once in a while just has the start
where he just absolutely goes off and you're just like,
if either of these guys could throw ninety one, just
sit ninety one, you know, but Carlo sometimes gets there.

Speaker 2 (47:03):
But you know, and here's so the Sea Wolves they finished,
they got their revenge quote unquote revenge tour against Bington,
fishing four and two on the road. And then this
isn't again. This is a team that's just relying on
their offense. The pitching has been sus the entire year,
although the Kenny Swarra requests are going to come back

(47:25):
in full force. Chris, who watched a little bit.

Speaker 3 (47:27):
Yeah, finally had finally had a game where the knuckler
was working right, and and that's what can happen.

Speaker 1 (47:33):
We don't need them. We got Jake, now got Jake.

Speaker 2 (47:35):
Yeah, but Pacheco's still struggling a little bit. Dine's the
groove at the play a little bit. But uh, Peyton Graham,
it's been hidden as a late want to see a
little more powers. Uh Brandon, I know you're still the
one of the conductors on the Peyton Graham Express, but.

Speaker 1 (47:51):
Yeah, the Express has kind of been been in dry
dock for a while now, but I'm still I'm still
like checking in on it. Yeah, yeah, for sure, I'm
probably more on the Callahan bus these days. But you know,
but Graham, Yeah, I mean he might if he could
just get around to like mastion ands and lefties, he
might prove a useful utility player still. So yeah, he's
he's worth paying attention to at least.

Speaker 3 (48:12):
Yeah, it's been really interesting. Uh the you know, we
got a couple very short glimpses of Callahan in spring training,
and you know, he hit the ball very hard and
very far, like that's fun. And we got John Peck
all spring training looking great. Yeah, and he is off
to a really rough start in general to this season.
He's got he's one of the few players in the

(48:33):
ORG right now with a lower WRC plus than Bryce Rainer.
It is, he's got a two point six percent walk
right in a thirty two point nine percent strikeout right,
So you see there one walk at eleven strikeouts last week,
Like it's it's not He's not hitting the way he
did in spring training, which is unfortunate, and you hope
he can turn that around, because yeah, this is a

(48:53):
talented player, but this is the way it goes. Sometimes
you get off to slow starts and it's it takes
a while to climb out of it.

Speaker 1 (49:00):
Yeah, and it's still you know, it's even shorter a
season for those guys. So yeah, you know, we'll see hopefully. Yeah,
I mean packed, Like I haven't watched enough of him
to like, you know, to really be able to gauge it.
But it just doesn't look like his approaches the same.
It's not just that the results aren't there, is that
he does seem to be swinging out of his shoes
quite a bit at almost anything. So maybe he started
feeling himself in major league camp a little bit and

(49:22):
just needs to back it up and you know, settle
back in a little bit.

Speaker 2 (49:26):
Yeah, it's just a matter of uh for as far
as Callahan goes, so defensively is a lot better than
I remember him too, Like, for whatever reason at West
Michigan I thought he was he was Maybe he struggled
out the rights for a little bit, but I mean
he's alway had a cannon on him. Yeah, but uh,
showing better defensive range from Yeah, he always kind.

Speaker 1 (49:46):
Of had speed and stuff, but maybe maybe his reads
have gotten a little bit better, just just with experience,
because yeah, he has looked a little bit better. But
a few times I've watched a full Eerie game, which
has only been a couple, but I feel like.

Speaker 3 (49:58):
He didn't get a ton of chances to play center field.
He was often playing, you know, next to Clark or
Patrick Lee or Jackson Strong.

Speaker 4 (50:08):
So like some of these other guys that they may
have put only lucky to see, I will point out
that he does have an eight seventy five ops against
lefties this year and an eighty nine ops against righties.

Speaker 3 (50:19):
We love it runs against each no discernible platoon splits
so far. So Callahan's dad correct.

Speaker 1 (50:30):
Yeah, yeah, mister Callahan had a point.

Speaker 3 (50:34):
Yeah, fielding, I'm looking sorry, just well you going to
do that?

Speaker 2 (50:38):
We'll start at West Michigan. Loronzo, by the way, is
still down in Lakelin doing his rehab, So.

Speaker 3 (50:42):
Just a heads up on that is is he gonna
be there next week too?

Speaker 2 (50:47):
I believe so yeah, I think so. We'll find out tomorrow.
But usually by now they'll anounce something. But the Tigers
are very like I said, they're they're cloak and gager
dagger when it comes to anything to do with the
minor leagues. It's yeah, it's a yeah, like a he's
not Midnight Graham. He's lightweight craam. Yeah, but uh, except

(51:07):
he has had a great the voice of Burt Lancaster,
one of the best voices of all time. Uh, Lake
County came in, and Lake County does Lake County at
West Michigan is is always a struggle for the white Caps.
It seems like that's the case. But Ricardo her title
continued to pop a little bit. Four walks of five Strikers.

(51:28):
We're talking about him last week, Brandon wh we were gone.
And he's been put together some really, the walks have
been good. He's always been He's always been able to
hit for power. Somebody asked me about his defense a
little bit, but the walks are a really good sign.

Speaker 1 (51:41):
Yeah. Yeah, the bat does seem to be coming around
even more. He was definitely like noticeable last year for sure.
And yeah, I mean, I'm sure the defense still needs
a good amount of work, but that's not so unusual.
He has enough arm strength, it seems to me. So
oh yeah, he was walking a ton holy cramp twenty
right now.

Speaker 3 (52:01):
Yeah, And so that's the weird like it's it's so
much that you're like, this is clearly unsustainable, what the
hell's going on? But like, yeah, last year and if
you look it up, last year, he had five awesome months.
In one absolutely terrible month, he had like a two
hundred ops in May and everything else was like seven

(52:22):
fifty eight to fifty. So he hits the ball hard.
He does have the good cash and throw skills, right,
He's got a strong arm. And then beyond that, it's
like you clean up everything, like you can't really go
by the numbers, right, but he, like ben at Lee,
is the best defensive catcher in the system. And Hurtado
had fewer past balls and errors than Lee in more

(52:42):
innings caught. Now there's much better defensive metrics that the
team has that will tell you. And then I'm sure
Heartato is not as good a defender as Lee, but
I think, you know, he's probably got a chance to
be better than certainly better than like Percegna and Valencia
and probably in the Loronzo area. And you know, as
a catcher, if you can actually catch, you really only

(53:04):
have to do one of like the three officet fits
of things. Well, you know, it depends on how good
your defense is. But if you can get on base
and hit for power, that's awesome. And he's got the
power and he's getting on base, and that if he's
you know, if this is real, then getting on base
is probably going to come with better swing decisions and
so he might hit for average too. So this is

(53:26):
you know, I just want to keep an eye on
it because it's been a really fun early season development.

Speaker 1 (53:31):
Yeah, yeah, for sure. And yeah, I mean when you know,
you might be walking too much because you're passive, but
at the same time, at least you're not swinging at
the wrong pitches and you know, so you know, that
should correlate to you getting the most out of your
swings in theory, and so far he kind of is.
So yeah, I mean that's definitely promising. And yeah, when
you're twenty two, like you know, I don't really expect
any catcher to really be ready defensively, you know, to

(53:52):
catch for a J. Hinchin till they're twenty five. Anyway,
it takes a long time and they have all kinds
of detail that they want to build in there. And
now you have the abs thing, which I kind of
thought you know was like, is that going to take
away for framing, and instead it seems to be like
like the two are like a complimentary skill that have
to both be developed now is what we're kind of seeing,
which has been an interesting early season development as well.

(54:12):
But yeah, I mean, you know, as long as he's
as long as he's hitting, you know, reasonably, and continues
to develop as a catcher's he's probably gonna play because
there's always room for backup catchers with on base skills
and solid defense.

Speaker 2 (54:25):
So yeah, the bullpen, by the way, for West Michigan
has been better as of late. I I wanted to
mention I mentioned zactly in the newsletters. With three innings,
five strekouts, he's been pretty unhittable the starting pitchings. Also,
Reiner Castillo had a really good strong start five innings,
two hits, no earned runs, two walks of five strekouts.

(54:45):
I've been watching him to see if the velosity is
getting creeping him back up a little bit, because I
think when if he gets back to what he was
two years ago in Lakelands, have something again to work with.
But uh, Lucas also still kind of figuring things out
a little bit. Pitching wise, but I'm still he's still
showed a lot of promise early on this year, even
if you just looking beyond the box with him a

(55:06):
little bit. He's STI trying to figure out his command.

Speaker 1 (55:09):
Yeah, and maybe maybe that's a function of you know,
building up and adding some muscle this offseason because he,
you know, Comman was pretty sharp a lot of the
time last year, especially late down the stretch, and does
it hasn't really looked, you know, quite the same early on.

Speaker 3 (55:22):
Yeah, you know, he's an interesting one. And to a
certain degree. We can talk about this with a picture
in Lakeland too, where the stuff, like the whole doesn't
necessarily match the sum of the parts. Yet like als
Alt has increased the velocity, the shape of fast ball
still looks good, the curve ball still looks good, and

(55:45):
he's got sort of the slider cutter he's got to
change up to looks solid. Like it all looks good.
None of it kind of fits together yet, Like the
pitching part of it is still coming together, which is
kind of shocking to me because I thought last year
he was really great at the part and just needed
stuff to come forward a little bit. And so I
don't know, it's maybe you know, finding that mix of

(56:06):
the two, or maybe it's yeah, like you can look
at his numbers last year and his first handful of outings.
It was a little bit iffy, and then he went
on some insane like sixki inning run where you give
up like three runs total.

Speaker 1 (56:17):
Yeah, and yeah, you just never know of Oftentimes guys
are working on something this time of year still and
trying to ingrain something new, and when your stuff pops,
sometimes you do lose your command for a while because
all of a sudden you've just got that you know,
that little bit of extra juice. Everything's coming out hot.
But yeah, I mean it's not like he's been like
wild either. You know, there might be like a little
bit of a tunneling aspect that needs to improve as well. Yeah, yeah,

(56:40):
so yeah, I mean there's there's work there to be done, obviously,
But yeah, I think just just getting that Vlo bumps
a is a good starting point because we've seen enough
otherwise to think that the rest will kind of come
around in time. M Can we talk about Rainer here?

Speaker 3 (56:55):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (56:56):
All the rare questions are popping up.

Speaker 2 (56:58):
Yeah, it's true she would talk about Rainer and if
he's what he's doing differently, and it is.

Speaker 3 (57:03):
It is interesting when he's out there and Rayder Caristilla
is out there because you're like, what who what? Oh,
all right?

Speaker 1 (57:07):
Which Rainer do you mean? Is?

Speaker 3 (57:11):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (57:12):
It it it.

Speaker 3 (57:14):
I don't know how to really sum it up properly,
other than to say he looks like a guy who
hasn't faced advanced competition before, which is couldn't be farther
from the truth. Like it's it's, it's he just doesn't
look comfortable in the batterish box. It's really odd.

Speaker 1 (57:31):
M hm. But again, I mean we should point out
that a lot of this is literally just taking strikes.
You know, he's just getting dotted up and not swinging
the bat that much. He's still swinging and missing a
good amount or way too much, certainly, but he also
just looks yeah, passive and sort of in between. And
that's why I was kind of joking earlier, maybe before

(57:51):
you got on that, like Torklsen had kind of looked
like like a like an MLB version of Rainer like
early in the season, and then suddenly went nuts this week.
So I don't know if Rainer's just not pulling the trigger.
I know, everybody's all worked up over his swing. His
swing isn't really any different than it was last year.
You know, maybe his hands are slightly lower and he's
a little bit more hunched over, but he's kind of
always done that, and it won't surprise me if he

(58:13):
needs some kind of an adjustment, because he does kind
of hitch it and gets and gets locked back there
a little bit too much and has to kind of
you know, not just like swing swing to the ball,
but also like reverse the move a little bit. But
some of that could be cleaned up in time, and
he's still you know, still kind of just has always
had that opposite field fastball hitting approach, and that still

(58:34):
seems to be the same as well. He's just not
seeing it and not attacking pitches the way he did
for almost of early last season. But again he has
fifty games out of high school, so there's also that
factor to consider.

Speaker 3 (58:48):
Yeah, So, like the example I used for yesterday was
he went he went all for three with three strikeouts
in a walk. All three strikeouts were looking. He saw
twenty one pitches in the game and swung at three
of them. It, I don't know, I don't know how
you get yourself into swing mode. And like, ordinarily we
like guys who show, you know, patients, but this is

(59:09):
like passivity to an extreme that makes like it's it's
like mental it's like a mental block here, or he's
worried about injuring something, or he just doesn't feel comfortable
to swing it. It's hard to explain. He's already got
as many strikeouts as he had all of last year.
He had thirty five games last year. It's like eighteen
so far this year. And I don't like, honestly, the

(59:32):
strike out numbers don't matter to me right now. I
just want to see him getting back into like attacking
the ball and hitting it hard if he can, because
right now it just he's just kind of a husk.
So hopefully, you know, and obviously we love this kid,
like we thought he was such was such an exciting prospect,
thought he could be at top five prospect in baseball
at the end of the season if he came out

(59:53):
and looked like he did last year. And it's just
gone in a different direction. And it's a good reminder
that this happened with prospects. Sometimes it doesn't work out
the way you want to. Sometimes it takes longer. Sometimes
it's up in a completely different direction. So we'll see.
You just kind of hope that he pulls it together
and gets into a groove at some point soon.

Speaker 1 (01:00:12):
And I mean, you know, it's not like he was
we ever thought he was, you know, Max Clark or
especially Kevin McGonagall as like a contact hitor. You know,
he's always had swing and miss. He had some issues
with breaking balls last year, even in Lakeland, so you know,
you knew there were gonna be things that he needed
to work on. But yeah, what it I mean, my
sense is that it's mental and maybe he came into

(01:00:34):
the season thinking I'm gonna see a lot more pitches
and kind of find my groove, and it's just sort
of turned into him being locked up. And you know,
I understand people being worried, like, well, why did the
Tigers move him up? But I don't really think that matters.
I don't think it's the competition so much as it
is just him right now. And you know, I'm not
ready to like, you know, grade him down or anything

(01:00:55):
like that after a couple of weeks, but you know,
I mean, obviously this is this has got to turn
around by mid season. It's pret pretty bleak right at
the moment. But you know, it's hard to analyze, like
a mental approach issue, whatever is going on with him.
But he's just not really swinging the bat, and I
would I would almost rather him to start swinging at
everything for a little while and just kind of be

(01:01:15):
aggressive as he possibly can be and just try to
snap himself out of it and then back off from there,
because yeah, right now, whatever they're doing is not helping them.

Speaker 2 (01:01:25):
What is helping Lovely Whisp, by the way, is welcome back.
Heavin Salcedo, who we just did we didn't. We had
him on, did an interview with him. It's transcribe. You
can find it out on our website tickers my mlworport
dot com and yeah, seven swings on fifteen seven was
on fifteen swings. He looked out like a shark. He
was out there, did not mess around. I really thought

(01:01:47):
that he's a guy. He said he was going to
be an eerie by the end of the year, right,
that's totally feasible. I think that just based off the
amount of injuries out there and him just going through everything.
Jordan Jos making his lately debut before fifteen to start
the his young career. I think I think it was
Emily Walden, I believe talked to him about he gained
some muscle in the off season and we got that

(01:02:09):
too as well. When we're down in.

Speaker 3 (01:02:12):
Before the spring breakout game. Yeah, yeah, talking about.

Speaker 2 (01:02:15):
That U boat. Angley came down on earth a little bit.
He hit a rough week, but yeah, Chris were talking,
Chris and I were talking earlier in the day about
Lakeland being kind of like this not sure what the
hell is going on, Like it was one day they
look really good in the next day. It's like that's
knowing between.

Speaker 1 (01:02:35):
Yeah, maybe, and maybe that's some of the competiti you know,
just the widely varying competition. You know, I mean Zach McDonald,
if you're not you know, if he's not getting carved up,
is doing stupid levels of damage. You know, Pinto went
off yesterday, So you know, it might just be that,
you know, because you know Anthony, like if you're throwing
him ninety two mile power fastballs over the plate and

(01:02:57):
he knows they're you know, he knows what's coming. He's
got the power and he's got enough context stills to
do damage. But you know, he's he's still learning his
way and not really like that sophisticated a hitter at all.
So yeah, I mean Lakeland's in kind of a weird
place too, because you're still waiting for like, you know,
like is Alavedo going to get there? You know, when
is Frand Burgh, you know, Frand Yourbert Montia going to

(01:03:19):
be back. So it's still kind of a funky roster.
Like Carson Rucker got out to kind of a hot
start and then it's kind of cooled and then he's
been kind of hot a little bit again. He's a
guy really, you know, I really liked on draft Day
and obviously he's lost a lot of time to injuries,
but he's really got to get it get it going
this year. Salsato looks awesome, and you know, I mean

(01:03:41):
Salsato like, you know, if he commands what he's got already,
he'll be an here. I think, you know, by by
late in the season at worst. That's some that's some
nasty stuff. So it was great to see him back
out there.

Speaker 3 (01:03:54):
Yeah, that was the thing that stuck out to me
about about his outing there is his he did not
have his best command. He was he wasn't you know,
he wasn't wild, but he was not terribly precise. At
times he was spraying in a little bit, but it
didn't matter, like he could get it close enough to
the zone when he needed to. And he's got the
full arsenal and it's just way too much for these

(01:04:15):
A ball hitters.

Speaker 1 (01:04:16):
So it's like Malick I throws strikes. It's like, you know,
they can't. You know, there's a lot of questions about
Malachi too, but you know when he's when he's throwing strikes,
you're not going to do much with it down there.

Speaker 3 (01:04:25):
Yeah, yeah, And you know with with Salcedo, he showed
the harder breaking ball, the slower breaking ball, and the
split change, and they're they're all, they're all very good.
He's a very good pitcher. I hope he can continue
to stay healthy and yeah, go up. They sent him
out for the third inning. He got one batter. I
think I think his limit was forty pitches, So he'll

(01:04:47):
probably be up to fifty pitches in his next downing
and then sixty and then they let them loose, and yeah,
he could be up to West Fishing and shortly after that,
because I don't know it's it's they do have kind
of an embarrassment of riches here. Starting pitching, we talk
about like Ben Jacobs had had the one thing that
had been kind of iffy about him so far was
his pitch of efficiency, and he was just like, you

(01:05:09):
know what, never mind five innings, it was like fifty
six pitches or something like that. Ye, And as I
think Colin had pointed out, he basically just was like
fastball slider. He only threw a couple of change ups,
and the change up is probably his better secondary offering,
but it may be one of those cases I didn't

(01:05:29):
look at the lineup. Maybe they were facing you know,
a bunch of lefties or whatever. But yeah, he just
he he was throwing strikes and getting out. So it
was impressive. And Grinsel keeps getting out Like he's a
guy who needs to move up to because he hit
that funky angle and his fastball change up is they're
not going to challenge him in low A. So they

(01:05:51):
have like three guys who are ready to move up
to Hya. It's a matter of like how long do
they want to wait?

Speaker 1 (01:05:56):
Yeah, and that lefty thing is just tricky because yeah,
like you know, we've We've gone over this a million times,
I'm sure on the on shows and podcasts, but they
just don't see good lefties down there for very long.
So yeah, I would I would expect that those guys
will probably move pretty quickly.

Speaker 3 (01:06:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:06:10):
They really liking Jacob's real you know, really pretty impressed
with Jacob so far.

Speaker 2 (01:06:14):
Especially Yeah, he's I think he's gonna be a guy
that when he gets to when he gets to West Michigan.
But I tink he gets West Michigan, he will even
dominate them because he's a college like that's always west.
We've talked about this before. Lefties at the in the
Midwest League, especially college lefties always dominate that level pretty well.
It's a sur matter of how he does what he

(01:06:34):
gets the eerie and what have you. But if he
can make that justment, and I think you will. The
FCL was in exhibition action today against the Phillies, and
so if you go to a Twitter feed, Chris Rodriguez
had a scorching double and well, you know what, we're
gonna we're gonna show that here.

Speaker 3 (01:06:51):
Yeah, but yeah, he also I didn't show it. He
had a he hit a ball very hard off the
pitcher and it bounced right to the third basement and
he got thrown out. But he also struck out later
on a seventy six mile an hour middle school curveball
that was half a foot out of the zone.

Speaker 2 (01:07:06):
So m hm yeah, yeah, well he's still he's still.

Speaker 3 (01:07:11):
Really really really Yeah. I'd say that not to criticize,
just to remind people that this is like, he's not
the terminator yet.

Speaker 2 (01:07:18):
Yeah, that's what I meant by that. It's just some
people people come up, you know, and what have you.
But here's here's this double smokes it. Yeah. They were
playing in water today, the Tigers. As far as the
FDL fee goes this year, I don't know if they're
gonna have one.

Speaker 3 (01:07:37):
I doubt it, yea, knowing how they operate. But what
a beautiful day it was. Then there were buffy clouds.

Speaker 1 (01:07:44):
Can we get the Angel Dela Santos knock too?

Speaker 3 (01:07:46):
Yeah, so a couple Santos. One one was a soft
thing up in the middle. The other one was a
hard like one O three to right center. That was
a beautiful stroke right there. Yeah. And and what Roger
pointed out on the the next play, it was a
Steven Madero kind of soft single to the left field.
I don't know if you have that. Yep. It was

(01:08:08):
how how quick and how aggressive De la Santos was
going first to third balls right in front of him.

Speaker 2 (01:08:15):
Us out Brandon.

Speaker 3 (01:08:17):
Gone.

Speaker 2 (01:08:19):
I was watching this at work. Sorry, boss, I'm talking
to Chris and the phone all said. I was just
like crap, like he just it was so quick. It
was just the first step two good baseball instinct there.

Speaker 1 (01:08:31):
Yeah, like, look at this, another athletic young shortstoff with
with some pop filling out the system, and a right
hander this time forgot.

Speaker 2 (01:08:41):
Yeah, here's the here's the left single from the Dela Sentos.

Speaker 1 (01:08:46):
And and the interesting thing is is it was truck
trucking down to first there.

Speaker 3 (01:08:52):
Yeah, and then we got a double from Ronald Rimirez.
I think, yes we do. Who's another infielder that I'm
trying to I meant to get this uploaded earlier, but
I have. I have Trivor Heischman was the starter the

(01:09:13):
Tiger's ninth round pick last year out of Don Bosco
in California. And what's what's interesting about him is, you
know his fastball is like eighty nine to ninety one.
I think he hit ninety two once or twice. But
he just carved through these guys, like he gave up

(01:09:33):
two hits and got three strikeouts and was throwing strikes
the entire time. And it's like, you know, I don't know,
there must be something somewhat unique or confusing about his
angle or his extension or something, because the stuff doesn't
necessarily jump off the page. You know, he's roughly the

(01:09:54):
same age as these guys and was just dominating. I
was like, well, I don't know about dominating, but like.

Speaker 1 (01:09:59):
But yeah, too much, too much for.

Speaker 3 (01:10:01):
Throwing strikes and getting guys out relatively quickly, to the
point where they made him face four guys in the
first inning, Like, oh no, we didn't get if you
didn't thrown up pitches through three innings and I think
he got thirteen outs. And I just uploaded that, but
I don't know if it's available to watch it or not.

Speaker 2 (01:10:19):
Yeah, no, it's just uh, it's just finished completing and
it's at all all no issues were found, all.

Speaker 3 (01:10:25):
Right, So yeah, if people want to watch that, they can.
But yeah, like I said, you know, he's their ninth rounder.
Played in probably the toughest high school conference in America,
with teams like you know, sether Nadez, Bryce Raider and
either Table Bahabad all those guys. It's there's no fun

(01:10:46):
out there in California, although or it's a lot of fun.

Speaker 1 (01:10:49):
Yeah, yeah, you're Suthnado's it's a lot of fun.

Speaker 3 (01:10:54):
Thinking of Cethernadas that the fine Tigers are going to
get him this week. Oh yeah, And I don't know
if people have looked at his stats.

Speaker 1 (01:11:02):
I'm surprised that he's still in low way, to be honest, I.

Speaker 3 (01:11:06):
Don't think it'll be much longer. So he's a four starts,
seventeen innings, four hits, one and run, five walks, thirty
two strikeouts in seventeen innings.

Speaker 2 (01:11:16):
Yeah, then a man among boys.

Speaker 1 (01:11:19):
Yeah, if you can make if you can make Max
Clark make that face. Yeah. Yeah, the single leg guys
are gonna gonna be like, whoa Like, what just happened?
Is that a hornet?

Speaker 3 (01:11:27):
Yeah? He is one of those dudes that, like, in
some other circumstance, in a different world, you could probably
throw him right up to the majors. Right now, he
get destroyed, but like the stuff, it's like he might
get by for a while and survive and be an
average pitcher just on the stuff at eighteen years old
or whatever, because it's just it's ridiculous.

Speaker 1 (01:11:48):
Yeah, and it's yeah, and it's still the point where
you like, I mean, you don't want to waste him,
you know what I mean, Like you don't want to
just like make him grind his way through all these levels.
I mean, yeah, it wouldn't be surprising if they if
they kind of double skipped him pretty quickly, like you know,
a little bit at high A and then and then
just get him to double A and kind of let
him work until he's that. He tell he's about ready.
So yeah, he's stupidly good.

Speaker 3 (01:12:09):
I'm I'm planning on him being in Al Tuna later
this summer, you know, if he stays healthy and we
can see him against the Eerie at some point. But yeah,
just remarkable talent and so that'll be fun to watch
to see see how Zach MacDonald and he's just Pinto
and the boys. We touched on Pinto, but he's a
guy that's I think we're gonna keep highlighting a little
bit as ear goes on, because he just does everything

(01:12:30):
pretty well. He hits the ball hards just on the
ground a little bit too much.

Speaker 1 (01:12:33):
But yeah, yeah, but but again another yeah, another athletic player,
you know, who can do a lot of different things
for you. So that's been exciting obviously. Yeah. Yeah, yeah,
he's still nineteen, I think, right, he just turned nineteen. Yeah, okay, yeah, yeah,
let's see. Someone was that Charlie was asking what Salsado's
top end v lo like, I mean, this was just

(01:12:54):
his first outing, but last year he was he got
up to ninety eight, maybe even ninety nine here and there,
not sitting as a starter or anything, but you know,
probably sitting ninety five six. Yeah, now who's our top
I'm sorry he also wanted to or somebody did, who's
our top pitching prospect? Now? Is it Salsado?

Speaker 2 (01:13:09):
And it's a Celciato. He's he comes in number ten,
ranked number ten overall and behind Sears.

Speaker 1 (01:13:15):
Yeah I got him up there too. I'm still more
of a Jake Miller guy than an Andrew Sears guy.
But those two are, you know, kind of neck and
neck neck for me. But I still like Miller better,
but I haven't seen either one of them. And Salsata
is passing people, yeah, looking really like pretty impressive.

Speaker 3 (01:13:31):
So yeah, and he seemed to be taking it relatively easy.
He was averaging ninety four or five, ninety four and
a half and touched like ninety five and a half
or ninety five six or something like that. But there
will be outings where he's sitting ninety five ninety six
and touching ninety eight. Yeah, so yeah, yeah, I mean
it's I think Salsado is right now. It's you know,

(01:13:53):
Jacobs could be there if he's pitching, you know, as
well later, Like he's another guy.

Speaker 1 (01:13:59):
That could get in the mix with it.

Speaker 3 (01:14:01):
Yeah yeah, yeah, could theoretically get up to double A
this year too, if if things go right, same with
Bus Salsato. But yeah, like those are I think Salcedo
has the more complete pitch mix right now, although it
depends on how how you like it. Do you like
a guy who can miss baths with his fastball, because
that's what Jacobs could do and Sosato is not quite
there with his fastball.

Speaker 1 (01:14:22):
He misses barrels, but but he does have you know,
a lot better secondary stuff. I'll say, like like Jacob's
has a pretty good change up and the slider is
like like it's fine, it's it's just fine, and you
know he's just getting started. Maybe maybe they can kind
of shape that to fit the fastball a little bit better. Yeah,

(01:14:43):
but yeah, I mean I think I think that's kind
of the group at least right now. And then, you know,
I think we probably all think, like you know, Lasault,
if he can get a little bit better and you know,
kind of kind of compose everything he's doing now a
little more, he might be able to creep up just
just behind some of those guys, or at least probably
with Sears and Miller. But but that's you know, that's
a speculation for now. You never know, like maybe some

(01:15:06):
guy like I don't know, Owen Miller or somebody or
Owen All. I mean, who uh, maybe maybe one of
these guys just like suddenly emerges. But I don't know,
I'm starting to feel pretty pretty bleak about it, to be.

Speaker 3 (01:15:15):
Honest, Yeah, I don't it. I mean, some of these
of the college guys are coming through a little bit.

Speaker 1 (01:15:22):
And Malachi has got to be up there, you know,
fairly high too. I mean, you know, there's there's plenty
of relief risk and maybe maybe that is just the
way it goes. But you know, even at that, you know,
I mean he's he's got a lot of stuff, you know,
across the board. It's just you know, is he going
to be able to repeat and you know, kind of
compose the whole thing and command you know, his fastball
well enough. That's really I mean, if you can command

(01:15:44):
a sinker, probably the rest of it works enough to
be a reliever, a pretty pretty good setup reliever at least, so,
but he needs time to It's all pretty early here.

Speaker 3 (01:15:53):
Yeah. I mean, he's a guy whose arm talent is undeniable,
and he's just always been more hittable than it seems
like he should be. Uh and you know, home runs
and hits and job.

Speaker 1 (01:16:03):
Was that way, you know, we saw that time and
time again where Job's you know, And this is the problem. Sometimes,
you know, people look at stuff metrics and immediately make
an assumption. But there's a lot of guys with hot
stuff metrics who aren't very good even when they're locating.
And it's the intersection of stuff command tunneling, like pitchability
is still more art than science.

Speaker 3 (01:16:24):
So well, and I briefly hinted at this earlier when
I was talking about assault. The guy I wanted to
talk about Lakeland is Ali Tanner because.

Speaker 1 (01:16:35):
He is.

Speaker 3 (01:16:36):
It reminds me a little bit of Jackson Job like
his stuff, like it looks like he was still built
in a lap like everything, Like all the numbers you
want to see with his stuff are there, and yet
when he pitches, none of it works. He's not missing bats,
he's getting hit hard, he's not throwing ito strikes. And again,
I don't want to pile on the kit. Right, he's nineteen,
Like there's plenty of time, a great place to start from.

(01:16:58):
But it's like, yeah, it's not just a stuff model.
It needs to be You need to pitch a little bit,
not to go full old school, right, like you need
to learn how all this works together, and and you know, yeah,
but you.

Speaker 1 (01:17:10):
Got to be able to set people up. You gotta
be able to get ahead of them, you know, in
the zone against aggressive hitters who will swing at anything
down there. Sometimes you know, there's like some of just
some of those basics you know, need to come around
a little bit. But yeah, yeah, like what Tanner's like,
you know, twenty twenty one iv B on that thing
and it's getting hit. So yeah, it's not everything.

Speaker 3 (01:17:30):
Yeah, everything Like like honestly, if you just look at
his his stuff. It's like, why is this not working?
Like it's like a high spin breaking balls super low spin,
uh change up slash bilt splitter fastball with tons of
ride like it. I don't know, it's it's all there
and yet it doesn't matter.

Speaker 2 (01:17:47):
So oh no, I think Chris saw the graduation ceremony.

Speaker 3 (01:17:52):
Am I ready to jump on the hype train for
EACHO for Glynn campaign? You know, I haven't considered the
MVP yet. I've been we've been, you know, messing around
and extrapolating his war out right, and he's on a
pace to have like one of the ten best seasons
of all time. And I think we could probably count
that out.

Speaker 1 (01:18:09):
Probably, But like I gotta say that I bet on
Rookie of the Year. I don't I kind of make
like one Tigers bet a year, like I bet Scoob,
you know, Cy Young in twenty four and last year
just small. I'm not not doing anything crazy, but yeah,
that one's looking pretty good. I'm feeling pretty damn good
about the Rookie of the Year.

Speaker 3 (01:18:28):
Say crack your knuckles there, Brandon, Yeah, you know again,
you hope he can you know, stay stays healthy and
he'll be playing. This is a long season. This will
be the most games he's ever played in.

Speaker 2 (01:18:36):
The year.

Speaker 1 (01:18:38):
He has injuries.

Speaker 3 (01:18:40):
Yeah, it helps that the rest of the bats seem
to have woken up a little bit, so it's not
all on his But in whatever you like, they're gonna
be ups and downs. But I always come back to
the fact that his eye is just so good and
his his level of patience and mixed with like the
perfect amount of aggressiveness, Like if they don't give him
the pitch which is in the zone, he will take

(01:19:02):
the walks. And you're gonna have value if you're getting
on base, particularly if you're played in the innfield. Even
if like the defensive metrics are always weird advanced. He's
like negative four about out above average, but plus three
defensive run saved. What the hell is going on average?

Speaker 1 (01:19:18):
So yeah, take a swag between that.

Speaker 3 (01:19:21):
But yeah, like, like you look it up the best.
There have only been like a handful of Tigers rookies
to have ever put up like a four war season.
Let alone, there's two that have for two or three
that have done five, one that has done six. That's
an entire one hundred and twenty eight or twenty six
year history of the Tigers or whatever.

Speaker 1 (01:19:40):
And he's on pace for like twelve I think right now.

Speaker 3 (01:19:42):
Yeah, yeah, and there have only been three rookies to
ever have an eight war season, and it's like it's
it's it's Eric Judge and Mike trout.

Speaker 1 (01:19:51):
I mentioned earlier, like this is giving trout By. But
here's the thing, Like, you assume he's gonna have a slump,
and he probably will because basically all players except the
absolute freaks like slump. But you know, even like Niggy's
slumps would be like good for most players, and that
might be what Kevin McGonagall is. It's also possible that

(01:20:12):
this isn't as good as he can do, and he
might strike out a little bit more and all of
a sudden the home runs start just piling up, and
we're just like it's not so yeah, don't really know.

Speaker 3 (01:20:22):
That's the weird thing to me is in my head,
I'm like, well this is you know, I've seen him better.

Speaker 1 (01:20:24):
Than this, Yeah, I know, I have a feeling. I
don't think he's that hot yet, to be honest, you know,
maybe bad at home, look, but you know he's the
thingers are going to come so.

Speaker 3 (01:20:33):
Yeah, like there's a lot more doubles than I expected,
So you know, you'll take those. That's fine, right if
he hits If he hits sixty doubles this year and
only ten home runs, I'll be okay, I'll survive. But yeah,
like it's entirely possible that he could be a guy
who already has six home runs to go along with
all this other nonsense. And but yeah, like I don't know,

(01:20:54):
like this guy's the limit right now, Like you don't
want to get too crazy, but yeah, it's like, you know,
it's creeping into my head. What if he is one
of those like generational freak.

Speaker 1 (01:21:02):
Yeah, I mean, what if we have a what if
we have a you know, a Lock Hall of Famer
right here?

Speaker 4 (01:21:06):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:21:07):
Yeah, yeah, but there's there's still I mean I kind
of feel that way, but there's just so many things
that can happen, you know, you know, I mean we
had the hammet, we had the ankle. Like none of
those things are like the kind of thing that like
you worry about like long term necessarily, But you know,
all it takes is one injury in the season that
knocks you out six or seven weeks and suddenly like,
you know, the season look looks different. Doesn't mean you're

(01:21:29):
a different player. It just means that, you know, at
the end of the year, when the guys who don't
pay much attention, you know, tally up all your numbers,
you know, they might just feel like, well, I mean
it was he was the Rookie of the Year, but
he wasn't MVP, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:21:40):
Yeah, and it's still I still worry about that a
little bit. With like, you know, Murrak Comedy has eleven
home runs already. Yeah, It's like, you know, if this
were twenty twenty five years ago, he'd be running away
with it. Mcgonag will be like fourth place Rookie of
the Year votes because you know, war didn't exist. But
Murk Commy is also hitting two thirty two.

Speaker 1 (01:21:59):
Yeah, and he's a mediocre fielder even at first base.

Speaker 3 (01:22:03):
Yeah, Like I thought, I thought the best case scenario
for him was like Joey Gallo and like the ninety
ninth percent I be Cal Schwarber and that's like what
he has. I'm like, wow, all right, well good for
you guys, but we'll see, Well, he's a guy that
I could see going through a pretty heavy slump but.

Speaker 1 (01:22:16):
Yeah, yeah, but yeah, but yeah, good for them. I'm
sure it's been a been a good time in Chicago
with him so far, and they need that, they need
something to entertain them.

Speaker 2 (01:22:25):
Yeah, especially especially because the White Sox are there. They
got some prospects, but it's still gonna be some time
before they're anything irrelevant. So uh well, in the podcast
with the Tigers started a three game series in Atlanta
starting tomorrow, the I seventy five Trek, because if anybody
knows who's done I tventy five, you take I sventy
five through Cincinnati and Atlanta, although I think that would

(01:22:46):
be the Full and County Stadium because I remember driving
when we would as a kid one in Miami. You
go down I seventy five, you hit Cincinnati, you drove
by the Brave Stadium at night and it would be
lit up.

Speaker 1 (01:22:58):
But now, yeah, yeah, I think now you got to
loop out, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:23:02):
Somewhere in the suburbs of Georgia, somewhere I don't, I
don't know, but uh yeah, so the Yeah, there's there's
a lot to like about the Tigers right now as
far as McGonagall goes, But uh, you know, they have
they have to go through. The Braves are doing really
well despite their pitching. As I mentioned earlier, Chris, it's
just they don't have a stratain pitching, but they are

(01:23:22):
still a painting.

Speaker 3 (01:23:23):
They're the best team in baseball right now, right like
like it is remarkable considering. Yeah, the amount of arms
that are out there are down right now. They're you know,
calling up Jr. Richie and Dinie or Fintes and at
least exciting young arms. But you know they're without shrilling back.
I think it's strider. And you know, Ronald Occuna Jr.
Is one of the most enjoyable players in baseball, and
so it's always funny. I hope you can keep them

(01:23:44):
from hitting too many annoying home runs against you.

Speaker 1 (01:23:46):
But we don't have to face Sale.

Speaker 3 (01:23:49):
Yeah, you look out there not facing Sale, so it
should be a fun serious right. The Tikers are pretty
good team.

Speaker 1 (01:23:54):
Yeah, the Teckers, and and you know I got we
got Valdez and we got Scoop, So you know there's
no reason that I go in there and take two
or three even on the road.

Speaker 3 (01:24:04):
And yeah, and props to Spencer Turklesen. You know that
I have been critical throughout my talking life about Turklesen.
But it sure is fun when he goes on ridiculous
hitters and when he hits those home runs where the
bat like stops shortly after he hits the ball and
he just drops it. Is that's quite enjoyable to watch.

Speaker 5 (01:24:22):
And I wish that's when we get the Paula and
I think the thing is like we were, I mean,
I think, you know, compared to like literally anyone else,
you know, we were pretty skeptical about like Torkleson's hit tool,
Like we all thought he'd hit for for enough power. Yeah,
and he's and he had plate discipline coming out of college,
so you know, and there wasn't another pick that was

(01:24:43):
like obviously like you know, you could be like, yeah,
this is the better move and it's pretty much yeah really,
but it kind of has turned out to be the
right pick of the guys who went like in the
you know, the top three and stuff, and you like
Spencer Turklesen. I mean, he's a very likable dude.

Speaker 1 (01:24:56):
He's improved a lot defensively, He's done a lot of
things that the Tigers have ass them to do to
be better, and he's just not He's just not going
to be a monster, and we don't really need to be.
If he's the guy he is last year, you know
that that will be enough. And the same goes for
Kerry Carpenter. You know, they don't need those guys to
like do everything for them. They just need them to
contribute with power and you know and kind of handle them.

Speaker 2 (01:25:19):
Just hit hit with guys on base.

Speaker 3 (01:25:21):
Yeah, yesterday, well and that's like, you know, you look
up and Torkleson suddenly has a one thirty four WRC
plus and he's on pace for that's that's exactly what
they need. And that's all like, we don't need you
to go you know, full on, you know, cal rally
or anything like that. Just be a one thirty w
RC plus hitter, which is, you know, very good in baseball.

(01:25:42):
But for first basement, it's like, all right, that's about
all you can Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:25:46):
Maybe maybe not even part it's probably better than average,
but it's not like, yeah, it's not like one of
the top ten guys probably.

Speaker 3 (01:25:52):
So yeah, that was great and good to see, and yeah,
more of that.

Speaker 1 (01:25:56):
So you'd love to see a walk off too, because
like I know, there's been like some his numbers with
runners in scoring position are fine, but in those really
big spots. Obviously, the bases loaded thing is just kind
of weird when he just tends to do nothing in
those situations. But yeah, I mean to have him have
a big home run head to be good for the
confidence at least.

Speaker 3 (01:26:15):
Yeah, and I'm gonna I'm not gonna tweet that stuff
out anymore because every time I do, like, I honestly
find it just kind of fascinating. It's a it's a
small enough sample size where it's weird things happen. Yeah,
but at the same time, it's like there's got to
be something going on in his head.

Speaker 1 (01:26:27):
Yeah. Yeah, you can't say anything any anymore arly, you know,
I like I just jokingly told everybody, like, you know,
rain your head that three hit game. I was like,
I'll see calm down, and you know, like to me,
that's just a flippant coment, you know, like we all know,
like it's not going great so far. But yeah, you know,
you can't. I can't even bother saying that because no
one's no one's.

Speaker 3 (01:26:44):
Gonna fire back with the record for the most home
runs in a row in games a row. Griffy, Griffy
junior did at eight games in a row maddically, and
I don't know who the third is.

Speaker 1 (01:26:56):
Eight.

Speaker 2 (01:26:57):
Yeah, that's wild, Ye, it's crazy. So by the way, yeah,
well for next week. By the way, the Tigers, do
you play at six forty? Usually by games should end
about nine o'clock, so probably a little bit after nine.
Oh against it? What's up?

Speaker 1 (01:27:13):
Well?

Speaker 3 (01:27:13):
Yeah, I never would have guessed the third one Dale Long,
Dale Long, Dale Long in nineteen fifty six hit home
runs in eight straight games. Maddenally did it in eighty seven,
doesn't count rabbit ball, and Griffy did it?

Speaker 2 (01:27:29):
Who was Long playing for Cardinals?

Speaker 3 (01:27:31):
I don't know. I've never I knew a kid named
Dale Long. We lived down the street. But let's see,
Uh looks wow, is this really the.

Speaker 1 (01:27:44):
Hm, the Cubs, the Yankees. Let's seem like the bounce
around quite a bit.

Speaker 2 (01:27:49):
Oh yeah, I felt like it was a cardinal thing
to do. But uh yeah, of his era maybe, or
the Brandon Boss for that matter. But uh, that's where
the term lom ball came from.

Speaker 3 (01:28:06):
Makes sense?

Speaker 2 (01:28:08):
All right, folks, Well, thanks so much for watching things,
so much for listening. Uh next week, will it might
be later this week? Might have an announcement involving the
show going somewhere, and I mean that in a good way.
It's not it's not a bad way or anything. Brandon
does not know what I'm talking about, and I'll explain
to him afterwards. Because going to Brazil, yeah, going to

(01:28:28):
the moon, no wan the move, but uh no, it's
it's all good fun. I'll have to say thank you
to my friend Clayton and clay for sitting this up
and I'll just look at that. But same time next week,
a little bit after nine o'clock, so probably after Tigers
game next week as they play Boston is Star Wars night.
It's worst. It's May the fourth be with you. So yeah,

(01:28:52):
there's May the fourth. And I do have a lightsaber
back there, but I'm not gonna bust it out tonight
because i don't feel like just trying it all over there.
But keep as everybody, and yeah, we will be. If
you want to check out our newsletter, order patreon dot
com and patreon dot com for Slash Tiger's Minor League
Report and you can subscribe to that. It's simple, easy

(01:29:12):
and we have some paid stuff too that check out.

Speaker 3 (01:29:15):
Yeah you said we lost, we lost, we lost Colt
Kate's mom.

Speaker 2 (01:29:19):
Yeah, Mary Keith, I'm sorry, Mary Keith. I know that,
Like even I still, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:29:25):
Still I consider it like it's like when somebody graduates
out of therapy or something like that, like, yeah, you
don't need a Colt Keat's not going back to the miners.
You don't need us anymore. Yeah good, Yeah, enjoy your life,
enjoy watching the big leagues.

Speaker 1 (01:29:38):
I know I met Rhonda Myers.

Speaker 2 (01:29:39):
Wherever you are, yeah yeah, I mean we she was
probably in cincin Edy somewhere this weekend, well for sure. Yeah,
but uh until next week, everybody, We'll talk to you later. Thanks, everybody.

Speaker 1 (01:29:50):
Night,