TMLR Podcast Week 15 Recap: Tigers Grades At The All-Star Break

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
I don't have to do a game.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
This game right there.

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Oh, I'm sorry, Red.

Speaker 3 (00:17):
When you are, I'm under resound.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
The music stuff to play.

Speaker 3 (00:23):
You can't sit out.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
We got the can jast the last year, the right
shoulder surgery. Well, deep bounce of left field that goes
out to that he books up and that.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
What one long time?

Speaker 3 (00:55):
That's right. Welcome to another episode of the Tigers min
La Report podcast, presented by our friends who are just
baseball good eating everybody, Michael and Adam Murray in chat,
I'm a hug stealing the same as Chris Brown. Brandon
Day will be up with us shortly as we're at
the All Star break, which means a same format show. No,
I'm just so there's give me. There's plenty to talk about.

(01:16):
So we're gonna go draft light only because we've done.
I'll be honest with you, Chris, I'm gonna burn out
for the drafts.

Speaker 2 (01:24):
Yeah, you know it's always like this. I mean yeah,
we did a five and a half hour, six hour
draft day show and then another hour yesterday and the
rest of the picks and I'm now I am now
going through and getting video of all these players from games.
So I can put them up on a playlist. So yeah,
it's it's a bit much. Although I may have better
opinions about these players, or more strong opinions about these

(01:47):
players I've read of the video stuff, but yeah, you know,
it's it's the All Star break. It's minor league baseball
is on a break until Friday too, with an exception
of the rookie of the leagues, So it's a good
time to, you know, do our weekly recaps. And it
kind of, uh, look at the first half of the season.
We know it's it's actually past the first half, but

(02:10):
you know, it's the break, so you gotta do what
you gotta do.

Speaker 3 (02:12):
Yeah, the traditional end of the first half of the season.
But uh, yeah, it was enough today where I was.
I was lightheaded at work. I went home today and
I took like a two and a half hour nap,
like I was out cold. I don't know what it was,
maybe it was a heat or something, but I was lightheaded.
I didn't feel right, and then took a nap and
then I ate something. I still felt still. I feel

(02:34):
almost almost back to normal, but I don't know what
it was. It was just maybe it was the heat
or something, but regardless. Uh, yeah, it was. It was
a really good draft. Well, we'll get some Brandon thought
about it too, because he was there for day one,
day two. Just get some thoughts about that as he
drinks a Michigan beverage in Michigan Beverage, Michigan Beverage. Also,
I want to say everybody for the donating we did get.

(02:56):
We did get quite a bit of donation, So thank
you for that. Because YouTube is becoming a giant you know,
I love you YouTube, but but also pain in the
ass which comes to certain like for example, I was
putting clips of and you can do clips of like
players and stuff like that. But now I said, they're like, oh,
there's a copyrighting and it's like, well, I'm providing commentary

(03:17):
to it. You never, you never, it never bothered you before.
And also now it's an issue.

Speaker 1 (03:23):
So yeah, I mean it's packed with reaction videos where
they play you know, very famous songs and then just
stop it three times during it to talk about it
or whatever. You wouldn't think it'd be a problem, especially
with the Yeah, yeah, exactly. Now we can't get the
NCAA A yeah.

Speaker 3 (03:39):
I mean, come on, you know, I understand if you
play a second of a song that, like Facebook, the
algorithms of Facebook will punish you with good Lord. But yeah,
there's the there's the all Star facilities, the whole thing today.
But again, MLB, the way they've handled the whole whole weekend,
I got I got beef with it just a matter
of you have the Futures Game of seven. Yeah, you

(04:03):
you clearly don't give a crap up other miners. You've
you've you've blatantly done that. But any rate, Uh, enough
about that, Let's let's get into the well. We're also
we're gonna do grades tonight. We're gonna do grades but
we're not gonna do them for all the players. We're
gonna do them by by groups and game gred my team,
so for example, we'res West Michigan stand and all. That
makes things easier. And because it would be all night

(04:25):
and uh quite frankly, it's but the Futures game. Why
would Jed Good question why was the Futures game in
the middle of the day on the full day of games.
Because they're jackasses, they don't care. They they could have
had the whole Sunday nights to themselves and put it
on Sunday nights. But they're jackasses.

Speaker 1 (04:42):
I do wonder if there's gonna be some realization because,
you know, they actually finally started to do a pretty
good job the past couple of years of like, you know,
we're gonna promote you know, the Future's Game, We're gonna
put the draft, you know, in All Star Week where
people can focus on that and they're not just locked
up on whatever their team is doing. And they kind
of started to get it right a little litle bit
more and a little bit more, and then nope, that
this year, now, forget it, We'll just pack it all

(05:04):
on Saturday and Sunday. Everybody's watching their team. It's hot out,
people are doing things. No one's watching the draft, no
one's you know, watching the futures game. And yeah, I
don't I really don't get like what convinced them to
do it this way this year, because it was it
was nonsense and anybody who covers the team is probably exhausted,
way too much to do on for three straight days.

Speaker 3 (05:27):
By the way, Elson, thank you so much for one
hundred dollars.

Speaker 1 (05:29):
Man, Wow, thank you.

Speaker 3 (05:31):
Yeah, that's gonna pay for your camera next week. Brandon,
I know it's you upgrade the camera. So a nice
job there, Yeah, camera's working. Yeah, and I need to
upgrade like the subject.

Speaker 4 (05:41):
And then I'm also I'm throwing one of these two
off the Frickers building, you knowed, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (05:48):
No, that's definitely that they're in. Dan, thank you for
the ten dollars. He does have two draft questions. We'll
address those right now. So if you do give us
a couple of bucks, we will uh the questions right away.

Speaker 1 (06:01):
We will dance. We will dance for donations.

Speaker 3 (06:03):
Yeah, two draft questions and I all only affecting lower picks.
Good draft philosophy. I have go back and forth pitting
college I s every other year. I'll start with you,
Chris on that.

Speaker 2 (06:15):
You're muting weird. I guess I haven't been open the
entire time.

Speaker 4 (06:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (06:21):
I think theoretically that's a good draft strategy, but I
think you might actually create logjams that way, Like your
high school players from last year are now going to
compete with your you know, college players from this year.
You know, I am kind of one of those people
that just like, take the best players you can find,
who cares if they're college or high school, and if
you have too many shortstops, there are too many catchers

(06:43):
or whatever. You find a way to play them all
bah first base, second base, centerfield, all that stuff. But yeah,
I mean, you know, this is it is interesting that
they've gone over the four years that you know that
Scott Harris smart counter regime, if you will, They've gone
taking nine high school players to eight high school players,
to seven high school players to six high school players.

(07:03):
So they're they're cutting it down a little bit each year,
which is what you know, you could say that indicates like, hey,
you're getting farther in there, you know, competitive window, but
I think it's also just one of those things.

Speaker 1 (07:17):
Yeah, it's hard to know if it's strategy, you know,
because the board shapes up how it does, and the
bonus pool shapes out up how it does. You know,
we knew that they weren't going to have a ton
of extra money this year to go crazy the way
they have a couple of times with prep players, and
we don't really know, you know, if the last couple
of guys are really even that viable to sign buyers

(07:37):
and Dunwoody, you know, we hope they get everybody else,
and I expect they know what they're doing, and that
they will, but a lot of times it's just how
you how your board shakes out.

Speaker 2 (07:48):
You know.

Speaker 1 (07:48):
I'm always wary of calling it strategy when it might
just be you know, standard old best player available, because
we would have thought, you know, based on their past strategies,
they would have done things differently this year, and instead
it was like a slightly like Alavila ish type of draft.
And I don't think that had anything to do with
them changing their philosophy so much as just you know,
how much money they have where they're picking and who

(08:10):
is there. I do think, and I'm sure you guys
would agree, is like the nil money does play a part.
You know, there's a lot more options for for better
prep players if they if they don't want to sign
the guys that the Tigers have have snatched at the
end the last couple of years, like seemed like they
were going to sign no matter what, like they just
didn't want to go to college. And maybe they found

(08:30):
a couple of guys like that again, but we aren't
going to know. And it's it's also hard to comment
on what the strategy is until you actually see who
gets signed in for what. So you know by the
end of this week, hopefully we'll know a lot of
numbers and it will be able to kind of piece
it together a little bit more based on that.

Speaker 3 (08:44):
Yeah, and the piggyback on the nil question, I think
if you look at the schools like the for example, LSU,
who can just literally whip it out anytime they want
to live out their money and then just go you're
not going anywhere. You're not going anywhere. Mississippi States trying
to do that too. We don't see that too much
on a big ten side of things, but maybe you.

Speaker 2 (09:07):
Could see it with USC maybe or a something. No,
it's it's it's funny that you bring up LSU because
they have they have a a kid named Stephen Mylam
who is like he's like five six, lifted at five eight,
one of those guys, but like a real scrappy leadoff type.
I saw him. He barreled up Fluki twice in the

(09:27):
College World Series last year. That's kind of where like
he popped out to me like, huh, what's this guy's
draft status, and it's it was like sixth to tenth
round and LSU just got him back this year. He
just he's a junior, he was draft eligible. He just
withdrew his name. He's going back to LSU because they
could probably give him three hundred and fifty grand or
whatever he would have gotten from getting drafted, and now
he gets to enjoy college baseball one more year, which

(09:50):
is cool for him. So yeah, a fews like that.
It's definitely having an effect on some some big schools
like that and probably some you know, more of the
and it depends on you know, all these schools over
book if you will. It's like a plane. So Stanford
had two of the best shortstops on the West coast.
Tyler Spangler got drafted, so they got to keep arger Horn.

(10:11):
So they're gonna team. They're gonna be using ANIL on that,
and they will be using N I L A lot
on you see it already. We're guys, you know, they
didn't get drafted and now they're getting dropped by their
college because they've got money they want to get or
kid who they think will play contribute this year, or.

Speaker 3 (10:30):
In one case because he has brain cancer. Yeah, well
there's that, Yes, that was as yea such.

Speaker 1 (10:37):
A yeah that's unfortunate, jeez, But yeah, there's there's just
a lot of that going into it. Two of the
guys of my staff, you know, Adam and and David,
like David covers, you know, the Florida prep scene a lot,
and obviously that's one of the big regions, and the
ANIL money is a big topic of conversation, and it
really has changed the way you know, parents like parents,
you know, the whatever coterie of like advisors down there

(11:01):
who you know, college kids or high school kids go
to to kind of talk about how they should handle
these things and get an agent. You know, it's it's
definitely changed the equation already, and I'm sure it will
just continue to do so. But there might also be more,
like you know you're talking about, there may be more
kind of players who get shaken out of the system
in weird ways too, So maybe maybe that's something to
watch for. The Tigers have been plucking indie ball guys

(11:23):
and undrafted free agents more in the last couple of years,
and there may be a little bit more of that
type of thing happening as well. So, you know, the
pathways are all just kind of getting a little more
complicated in general.

Speaker 3 (11:35):
Yeah, especially you bring up the Juco thing, Chris, and
I even think about that in a sense that there's
a way now where Isn't that correct? So is this
kind of a path right now where kids will go
to JUCO, then go to a semi bigger school, then
go to an even bigger school. Is that how it's
been working as of late? I feel like that's a pattern.

Speaker 2 (11:56):
Sometimes sometimes the guys will one year at JUCO and
then go to like the Louisiana A Tack or whatever,
and then in up at LSU. Sometimes the guys spend
two years at JUCO and ended up at a bigger school.
Occasionally you get a guy who goes from JUCO to
a big school and then back to a smaller school.
It's like, you know, it's it's a lot of times
it's just where guys can get playing time and these

(12:17):
top programs don't have. That's one of the things that
the more frustrating things about, like the MLB's proposal to
kind of hand off development to the college baseball because
they won't develop. Yeah, I mean, some some guys will,
but it's they're gonna their job is to win, so
they're gonna play the guys who can help them win.
So it's gonna be twenty four year old you know,
six foot four or three hundred pound slugger. Now your

(12:39):
eighteen year old skintty, you're Jordan Yost. Like if Jordan
Jos went to college, he's probably not playing.

Speaker 1 (12:44):
So whereas bo Ankity, they'll keep till he's yeah, twenty
four and a half twenty five, you know, Yeah anyway,
but yeah, that's definitely. Yeah, that's a point to it
as well, because they're not there to develop you, except
you know, inso much as you can help them by
your junior and maybe senior year. You know, that's it's
a very specific set of circumstances. So yeah, and I guess,
you know, if we want to step back, like one

(13:06):
good thing from the Tiger's perspective is that the Tigers
have kept a very large group of scouts and seem
to scout far and wide. And you know, obviously some
teams that back more and more away from that over
the last decade and you know, are doing more things
with just just you know, raw data, And so I
don't know that you would think there'd be an advantage
to to teams who are still scouting widely. Let's hope, Yeah,

(13:29):
I hope.

Speaker 3 (13:29):
So, I mean the one thing that's really interesting or
not baffling to me is the fact that they're in
a collective learning agreement. They're basically saying, if you're not
nineteen you want to play baseball, well, two damn bad,
you gotta go to school. And that's not fair like that.
That doesn't seem like, I hate to say, like American
thing to do, but it does.

Speaker 1 (13:49):
It does.

Speaker 3 (13:50):
I mean, you're you're forcing the issue. It almost feels
like you're going to ask backwards. I mean, you're going
back to the time when the NCAA was like almost
it's not about the money, and you know, it feels
like some sort of archaic wine of thinking, which doesn't
make any sense to me. And considering baseball has been
embracing high school since the dawn of the since the

(14:11):
draft has started.

Speaker 1 (14:12):
Yeah, yeah, and think about the good high school players
who've been drafted, Like what happens if they you know,
kind of go play, you know, for a college where
it's not you know, the competition just isn't that good
and they're dominating and it's easy and a couple of
years go by. You know, some of those guys should
be in the show, Like Kevin McGonagall is. But what
if Kevin McGonagall is still you know, you know, kind

(14:33):
of toiling away for a big program that's paying him money,
and then all of a sudden he's twenty two and
now all of a sudden he has to go try
to like, you know, handle double a pitching right out
of that. You know it really it really does change
the equation for a lot of the really elite prep talents,
and it can keep some of those guys from getting
to the show as soon as they as soon as
they can, which also feels like part of the part
of MLBS like or at least the owners like Diabolica plan,

(14:56):
is to like, you know, no one plays in this
league unless they're twenty four to thirty, and then once
they're thirty, they're out. You know, we're not paying free
agents anymore. You know, you're here under team control and
that's it.

Speaker 3 (15:05):
We're pretting gor going back to Denver seven servitude.

Speaker 2 (15:09):
Dammit.

Speaker 1 (15:09):
Yeah, exactly, Like you can't just sign a contract as
a free adult person in the United States of America
at age eighteen.

Speaker 2 (15:16):
But I mean, weird, it might be it might be
fun to see guys like a Rod kind of yeah,
but you know, Bryce hard We saw Bryce Harbor at
a JUCO when he was sixteen or seventeen or whatever.
He hit like thirty five home runs. It's it's done.
It's not. It's not like the NFL, right where like
you know, most high school players just are not physically

(15:37):
ready for playing against twenty eight year old walls of
brick and muscle. Yeah, baseball, you're you're eighteen nineteen. You're
going to play against a bunch of letter eighteen ninety
year old or some like, you know, twenty one year
olds who aren't particularly good. But I don't know, we'll see.
I'm hoping that nothing drastic gets done to the system
because I don't think there's anything terribly wrong with it,

(15:59):
at least in terms of the drafting and development stuff.
But I mean there's always little stixes you can make, But.

Speaker 1 (16:05):
In general, it doesn't feel like there's Yeah, it doesn't
feel like there's been a good argument made for why
the collective bargaining or agreement needs to even change. You know,
like you know, there's all these like insane proposals flying
all over the place, and it's like you guys are
making plenty of money. The sport's been growing in popularity
at least internationally. Like things seem seem pretty good. So
what what's your argument, you know, which, what's the baseline

(16:26):
argument for like these things aren't working for us? You know,
it seems to be working.

Speaker 2 (16:30):
Yeah, And you know, back to the futures game and
the baseball is weird the inability to market their own
damn sport. You know, it used to it was always
I think on the Sunday the lad like the Sunday
before the All Star Game, but they used to play
it later in the day and they would play nine innings.
And I saw a proposal like why why not just
play it the day after the All Star break? These kids,

(16:51):
like Minor league baseball is on a break until Friday, Yeah,
so they could, you know.

Speaker 1 (16:56):
And it would be really fun if the major league
guys like came over and and like you know, hung
out and like commentated on it and talked about their
own development path. Like there's so many things they could
do with that. Once the big game is over, and
you know, the major league players don't have to worry
about that. They've got all their you know, they're signed
gear from each other and done all the media, they
could just hang out.

Speaker 3 (17:14):
Yeah, or once you do, like what the NBA does
when they do all the slim Dunk Guys slam dunk
contests they have, they have players out there doing grades.
They're all interacting with everybody do the same thing.

Speaker 1 (17:24):
Yeah, yeah, because they kind of do that with the
all with the home run Derby. But you know, like
that's that's not the thing that it used to be.
You know, it would be a lot cooler if it was. Yeah,
you know, used to draw some attention to the futures game. Instead,
I didn't pay any attention to the Futures game, tell
you the truth. I just had like the the you know,
the little game day ticker up and like, okay, Anderson
didn't do anything. I don't care.

Speaker 2 (17:45):
It was on Peacock in NBC, like it was on
the streaming platform nobody has and on TV which no
one has anymore.

Speaker 3 (17:55):
And to mention like I I we got the Peacock
just for that, and then it's a trial membership and
it's over. I'm not. Yeah, you know, like I did
watch ten. I did watch the show ten, which was
pretty funny.

Speaker 1 (18:06):
Oh yeah, yeah, okay, I know.

Speaker 3 (18:07):
That's based off the based off the based off the movie. Yeah, yeah,
it's I took advantage of it. I mean, I got
my money's worth or you know, quote unquote, it's just yeah,
it didn't make sense to have have it there, and
I don't know, like it just the whole thing is
just it's been a giant cluster, you know what. It's been,

(18:28):
especially on even like well, crack me up. The moment
of the week The moment was then the weekend was
them tearing down the set as they're broadcasting, like come on, like,
I don't know if you guys have seen this or not,
but I'm gonna it as loud as you know what.

Speaker 1 (18:43):
Yeah, they're they're paying for that whole thing hourly. They like,
get we gotta get that.

Speaker 4 (18:47):
I don't care, you know, listen, these guys are union guys. Man,
you you cannot you can't.

Speaker 1 (18:54):
You know, you can't.

Speaker 2 (18:56):
You got work.

Speaker 3 (18:56):
We gig this.

Speaker 1 (18:58):
We're not paying over time forget it.

Speaker 3 (18:59):
Yeah, yeah, we're Yeah, but draft like I got I gotta,
I gotta find it. And now I'm consumed with finding
it because it's uh you guys, go ahead, go ahead.

Speaker 1 (19:08):
Christ Well, yeah, it was a bizarre moment, as you'll
as you'll hear in a second, you know, I mean
when you get way down toward the end of the draft. Admittedly,
no one really cares that much, but the players do,
like you know, like everybody kind of wants their name,
you know, to be read out, and you know, I
mean it's it's it's kind of a thing that you
do to like respect the work that they've done in

(19:29):
the first place. I mean, they don't have to have
a draft show. They could just like post all the picks,
you know, if they wanted to do.

Speaker 3 (19:34):
Yeah, I look what Boost said, they have the draft
after the All Star Game, you know what. And we'll
say as Tigers Brass was on record saying, look, they
would like to bring it backward development. What was it,
Christa that they would have the draft.

Speaker 2 (19:46):
They said they earlier the better. As soon as they
as sooner they can get their hands on these guys
and get working with them, that's what that's what they want.
So nobody likes this later.

Speaker 1 (19:54):
Draft, and we probably see we'd see a lot more players,
you know, in in Lakeland, if you know, if they
could could join the club like in mid June and
you know, get some working.

Speaker 2 (20:05):
Yeah, and it's you know, in the past, the future's
game may have conflicted with a major League game or two,
but it also it didn't also conflict with the draft
at the exact same time. It's just it's non so.

Speaker 1 (20:16):
So.

Speaker 2 (20:16):
But yeah, like if you've got people, I mean you
could see the scissor lifted the background and it's like
they built this giant set up no players ahead from
this school. This is why I'm in baseball, because the
atmosphere around Woodstock, Georgia is Baseball twenty four seven.

Speaker 1 (20:30):
It's minutes away from East cop everybody plays and they
play around the atmosphere. This arms race for who would
have the next big baseball talent. These two schools are
less than a mile apart from each other, and so really.

Speaker 2 (20:43):
Gets to get that next hedge, you know, man Carlos
and KOs And yeah.

Speaker 1 (20:52):
Yeah, wait when we're going to have Daniella versus Ashley
Trivia on the on the podcast, Daniella, Bruce, You're welcome,
welcome to call us in And yeah, I'd love to
see that. That'd be great.

Speaker 3 (21:03):
Yeah she uh shout out to Astley doing a really
good breakdown. But no, as far as like the Tigers
go draft to real quick Brandon. We'll get your thoughts
on in day two as far as like just looking
at Chris and I did the breakdown, but I who
was your favorite pick in day two?

Speaker 1 (21:21):
Oh man, favorite pick? That's gonna be tricky.

Speaker 3 (21:25):
There was a there was a couple well, okay, what
was your favorite pick? A couple of picks?

Speaker 1 (21:31):
Okay, let me yeah, let me bring this up because
I actually like made myself my little list. I mean
I could just kind of wing it. I mean I
liked all okay, but you know, actually Maddix Maloney was
probably my favorite one just because I'm I'm kind of
into the idea that of you know, I still want
the shortstop, you know, I'm like the big the big

(21:53):
shortstop guy, and yeah, I mean, you know, just that
he was kind of dominant in his area, didn't have
like the greatest, the great of season. I kind of
liked that they were doing that as well, that they
were kind of hunting for guys who didn't necessarily like
have the monster season and maybe maybe had like a
little wrist injury, maybe had like a little something wrong
that you know, kind of kind of dipped him a little.

(22:15):
And then I was a big kJ Ward guy. I
like Ward, I like Turner okay, but then really it
was like Will Adams was kind of the one where
I was like, Wow, that is not like what I
would expect the Tigers to do. And then the more
I looked into it, the more I was like, oh wow,
this this dude might really really hit.

Speaker 2 (22:30):
So he was.

Speaker 1 (22:32):
He was definitely up there. I mean, I love the
Dunwoody pick. I'm just like, you know, kind of like
what am I doing. I'm protecting myself because I don't
think he's gonna sign. I'm like worried that he want
so yeah, yeah, probably those I mean I really I
really love the Tyler west pick as well. I mean,
those are those are the things I want. Is like
the the super tools, he super young guy as much
as possible, And I really like Tyler Weston more. I

(22:55):
looked into him that night as well.

Speaker 3 (22:58):
Yeah, I would say after doing a little bit of
research today before when I got to work earlier, I
would say I like Jack Johnson a lot. Johnston as
a guy who can come in and kind of contribute
right away. I'm with you. J kJ Ward is just
a beast. I think it's gonna be I think it's
gonna beat There's something there to that. And Will Adams,

(23:19):
like Will Adams is another one that you mentioned, but
uh me obsessed with left handers and when Alencia swing
guy kind of like Samulder set up as a bran herder.
We're talking about this sastory a little bit. Yeah, there's
a lot to like. Like the arms they picked are
really bullpen heavy and I and the the whole focus

(23:40):
with that is and day two at least, but that
is something that I think that's new as far as
like a strategy is concerned, because usually before it be
thet Tigers had them really you know last year starters, right, yeah, Jacobson.
This year is more relievers, and they they maybe they
looked at Double, they looked at Eerie and looked at Toledo.
They were like, and we know that shift for relievers, do.

Speaker 1 (24:01):
We Yeah, it's not like a little bit more like
you know, we're just gonna take. Yeah, we're gonna take
the arms we like, and we're not gonna like freak
out about role.

Speaker 2 (24:10):
You know.

Speaker 1 (24:10):
I mean, I like Michael Lane. You know, he's definitely
got a chance to start pretty nice change up, I thought.
So you know, they still got some like interesting starter
type guys. It was kind of interesting that they went
into Canada a little bit like Zelensky is kind of
like interesting because it's it's weird, like the Canadian prep
players because they they play like such a weird mix
of people, you know, like like there may be like

(24:33):
pro exhibition games that they play. They may play college
teams like it's I don't know, it's interesting and since
no one knows anything about them, you know, I liked
it at least believe that the the Tigers kind of
found something there as well.

Speaker 3 (24:46):
Yeah, the one scattle parts is, uh, you can't go
wrong with that.

Speaker 1 (24:51):
Yeah, doing a great doing a great job against Russia.

Speaker 2 (24:56):
Yeah, there you go. Yeah, I get I get kind
of like Dom Smith tibe from from Adams, which is
it's not the best comp you know when you think
about MLB success, but that was the first round pick
back in the day, Like because he's a lefty who
could hit. He just never got the power. But I think,
you know, you crush your fingers and they can get
the power. For Adams Intermediate, I think it is really

(25:19):
fun too. We'll see what happens there. But you know,
a lefty third baseman who can possibly hit for power.

Speaker 3 (25:26):
Yeah, that projectable, projectable. That's all there is to it.
There's guys that they can work with. So moving on,
let's move on to the let's go the mid season grades.
Let's go. We'll start with the Detroit Tigers, the big
league club, as they had to All Star Break losing
Zach Wheeler was I mean, he was just chopping up.

(25:49):
The Tigers could not the Tigers can do anything against Wheeler.
Wheeler was on point. They had Sanchis in the ropes
a few times, but Wheeler's probably and look, Philly is
PAULI you want. I will say Philly is the best
team I've seen play against the Tigers this year because
they just have guys that they like the trade Turner
like single, like the S and I single we had yesterday,
Like they they know how to hit it, where to

(26:10):
place it. They're they're really good at that. It's a
very professional hitting club. I know that that sounds cliche,
but it's true. Like I thought the Phillies were the
best team that I've seen in American parts of the
season as far as like.

Speaker 1 (26:21):
Just as the lineup feels like like Dodgers light like
you know, they don't quite have the matters, you know
that that the Dodgers have. But everybody there has like
played in the postseason a ton you know, they know
how to get the hit when they need to, They
know how to read a picture and and maybe pick
up something that's coming. And yeah, they kind of showed that.
You know, there was just a little a little bit
of class over over what the Tigers had to offer there.

(26:45):
And then you've got you know, you've got the thing
that Tigers don't have, which is Joan Durham and uh yeah,
excuse me, like pronounced it like go on.

Speaker 2 (26:55):
Dura was like, you know, they took the three from
the A's, which is great, and then they took the
first game from the Phillies and you know what, just
getting one more would have felt awesome, Right, you finished
ten and two in your last twelve game, not that, like,
you know, nine to three is awful. That's kind of
they need to keep doing that. But yeah, it was
a bummer to see them the offense kind of disappear

(27:17):
against two of the best pitchers of baseball. Like you
can't blame them, although, like you said, Sanchez, I think
they had nine hits against him. Yeah, I just couldn't
couldn't make them count. And yeah, we saw, you know,
people were upset about schoobl coming out of the game.
Schooble didn't seem to want to come out of the game.
And but Montero has been so good this year and

(27:39):
schoobl just had just lost a battle, like a ten
to eleven pitch battle to Bryce Harper. And that was
the thing. I think I texted you Rogers. It just
it felt like the Phillies, all their star players showed
up in some capacity or another. You know, Schwarburg in
an RBI hit. I think Harper had did some damage.
Real Muto, even though he's like over the hill, came
up with a big hit twice. Yeah, so yeah, they

(27:59):
showed up. For the Tigers star players, it didn't as much.
And that's just the way it goes sometimes.

Speaker 1 (28:06):
Yeah, And you know, I mean we could read a
lot into it, Like you know, it was Wheeler pissed
about the All Star Game and he just took it
out on us, likele you know, he was extra motivated,
Like I don't, I don't know, but it's just a
good team and you're not gonna you know, you're not
just gonna run the tables on. The Tigers played really well,
you know, from June first on, and they got themselves
back in the conversation now and they're close. But yeah,
it would have felt better going into the All Star

(28:27):
break with a series win rather than a little bit
of a momentum breaker and then while see how it goes,
you know when they get back. So yeah, not the
ideal finished to that, to that series, that's for sure.
And yeah, kier getting kind of cracked for the first
time as a reliever was kind of a drag, you know,
just just just got a little out of rhythm, and
that happens at his start sometimes, but you've got more
more time or like more leache to like figure it out.

(28:49):
And there he just couldn't in time, so and.

Speaker 2 (28:51):
Then the defense kind of fell apart.

Speaker 4 (28:53):
Two.

Speaker 1 (28:54):
Yeah, yeah, we hadn't learned so much of that recently,
but yeah, true.

Speaker 2 (28:57):
Earlier in the year it did happen.

Speaker 3 (28:58):
But yeah, I mean was it like two back off
the mountain right, like one back to the mountain, and
there was like two dribblers right to Montero. As I
recall they came in, I felt like he was kind
of paper.

Speaker 2 (29:11):
There was the one the single against him, I think
right back to him. It was pretty hard and you
know it, I think he had gotten two outs, he
got the big out and then it was he fell
behind too and oh to mute right, Yeah, he bounced.

Speaker 1 (29:23):
Back and struck out Derek Derek Hill and then yeah,
and then real mootto got him for the bases clearing double.
Which yeah, there was a couple of weird plays like
McGonagall kind of getting caught in his back foot like
a little in between hop on one and and you know,
and couldn't get Hill the other day. There was there
was a few like less than stellar defensive plays that

(29:43):
weren't even like a botch or anything. They just they
weren't quite a sharp.

Speaker 2 (29:48):
Yeah, that's that's a great point at me. The kind
of stuff didn't even matter school.

Speaker 1 (29:51):
We didn't hit anything, Yeah they didn't.

Speaker 2 (29:53):
They didn't get any hits, they didn't score at all.
But I just you know, heard people complaining about like,
oh I should have left school in there. It's like, oh,
well yeah or whatever.

Speaker 1 (30:01):
Yeah, that's just that's just something everybody likes to say
every time Schoogle comes out of a game.

Speaker 2 (30:05):
Now, and I think, you know, people want to treat
every game like It'scape seven the World Series, and we
understand these are all very important games to win because
the hole that dug himselves in, but it's still you
don't want to go all out with Google right now.
If either way, if you're gonna go for it in
the second half, you're gonna need him and you need
those extra beginnings and pitches in August and September, or

(30:27):
if you treat them, you don't want to like, you know,
run them out there and hurt them, right.

Speaker 1 (30:31):
So, Yeah, and more than anything, they just probably thought,
you know, just looking at him like he's starting run
out of gas, this isn't the time to you know,
try to push him through a lineup when we have
Kiter fresh and you know most of the bullten fresh.

Speaker 2 (30:43):
Yeah. I saw, Yeah, Adam, I saw a lot of
people upset about it. I think part of it was
because Scoogle himself did not want to come out at
least that's you know, what he looked like and what
he said. But yeah, he's average. I think he's been
up to ninety six pitches this year, right, like, so
it's not He's never been a guy that goes like
one to ten.

Speaker 1 (31:00):
Yeah, like that guy just doesn't exist much anymore.

Speaker 3 (31:05):
Preservation, preservation from the arm whatever you what have you.
But let's start with let's start with position players. It's
sort of like, let's go with the infield. We'll read
them as a group. So I'll start with you. Let's
start with you, Chris, what do you think of the
Tiger's in field as agreed?

Speaker 2 (31:20):
Man? This is tough because like McGonagall himself, like would
give the group at A and when Glabor was healthy,
he was a good solid B. But like you know,
Torque and the labor replacements that whoever's playing shorter or
third when McGonagall isn't there, it feels like a solid C.

Speaker 1 (31:39):
To me, Yeah, at best.

Speaker 3 (31:42):
Yeah, yeah, uh, I would have to agree with that.
I mean I go maybe a B minus because Kevin
McGonagall makes up of it. If it wasn't for Kevin McGonagall,
i'd give the infield a D.

Speaker 1 (31:56):
Yeah. Yeah, I mean I think getting Labor back, you know,
can get them, you know, can get them back to
like maybe to a solid B level for me, because yeah,
you do have McGonagall carrying, but you know, Torkelsen's had
a really disappointing year, Zach McKinstry has started to come
on and and maybe you know, the injury that he
probably came back from a little quickly, you know, took
some time for him that it may be, you know,

(32:18):
I mean, it's not that I think Zach McKinstry is
an average major league hitterer, but he's not nearly as
far from that as as he looked for most of
the season until the last few weeks. So you know,
I they can probably turn that around a little bit.
But yeah, right now, I'm given that group like a
like a c and it's all Kevin McGonagall pretty much.
But having Glaber back there would would really clean things

(32:39):
up for them too. If they could use how you
at third or whoever. I don't know exactly what they're
gonna do when when Glaber comes back. That'll that'll be
kind of an interesting one because I hope that, you know,
we all, I think hope they keep Valencia up just
as like a dedicated hitter. Just you need a hitter somewhere.
So yeah, I don't know, you need the.

Speaker 3 (32:57):
Right handed baton there is he's provided.

Speaker 1 (32:59):
That I would love to get find a left handed
hitting first Baseman for a minute and then just use
Torquas Jamai Jones. But I don't think Labor is gonna
get traded very much because he's because they're not gonna
they're not gonna trade. They're not gonna sell off. I mean,
I don't.

Speaker 2 (33:13):
I don't think that's happening either, unless.

Speaker 1 (33:15):
They let's they get yeah, let's say just absolutely get
skunked out of the break for you know, two or
three weeks into the into the trade deadline there, I'm
still not very I don't think they're gonna trade School,
to be honest. So yeah, I don't see much point
to trade in Clabor Torres for whatever, you know, meager
return you would get back for him.

Speaker 2 (33:33):
Yeah. Yeah, I don't think they're I think they're gonna
go for it. I don't know if they're gonna go
all in.

Speaker 1 (33:41):
Yeah, they might trade somebody.

Speaker 2 (33:43):
Yeah, we'll see.

Speaker 1 (33:45):
Yeah. It's like it feels like they're not gonna go
get anybody, and they're not gonna trade anybody. We're all
gonna be like, okay, okay, white knuckles, white knuckles, are
we gonna do this? But you know, they didn't trade
School before the season and the whole idea is that
we well we were we think we're gonna have schoobl
the postseason, we're gonna win something. Well, nothing's changed from
that calculation. Now, you know, you'd love it if they

(34:06):
were in first place in the division and felt like
a lock, you know, you know, to get in. But
you know, I mean they made they kind of made
this decision before the season. So unless they you know,
shoot themselves on the foot and our way out of
it again, I don't think that's gonna happen.

Speaker 3 (34:19):
It is a it seems like a foregone conclusion. People
keep saying that. Then he's like and then they're like, well.

Speaker 4 (34:24):
He's saying that if you want to sign here already,
you would sign because you know, he says he wants
the Tigers will get aggressive.

Speaker 3 (34:31):
Maybe he's just saying those things. I mean, that's what
he really believes.

Speaker 1 (34:34):
I don't, Yeah, I mean, Terrek's not sitting here thinking
about like his contract and long term. He's like, I'm
in the season. You know, I'm a player. I'm just
focused on what I'm trying to do and trying to win.
You know, when he said something nice about Fluky and
everybody was like, oh, well, you're not gonna be here anyway,
you know, And it was like, look, he doesn't care,
he's not thinking about that. He's just like, oh yeah,
looks good. Looks the kid looks good. You know. Everybody's
like reading the tea leaves here, and it's like, I know,

(34:56):
I think it's glaringly obvious, like the situation that unless
they you know, they really fall apart here, they're not
going to trade them because they didn't trade them in
the off season and they don't want to trade them.
And I bet Scott Harris's kind of scared to trade
him because if it doesn't work out, like now you're
Alavila and you know with the JD trade and everyone
hates you.

Speaker 3 (35:13):
So I don't know.

Speaker 1 (35:15):
I mean, it's kind of a gutless, you know, position
to take, if that's kind of how they feel about it.
But you know, they should have traded them in the
off season if they were gonna if they were really
you know, thinking long term and not just like we're
going to try to do it this year and see
what happens after that. We'll figure it out.

Speaker 2 (35:29):
And there's always the chance that you trade them and
then you face them with the Pushyason like yeah, yeah, yeah, no,
I think yeah weird, like fans like these are these
professional athletes have a different ability to compartmentalize than I
think the rest of us. Yeah, I think Scoople could
actually think about this season and wanting to win this

(35:49):
season and wanted to go all in this season and
not think about what's going on. I'm sure it's a
separate thing in his head, but like it's not the
way it's not there the way it is for us.

Speaker 1 (36:00):
I mean, we would we would be trading. I think
all three of us would be thinking, like, I'm still
gonna trade Daring School and we're gonna try to get
pieces that help us win, you know, with him gone
this year and in the long term. I mean I think,
I you know, that's you know, that's just kind of
the reasonable approach I think.

Speaker 2 (36:14):
But it feels like they want.

Speaker 1 (36:16):
To do it. It does, Yeah, it really does. I mean,
what if we just trade I mean seriously, like there's
no reason for the Padres to do this, But even
if he traded Schooble for Mason Miller like that, you're
probably just as good this year or you know, in
turn in the in the ways that really matter, and
then you have the game's best closer for two more years,
you know, But I don't. I don't. I just don't
know if they see it that way. There's just not

(36:37):
the same viewpoint up there on High I don't think.

Speaker 3 (36:40):
Look at Steve Phelips playing up to the New York
media with talking Joel Sherman and John Iman. If I'm saying, Diego,
I consider trading me some Miller to the Yankees, of
course he would, right right.

Speaker 1 (36:52):
It's all about getting We got to make the Yankees
and Dodgers as good as possible, right Like, That's that's
what the entire national media is about. That's their job.
As they're good to.

Speaker 3 (37:02):
Michael's. He says Chris, I was just seeing the schoobl
was saying that in a schoobl and carpormentalize a buddy
of mine earlier tonight.

Speaker 1 (37:09):
Yeah, they just all do though you know they don't.
They don't get ahead of themselves. Like you know, Tark
School is a creature of routine. During the season, he
wakes up, you know, he works out, he drinks his coffee,
he thinks about winning, He hangs out with his teammates.
He's not sitting there like, oh, what are the Tigers
gonna look like in twenty twenty six and twenty seven?
And then what is what is Cameron Flukey' stuff? You know,
he's not really breaking it all down. And of course

(37:31):
he's gonna say he doesn't want to be traded because
like you can't say you, I mean, if you want
if you I mean, it's that's just cut and dry.
Like if you say you want to be traded, then
they have to trade you. The whole fan base hate you,
like the whole thing goes to health. There's no reason
to say that. Yeah, yeah, don't you don't want to
be Dylan Larkin right now? You know, maybe maybe Dylan
Larkin will like where he is next year instead better anyway,

(37:53):
But for right now, that's a that's a bad spot
for homegrown. Homegrown dude, Like, yeah, you can't go back
to water for bro, Yeah, they take you up to
the empty summit place mall if it's still there, I
don't telegraph and.

Speaker 3 (38:08):
Yeah like that, yeah that whole area. Yeah, no, that's yeah,
that's a great point. Like maybe looked at the dark
Dylan Arkin situation. I was just like, bro, what the
hell are you doing?

Speaker 2 (38:20):
Man?

Speaker 3 (38:20):
Like that was the whole thing, don't. That's a whole
different subject altogether. Let's continue on real quick with the
outfield though. The outfield, I'm gonna give the I'm actually
gonna give it a I'm gonna give it a bee
only because rather greed is probably a big part of it.
Even with center field not being situated the Tiger's defense,
even though James Outlaw can't really outman, can't really hit

(38:44):
to save his life, consistently, he has been very good
defensively in center field. That was I'm not gonna lie.
I've actually come around to that a little bit. So
I think he helps her great come up a little
bit to a bee.

Speaker 1 (38:55):
I think it will help it come up to a
bee like the rest of the way. But you know,
because they had veerling and everything and out there so much,
and you know, Wenzel, I mean in the first you know,
if we're grading the first half, it sucked. You know,
I think we were the worst defensive outfield in baseball,
or like very close. And that's the problem. I mean,
you know, Riley Green obviously brings it back up and

(39:16):
carry Carpenter got hurt, and that really really hurt them.
They really needed that bat. But you know, in in
June he was good, and in in April he was
still hitting you know, some some degree. So I won't
I won't give him like a an F for a
or maybe even a D. But like it's like a
pretty soft CE for me because the defense.

Speaker 2 (39:35):
Yeah, I was thinking somewhere between C plus and B
minus range because Riley green Is is really he is
a great hitter. Like we it feels like he's down
a little bit this year and it's like a one
thirty six WRC plus or whatever. It's like, Okay, well
he's still very good.

Speaker 4 (39:49):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (39:49):
Incan Carpenter can be a very key player at the time,
but you hit on it. Like everybody else has been
kind of a disaster at least for stretches, really hasn't
done much anything. Winsill had that just terrible, terrible start,
but it finally started hit for power at the very
end before he got hurt by the exercise band and
an it has been a pleasant surprise. You know, this

(40:10):
is a guy who's but this is the sort of
thing you get, like this is the Jake Marisnik you know,
run for a month or two and then it all
comes crashing down.

Speaker 1 (40:19):
Yeah, but it's a different profile. But he's kind of
given you what what you want from Parker metals, like
not as much defense, but but when he runs into one,
you know, he hits the hell out of the ball.

Speaker 2 (40:28):
And yeah, so yeah, I think i'd go seek bless.

Speaker 1 (40:32):
Yeah, I would like to. I don't know. I guess
we'll get to this later. But you know, the more
I think about it, the more I'm thinking, I really
want Max up for the postseason or like before the postseason,
just for the contact, Like I did, you know, they're
gonna need someone who can put the dang ball and
play and run. So I hope maybe they'll think differently
than they did about McGonagall last year, just because Max
has had, you know, all this time in Triple A

(40:54):
to kind of get ready. I do hope we'll get
to see him.

Speaker 2 (40:57):
I would think they would. And also I mean, yeah,
if you think about just like you said that that's
the contact and the the ability to draw a walk.
You put him in labor back in the lineup every day,
and it's suddenly it's a lot longer the line Its
like and this is like I put Clark Knight or whatever, right, yes,
let him do whatever he needs to. And you know,
we've seen him. It's taken him a while to find

(41:18):
the level or find you know, the ground at deeps level.
And I'm sure it'll take a long time with the
big leagues, but he'll be still has Yeah, he still
has the He's not going to go up there and
strike out, you know, sixty percent of the time. He's
gonna work at bats and put you know, slap the
ball up play and do his thing. So that's not
a bad idea at all. I don't know, we can
we can, we can go to catcher a real quick right.

Speaker 1 (41:39):
Because A plus a plus, Yeah, don't the man.

Speaker 2 (41:42):
I mean, Dingler is outstanding. And you know, Jake Rodgers
has come through in a big way when he was
you know, and he he was pressed into duty. He
did the job, and valency has come up and uh,
you know, catching itself is but the bat, the bat
has been very helpful.

Speaker 1 (41:58):
Yeah, yeah, that's a yeah, that's a good point. I
wasn't even gonna probably wasn't even gonna mention Eduardo because
I'm just thinking d H. But yeah, I mean, you know,
to have him there as at least an option and
he didn't look bad behind the plate. You know, he
definitely looked, you know, decidedly, you know, like a not
ideal backup catcher. And then there's the throwing, and the
throwing you know is still obviously, you know, not not

(42:20):
real great, and you know he did he certainly looks
like a guy who could get into better shape maybe
and and kind of hasn't, but he but he's pretty hitterish,
so you know, I guess, well we'll just take that.
But yeah, shout out to Jake Rogers, you know, Dylan,
Dylan just you know, carrying the team the whole, the
whole first half. And then finally he misses a couple
of games and Jake Rodgers like comes out. It's like, oh,
I can do all that for a minute. Yeah, hit

(42:42):
a couple of bans.

Speaker 2 (42:43):
Reach based like eight straight played appearances or or something
like that. That's ridiculous. Yeah, what do we have left?
I guess we can go starting.

Speaker 1 (42:50):
Pitching, yep, or we could go I don't know, is
there a bench, I don't know, whatever does this go
to starting pitching? And I think we can go I'll
go a I'll say A not maybe not plus, but
A I was.

Speaker 2 (43:02):
Gonna Yeah, I was gonna go be plus. I think
there was that stretch. I mean maybe I should go
a minus because you know how how injured and how
banged up they were and how they stayed to get
like honestly, you look at they're the like seven deep, right, Yeah,
with the and Flaherty was the worst starter for a
while and he's been pretty good for like six weeks.

(43:22):
And from Ber probably has the lowest DRA I think
he might, I mean the highest era I.

Speaker 1 (43:27):
Think so, yeah, yeah, be cau Scooba is back under
under three, you know again for sure, and Melton.

Speaker 2 (43:33):
And Montero have come through in a big way. You know,
Mine's had a rough outing in his last start, but
he's been nailed whenever he's healthy. So yeah, I mean
it's it's one of the best pitching starting rotations in baseball.
It's got to be top ten, maybe top five, I
think it's. Yeah, I think they're top three by fifth
and six by e Ra. So so there you go.

Speaker 1 (43:49):
Yeah, so they're up there. And yeah, even when they
needed Taime in, you know, and it just you know,
he came out and give you a couple of solid
short outings and they just they seem to be really
good at that, you know, so they have emphasise relievers
in the draft, but I guess whatever, because they seem
to be able to get like a halfway decent start
out of just about anybody with three pitches better is
pretty darn good at coming up with a game plan

(44:09):
with with anything you've got to go through an order twice,
it seems like. So yeah, overall, that's that's been the
kind of the thing that's held them together, although it's
still didn't do enough in me, Like they they were
losing three to two, you know whatever.

Speaker 2 (44:24):
Only so much you can do when your offense disappears
and your bullpen our final grade, I guess with complete
garbage water for that, at least for that stretch. Now,
if you look at them, I think their eras like
the middle of the pack. Yep. I still think it's
like a it's like a hard D for this. Wait
a minute, that sounds funny.

Speaker 1 (44:44):
It's a It's a not a throbbing D. It's just
a regular it's.

Speaker 2 (44:48):
A bad D. Yeah, just just like you know, I
look at it. I think they're number two in the
most meltdowns, but they're they have the second few shutdowns,
like they're they're the Tigers are winning, they're usually doing
it by like more than three or four runs, and
when they're losing, it's because the bullpens.

Speaker 3 (45:07):
Just yeah, it's a hard d.

Speaker 2 (45:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (45:10):
Yeah, there's no no way around it, no way around
that hard d.

Speaker 3 (45:13):
The bullpen. Yeah you guys. Would you guys get the
starting staff?

Speaker 2 (45:17):
Hey yeah.

Speaker 1 (45:20):
Yeah, absolutely, Catcher obviously a plus.

Speaker 3 (45:25):
Yeah, the uh as far as like, uh, I was.

Speaker 1 (45:30):
Just gonna say, but like, well we should, we should
get your your bullpen greed. But what I was gonna
say about it is that the it's kind of a
you know, they're giving us a classic example because like
e RA and FIP are like, oh, your bullpen's you know,
your bullpen's fine, Like it's not not one of the
better ones, but it's you know, middle of the packer
a little bit better than that. But that's just not
what matters, you know, fundamentally, it's like, how do you
protect leads? We don't care that when you're down for

(45:52):
your you know, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, guys are pretty
good at only giving up one run for three or
four innings. You know, it's a it's a very It's
just the trickiest part of any team to to put
together and to evaluate both. So now, but when you're
not saving saving leads and holding close games close, you suck.

Speaker 2 (46:12):
So they kind of do the second worst when probably
added of any bullpen in baseball, ahead of only the Angels.

Speaker 1 (46:19):
That's the that's the one. You look at that and
like maybe are twenty four or something, and you can
probably get a pretty good idea of Yeah, how they
how they've dealt with the actual situations they're in.

Speaker 3 (46:31):
Oh really, Oh wow, that's actually better anticipated that feel
surprise me. Look, I'll give the bullpen a D because
I don't feel secure when any like past theeth inning.
Although you got to give credit to them signing Chacob
what's his face, I can't, Yeah, has been pretty mudstpac

(46:51):
has been pretty good. We talked to est of to
day about the he doesn't have surgery now has been
frustrating for him. He started from the beginning of the
year with it, so I mean he's been struggling with it.

Speaker 4 (47:01):
So uh.

Speaker 1 (47:03):
I mean, obviously Kenley has been you know, prone to
blowing up in your face and that's been a problem.
But Drew Anderson wasn't a bad signing. I think at
this point we can say that, like he's fine. He
has the stuff to you know, to be pretty good
in the back end. He's just still had a little
bit of a tendency to be inconsistent under pressure, and
maybe that maybe that's just you know, struggling to throw

(47:23):
the breaking ball that's relatively new and you know, and
the kick change like can can look like, you know,
just a god teer. You know, Devin Williams quality change
up a lot of the time, and then it just
seems like at the wrong moments, you know, he'll have
one slip and it's just a batting practice fastball. So yeah,
maybe he'll get better, maybe he needs more experience with that,
but has not gone well for sure.

Speaker 3 (47:46):
No, So as far as transactions goes, we'll go through
these slices pretty quickly here. So Jake Miller signed the
Eerie from West Michigan only to go back in the aisle.
So that's not good. But Joe Miller is coming back,
He's going back in the rehab, so it's a good thing.
And then I was a Tanner went back in the aisle, right, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (48:09):
Well, he loved the game with the trainer. They haven't
put him on the aisle yet. That was so both
Bali Tanner and Caleb Lee came back in the same
game and both of them. Lee's's velocity was down two
to three miles an hour across the board, and Tanner
came out throwing ninety five ninety six and at like
his thirteen fourteenth pitch it was ninety and so they

(48:29):
took him out.

Speaker 3 (48:30):
Oh but Jack, Joe, we scored the sendings today, so
there's there's that trouble there. Yeah, no, yeah, I think
thank the Lord, you know, lots of strikes. Yeah's strikes.
So Job is ripping more to come back.

Speaker 1 (48:46):
H So I wonder if they talked to Job about
about pitching out of the bullpen the rest of the
year and not. I wonder if that's even been a capa.

Speaker 3 (48:53):
I liked that idea, Brandon, that's my I think that
Jove should pitch out of the bullpen. If they're a contention,
pitch them out of the bull and just gave him
my rep.

Speaker 2 (49:02):
You know, I don't know if either of you watched
like his full outings, like it's full Lakeland or Dunedin
wherever it was, No he had his any language was
pretty awful and it but like not like it just
looked like he was pissed off.

Speaker 1 (49:21):
Oh yeah, yeah, just pissed out himself.

Speaker 2 (49:22):
Maybe, yeah, Like I don't like, I don't know, it's
hard to explain. I was like, he just looks not
like he was firing the ball and you know, throwing
nothing but strikes and giving up hits and getting foul
balls and stuff, and he just he just seemed angry.

Speaker 3 (49:36):
I was like, all right, yeah, maybe because because if
you think about it, Christ he did see him throwing
in Lakeland earlier in the spring, So maybe that's what
he's just eager to get back.

Speaker 1 (49:45):
Already at this point, he probably is tired and fed up,
but he kind of pitches like that anyway, Like you know,
he's he's always kind of had a little bit like
you know, some people don't like that body language. Some
people like me a little bit. It's more like he's
pissed and he's fiery, but it can also you know,
kind of kind of look down trodden and like I
can't get these guys out. You know, I'm throwing my

(50:05):
best stuff and it's not working. You kind of take
take that either way a little.

Speaker 3 (50:08):
Bit, Adam, there's no there's no real there's no reason
to feel stupid about it. It's it's perfectly fine because yeah,
we don't don't.

Speaker 1 (50:17):
Talk about Florida State League very often.

Speaker 3 (50:18):
Yeah, yeah, so you don't feel super about it because
quite frankly, the way the baseball did that anyways, I
mean they used to call it the there was a
distinctive difference before in baseball now, so lazy they came,
and it was.

Speaker 2 (50:31):
With the Gulf Coast League. I don't know why they decided.
I don't know, it's got to be league like what,
all right?

Speaker 1 (50:37):
Yeah, but no one mentions the International League, you know,
no one, no one. We say Triple A, we say
Double A, and not the Eastern League. So yeah, don't don't.
Don't kick yourself too much for that.

Speaker 3 (50:48):
Yeah, leaves don't matter to the baseball that much anymore.
Traditions and stuff like that, considering the Eastern League has
been around for almost over one hundred years now.

Speaker 1 (50:55):
Yeah, the Eastern League as old as dirt.

Speaker 3 (50:58):
Yeah so actually I think them in the York Penley
were the two oldest. I know that it's not technically
around anymore. So, but yeah, Eastern League has been around
for a very very long time, so Taledo this week
is kind of light in terms of pitching wise, there's
not too much to say offensively speaking, same thing as
kind of like I like, Clark's doing his thing. He's

(51:21):
got the home run, so that's good. But Brett Callahan, man,
I'm it's you know, Darko was high on Callahan and
he remember this is when he was injured, right around
the time before he got injured West Michigan, and we
were just saying, like, how you know, watch out for Callahan.
He was talking about the swing and we're like, I
don't know, swing looks a little violent, and he's saying
but he continues to just continuse the rake man and

(51:46):
the walk rate to strake out numbers are pretty good.
He's he's handling triple a better than I think people
get him credibly anticipated.

Speaker 1 (51:54):
Yeah, he's got to put out or two already from
the outfield, has a couple of stolen bases. Seems to like, well,
it's been so it's a short sample. So like, I
won't make any grandiose statements even though I want to,
but it does kind of look to me like he's
trying to hit a little bit more and not not
selling out one hundred percent. Like maybe maybe there's some
thought to you know, a little more of a two

(52:16):
strike approach and maybe, you know, maybe taking his hits
where they are a little bit more. But we'll see
if that actually pans up.

Speaker 2 (52:23):
And I think I think both the Clark's homers came
up with lepti and at least one of them did.

Speaker 1 (52:27):
Yeah, yeah, at least that one that he torched, you know,
down the line, right, So yeah, but yeah, good to
see him hitting a few homers, and you know it
just he's fine. He's just not breaking out yet still,
you know, so we're all just kind of kind of waiting.
We were kind of talking about I don't know, Rose
just might have been when you were away, but we
were just talking about Clark and you know, whether you
would want to use him down the stretch instead of outman,

(52:50):
you know, like, you know, if you wanted to you know,
if do you want outman in the postseason or do
you want to call Clark up in September and let
him get comfortable and he plays center field for you
in the postseason.

Speaker 3 (52:58):
It's almost the same question. It's the same exact question
we got about the McGonagall last year, if it give
him that postseason experience.

Speaker 1 (53:05):
And.

Speaker 3 (53:07):
I'd rather go with Outman because Almen can surprise you.
I mean, he can hit a occasional double, he can
run into a home run or anything. And I just
feel like that's a lot of pressure for Max Clark
to I mean, if the Tigers were in a like,
in a more comfortable position where they're sitting in the
division lead, that'll be one thing that you know, like

(53:30):
I think that like I'd rather go with Outman. I
mean honestly because he has more experience and you want
that kind of like because imagine Clark messing up something
in the postseason the cost of Tigers win and never
never ever let it down and and so honestly, that's
a lot of pressure for the kids like that. It
can handle anything, you know. But Premier Shave says, my

(53:52):
mawkee buddy thinks down coming walkout is the reason why
a SU's made and players like Clark and not get
called up.

Speaker 2 (54:02):
I mean, I think you know, with Clark, he's not ready.
Neither Clark or my Day are ready. Yeah, my day
is fine. He's like an eighteen year old in double A.

Speaker 1 (54:16):
Yeah, he's not really I'm on the table. I mean
Clark is a lot more like you know, I mean
he's polished more defensively and you know, kind of knows
what he's doing to a greater extent in my day.

Speaker 2 (54:27):
Yeah, in I don't know, like where's my day playing
in Milwaukee. They're they're pretty good team.

Speaker 1 (54:33):
That's true too, they don't So it's pressing.

Speaker 2 (54:36):
If you waited this long and you do plan on
bringing him up, bring him up halfway through August, and
then they keep the rooky eligibility. It's like it's not
you're talking about like another a month tops.

Speaker 1 (54:46):
So yeah, yeah, I mean that's definitely not why they're
not up. It's not impossible that that could be why
they don't get called up late, you know, for for
whatever reason. But yeah, I don't think Maday is necessarily
pushing the eye. I think, like for me with Clark,
it's just that I think in the postseason we saw
kind of what happens last year when you're just striking

(55:06):
out way too much, like you know, you just have
too many guys in your lineup that are just a
quick one, two, three and outman is absolutely that guy.
So I don't know, I don't know quite what I
think about that. It's a it's a good argument because
he outman does have a lot of experience, you know,
he's he's played on some big teams, and maybe he'd
be more comfortable in the outfield that way. But all
you have to tell like, as long as Clark is

(55:28):
like not trying to do something too crazy, you know,
I think he's a better outfielder than than outman personally,
but but he's still younger and less mature and more
likely to like you know, rush something, trying to make
it throw somewhere and dropping the ball and you know,
those kind of things are probably still more prominent for him.
But I don't know, I don't know. We'll see how

(55:49):
it plays out over the next month, I guess.

Speaker 3 (55:51):
You know, here's the thing too, an idea for the
trade deadline is they go get a better at outfielder
to kind of supplement that a little bit.

Speaker 1 (55:58):
It wouldn't hurt to go find themselves. Ben Aljeri in
a you know, experienced hitter, like just something like that.

Speaker 3 (56:04):
You know, Yeah, Jim Beller said, I like Callahanson spring
training kids hits the ball hard. Yeah, I remember those.

Speaker 2 (56:10):
He has some move shots in the spring he did
show at bats that hit the ball one hundred twelve
miles an hour like every time.

Speaker 1 (56:16):
Who yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that was a fun fund spring.
I think all of the Callahan stands were validated to
some degree by that by that performance. And I wasn't
really a big Peck guy, but Peck was the other
one who obviously, like you know, kind of opened my
eyes in spring camp too. I like that a j.

Speaker 3 (56:33):
Yeah, that's a good idea, right headed center fielder.

Speaker 1 (56:36):
Yeah, that'd be nice. Yeah, Garrek Hill.

Speaker 3 (56:40):
Ironic if they bring back Derek kill and.

Speaker 1 (56:42):
Some playing center field.

Speaker 2 (56:45):
He just got caught back up to the Braves.

Speaker 1 (56:47):
Yeah, oh yeah, you know, I think you're right. I
think it was the Brave. So he's not really available.

Speaker 3 (56:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (56:53):
But uh, and well we'll just have to put up with,
you know, Matt Verling doing whatever it is Matt Vieling
does with that's way.

Speaker 3 (57:02):
Mike Trout's pipe TREAMJ. But I do like, you know,
he still stricks a lot. Jose Series. That's not bad
idea either, Todd, Yeah, strike out, like.

Speaker 1 (57:09):
It's like, oh yeah, it's very outman. Then Okay, he's
always been.

Speaker 2 (57:17):
He's one of those guys that was only good like
for a brief time on the Rays because that's how
they do it.

Speaker 1 (57:22):
Look, yeah he's joking.

Speaker 3 (57:25):
Yeah, I know he's joking. But like, imagine the Angels.
Could you see the Angels do something like that? Yes,
actually you know what though AJ looks this is the Angels,
this is Mike Trout on the like, the Angels are
a really dumb organization. Sorry, but they are joking or
not they would entertain it like I you could be

(57:45):
I know you're joking, but again, just a team that
like is dysfunctional city. So they actually for once to
not fit the draft profile. They didn't go and go
crazy and draft the guy that was going to quickly
move up their board.

Speaker 4 (57:58):
So U.

Speaker 1 (58:00):
We can't just talk about the Angels aposente. But they
met as a curious situation for like Mozillaic to like
take over right before the drink. Interesting. I wonder if
he's gonna get the job or not, Like you would
assume they would have just made him. I mean, who
are they gonna get you know that's necessarily better probably nobody.
They should just should have just put him in there.

Speaker 3 (58:19):
Yeah, let's move on to eerie. The what happened to
the cap?

Speaker 2 (58:24):
I missed that, yes, Chris, So I was gonna clip it,
and I was clipping it and gonna put it up
and then I walk off win. So I did that instead. Uh,
there was there were two outs in the ninth and
they were up two to one, and there was a
weak little grounder at a third base and it was
like Exposito was right and there was a run on
second running to third, and they like basically ran into

(58:47):
each other and that allowed the run to score and
tie the game. And you know, the argument was like, oh,
he didn't let him into the ball and all that stuff,
and then kept Kelly. He gave him an earful. They met,
they decided no, he was safe, and then so yeah
he got his He yelled a bunch and then left.

Speaker 3 (59:05):
Hum hm, I would love the Angels would have been
seems draft.

Speaker 2 (59:10):
DJ former Clemson quarterback. I think, yeah, but uh, yes,
soap up situation.

Speaker 3 (59:20):
The uh uh Hayden didn't seems like he's been adjusting
pretty well near you.

Speaker 2 (59:26):
Yeah, I can't say that I watched that outing, but
you know, he's you know, he's he's always reminded me
of Garrett Burghen, and he's doing like Garrett Burgen stuff, got.

Speaker 1 (59:35):
A good slider. You know, it's not a whole lot
else to love, but yeah, you know he's he's still
getting whiffs there. So but yeah, it's like, is he
probably I mean, he's not really that much of a
prospect either way, really, but you know, if he got
a little bit of a blow boost, yeah maybe he's
maybe he's a reliever. But but yeah, in a short start,
he's he's been pretty effective.

Speaker 3 (59:55):
There was mentioned Brandon Bass earlier. We're talking about the
draft U alliterations because the Suger's drafted a couple of
guys with a seam you know, last name.

Speaker 1 (01:00:08):
Yeah, there was a lot. Yeah, it actually seemed like
there was quite a lot of them.

Speaker 2 (01:00:11):
Yeah, Yeah, reminded me of the old la you know,
Matt Manning, Bow Burrows, Jace Young, Jackson, Joe of all
the alliteration and then bad bass.

Speaker 1 (01:00:21):
Of course, we got Jeed Johnston. We had dustin Dunwoody.

Speaker 3 (01:00:27):
Untill I forgot about the bass was in West Michigan.
I remember, I think we watched one start of his
and we I think, I don't know, I just feel
like that was.

Speaker 2 (01:00:36):
A maybe yeah, yeah, those are the dark days after that, Like, yeah,
that's what I was talking about later in the draft
from like you know, eighteen to twenty two, but that
was it was too late at that point.

Speaker 3 (01:00:51):
Excuse me, but anything else you wanted to highlight Eerie.

Speaker 2 (01:00:53):
Chris not really it was it was you know, pretty yeah.
They were at such a crazy hot start and then
Harrisburg won the first three games, Like what the hell
going on? Hairspring to come back and split?

Speaker 1 (01:01:05):
So yeah, some of the new guys like Pennington's looked
fine there, Patrick le has done a few done a
few things and not like overwhelmed, but they're missing Pacheco
right now. There's there's not really a big power threat there,
but effective anyway lately.

Speaker 3 (01:01:21):
Especially but like, but Hairspring for whatever reason, always like
they were talking about that too in Akron for for
what a reason? I was talk about that was act
that Akron definitely has an acron but the Harrisburg has
the thing. It was a ee yeah, it was mam
if weekend over. By the way, thank you again to
the merch Shop and Eerie for uh streaming the podcast
on Saturday. That was pretty cool cool.

Speaker 2 (01:01:44):
I think there was an occasional square where that got
through on our podcast too, so hopefully somebody wasn't in
the store by shopping with their kids.

Speaker 3 (01:01:50):
Yeah, you know, and we didn't see anything super offensive,
so uh but West Michigan, the rotation is finally the
notations coming together nicely.

Speaker 1 (01:01:58):
Chris.

Speaker 2 (01:01:58):
Yeah, suddenly that's the the most exciting rotation in the system.
It's like there's three really fun young pictures and you know,
when Jacobson's going well, he's among the best in the system.
And Ali Salt we talked last week. Allosolt's been on
a roll going on close to two months now. He
seems to figure it out. And Johnie Christensen, you know,
had the one rough start and it's like nine innings

(01:02:20):
in one run in his last two outings, so very fun.

Speaker 1 (01:02:23):
Yeah, Christensen has been pretty exciting overall, Alas doesn't seem
like he's throwing any harder though still, you know, like
there was kind of some some ticks in the spring,
and then it seems like he's kind of back like
ninety one ninety three for the most part. But but
you know, settled in and commanding everything well now, which
is kind of all that's required, but of course we're

(01:02:44):
hoping for that, that little hop that will make him
a pretty viable major league starter potentially.

Speaker 2 (01:02:49):
So yeah, we need to get out there and get
the gun on these guys because you know, West Michigan
doesn't have the VLO and we had alla salt in
the spring because have done on him there. But yeah,
you know, if he dial it back a little bit
to pitch like he did last year and then still
has maybe he can ramp up every now and then
if he needs it, that would that's fine too. So
as long as it's there, yep.

Speaker 3 (01:03:12):
But yeah, we're gonna be out there Friday. I'm gonna
be out there Friday for the middle. They played Great
Lakes Loots on Friday, So Kyle Severer apparently is going
after in the home onn Derby to no surprise anybody.

Speaker 1 (01:03:23):
As he should. Yeah, did they get rid of the timer?
That's what I heard.

Speaker 2 (01:03:27):
Yeah, this year it's I think it's ten outs.

Speaker 1 (01:03:29):
Right, Oh okay, all right, well that's not too bad
a way to do it. But I was like, oh
my god, this is gonna be. That's gonna I feel
like the old days. So this thing just goes on
and on, and they're just like taking pitches and yeah,
it's you know.

Speaker 2 (01:03:43):
It's interesting. You know, Bryce Rainer last week had had
one of those games, like one of those games were like, what,
what's the best Tigers prospect game we've seen? Because it
was five or five with a homer, two doubles, six RBIs.
I think every ball was hit one hundred nine miles
an hour harder. Yeah, but then the rest of the
base just kind of iffy if he just wasn't you.

Speaker 1 (01:04:03):
Know, it wasn't that, but he had a couple of
key hits at least. But yeah, but that's not a
game where he took over at all, that's for sure.

Speaker 2 (01:04:12):
Yeah, it's still still capable of doing ridiculous stuff. And
people have said like, yeah, the you know, it's it's
Rainer the guy and the Tiger system. For Harmon Derby. Maybe,
you know, Percegno did a home run derby in the
ANFL and I don't think he hit a single home
run because he's not that kind of hitter's power.

Speaker 1 (01:04:32):
Yeah, the checko would be perfect maybe.

Speaker 2 (01:04:34):
Or Loronzo if he could ever get to the big league.

Speaker 1 (01:04:37):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's one.

Speaker 3 (01:04:39):
There's again, there's one guy out on Twitter that hate
some of the passion.

Speaker 2 (01:04:42):
I'm you know, Acony and Zach MacDonald. It would be
kind of fun to have a system home run derby
and see who would win, because that would be fun. Yeah,
let's see if we can get the Tigers to do that.

Speaker 1 (01:04:54):
You know what.

Speaker 3 (01:04:55):
Look, I would be all for that. I would love
to see just you know what, though, it would have
to be a West Michigan is. That's to be a
true challenge of like, you.

Speaker 1 (01:05:02):
Know what, yeah, you know what, it would would They
would never do this, of course, but you know, like
when all the minor league seasons wrap up, to have
them like do that like before a game at Comerica
would be super good.

Speaker 3 (01:05:13):
That's a great idea. Man, oh man, can you can
you imagine?

Speaker 1 (01:05:16):
You could?

Speaker 3 (01:05:16):
You could definitely sell it, you can. Here's the things like.

Speaker 1 (01:05:19):
Two guys from each level, you know, on teams going
at each other or something.

Speaker 3 (01:05:23):
Yeah, like you could because Toledo's so nearby, so you
could do do you can get one ends you get
West Michigan. Erie is only four hours away.

Speaker 1 (01:05:32):
Yeah, those guys in a hydroplane buzz it right over
Lake Erie.

Speaker 2 (01:05:37):
Points is Underdog. You can get you can get the
guys too. There's some guys down there like Christie Presk.

Speaker 3 (01:05:44):
Yeah, yeah, that.

Speaker 1 (01:05:47):
Could be interesting.

Speaker 3 (01:05:48):
Yeah, that's a great No, Michael, I agree that that's
a great idea because then then, yeah, we'll have to
bring it up to.

Speaker 1 (01:05:57):
Yeah nobody, you know, I don't. I've seen all the
in the major leagues hit hit home runs before. Like
seeing him hit a whole bunch of them, isn't It
doesn't mean that much to me when when you see
like you know, like the kids like absolutely mashing, you're
you know, that's gonna stand out to you as a
way to like, you know, get people on your on
your prospects and you know, get excited about them. But yeah,
I'm sure that's too much fun for the Tigers to
contemplate doing and probably.

Speaker 2 (01:06:18):
Too much work, to too much risk of injury probably yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:06:22):
Yeah, maybe maybe, Yeah, that's what I said the end
of the year. But yeah, but yeah, then they got
to bring everybody there, and yeah, it's a whole it's
a whole thing. Easy for me to say, Hey, Tigers
put on this huge event.

Speaker 3 (01:06:32):
Also at the same time too, like who's that? Who
was it to slid over the weekend Chris that there's
somebody that slid it slid back to first that hurt
their angle.

Speaker 2 (01:06:44):
Jude Warwick, he was, he was fine. He stayed in
the game, so it wasn't. Yeah, but I thought I
thought it happened today too. In in the DSL. It
looked like edwardo tuson and slid back in a second
and got hurt. He was like the trainers came out
there and everything, and then like after a minute half
he just jumped up and he was fine. So I
don't know. And then Samuel has a three one walk off.

Speaker 1 (01:07:04):
Yeah, stinger, I guess maybe. Yeah, Yeah, Hobby kind of
did some you know, some weird Yeah, those bases are dangerous, man,
I'll tear you up.

Speaker 3 (01:07:14):
Yeah, that Obias Andrews still sticks in my head every time.

Speaker 1 (01:07:17):
It's great to see him hitting because yeah, I mean
like at the time I really thought like, oh, that's
a season ending knee injury when he when he folded
that thing back. But yeah, yeah he's hitting. He and
Glabors are both working their way back and probably ready
by the end of the month. I would assume.

Speaker 3 (01:07:32):
Yeah, dude, if old timers came, yeah you ye, he's
the only team that does that, right.

Speaker 1 (01:07:37):
Talk about your liability though, ninety degree heat, I'm gonna
send a bunch of forty five fifty sixty year old
dudes out there. They don't want that, but it would
be fun. Yeah, about to see Peach Peaches out there
dealing again.

Speaker 3 (01:07:49):
You know, they would go for it. There's so many
guys in the media that could do it, so I mean.

Speaker 1 (01:07:53):
Yeah, Dirks, Dirk's actually is the right age, you know,
like not not destroy himself too much. You know, you
can have him in a vealaer.

Speaker 2 (01:08:00):
Dudes Ajax and yeah, hell Berlin is still playing.

Speaker 1 (01:08:04):
Yeah, actually that would be fun. And yeah, you know,
I bet jd can go out there and pitch well
for like a couple of innings. The problem is he
just can't recover the next day and then come back
to the bench in four days.

Speaker 2 (01:08:13):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:08:13):
It sounds like, you know, when Berlander is throwing like
he's he's still got ninety five ninety six and can
snap everything off. It's just you know, can't do it
and then do it again, you know, a couple of
days later. It's like me when I played you know,
long cast with somebody, I still got it, but if
I did it, like, you know, more than four days
and you know, succession, I'd be in real bad shap,
real bait.

Speaker 3 (01:08:34):
That's while the Armors feel like Gello at that point.

Speaker 1 (01:08:37):
Old.

Speaker 3 (01:08:37):
Yeah, like I said, I I don't understand the.

Speaker 1 (01:08:41):
Yeah anyway, Yeah, get v Mart out out of retire for.

Speaker 3 (01:08:45):
The oh, travel would be all over it. Absolutely. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:08:48):
He can still pick it at short sure.

Speaker 3 (01:08:50):
Yeah, he's learned that towel thing in his head.

Speaker 1 (01:08:54):
I love that thing, man, like just ripping sweat.

Speaker 3 (01:08:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:08:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:08:58):
Sometimes you seem see him take up chip shots within
the outfield too. Yeah, there's a lot of things you
can do with that. But let's move on to Lakeland
real quick. Here Warwick did Warwick then just monster week Chris.

Speaker 2 (01:09:12):
Mm hmm, yeah, you know he he It's you could
tell he's a Northern kid, right because he'll have these
weeks where he goes off and then we'll have these
week or two stretch where it just nothing's working and
it seems like he's you know, can't hit spin. But yeah,
and show you see these flashes are like, hey, this
is a middle infield or middle up, the middle player
who has surprisingly like solid pop for his size and

(01:09:34):
you know, a pretty good glove and above average speed,
and it's like this is a you know, it's all
going to come down to ultimately, you know, how much
can he actually put the bat on the ball. But
I think you know that the tools are there, and
you just got to give him a little bit of
grace because of the you know, playing in Illinois and
not necessarily you know, although we talked about he did
face Ryan Sloane in high school, but not necessarily facing

(01:09:57):
the top competition all the time. Right, he wasn't on
the Showcase cer and things like that.

Speaker 1 (01:10:02):
Yeah, so only twenty he'll be twenty one, I think,
but in September, I think. But yeah, so you know,
next year you kind of need to see a lot
more in zone contact and less chase because I think
he's still chasing thirty two or three percent last time
I looked.

Speaker 2 (01:10:16):
So.

Speaker 1 (01:10:16):
Yeah, but he's John. That's why we like the young players.
Never know one of you figure one of them. You know,
if you have a big bushel of them and they're
all kind of interesting, you figure one or two. We'll
figure something out.

Speaker 4 (01:10:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:10:29):
Oh so, ahaid Chris. I was going to point out
I was gonna move on to I don't know if
you had something to say about Warwick or somebody else, No,
go ahead, And note I was just gonna point out
that that Yost. You know, he didn't have a particularly
big week, but you know, people were noticing his brother,
who was at Florida, got drafted in the fifth round.

Speaker 1 (01:10:45):
I believe, Yeah, that sounds right.

Speaker 2 (01:10:47):
And as I was looking at it, he's got he
had ten home runs this year, but in like one
hundred and twenty plate appearances or something like that. So
it was like, uh, all right, Like and he's two
years older than Jordan. It's like, okay, Like didn't know.
He's obviously not the exact same player as his brother.
His brother is an outfielder, but you know, you could
project a little bit like years and who's I was

(01:11:11):
going to look at it.

Speaker 1 (01:11:11):
There was this and is still walking more than he
strikes out. I mean, you love to see that. That's
that's what first got us super hyped about Kevin. So
but obviously Kevin had more more present power at the time.
So popum I.

Speaker 2 (01:11:24):
Was thinking of there's a kid named Wyatt Sandford who
is in the Pirates system. Roger. You might remember he
made like a great dive and catch at h the
spring breakout game short.

Speaker 3 (01:11:34):
Oh yeah, that's right, Yeah that guy. Yeah that he
was a good hard hit ball too.

Speaker 2 (01:11:39):
I recall, well, I remember mixed Jeb crushed the ball.
I don't remember if yet, but Sandford was a guy
who was like considered all glove, uh you know, maybe
some speed high school shortstop. And and now he's twenty
this year in high A and he's got a two
fifty three ISO, so it can happen. It could happen
because he's only five eleven, one seventy five or whatever,
but it can happen. That could be next year. We'll see.

Speaker 1 (01:12:02):
Yeah, yeah, Risanio, like you know, it does you know,
I mean we could have hoped maybe that that host
wave would just come back and be fine, but it's it's,
you know, obviously taking him a little bit of time
to find his footing and kind of get the swing
dialed in again. So he hasn't done a whole lot,
which is a little bit disappointing at Lakeland, but he
just needs some time to get some reps back in

(01:12:22):
and get everything loosened back up. I'm sure.

Speaker 3 (01:12:24):
Yeah, the kind of injury in his hand, you know,
it's just like Contred has just got plunk by his pitcher.

Speaker 2 (01:12:30):
He's brandcony this week.

Speaker 1 (01:12:35):
Yeah yeah, yeah, just just clubbing the ball.

Speaker 2 (01:12:37):
Yeah, we talked about like they may have to move
him up just because Demeton started like intentionally walking him.
Like if you're at that level in the minor, it's
like they, you know, if they consider you a prospect
at all or even vaguely interesting, probably get you at
a level where they got pitch to you.

Speaker 1 (01:12:52):
Yeah, and he's you know, and yeah, he's he's a
little old to the level now, so yeah, come on.

Speaker 3 (01:12:58):
He's doing this West Michigan. Get a little someone.

Speaker 1 (01:13:00):
But yeah, right, maybe we'll see some movement. You know,
obviously we all know we're kind of all waiting for
the Complex League to shut down and then see who
ends up in Lakeland and that should push some guys along.
But yeah, I mean it's like Anchony and McDonald too,
McDonald's twenty three, Right, it's like you gotta you know,
you gotta you gotta try, you know, the next level.
It's like everybody's having fun in Lakeland, but time to

(01:13:21):
move on up. And that's but all we got to
see if that, you know, like he can continue to
just live on base like a monster.

Speaker 2 (01:13:26):
And he's actually been like slumping a little bit for
him over the last couple of weeks. He's not getting
as many hits. You see, he's still finding ways to
get on basic. Like you said, you know, five walks. Yeah,
a couple of nice outings from the Whiska and Kuiper
I think you know the Oklahoma kids or whatever.

Speaker 1 (01:13:42):
Love me some wet whisk He looks really good when
he's when he's locked in. And then Witherspoon just kind
of had his It was like like the turnovers faster, like,
instead of having like two good outings and then one
outing where he kind of find the plot, now he's
just having inning by inning like Okay, this one bad inning,
I blew up, I couldn't I hit a dude, I
walked the dude wild. It's somebody over and then pulls
it back together again. But maybe the the rate of

(01:14:04):
change is speeding up, Pope.

Speaker 3 (01:14:08):
You know, the only thing I was gonna say about
Lakeland this week that the curious Kyle Willisboon last week
good or bad? This week good? Yeah, But the next
next lie here is I'm excited about is because Chris,
you made a comment. I know it's a complex league,

(01:14:31):
but between the complex league and the international side, it
does seem like the international guys that come over are
hitting with more extra based power than we've seen recently seen.

Speaker 2 (01:14:42):
Correct. Yeah, they're just a lot more guys who are
interesting than there have been in the past. You know,
in the past, it was like you'd have like Alvaro
Gonzalez and Carlos Rogoi and they're like, well all right,
or like you know, Jose de la Cruz and densl Reyes.
There was like the only two guys that would even
get state side, and now you've got half a dozen

(01:15:02):
or more interesting guys. They probably won't get, you know,
above high A, if they even get there, but some
of them will go higher and maybe actually be players.
So it's it's fun to keep an eye on. I know,
Delos Santos seems legit inside the park home run, Chris
Rodriguez is predictably raw, but he'll have his moments. And
then Stephen Madero has really turned it on this year

(01:15:25):
after he's barely played last year.

Speaker 1 (01:15:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:15:28):
So, and something that got like Jose Dixon I think
is hurt again Ronald Ramirez has had an awesome season,
so he has a lot of a lot of interesting bats,
and even like Joe, I don't think it's like a
huge priority for them. They got him from Philadelphia and
the Matt Manning graide, but he's got like he's like
a terrific bat to ball on bass guy and he's

(01:15:49):
just kind of hanging out playing twice a week.

Speaker 1 (01:15:52):
Yeah, no, it's not even really playing that one. It's
kind of weird.

Speaker 3 (01:15:57):
And then as far as anybody else wanted to highlight
here for Miller, I like some Miller's on as rehab
a sigmono is anybody else before we get.

Speaker 2 (01:16:04):
Shout out today Element Cruz, who has a curve ball
that he could throw for strikes whenever he wants, so
he just dominates the rookie ball. And Ryan Ryan Hall
looked pretty solid at least numbers wise. He at least
seems to be throwing enough strikes to get out, which
is sometimes hard for these high school pitchers.

Speaker 1 (01:16:24):
Yeah, and he's the one kind of big name high
school pitcher who came right out and pitched his first
year and you know that so far have been healthy.
Shout out to him, good to see brother.

Speaker 3 (01:16:35):
And then lastly, it's just mentally anybody wanted to. I
did not watch a lot of Dominica leads this week.

Speaker 2 (01:16:42):
Yeah, it's it's a tough watch. You know. Bolevar had
a nice week. He had twice today he had double
in Sterling Basil, single to home both times. Yeah, I
don't know. Other than that, it's who knows can still
he continues to play well. Randy Santana will do his

(01:17:03):
exciting things. I don't know if there's anybody else that
really jumped out this week other than you know, you've
you've got the All Star Game coming up. I haven't
seen the rosters, but I assume that the Tigers will
have two or three guys as usual.

Speaker 3 (01:17:16):
Yeah, the two teams so but uh so, yeah, there's
no baseball. I mean they all start game, but there's
Tigers will kick off a series on Friday in Anaheim
against Angels where Meltain will be taking them ound and
then Framervella has had a definite family so he will
not be starting again until Tuesday.

Speaker 1 (01:17:36):
So just to kind of kind of revamp the rotation here,
so yeah, gives an opportunity to do so. But yeah,
it would be a real interesting couple of weeks. Boys,
next couple of weeks.

Speaker 2 (01:17:47):
Are going to be a real baseball basically, yep, yep.

Speaker 1 (01:17:51):
And what are they going to do, like, you know,
what is the deadline going to be? Like, I'm sure
a lot of people are like not not loving the
conversation earlier about them not trading school, But I just think,
I just think that this organization has a penchant for
not doing something like not making a mistake, not doing
something good, just not doing something in general, and they

(01:18:13):
may just like play it out.

Speaker 3 (01:18:16):
I mean, no, now, six man Colin, I think that's
a that's probably a high possibility.

Speaker 2 (01:18:24):
I think they said they were gonna because they've got
thirteen games thirteen days right after the All Star breaks,
So yeah, it was the plan.

Speaker 1 (01:18:31):
But yeah, but it gets tricky because then you're pulling
away from your bullpen again. So yeah, oh boy, hopefully
they can find some find another arm down there that's working.
Tyler Madison, you know, I was kind of checking through
the numbers and like he has looked pretty good the
last two months. You know, has that one they give
up like six and one outing or whatever, But other
than that, he's been kind of solid. But nobody's gonna

(01:18:53):
come up and dominate. It doesn't look like so I
don't know what we're gonna do.

Speaker 2 (01:18:57):
And you know, it's good that the labor played in
the FCL today. I assume he'll get a couple more
games down there and we'll see what happens. But he
could be back after the off star break, which if
you can stay healthy. We've seen the kind of impact
he makes on this lineup.

Speaker 1 (01:19:10):
So yeah, and then maybe we get Hoty, we get
postseason hobbyback. Who knows, but at least they have the
contact guys like they have Glaber and McGonagall in the
lineup in the postseason. Would be a significant upgrade from
what they were doing last year because it was.

Speaker 2 (01:19:25):
Man, I didn't realize that that how dumb their schedule.

Speaker 1 (01:19:27):
Is it is? Yeah, no, it is pretty dumb because
they tried to stuff their stuffing everything in so they
can have you know, the trade deadline, you know, be
an off day for everybody, I think, But.

Speaker 2 (01:19:37):
Just they go to the Angel So they go to
LA and then it's back to Chicago and back home
and then after the homestand it's back out to the
West coast. Yeah, the A's Mariners and Giants. That's a brutal.

Speaker 3 (01:19:49):
You think that he's usually correctly from, because don't they
The Angels in athletics used to be part of that
same series, right, they would go to Anaheim first.

Speaker 2 (01:19:58):
I mean usually they would. They try to. I mean
it's there they try to do the West Coast swing.
But yeah, it's just it's weird to do, like in
an A's.

Speaker 1 (01:20:06):
And what I realized not long ago, just just last week,
we were talking about this despidation that the Tigers. I
think there's one other team. There's only two teams that
have a plane, their own plane anymore. Really, Yeah, everybody
else is chartering these days, which you know, I mean
they're chartering super nice planes and everything like that. But
it's kind of kind of kind of funny.

Speaker 3 (01:20:25):
So who's who's the two teams that have the planes?

Speaker 1 (01:20:29):
I can't remember who the other one was one of
them's US, I don't remember, But like the Red Sox don't.
The Yankees don't have their own plane anymore, not like
a team plane. I was kind of surprised.

Speaker 2 (01:20:39):
I mean, there was that funny story about the Red
Sox over the like last week where they were stunt. Yeah,
until like four PM, and they had a seven o'clock
game yep in New York.

Speaker 1 (01:20:48):
Pushed it back and made it and I didn't even
pay attention. Did they win? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:20:52):
Yeah, they're they're like one of the hottest teams in
baseball right now.

Speaker 1 (01:20:55):
Yeah, the Red Sox are kind of doing like you
know what the Tigers kind of did most of most
of June until very recently, and yet the AL still
sucks and it still feels like there's just gonna be
a rotation, like no one is running away from this,
you know, like Cleveland is kind of like drifting back
and not really playing that well, and there's still missing
Ramirez and I don't know, I don't know that. I
think the White Sox can really like make a push.

(01:21:17):
They could maybe hold hold where they are, But yeah,
it's gonna be it's gonna be a crazy, crazy run
for the finish sign and chere. I think it's gonna
be really packed packed group.

Speaker 3 (01:21:27):
Yeah. Hell, I mean Seattle still Oaklands so technically in
it too. I mean if we want also, and look,
Oakland just needs a few pitchers here and there to
just kind of make themselves.

Speaker 2 (01:21:40):
Yeah, I think the White Sox swept them right after
the Tigers did. Somebody's slipped them. It's a skin for them.

Speaker 1 (01:21:45):
Yeah. They's just fired their pitching coach today too, and
promoted that our old old buddy, Dan Hubbs. Yeah, the
Hubs Hubbs. Yeah, so he's their new Sacramento Sacramento Athletics
pitching coach, Dan Hobbes Hubs.

Speaker 3 (01:21:58):
Yeah. The only time I ever met him was when Toledo.
We were down Toledo. I remember that. But Dan Hubbs
man that I'm surprised. It was so weird. It was
in an organization for a year and then he was.

Speaker 1 (01:22:10):
Yeah, he seemed like he was going to be part
of the you know, the hey, we we know how
to use technologically now and we have cameras and everything.
But yeah, yeah, I don't know, Yeah he was. Maybe
he was a transitional figure in that regard. Yeah, maybe
Kenny Graham came in around, you know, not long after,
and he stayed.

Speaker 3 (01:22:29):
So yeah, maybe he gave us some ideas and then
he just ran from there. But yeah, wow, that's the
name I've heard a while. All Right, Well, thanks so
much for watching things, so much for listening, And we
were going to take a couple of days off. Well,
I still have articles to do. Of course, I'm gonna
do some more deep dive draft stuff, so we're gonna
continue the coverage. You can go to our Patreon, you

(01:22:49):
can go to our website again. Thank you for all
the donations. Again, Elton shout out to you man, I
really appreciate it. Yeah, and uh yeah, Ashley's working on
a day two things she told me earlier. She said again, cool,
I just need to sleep. I was like, I totally
get it.

Speaker 2 (01:23:03):
She did those Scout reports like four am. Yeah, an
email like what yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:23:08):
Yeah. I tried to go to sleep early last night
and I woke up at two and then I was
awake all night write writing things. And then I watched
like House of the Dragon and was like awake forever,
and then I slept till two. It was a it
was a weird day. Fortunately I didn't have anything else
I had to do.

Speaker 3 (01:23:21):
So it's the same thing like I left work early
because I was so exhausted, and I just felt like
crap because I had the same thing. It wasn't have
been early right after right after the pod I last night,
I like stayed up for another forty maybe thirty minutes.

Speaker 1 (01:23:32):
And I was like, yep, so and just no thoughts,
you know, yeah, going on, no brain no brainwaves.

Speaker 3 (01:23:39):
Nothing like. I just didn't want to take out baseball
anymore at that point. Yeah, but uh, they cost everybody.
Have a good night.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Crime Junkie

Dateline NBC

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}TMLR Podcast Week 15 Recap: Tigers Grades At The All-Star Break

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Stuff You Should Know

Crime Junkie

Dateline NBC

All Episodes

TMLR Podcast Week 15 Recap: Tigers Grades At The All-Star Break

Stuff You Should Know