TMLR Week 1 Recap: The Lakeland Flying Trio of Arms

The guys recap the first full week in the minor leagues, the Tigers win their first homestand and a trio of college arms debut.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everybody, Welcome to another episode of the Tiger's Manly
Report podcast here presented by Fan Duel. I am a
helicacy along Sime me As, Chris Brown and Prana Day
and you can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, ordalists
and podcasts. And we're on our early because there's two reasons.
One the Tigers are playing curly right now bottom and
the second in Minnesota, and God bless you if you're

(00:20):
out there in that weather. It's a game time temperature
right now is a balmy thirty eight degrees. And two,
we are well aware that audience is going to be
checking out here about nine o'clock or so, though those
who are not really rooting for the Green and White
as Michigan will be playing yukon the national championship, so
that myself included. So that being said, I'm just conscious.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Of our fans.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
So this will probably be one of our quickest shows
on record, but there's a lot to cover, so we're
gonna get right to it first and foremost. Brandon, welcome back, sir.
How you doing?

Speaker 3 (00:54):
Oh hey, how's it going a little a little sick
like probably everybody, but doing okay? And Chris are arguing,
arguing about a million different topics, because it's been a
pretty interesting first week in the in the farm and everything.

Speaker 1 (01:06):
I was gonna ask you about Parker metals is one
of the topics on your site, because it's a topic
on ours, but I'm sure.

Speaker 3 (01:13):
That, uh, it was more of a topic. And then
you know, he's been hitting so far, so everybody's like
kind of backed off, but it's it's like lurking, like
right there in the background because you know, Wentzel's been
swinging it.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
Well.

Speaker 3 (01:24):
You know, anytime I mentioned how well Clark's been doing
so far, it's like Parker better, you know, but Parker
better watch his ass. It's like, I mean, somebody better
watch it. I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
Yeah, well see who into watch and who. By the way,
the Twins just reached down an air by Matt Birling here.
But uh, Chris is in Baltimore for work and he's
actually going to eerie uh Sea Wolves.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
He's going to a Sea Wolves game.

Speaker 4 (01:54):
Tomorrow, right, Yeah, maybe I may go tomorrow and Wednesday
because it just so happens that it's like thirty minutes
away from my hotel room, which is also two minutes
away from medieval times.

Speaker 3 (02:08):
Oh yeah, don't get your job.

Speaker 4 (02:13):
But yeah, but I mean, I was just looking at
the game day. I don't know if you guys are
watching the game. I assume this game day has to
be off because it shows that that Casey Maes walked
Josh Bell on approximately seven strikes.

Speaker 5 (02:29):
I don't know if you could see that.

Speaker 4 (02:30):
Yeah, it shows also four of the balls are in
the zone.

Speaker 2 (02:33):
It was so weird.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
It was I had the Casey's first strike up. Yeah,
that's really kind of cool. That's a that's a different
thing for game day if I would stream the game.
But Lord forbid copyright and all that stuff. But let's
get to it, though. There's plenty to get to. Is
the Tighters take two out of three from the Saint Louis.
The minor leagues were full of actions we get as
Max Clark and winsiel Press did have really good weeks,

(02:56):
but the Toledo bullpen has some.

Speaker 2 (02:59):
Significant weeks huge leaks here. He had a long weekend.

Speaker 1 (03:03):
West Michigan off to a good start, and the Flying
Tigers might be world beaters again. It was a fun
week in the series to watch the Flying Tigers. But
the first things first kind of a taro just one
throwaway from a clean outing yesterday as a labor tourist
throw to Hobby Bias from off the bag and kind
of chaos broke looses. The Cardinals scored all five runs

(03:25):
without using an extra base, which was the Cardinal The
Cardinal way was out there yesterday. But it was a
fantastic Sunday night broadcast everybody involved.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
Adam uh the camera, Yeah, very good. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (03:40):
I didn't realize he had a YouTube channel. One of
my staff mentioned that because I was like, oh, Adam
out of Vino. Seems like he's you know, like pretty sharp,
pretty sharp dude, pretty comfortable on the broadcast. But yeah,
I guess, I guess he's been doing this as well.
I just listened to Lance Bread bred Zautski as far
as like, you know, the YouTube pitching podcast type dudes
that and a little pitching Ninja. So but yeah, I
thought OTABO was good. It was a pretty pretty cool broadcast.

(04:03):
There was kind of too many voices on the one hand,
but on the other hand, like having some Cardinals folks
there or at least some neutral folks, like kind of
balances out Benetti and Dirks a little bit more. And
I love Benetti and Dirks, but I also I do
like a like a pretty objective broadcast. And yeah, so
all around I thought it was. It was pretty solid,
better than I was expecting.

Speaker 2 (04:22):
Certainly, I canna see some Chris. I'm sorry it was.

Speaker 4 (04:29):
Well, the problem is, I feel like there's a little
bit of delay between when I talk and when.

Speaker 2 (04:33):
Oh, okay, it gives okay.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
So yeah, yeah, well maybe you like do like a
signal or something like you're about to talk or you know,
scratch your nose or something or something to that effect.

Speaker 2 (04:46):
But no, it was one of those Yeah, the screwba.

Speaker 1 (04:55):
No, but out outside of that, the Tigers did take
the series and now they're in a forty said with
the Minnesota Twins, who are off to offensively speaking, not
off to a very flattering start. But uh no, the
Tigers though, But there was some interesting batball data bats
be of force, uh.

Speaker 2 (05:14):
Carecrpers, I'm sorry it was no Caverner, Jill Dingler.

Speaker 1 (05:20):
There's some some good signs and things to come a
little bit so, but Verlander to die always information, of course,
people were saying, because he you know, you know, like
just not working on it. He's not working on what
I call it Berlin was bending down or something like that.

(05:41):
He was taking a pitch the first pitch and people
were making jokes about that, and I was like, come on, guys, so.

Speaker 3 (05:48):
Do you want to pay? Yeah, you want to just
go with one of those, because yeah, I have I
have thoughts like the Verlander thing, Like this is you know,
we all know that signing Justin Burlander is a bit
dangerous because like the spy of him like flaming out
and you know, like having to retire or you know,
get released mid season or something would would suck. But
at the same time, Justin Burlander being forty three and

(06:11):
prone to minor injuries, I still think is more of
a feature than a bug. You know, you you want
Kider Montero to come up and make some starts. You
know you've got you know, who knows, maybe you know,
Sawyer Gipson Long is off the IL and going to Toledo. Now,
maybe he gets it together and you can use him.
You know, I was reasonably comfortable with and Manuel de Hayes,
who's you know, being a fifth starter if that's what

(06:33):
they need, and you know, they're going to have to
develop some of these options for next year. I don't
mind if Justin Burlander goes on the injured list every
single time he has an auchi, you know, like the
smallest thing. You want to get him through the through
the season. You want to get starts out of him.
The Tigers are right up against the luxury tax that
you know, the only way they were going to add
in more starting depth was that option to sign Berlander

(06:54):
for you know, and just pay him two million dollars
this year and defer the rest and you know, get
your off another another body and that and that's all
it is. You know, we're all gonna have fun with
it because it's Justin freakin Verlander. But at the same time,
we know he's not Justin freaking Verlander anymore. So you know,
people people are gonna get upset or you know, like
overreact everything that happens involving Justin Verlander. And he's he's

(07:16):
just a minor piece of the team at this point.
You know, he's half coach, you know, half fifth starter,
half healthier version of Alex Cobb. I do have questions
about all these hip injuries, though, what the hell is
going on. There's been a lot of hip a lot
of hip stuff. You know, Dugan Darnell, Jake Miller. You know,
like there's been a bunch there's been a bunch of
hip things, so chips along as well. They need to

(07:40):
soften one of those mounds. Yeah, not a hula hoop exactly.

Speaker 5 (07:44):
The so I mean we were down there in Verlander
actually spoke with the media.

Speaker 4 (07:49):
They actually had him in a in the room where
Hints usually talks because he figured rightly that so many
people would want to talk to him. It just made
more sense. And there was zero indication that he was
hurt in any way. And and I think this is
very much like it doesn't feel one hundred percent. And
also it's gonna be in like the forties for your

(08:10):
next two starts, so.

Speaker 5 (08:11):
Let's just push it. And Montero was fine, right like
he he looked good until he didn't and then it
was like a quick hook.

Speaker 4 (08:19):
And then unfortunately a couple of defensive miscues with him
and with the Jesus cost him that game.

Speaker 5 (08:25):
Not with not with Montero, you know, behind him, And yeah,
they'll they'll figure it out. I think I don't. I'm
not too worried about.

Speaker 4 (08:33):
Verlandards yet that that first start was ugly, but the
whole Arizona series was kind of ugly.

Speaker 5 (08:38):
Everybody struggled there, so uh yeah, just it was.

Speaker 4 (08:41):
It was a nice home homestand three game homestead get
the series win.

Speaker 5 (08:48):
Nice to see the bats wake up a little bit,
but yeah, more to be done.

Speaker 3 (08:51):
Sure, Yeah, and then we got to go freeze in
Minnesota for four days because it's miserable out there as well.

Speaker 2 (08:57):
Yeah, jeez, repetes, man, it is awful there.

Speaker 1 (09:00):
They got those uh those what I really call it,
I can't see those uh oh yeah, whatever, those things
around their neck.

Speaker 2 (09:09):
Jordan Walker, which by the way, he had that full face.

Speaker 3 (09:12):
One to the gator. Yeah, the gator.

Speaker 1 (09:14):
He had the gator thing, and that was that whole
money he had off of Drew Anderson was impressive.

Speaker 2 (09:20):
That was one of the best. I mean, that was
a shot go ahead, Chris.

Speaker 4 (09:26):
Well, you know, Drew Anderson looks so good in spring,
and we've seen a couple of outings from him so far,
and you see glimpses, but then you see that fastball
get absolutely demolished, and then you see his curveball not
really fooling anybody, and you go, oh, boy, like I
don't know, it's it's you don't want to overreact to
anything this early in the season. But it's been a

(09:46):
couple of outings where you go like this, yeah, this,
I don't know, this seems like a mirage, but.

Speaker 5 (09:51):
I don't know. Da Hazus just had a couple of
bumpy outings too.

Speaker 4 (09:53):
And then he looked, you know, after the defensive misque,
he came back out and looked great, looked like the
guy he was in spring.

Speaker 5 (09:59):
So it's early.

Speaker 4 (10:00):
Yeah, it's everything gets you know, look at it with
a microscope at this time of year, and so you
you worry about stuff.

Speaker 5 (10:07):
But I'm gonna give it time to give him the
forty days.

Speaker 3 (10:10):
Right, yeah, And I think, you know, I don't I
don't want to make excuses because when you blow up,
you blow up. But neither of them is used to
being a reliever, and there neither of him is used
to be a reliever in the major leagues, and this
there may just be an adjustment period. You know, they've
had time to get used, you know, to the major
league ball. I don't think that's that's the issue, but

(10:32):
you know, like Drew Anderson, like the first what was
his second time out, like went through the order one two, three,
no problem. And then they brought him back out and
you know, they bring in Manual DeJesus last night, you know,
in a in a super sticky situation, like you know,
it may just take them time to get used to that.
You know, I don't think Drew Anderson's going to be
great or anything, but you know, you can look at

(10:52):
his numbers last year and his stuff, and he's still
he still looks like a lot of Teams fifth starters
to me, And you know, Dejeesu's to me, is still
better than that. I can, I can jokingly point out
the fact that Emanuel Dejeshu's has what like a one
point nine to one FIP with an outstanding k rate,
but of course that's just fun with small samples, because

(11:13):
he also has like a seven plus ERA and I
think we've had like virtually every inherited runner score, so
you know, you know that's that's not gonna work. We
all know, like middle relief is always kind of a
fungible thing, and they're just gonna have to kind of
figure that out as they go. But I'm not I'm
not discouraged that much with either one right now. I

(11:33):
just think, like they're trying to figure it out, so
get used to the to the league again and what
they're what their role is going to be.

Speaker 2 (11:41):
That's all there is too.

Speaker 1 (11:42):
I mean there's then there's I guess you know you
look at the arms, which we'll get to you here
in Toledo on a second, Like Rickie Blasco has been
pitching well. But then there's dain't you know Fife, But
we'll talk about that in a second. But no, there's
there's some this there's some encouragement there too. I mean,
you have finegain. Even Finnegan numbers in Seabolt last night,

(12:06):
came in a little bit, was struggling with command. But
the stuff is there, I mean, is it is gonna
be a guy interchangeable with when somebody else from Toledo. Absolutely,
and so it gives along was recalled and sent back
to Toledo today, So he's coming off the aisl and
who knows whether they're going to put him as a
starter or reliever. So that's that's that's also a good
thing too. I mean it's just well depends on how

(12:28):
the Tigers see him in his future. But yeah, the
deadly Ninjabas I think walks are in hit back like
the hit batters thing was. That was a weird game Saturday.
That was one of the strangers games. That was this
game that kind of had a Little League feel to
it because.

Speaker 2 (12:41):
You know, go ahead, Chris.

Speaker 5 (12:45):
Well, I mean we looked that up.

Speaker 4 (12:46):
That was the first time ever that the Tigers have
hit five batters in one game, which which doesn't seem possible,
but it was.

Speaker 5 (12:53):
Was it three from Flaherty and then one a piece
from a couple of relievers just.

Speaker 3 (12:57):
Uh yeah the game and didn't hit anybody hard.

Speaker 2 (13:02):
Yeah, I do.

Speaker 4 (13:04):
Again, we don't want to make too much about the
early samples, so I'm not gonna say anything, but but
we'll come back to it at some point where I'm
a little bit worried about Flarity because I thought we
could at least count on him getting super angry at
the Cardinals again, and that did not happen. You remember
a couple years ago when he was just like flamethrower

(13:25):
dynamite against fourteen strikeouts against the Cardinals.

Speaker 5 (13:28):
Yeah, maybe maybe that exercised everything.

Speaker 4 (13:31):
But anyway, Yeah, like I said, we'll come back Flarity
a little bit concerning I mean, he did.

Speaker 3 (13:37):
You know, he did hit ninety six, and it's Jack
Flarity unfortunately, Like this is what it's like. There's like
three Jack flarity is. There's like the one that goes
out and dominates for five innings and strikes out ten dudes.
There's the guy who flames out, you know, in the
in the second or third inning and gives up a
bunch of homers. And then there's normal Jack Flarerity, who
you know, looks reasonably good kind of in and out,

(13:57):
but as soon as he gets into trouble like starts
to melt down and then you know, like you know,
third time three order just get shelled. So I don't know,
it's just kind of it's kind of what it is.
And the last two years it's or at least last year,
I mean, it's kind of worked out to him being like,
you know, a three starter, you know, like not not bad,
but not consistent. But you know you always want consistency,

(14:19):
but you know you don't find it except with like
the frontline guys really so, and I think that it
kind of points back to like them not being real
sure how they're going to use middle relief again too,
because you know it's early in the year. Normally you
wouldn't even bother pushing a guy when he starts to
lose it, but they kind of did. And you know,
I don't know, I don't think a J. Hinch necessarily
has had like the best like week of his managerial career.

(14:41):
Either spend some some weird decisions that sort of piled
up on each other. And we know this time of year,
you know, he likes to experiment and put guys in
weird spots and play them a little lot of position
and you know, mix with the lineup, and he's just
he's that way, and Sparky was that way. You know,
they like Leland was that way. They like to tick
that first month and just mess with everybody's heads and

(15:02):
see what they can do. And sometimes it's it feels
like it costs you a game or two. I don't
know if it actually does, but it feels like it.

Speaker 4 (15:10):
I mean, it's it's odd that you know, he loves that,
you know, that platoon stuff that gets the other manager
kind of, you know, on his heels a little bit,
and he just hasn't been able to do that, like
he's tried, but there haven't been any lefty starters and
Arizona didn't have any lefty relievers.

Speaker 5 (15:27):
It's like, so he's kind of like it's searching for
for spots to get guys in.

Speaker 4 (15:32):
You know, he took Cold Keith out and like the
fifth ending the other day just to get Viewling some
at bats, which I understand earlier seas you do it,
one of these guys to just sit on a bench
for the first three weeks of the season.

Speaker 5 (15:44):
So it's it's just the way it is.

Speaker 4 (15:46):
But people get upset because Colt is off to a
great start and like why are you taking them out
at all?

Speaker 5 (15:51):
And it's like, well, who else you gonna take out?

Speaker 3 (15:54):
So yeah, yeah, and it has to work, you know,
like you pinch hit in Jami Jones last night for Keith,
and that's great if you know Jami Jones does the
thing he'll do, you know, three and ten times and
crush as a double or something. But you know, when
it doesn't work out, then yeah, you know, it's it's
late in the game and you don't have Cold Keith,
who's you know, arguably your best hitter right now, so yeah,

(16:16):
I mean you can always look bad. I mean, it
would be nice if we had a more versatile Jami
Jones type too, because that's the other problem is you
don't really want him in the outfield, you know, while
I'm in the infield. You don't quite know what to
do with them otherwise. And that's you know, just issues
with you know, being a solid contender and not the
Dodgers or or the Philly Is there someone who just

(16:38):
has like starters everywhere the Blue Jays, although they still
use some platoons as well.

Speaker 2 (16:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (16:43):
No.

Speaker 1 (16:44):
And the interesting thing too is that how many people
are just for example, everybody's carpent up be online, but
and then realize that afterwards the bea reports are like, yeah,
he's sick.

Speaker 3 (16:54):
Yeah, so and I could point out that Roger and
I are both sick as well. If you can't tell. Yeah,
I've already said right now, get it together in Michigan.

Speaker 1 (17:01):
Yeah, change of weather, change weather's uh yeah, Parker, Yeah,
Parker is off to thank you, Thank you Dan for
the fight Alixlair exquisite, Yes, thank you. Yeah, the Parker
Meadows Defense Tour will continue. I mean he didn't, he
just didn't get out here earlier. But yeah, the fact
that I'm bringing up win Seal Perez and Max Clark

(17:22):
is only because they had really good weeks and Clark
was the Player of the Week for Toledo w R
plus one to seventy eight.

Speaker 2 (17:29):
Just a walking machine. He had double, had five doubles,
five doubles, just.

Speaker 1 (17:34):
The one strikeout. Syracuse is Syracuse has got some pitching
prospects too, right, Chris. I mean that's fair to say, like, uh,
I've seen Carl Edwards.

Speaker 4 (17:42):
Yeah, yeah, beat up talk, Yeah they have, you know, yeah,
they beat up to on. They had Jack Lennagers up there.
They also have a couple of relievers that are big leaguers.
So yeah, but it's funny. If you just looked at
Max Clark's box score, you'd think he's smoking the ball everywhere,
and it's the funniest like collect of bloops and bleeders

(18:03):
that you know. It's just it's one of those things
where like you put the bat and the ball and
sometimes good things happen. He did have We tweeted about it,
like a beautiful piece of hitting the other day where
he got to change up away and just poked it
that way, just went with it, poked it down the
line for double, which we've seen him do for a
couple of years now. So yeah, some luck, some good contact,
but really managing all played appearances like he has not

(18:25):
looked over Matchell. I think it's seven seven walks to
two strikeouts so far this year, like looking like an
ideal lead off man.

Speaker 5 (18:31):
So that's good to see. And then Winsol we talked
about this Winstile is.

Speaker 4 (18:35):
A big leaguer who threw stitches that aren't really his
own uther than not performing in spring is stuck in
triple A, and he looks like a big leaguer stuck
in Triple A. He's mashing the ball and playing well.
So whenever they get an injury, he'll be the first up.

Speaker 3 (18:49):
I think, Yeah, as soon as Winsil got sent down,
I wrote that article immediately, Like, you know, Wentzel Perez
just needs to do a couple of little little things
better to help himself out.

Speaker 5 (18:58):
You know.

Speaker 3 (18:58):
I mean, if if Wentzl Perez could play center field
and you felt like really comfortable with it, I mean,
he'd be a pretty dang valuable player even if they
decided to trade him or something. So he's he's like
always right on the cusb. And it's worth pointing out
that Max Clark did have two of the highest you know,
the hardest hit balls that you know, we've ever seen
from him. I think he topped one ten twice, which
is nice to see. You know, those were probably the

(19:20):
only two hard hit balls that he that he had
because he is just kind of spraying it and running
like heck. But you know, if you poke one down
the left field line and then you pull one down
the right field line both for doubles, and you know
you're dropping it in and beating it out the second
and you're just not striking out, you know, he looks
very much in control of what he's doing there, and
we'll want to see it go for a little while longer.

(19:40):
And I think that maybe you guys will agree, like
the sign for Max Clark will be when he starts
pulling a few balls in the air, you know, hitting
for a little like more legit power to the pole field.
At that point, you know he's he's probably basically ready
so and that might not be that long the way
he's the way he's looks so far, but we'll see
him face a few of they're pitching staffs for a

(20:00):
while here and see what's up.

Speaker 2 (20:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (20:03):
Well yeah, especially too because if you have that they're
coming up next.

Speaker 2 (20:07):
Week.

Speaker 1 (20:08):
This week come up, they have Saint Paul and it's
a home opener, and the weather's not gonna be much
better than it was Syracuse, but the weather has gonna
definitely play a factor a little bit with perhaps just uh,
I don't like if you look at Matt Verlin and
it looks really stiff out there.

Speaker 2 (20:26):
But it was good to see Valencia too.

Speaker 1 (20:28):
Valencia looked really lost at the plate and then he
started picking it up a little bit and that was
definitely needed because we were kind of we were really
worried about him.

Speaker 2 (20:35):
Ben mel Jerry is off to a solid start to
you got he batted lead off. Oh sorry, what was that, Chris?

Speaker 4 (20:41):
Oh sorry, Yeah, I was just Valencia was like one
for twenty four with like eight strikeouts before, and yeah,
he finally got they got a double triple homer.

Speaker 5 (20:50):
It looked like the guy he was last year. So
that was good.

Speaker 3 (20:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (20:54):
As far as pitching goes too, it props to Carlos
Pay for coming up out of nowhere yesterday. He got
called up the eerie and was able to go five innings.
Give him a give him five innings. Just a solid
start for him. But overall, see in terms of what
we saw for Madden.

Speaker 2 (21:10):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (21:11):
Madden didn't make it through the first inning in his outing.
His velocity still way down from before the shoulder troubles,
you know, kind of sitting in ninety two, ninety three,
ninety one sometimes. So he still seems like he has
a way to go. It doesn't really seem like there's
a lot of a lot of pitching help you really
want to depend on. Venasco has looked pretty good. He's

(21:32):
looked as good as counter Sea Bold at least probably.
But yeah, it's it's not too stirring a case down
there for anyone yet, No, not at all.

Speaker 1 (21:43):
And there's and and when we go to Erie. So
if we, uh was anything else you guys wanted to
add before we move to Erie?

Speaker 5 (21:51):
Are you Are you gonna try to get down until
tomorrow or no?

Speaker 2 (21:54):
Yes, I'm gonna try to either either go down tomorrow
or Wednesday. More likely you'll probably be Wednesday.

Speaker 1 (21:58):
The tomorrow's game is at four o'clock, so that's gonna
be kind of difficult to swing. But I will be
down there at least three games this week, so it
will be in the down to a wheel. It will
be my first, uh road trip if you will, quote unquote,
but yeah, I'll be I'll be down there this week.

Speaker 3 (22:13):
We should give a little nod to gauge workmen as well.
I think just just because he's not done yet, he
won't die. You know, he's still hanging in there. He
can do a lot of things. We all know his
toolsy if he happens to hit. And he's only twenty six,
so you know, he and Trey Cruz are kind of
in a similar bolt where their versatile players who are
you know, trying to find that last little little notch

(22:33):
in their game to make themselves major leaguers. So yeah, anyway,
decent start for him at least.

Speaker 1 (22:39):
Yeah for sure. And yeah, and look work when when
he hits it, he hits. I mean he is a
like he hits a lot of piss missiles. So I
just want to have fine excuse to say pist missiles.
But uh, Sea Wolves. So the Sea Wolves this year
are gonna it's gonna you know, they have a lot
of injuries right now, they are not healthy.

Speaker 2 (23:01):
So you have Jose person to go out, you have
Aronzo out, so it's gonna be a lot. There's there's
still interesting prospects.

Speaker 1 (23:09):
I mean, you know you're gonna but you have to
see in this case with Isaac patchuck fieldre's gonna adjustment
to double A as we can see here. But uh,
Brett Callahan, we've talked about this, Brandon, I know we've
talked about this.

Speaker 2 (23:21):
Chris and I've talked about this.

Speaker 1 (23:23):
Uh. I know Mark Josh wanted us to kind of
do a sample size of when he's healthy. Look, Bartick
Callahan two massive home runs this weekend. If he can
instill as far as like just as to double A
he has he's healthy, I think, I mean he played
a pretty good center field too as well. Andrew Jenkins,
by the way, who's been kind of like a he

(23:45):
kind of also is a catalyst of the office this weekend.
But I really like Brett Callahan a lot. And I
know that to hard Ryan Garko about him too, Like
they like his power potential quite a bit.

Speaker 3 (23:57):
And the thing about him is that he's just he's
always he's all. He's had that you know that built
in I'm gonna pull the ball to right field tendency.
He's got power, pretty versatile outfielder, got an arm. You know,
there's there's kind of a lot to like. And he
had a really big camp, you know, like coming to
major league camp and hitting a couple of homers and stuff,
even though the pitching was you know, was kind of
weak at the time or whatever. And then you know,

(24:17):
getting off to a good start is is impressive and
kind of kind of speaks to the ongoing, you know,
thriving crop of position players and you know, hitters with
power and athleticism kind of from Eerie all the way
down and we're seeing a lot more of that, you know,
in the lower levels now all of a sudden as well.

Speaker 2 (24:37):
Yeah, and then I'm glad his home runs are fun.

Speaker 5 (24:42):
Just saying his home runs are fun like that.

Speaker 3 (24:44):
He's kind of Kerry Carpenter. I mean, that's even doking.
He's carry Carpenter two point zero because he's not going
to be like a contact hitter, but anything he hits
hard is gone.

Speaker 2 (24:52):
So yeah, yeah, I.

Speaker 4 (24:54):
Mean, in my main concerned with him is how is
he going to handle like good big league level change
ups and breaking balls? And will he ever hit lefties?
And I'm skeptical in both of those, but if he does,
it's sure he's Carpenter. But he's also as you said,
Brandon's he's got more secondary skills. He's he's a good runner,

(25:15):
he can steal some bases, he's a better defender, he's
got a big arm, so it'd be a lot of
fun if he could figure it out. It's fun to
watch him, fun to watch Peck. Although Peck had an
uncharacteristic two year error game. We looked at the airs
and it was like one was as he lost concentration.
The other one he was trying to turn a double
play and the ball slipped out of his glove before

(25:36):
he got the second base. So yeah, but yeah, those
those are the two main guys were watching. And then yeah,
like Rod said, Daniel Jenkins is off to an amazing start. Yeah,
he's helping them there for sure, But it's it's a
tough like you mentioned. You mentioned the injuries, right, Prescegno
and Loronzo are gone, but they've got it from every direction, right,
like there was a there was a world where Max

(25:56):
Clark and Kevin mcgigill, we're back in Eerie and neither.

Speaker 5 (26:00):
Room are there.

Speaker 4 (26:04):
Yeah, yeah, they're all they're all hurt, so so yeah,
it's tough right now, but they're they're persevering.

Speaker 2 (26:12):
Yeah, and uh yeah. By the way, Adam, I was
just gonna mention e J.

Speaker 1 (26:15):
Spazito, who was with the Braves organization as a right
handed infielder who hit for the cycle last year, got
released and the Tigers picked him up relatively quickly, And
he was the name that we saw on the roster beforehand,
and we had no idea who he was, and then
we looked it up and had a really good play defensively,
showed some power, showed some good patience.

Speaker 2 (26:36):
Of the play too.

Speaker 1 (26:36):
So another Long Island kid along the New York kid
that the Tigers might probably ap apparently you're probably scouting
for a while here. But good addition.

Speaker 3 (26:45):
Great.

Speaker 1 (26:46):
I think it's gonna be a solid addition to him,
because with Max Bert now heading up to Toledo in
pack who Peck had a couple of errors and Chris
and I Chris looked into it because I I texted us,
I'm like, oh, yeah, I look like a Peck had
a couple of errors and looked into it was just
concentration errors, right, Chris.

Speaker 5 (27:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (27:04):
I mentioned that a second ago like like one was
of lack of concentration, that the one was the ball
slipping out of his glove. But yeah, you know, like
you said, you touched up to check. Oh, this is uh,
you know, it's a leap in competition for him, and
you know Joe Miller, Joe Miller's out. Unfortunately, it's seemingly

(27:24):
all across minor league baseball, like the first broadcast never
seems quite right, and so we couldn't really get a
great feel for Joe Miller's stuff. But it was you know,
he was struggling a little bit more than he did
in the spring breakout, which is understandable. And then you
know Kenny Serwa. Everybody's always asking about Kenny Serwah. When
the knuckleball ain't knucklin, it's no good.

Speaker 5 (27:43):
And that's what happened. He got banged around.

Speaker 3 (27:46):
Yeah, and with Joe Miller, Yeah, I mean, you know,
hitting ninety five ninety six a ton in the Futures
game was kind of eye opening. So that's kind of
what we're looking for. You know, you just want to
see can he sustain that, because if he can, maybe
you've got some kind of swingman reliever potential there. But yeah,
more more data will be required, as they say.

Speaker 2 (28:06):
Yeah, bullpen arms wise, not much right the home about though.

Speaker 5 (28:11):
It was just uh, I mean, we'll see, we'll see
what happens with with Wanda's and Charlis.

Speaker 4 (28:17):
Uh.

Speaker 5 (28:17):
You know, he throws very hard.

Speaker 4 (28:18):
It's got the interesting stuff if you can. But he's
been around forever and never quite throws enough strikes.

Speaker 2 (28:23):
So but they got and.

Speaker 1 (28:30):
It's gonna say, you're gonna see some of his arms
this weekend this next gold things that are in bowie.
So let's move on to West Michigan as the white
Caps off to two once are beat a pretty impressive
Lake County. They're one of the top minor league teams,
I believe, or yeah, they got quite a bit of
prospect that to him, what do what do he hating

(28:50):
off to a really good start. Uh, the propersial compass
kind of seeing him shot. It was kind of a
little bit a shock see him back of West Michigan
after spinning all last year and eerie, but some really
good strung starting pitching performances to Hayte Minton, Ringer Castillo,
his change up was working a little bit, but then
he got hit up with a couple of home runs.

(29:11):
But overall I thought it looked okay. The Volosi is
still nowhere should be. But the bullpen is Chris mentioned
here fifteen innings, nine hits, four earned runs, and twenty strikeouts.
And so West Michigan's bullpen is gonna be like what
it was last year, is gonna probably carry him throughout
the year. As when we see Lucas also, who go

(29:32):
off to a he's in the start, but he's gonna
i think, as a weather gets warmer and he starts
getting used to everything, we'll see how his stuff plays up.

Speaker 3 (29:43):
Yeah, and it just seems like, you know, especially for
the minors, and when we talk about this with the
major league club, but the minor league club, especially when
it's cold and like the first week or two, like
you know, nobody's even like actually fully stretched out yet,
Like you know, this is like the end of spring training.
For those guys, it's like, Okay, we're you know, now
we're on the road where travel when we're you know,
we're playing playing real games again, which they don't really

(30:03):
do so much in spring training. You know, they're just
driving across Florida for an hour. So yeah, there's a
little more of an adjustment for them than the big
league guys that are used to it, so we're not
gonna we're not gonna sweat about that. And of course
the white Caps are probably going to get some kick
ass pitching help and maybe not very very far down
the road, positional help too, because yeah, we're gonna find
that out when we get to the Lakeland fly because

(30:25):
we're all like, yes, oh my god, this is looking
pretty good already.

Speaker 4 (30:30):
Yeah, just two quick things there that with with Minton again,
that first broadcast was no good, so we couldn't see
him pitch.

Speaker 5 (30:36):
He was an excellent outing for him.

Speaker 4 (30:38):
And with Eli Sault, it was a little bit of
what we saw toward the end of last year where
they just kept working really long counts again against him.

Speaker 5 (30:47):
And part of it, I think is that he is
still kind of nibbling.

Speaker 4 (30:51):
He's throwing a lot of pitches just outside the strike
zone and instead of challenging hitters with his improved stuff.
So that may come along soon, we'll or maybe he's
just learning how to harness the better stuff now. So
but yeah, like Gratchad, you know, maybe when it's warmer,
we'll start to see more impressive stuff from him. But
that's a you know, it's it's still a relatively interesting

(31:11):
rotation there, but yeah, not nearly as interesting as as
the pitching down in Lakeland.

Speaker 3 (31:16):
Yeah, did do we get any like the last day
readings on Alisault. I tuned in and I was like, oh,
this is ain't working, and I was out.

Speaker 2 (31:24):
They don't, oh, Glad, Chris, Well, they don't.

Speaker 5 (31:27):
Yeah, they don't.

Speaker 4 (31:28):
I don't think they had VLO on the broadcast there.
So we just are going by what we saw in Lakeland.

Speaker 3 (31:33):
Yeah, yeah, which was good, very good. That's what we're
looking for.

Speaker 2 (31:38):
Yeah, so that was good.

Speaker 1 (31:39):
But that is good though as Lakeland and now the
Flying Tigers, they you know, when they were down yesterday,
you knew they were gonna come back. Tampa is not
a very good team or I mean, I'm sorry they
had that. One had a couple of pitchers that stood out,
but beyond that, he scored thirty runs in three games
against the Tarpins and it was just all like all

(32:03):
hard hit balls, anarchy with.

Speaker 2 (32:06):
One hundred and fourteen million hours.

Speaker 1 (32:09):
Jack McDonald donald, Yeah, and I like, I love what
here was a good Jack Goodman Jars meets packs.

Speaker 2 (32:18):
Our own little language there. But yeah, it was in
Carson Rutger.

Speaker 1 (32:25):
Wow, what a difference I mean he hit the ball
really hard and he was making really good contact and yeah,
just all goodness across the board.

Speaker 2 (32:33):
Chris, I'll start with you on this.

Speaker 1 (32:36):
We saw three college arms make their debut well again Friday, again,
the same thing Friday. For a reason, Tampa didn't have
their act together. Couldn't see Ben Jacobs, who had the
most impressive debut of all three of them.

Speaker 5 (32:50):
Yeah, that was a real bummer.

Speaker 4 (32:51):
Hopefully we'll get to see him this week because yeah,
the results were pretty spectacular. Their fastball average ninety four
dropped to ninety six. You see, like nineteen inches of
IVYB lots of whiffs on that, and the change up
was supposed to be his money pitch that looked good too.

Speaker 5 (33:06):
He also got a whiff with his slack.

Speaker 4 (33:08):
It like, yeah, you picture him moving relatively quickly, like
like Brandon was hinting at. And eventually I think it'll
be like what can he do with the breaking ball?
But that fastball change up mix seems like it'll work.
And then Witherspoon the next night. You know, he looked good.
It's still kind of relieverish to me. M h if

(33:29):
that makes sense, Like I put there, there's three questions
that we had on him coming in, you know, as
can he throws strikes? What's the fastball shape going to be?
And does does he have an off speed pitch? And
he threw a lot of strikes. So that's a good start, right,
Like that'll you need that no matter what whatever role
you're going to be in. I don't think the fastball
shape is necessarily any better. They seem to be leaning
in on him throwing a bunch of sinkers, which is fine,

(33:50):
you know if you have a sinker and he's got
a couple of really nice breaking balls. But I don't
think he threw a single change up and maybe he
doesn't have to, but maybe he'll be a Jack Flarity type.
But it was it was impressive, but you know, I
don't know, Like I said, he still feels sort of
like relieverish to me.

Speaker 3 (34:05):
He's sort of in a weird vain you know. I
hate to just make this vague comparison, but there's like
a little bit of like Kumar Rocker to him, where
like he's he'll like lock in and he and he's
like pumping strikes and it looks good, but then you
kind of check the metrics and it's like, yeah, it's
more you know, it's more of just like a sinker
that's not not really going to draw a lot of whiffs,
you know, higher up. Although he does have really really

(34:27):
good velossity. I mean he was averaging ninety six hit
ninety eight one I think, and yeah, and the breaking
balls are good. He looks like like a splitter candidate
to me. But he also does have like that sort
of relieverish you know, delivery where he's sort of a
long armor. You know. It's yeah, it's just it's just
not exactly smooth. But he's a good enough athlete where

(34:48):
I feel in between about it. But I mean, for
right now, all you really want to see is him
throw strikes and not have those those blow ups that
he had in college, because the stuff is I think
the stuff is under good enough to get major league
outs already. It's just yeah, is he going to be
able to use it properly and in what role? So overall,
pretty pretty solid start. I was. I was happy to

(35:10):
just see that he got out to a good run,
and you know, nothing looked diminute. We've had such a
bad run of injuries, you know, in guy's debuts and stuff,
just to have him like show up and look like
you're supposed to look out, Like, Okay, it's a good start.

Speaker 1 (35:21):
The fact that look, the fact that three starting pitchers
threw over sixty pitches each was a godsend. I mean,
I hate to say it that way, and it sounds
like i'mbellishing that it's not.

Speaker 2 (35:31):
It's not embellishment. We saw this last year.

Speaker 1 (35:32):
Where literally like they would go two innings and then
they're done in Mikeland, and now this year it's a
lot different.

Speaker 3 (35:40):
Chorus.

Speaker 4 (35:42):
Oh I'm sorry, I was just actually scratching my nose
but coming out a hit. But yeah, yeah, like I I,
you know, I don't want to be too critical. Right,
it was the first start, right, having we've seen other
guys coming and kind of struggle to throw strikes in
their debut, and that was not an issue for him.

Speaker 5 (35:59):
So that's that's a great start.

Speaker 4 (36:01):
And yeah now, and then then Caleb Laize was the
guy that we saw in the backfield, and his it
was it was like an up and down outing from him,
and the stuff doesn't necessarily jump off the page, but uh,
he battled and like I don't want to single out
Eddie on espinal too much. But he was his first

(36:21):
game as a catcher, and you could tell, like everything
that can go wrong for a catcher went wrong for him.
There were there was catcher's interference, there were pass balls,
there were throws into center field.

Speaker 5 (36:31):
He was dropping things.

Speaker 4 (36:32):
Lays literally had to get five outs in one inning
because there were two strikeout wild pitches. So and he
battled and he got through it and uh yeah, it's
it's We'll see what goes on with him later.

Speaker 5 (36:46):
But he seems like a solid arm too, Like they
really done a good job of adding the sort of.

Speaker 4 (36:52):
Quality depth arms that they need, and hopefully these guys
will start filtering up as the season goes on.

Speaker 3 (36:58):
It's gonna be interesting, I think, you know very much,
because we've watched you know, three three drafts now where
they've you know, they've bent heavily toward the prep kids
and spent a lot of money out of their bonus
pool spreading that around, and it hasn't really you know,
brought anything to fruition so far. And they've had pretty
good success with college pitching, you know, even even pretty
small school undervalued college pitching. And I'm just curious if

(37:21):
this is the draft where they kind of start to
like recalibrate a little bit and say, all right, you know,
we're doing what we're finding undervalued. You know, pitchers in
college you've at least already like shown some durability and
stuff like that, and maybe we'll just you know, maybe
we'll lean into that a little bit more this time around.

Speaker 2 (37:36):
We'll see, Oh, wait, Kevin mcgonagold's is first major league steal?

Speaker 3 (37:42):
That?

Speaker 4 (37:44):
Yeah, that's after it's infield single and then steals the
full game. But yeah, and then you know, you touched
on all these all these prep arms that they've taken
over the last couple years, these teenagers and then who
who gets out there on the mound but the nineteen
year of Australia and Alistair Tanner. Alie Tanner. Boy, what

(38:05):
an interesting arm he has turned out to be. He's
another one we saw, We saw him. He's on the
same schedule as Leys. Basically we saw him pitch that
was Elisault Lais and Tanner. We sawsow in the one
game I think Rudge, yeah and yeah he looked like

(38:25):
he did when we saw him, except he was throwing
even a little bit harder. It was like consistent ninety
five ninety six with a high spin breaking ball and
super high spin high IVV fastball, but just constantly in
the dirt.

Speaker 5 (38:38):
And I don't know what's going on there.

Speaker 4 (38:39):
I don't know if they want him, if they're trying
to get him to do the Matt Manning thing, or
you throw it at the bottom of the zone and
guys give up on it and it clips the strike zone.
But I would think with that fastball, and maybe it's
his release point or you know, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (38:52):
It looks like he has like late that late move
to get up over the top, you know that sometimes
lead lead, you know, because he's not like naturally there,
he's like suddenly like I'm gonna come straight down at you.
And yeah, he just looked like he just you know,
he timahawked a bunch of them.

Speaker 5 (39:05):
But but yeah, I mean the arm talent there is
he's pretty impressive.

Speaker 4 (39:09):
For me, free I don't think he's a particularly big kid,
but he's sturdy and and so yeah, like like we said,
like we didn't even see Grayson Grenzel or Cale at
Whiska or you know, there are a handful of other
arms down there that are very interesting.

Speaker 5 (39:23):
So yeah, that's a fun one.

Speaker 3 (39:26):
Yeah, and obviously and obviously we got all these dudes injured.
You know, Kelvis is you know, you would you would
have hoped, you know, we'd see Kelvi Salsado maybe at
West Michigan but but probably still at Lakeland and Owen
Hall and all these guys. But it looks like we're
gonna have to wait again until May June. You know.

Speaker 2 (39:42):
Salsado.

Speaker 1 (39:42):
By the way, we are going to talk to him tomorrow.
It's gonna be a written Yeah, we're gonna be doing
a uh interview with him, but it's gonna be a
written article just because we want to make him feel comfortable.
So we'll be talking to him tomorrow and uh we'll
find out a website sooner or later. But yeah, here's uh,
he just again he doesn't look like ten. The kid
looks like he's twenty six.

Speaker 5 (40:02):
I mean, he's pretty big.

Speaker 3 (40:05):
He's big. And you know who else is big is Yeah,
definitely Bow Anchony. It's just like Anchony looks like he's
just like chiseled from something.

Speaker 5 (40:12):
Yeah, I mean that's he's big, but but yes, chiseling
is the right word.

Speaker 4 (40:15):
It's like statuesque, like he's like he really like pops
through that uniform and yeah, like I don't know, we
we didn't we touched on the offense because it was
really good. You got to give it props to Nolan
McCarthy who had any ball it had a monster week
and Zach McDonald.

Speaker 5 (40:30):
I feel bad.

Speaker 4 (40:31):
I wrote the preview like, hey, he's a good defender,
but he also hit won sixty last year.

Speaker 5 (40:34):
Yeah he's off to a great start with stealing bases.

Speaker 3 (40:39):
And yeah, no idea just had one fourteen in the tank.
Like I just would never have guessed, never have guessed,
you know, any more than one o eight.

Speaker 5 (40:46):
So yeah, I mean either and he does make me wonder,
I mean he did, he did, question, But.

Speaker 3 (40:55):
I mean that you know, has never hit a ball
much harder than that, you know, I mean that's that's
like super you know, near seventy juice right there?

Speaker 4 (41:03):
You the Pete Yeah, all right, Cole Keith rb I
double after the McGonagall and Torre's got on base. Hell yeah,
but uh yeah, no, it did make me wonder if
like if if the maybe the numbers are off a
little bit there.

Speaker 3 (41:18):
Yeah you have to he did.

Speaker 5 (41:20):
He absolutely smoked that.

Speaker 4 (41:22):
Yeah, and that's you know, and I'll get back to uh, well,
we got a couple of players we need to mention.

Speaker 5 (41:28):
But I did like Goodman. Goodman was one of Jerry's like.

Speaker 2 (41:35):
Third was that was that?

Speaker 4 (41:37):
That was a that was the one fourteen the other way.
But yeah, like watching Goodman, it's it's like he did
I think he had about one o nine a so.
And what we realized I don't think we realized this
until we looked it up, is that he actually played
at Pepperdine with John Peck for one year.

Speaker 5 (41:55):
Ok, yeah, before he transferred back to Northeastern.

Speaker 1 (41:58):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (41:59):
But they're about the same size, and he, like I said,
he can hit the ball hard, but he looks he
looks like a solid defender.

Speaker 2 (42:06):
But he walks.

Speaker 4 (42:07):
He's walking a lot, and like the takes he has
are super close. So it's like, oh man, he's got
like he's got like Jarvis's eye. With John Peck's physical ability,
we'll see, Like I don't want to make too much
of it, right, he's a college player in loway he
should be doing this stuff, but very promising look at
him and then all this we haven't even talked about
Bryce Rainer, Bryce Rayner came back.

Speaker 5 (42:28):
Bryce Rayner played again. It's interesting.

Speaker 4 (42:31):
It's very interesting watching him play because something about the
stance has definitely changed. He's like corouch down more and
the hands are way out and like it's a strange look.

Speaker 5 (42:41):
He's a little crush the ball.

Speaker 4 (42:45):
But he's also like so far just incredibly passed as
of like it seems like every plate appearance goes to
seven pitches. He walked four times, he took a bunch
of strikes. He just he's very selective. I guess you
would say, so, I don't mind that at all, right,
like just just be healthy. And he unfortunately he did
follow ball off his foot and then came out of

(43:05):
the game. I didn't play the next day, so we
don't know what's going on there. But yeah, he was
playing shortstop. He played short stop on Friday and then
DHD on Saturday.

Speaker 5 (43:14):
I think, yeah, I.

Speaker 3 (43:15):
Don't think we saw him like fully air out the arm,
but it looks so fine. He looks he looks like
he's fine at least.

Speaker 5 (43:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (43:22):
Yeah, the foot, the one he did take off the
foot though, he was that was like a good split
five minutes of stoppage when that happened.

Speaker 5 (43:29):
I wouldn't mean maybe not five minutes, but it was
like the trainer came out. It was it was not
just last yeah yeah, yeah, but it definitely took a while.
But yeah, so, I mean it's nice to have him back.

Speaker 4 (43:42):
And we saw I think Jake posted that that Mantilla
is out of his brace and should be getting back soon.

Speaker 5 (43:49):
And then there's Jordan Yoasts come in, so.

Speaker 3 (43:52):
Yeah what he uh, what's the reasoning for for Yost?
Do we just think like they're just kind of like
extended spring training with him for a little bit or
is he actually hurt with something I didn't even know
down the left field line it's two nothing.

Speaker 5 (44:04):
I don't think he's hurt.

Speaker 4 (44:05):
Although they didn't give us like the injury report on
anybody in the Complex league.

Speaker 5 (44:09):
I don't think they're.

Speaker 3 (44:10):
Feeding him a rape us, you know, for another like
another two weeks, keep pumping iron kid protein shakes and
a rape us and you know.

Speaker 4 (44:18):
Well, so I mean in my head, and this is
maybe like just wishful thinking, right, is that they've got
Rainer there, They've got Goodman there, They've got how you
be there right now rehabing.

Speaker 5 (44:30):
Just give them, you know, force him in there.

Speaker 4 (44:32):
You got these other guys that need to hit for
right now, and then when somebody moves up, well, how
you certainly move up to Toledo.

Speaker 5 (44:37):
Yeah, so at that point, then maybe play him some more.
But maybe I don't know. We saw him.

Speaker 4 (44:42):
He got that grand Slam you got to hit the
spring breakout, and then he struck out twice on two
pitches that were like kind of I don't know, he expanded,
and you don't know if maybe that's there's a little
bit more of that going on than they want, or
there's some he looked fine on defense when we saw.

Speaker 3 (44:57):
Him, so yeah, it doesn't seem like it did really performance.
So you know, like there's there's probably just some theory
about like not not overworking him, or it being a
long season and he put on this good weight or something,
and they just want to like kind of kind of
run with that for a little bit and not not
you know, not play him as long as season. I
don't know something, but you know, I mean, we know
he's got he's got better contact skills than most guys

(45:19):
at at you know, single A already, so probably that's
not the case. I just want, you know, I'm paying
attention to the Tiger's game too, so I'm distracted, But
like putting McGonagall first and then Torah's second, I like,
because if they want to keep walking Kevin McGonagall, they can.
He already stole a base today and when he if
they wanted to use the hit and run, Glaber is
the perfect guy to take that two hole and just

(45:40):
punch it through there. And then you got cold Keith,
you know, your hottest hitter hitting three, and it just
worked out there. Casey Mais had his standard inning from
hell on the third. So it's three to one twins.
But the Tigers did push across a run there and
still have two on for Spencer Porklson, who needs to
single here and get these two runs in. But I
kind of like that. I kind of like that construction.

(46:01):
You can kind of just you know, fill in the
middle of the order with the bangers. You know, now
that Dylan's been swinging the bat so well, you know,
you can have him and Torque in there and Carpenter
and Green there and keep going left, right, left, right
all you want to. So yeah, I don't know. It
was kind of funny watching them change the lineup, like
literally every day. The first, you know, the first eight
or nine games that seemed like I think they might

(46:21):
have fit on the formula here.

Speaker 2 (46:23):
Yeah, and you know.

Speaker 1 (46:26):
You wanted to bring this up brand because we still
have we still have a little bit of time before uh,
everything starts happening at the bottom of the hour or
the top of the hour.

Speaker 2 (46:35):
It's a tighters developing hitters.

Speaker 1 (46:36):
I mean, the there was a stat that, So I'm
still just trying to say understand how so the abbreviation
I was using earlier. Yeah, so I'm still looking into
it a little bit because I'm I'm trying to get
I know, people are like it was NERD stats, blah
blah blah. But I was looking at stack cast because

(46:57):
I was looking at some of the data for the Twins,
for the series. The fact that Dylan Dingler has a
barrel rate of twenty nine point four, which is league
average is eight point fours.

Speaker 2 (47:06):
It's crazy. And then his ex Wolba but con is
sixteen six fifteen. It's a team.

Speaker 1 (47:14):
The team's Berlin an eleven percent clip even when Carperwood
makes contacts to seventeen point six.

Speaker 2 (47:19):
And then let's top it all off, mcgonagle's.

Speaker 1 (47:23):
Posting a four to oh eight Wolba with a fourteen
fourteen for three barrel rate.

Speaker 3 (47:31):
So for rookie, holy crack, Like it feels like so
many guys are hitting the ball hard, Like it feels
like the Tigers have have had you know, five or
six balls that should have been over or off the wall.
You know, I mean, you just figure these things will
kind of even out, but they seem to be swinging
the bats well, you know, Scooball and fran Berlick great.
You know, Casey's been okay so far, although it's been

(47:52):
you know, up and down today. You know, you figure
they'll piece that together. It's it's as as it always
is until we have like a Mason Miller, you know,
a Davis Herrera Holland situation, like it's always going to
be the bullpen one way or the other. And I'm sure,
as always that'll be a damn work in progress all season.
But we had a long discussion about Kevin mcgonagall's contact today.

(48:12):
There we go, there we go, Zachary, Zach McKinstry driving
in the runs like a man. But you know, the
only like minor fly you can look at in Kevin
mcgonagall's game right now is like his average x x
velocities down. He hasn't hit a homer yet. I mean,
if you want to really nitpick, but I mean, the
kid's hitting three hundred. He has an over four hundred OVP.

(48:32):
They're not throwing him any fastballs. And what I was
pointing out is that, you know, like someone was kind
of suggesting that maybe he was, you know, selling out
to hit his first home run because he was trying
to pull the ball. I mean, Kevin McGonagall pulling ball
in the air is like it was like the reason
I was one hundred percent convinced he was already good
to go, because the approach is so good, but it's

(48:52):
that last bit of like dialing in, you know, the
ideal like launch, you know, patterns that most hitters take
some time to do if they ever get there. You know,
we've been waiting for guys like how You Lee and
you know, Jase Young and some others to like figure
this out for year after year, and Kevin mcgonagall's already
there and they're just not throwing him any fastballs already.
They're pitching him like he's freaking prime Joey Vado and

(49:14):
just you know trying to hit the outside corner away
from him with breaking balls and change ups and try
to get ahead and get him to expand or at
least swing at something he doesn't want to swing at.
And it hasn't really been working so far, and the
power is absolutely about about to erupt. So uh god,
he looks good. He just looks so good. He's their
best hitter, I you know, I mean, who controls the

(49:34):
strike zone better than this? I haven't really seen a
Tiger like hit like this that I can really think of,
Like Ian Kinsler had flashes, and Victor Martinez could hit
like this for sure. But you know, Kevin's a pretty
good defender as well, with seventy great speed for Fricksa
and cooly Kraft. How do we get so lucky finally,
after all this time, like waiting waiting for Ork and

(49:55):
and Riley and everybody, like one of you guys to
like break out into a truly elite player. And I
think we're on the cusper.

Speaker 4 (50:02):
So yeah, And and like you said, the home runs
are coming. They He's gonna hit a barrage soon. I
was looking it up earlier. The Tigers lead all of
baseball with five outs hit three hundred ninety feet or more.
McGonagall has two of them. Green has two of them,
you know, like I think it was I think it
was Glaber that had Keith has a couple of near

(50:24):
runs hits.

Speaker 3 (50:25):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, they're.

Speaker 5 (50:27):
Hitting the ball well.

Speaker 4 (50:28):
And uh yeah, I think McGonagall like McGonagall looks outstanding
and and like it's only going to get better, like
you said, And boy, Keith is starting to look like
the hitter we thought he was going to be, which
is very exciting.

Speaker 5 (50:44):
And yeah, and then and then he got medveeling not
getting that run in from third. But what are you
gonna do?

Speaker 3 (50:51):
Send him down?

Speaker 5 (50:55):
Yeah, Perez, I mean Winstle, Like we said, Winstle is
a big leaguer, just just not right now.

Speaker 3 (51:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (51:01):
But by the way, Charles was asking any.

Speaker 4 (51:03):
Chances Yeah, yeah, yeah, Glad, sorry, well he said any chance.
Perez replaced the Jones soon. He has seven walks and
two strikeouts in a ten to forty one ops. I
like his ability to play defensive switch hitter or the roster. No,
like Jami Jones is there for one reason and one
reason only. It's it's too absolutely bang left handed pitching.

Speaker 5 (51:25):
Now, if chance June and he has one hit against.

Speaker 4 (51:30):
The left handed pitcher, then they may move on because
it's it's a very like we saw Adyevanya has had
that role and eventually lost it to Jones. So you
got to you got to produce in that role. It's
a very tough job actually to barely play and then
come up and have to hit. But they're not gonna
get rid of That's the thing with Jamai Jones. He
doesn't have options. So if you were to bring up Perez,
you'd have to get rid of Jones and somebody else

(51:50):
would grab them in a second because people always looking
for that lefty maasher.

Speaker 1 (51:54):
By the way, Cole Keith with his fifth double already,
he didn't get to his fifth double till May twenty.

Speaker 2 (51:59):
First of last year. So we go and a boy
that's that's exactly yeah. Look in his mouth.

Speaker 1 (52:05):
His increase in bassbie is a high or the most
out of any based any player.

Speaker 2 (52:10):
This is the cold Keith that we've been wanting to see.

Speaker 1 (52:14):
The FanDuel odds of this happening, which I know streameless
plug because we have to do that seamous plug. Uh.
I was like we Chris Brandon, I think all of us,
all the collective three of us have said he's not
twenty five. I think he's only twenty five. Given time, Yeah, yeah,
twenty four. I'm gonna swear here, give it some and

(52:38):
that's what happened with cold Keith.

Speaker 2 (52:39):
Just give me time.

Speaker 3 (52:41):
I have three. I have three, like big questions like
brewing in my in my mind night and well I
have one more about the abs. But we've already seen
Dingler like killing it with that, so I think we
know where we kind of are there, but you know,
are the time. How how good have the Tigers gotten
at drafting hitters now? Because we're just seeing like athletic
up the middle, players who can bang all over the
place to a degree never never seen before in Tiger history.

(53:04):
So we've got that going for us. I'm gonna I'm
gonna like, just flake and forget the other, get the questions,
because I was so wrapped up on that one. I
don't know. There's just a lot going on with that,
you know, like all the way down through the system.
You know, the hitters are going like mad.

Speaker 2 (53:19):
Oh.

Speaker 3 (53:19):
The second one is did they change something with their
batspeed training this offseason? Because there's there's been a lot
of bumps, you know, from Max Clark to Colt Keith,
you know, Dylan Dangler we've already seen. And then you
go all the way down to like, yeah, how how
is Zach McDonald hitting at one fourteen? You know, will
that hold up? Is that a stat cast miscalibration fluke?
You know, we need a little more confirmation, but he

(53:41):
hit the hell out of that ball, and uh, you
know so yeah, so that's another question, like, you know,
how are they how how have they changed their their
hitting program down there? And then you know, I guess
the third is just like will any of their young
pictures ever ever surface from wherever? They are never holding
holding pam, they're being kept well injured.

Speaker 1 (53:58):
Oh well, I want to mention this because it was
you guys mentioned this earlier, and I think what the
Tylers might do going forward is go back to the
well college arms.

Speaker 2 (54:06):
I think that's going to be the case. I think.
I don't know if you guys said you guys still
want to.

Speaker 3 (54:11):
Mention that, but I go ahead, Chris, that was one
of my other ones that I mentioned earlier. Yeah, yeah,
for sure. Yeah, they're going to change their strategy because
the college pitching is we're going out.

Speaker 5 (54:19):
Well, yeah, I mean it.

Speaker 4 (54:22):
The thing that they'd like to do is to stay
with a little money and spend extra those high school arms,
because those are the ones you can get with extra money.

Speaker 5 (54:29):
So I don't know if that's ever going to go away,
Like they even they still did it a couple times
last year.

Speaker 4 (54:34):
All they did was instead of getting a bunch of
more high school hitters after the first two, they went
college pitcher, college pitcher, college pitcher, college pitcher, which is
fine if you get the right ones. And they've they're
just drafted well overall. Like to Brandon's point, and we
talked about this, Jim Jarvis, right, Jim Jarvis is a
big leaguer. He's going to be a big leaker. Look
at his stats in Triple A. Yeah, this is a

(54:55):
guy that was like, it's not a big power hitter,
but he's That was what their tenth eleventh rounder.

Speaker 2 (55:00):
Yeah, we hit the ball extremely hard though.

Speaker 5 (55:05):
He just yeah, well he's probably was always putting it
on the ground too much.

Speaker 4 (55:07):
But he walks, he hits, he plays good up the middle,
and he's got and he's hitting three.

Speaker 5 (55:12):
Forty for you know, Gwinnette.

Speaker 4 (55:15):
Right now, with the homehoorse steels and likes like he's
They're just they're getting a bunch of good big league
caliber players in the draft.

Speaker 3 (55:24):
So and we're leaking. Yeah, you're starting to leak talent.

Speaker 2 (55:30):
You know.

Speaker 3 (55:30):
Liam Hicks, you know, off to a super hot start
with the bat for the Marlins, you know, and I
mean he's not a catcher really, but but you know,
you just see like they weren't wrong about that. They
were potentially wrong to not protect him from the forty
man draft, but the rule four rule five draft. But
it is what it is, you know. But he is
looking pretty good.

Speaker 2 (55:48):
Oh here's the thing too, Like real quick about EJ.

Speaker 1 (55:51):
I want to get back to ejx Measil for a
second as an example, he got off to a really
slow start and high A and then hit really well.

Speaker 2 (55:57):
Then he did not us at double A Columbus.

Speaker 1 (56:02):
I'm surprised that the Braves kind of gave up on
him a little bit, honestly, and maybe with I mean
I really liked like I had a chance to go
back and watch them earlier today at work, because that's
what I.

Speaker 2 (56:12):
Do my lunch break line.

Speaker 1 (56:13):
You know, I don't see what EJ Exposito did for
whatever reason, and that's what I did.

Speaker 2 (56:18):
I wanted to see what was going on with that.

Speaker 1 (56:20):
And look, there's one thing that Tighters can do next year,
and here's here's a this year with the draft strategy.
Allow me to be creative here with the amount of
talent they're having right now in the infield. This infield
talent is the most they've ever had in franchise history,
bar none.

Speaker 2 (56:38):
You cannot debate that with me at all. There's no
there's you I'll field talent.

Speaker 1 (56:43):
I mean, you know, even with Roberto Complace going back
down the West machine, which is kind of I think
even the one weekends with the tiers right now is
admittedly the international side because they still haven't really there
has not been anybody above Double A that's stood out,
I mean outside Winsfield, Perez in Montero. You know, okay,
but you want you want a little more result dry

(57:05):
them for that. The thing the reason why I mentioned
this is that this draft, maybe they'll go if there's
a couple more college arms because they have the luxury
of going. All right, I know you don't draft I
need I know, we I know that, but maybe there's
some more college arms that they are already looking at.
Going this guy we can plug and play right away
because Jacobs is not gonna be too long for there,

(57:28):
because they still need more arms.

Speaker 2 (57:30):
They still they you know, Owen Hall, You don't know when.
Lord knows when.

Speaker 1 (57:34):
You're gonna see the first pitch from uh, the kid
they draft out of a Michael Massey.

Speaker 2 (57:40):
Lord knows when you can see that. Lord knows when
you can see Owen Hall again. Who knows.

Speaker 3 (57:45):
Yeah, the guys who look like they might make it
are like Ella Sault and you know, Jake Miller and Sears,
who are more like back in swingman type type guys.
And yeah, we all know we're probably entering a post
Schooble universe next year, and all of a sudden we've
got like these, you know, good young position players. And
of course you know it's all going to coincide with UH,

(58:06):
with mister Scooble leaving. So yeah, I mean, it'll be
it'll be interesting to see if they do change that strategy.
I mean, they're working with a reasonably small bonus pool
once again, so they're gonna have to be gonna have
to be tricky. And you know, I'm sure They're gonna
still emphasize up the middle of the middle players, but
you know, if if it's kind of like a tie
goes to the runner situation, maybe they maybe they will

(58:26):
kind of tip over toward the pitching side a little bit.
Or I don't know, Scott Harris, maybe you could make
a trade. Have you considered this, Have you consider trading
for some pitching, some upper level pitching? Is this? Is
this possible anyway?

Speaker 5 (58:41):
The one the one thing I'll say, and it's it's
about trying.

Speaker 4 (58:44):
This is around the time of the year where I
need to start writing about the draft, and you know,
the Tigers are picking like twenty eighth or whatever. But
this this year is considered especially deep. So so when
that happens, so of these guys filter on through the Tigers.
So I I will see, We'll see what happens.

Speaker 3 (59:06):
But yeah, I'm glad you tied that all back together
with the team.

Speaker 4 (59:10):
Yeah, I think I think we're in Uh, it's it's
the firm system is not what it was last year
in terms of overall talent. But that part of that
is because the injuries, and part of that is because
the best prospect is in the Big Lakes doing good stuff.
So that's that's what you want. But I you know,
four or five weeks from now, we're gonna be like, hey,
these guys are popping. This looks like a legit prospect

(59:31):
and so I'm always eager about that this time of
year to see who really comes from out of the
woodwork and does their things. So yeah, fun first week
of Final League baseball. And it's very cold in Michigan,
which is dumb. It's the middle of the spring now,
but not much longer and everything will warm up, so.

Speaker 3 (59:51):
Yeah, yeah, start flying. Yeah, so Kasey melted down.

Speaker 2 (59:56):
Okay, there's another home run.

Speaker 1 (59:58):
There's a home run there, all right, Well, any rate,
thanks so much for watching, and thanks so much for
listening to the Tiger Mindley Report podcast presenting my fan duel.

Speaker 2 (01:00:08):
And yeah, this is gonna be a fun week.

Speaker 1 (01:00:10):
So Toledo will be I'll be in Toledo, probably Colin's
gonna be doing an article speaking of By the way,
I forgot to mention this Ashley. We'll be back on
Thursday doing the regular Themetrics podcast. She's also written like
five or six reports, so I got to post it.
So yeah, she's she's she's been a beast, you know.

(01:00:31):
So I'm listening to Tigers on the radio in the hotel.
Hey man, you know what, that's better than doing it.
You know that that's a good way to go about it.
But you'll have to have Ashley back though.

Speaker 3 (01:00:40):
I mean, yeah, I mean having someone who's been the
scouting school recently and is like super qualified to analyze
all these players from that perspective is a is a
big get. So everybody be excited about that. Shure your
respect and yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:00:51):
Yeah it'll be a creep okay, cool, yeah, be cool,
I will literally yeah. So but yeah, just uh, I'm
looking forward to having her back on rotation again because
we win. Every time we talk. It's like, oh I
saw this, this, this and this, and she's been She's
a wealth of knowledge. So glad to have her back
in rotation. So all right, let's go watch Kevin McGonagall

(01:01:11):
and hear the second batter of the nning against after
Jake Rogers go Blue. If you're into that kind of thing,
and stay class, everybody, we'll talk to you later.

Speaker 2 (01:01:20):
Have a good night.

Speaker 3 (01:01:21):
That guys,