TMLR Week 11: Colt Beef is back

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

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Oh, I'm sorry that out.

Speaker 3 (00:48):
Everybody. Welcome to another episode of Tiger My Repore podcast
as we're broadcasting live during the Tiger's game right now
is to nothing Detroit in and they are in Houston spaceland.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
Was it?

Speaker 1 (01:02):
What was it?

Speaker 3 (01:02):
What's the name nickname they called? Is it a some
nickname for Houston?

Speaker 4 (01:08):
And they have several an Thames, the big Cowboy hat.

Speaker 3 (01:14):
No, but they right now Laboratories left the game with
a looks like another.

Speaker 4 (01:18):
Pair of injury and for a Melton was scratched.

Speaker 3 (01:22):
With back injury with back spasms. Jack Flaherty left the
game after he slipped initially and then at the thirty
made like a play where he kind of stood up
like this to get the fly or and out and
then he was happy leave the game then too. So yeah.
And then Spencer Erblinson struck out with the bases loaded.
And I had double checked that stat but as a

(01:44):
correct SAT he's one now he's now for one for
sixteen this year. Yeah, or no lifetime with two outs
in the basis loaded.

Speaker 4 (01:52):
Oh, with two outs in the basis loaded, Yeah, the
basic loaded. In general he's like three for thirty six
or something like that. It's hard to believe.

Speaker 5 (02:02):
How did they score? I've been doing the slides.

Speaker 3 (02:04):
Kevin McGonagall with a home run and then then it
was a passball on the first run. So Kevin McGonagall
with this fifth home run of the season. So Emily
Waldon will be joining us at nine to fifteen for
a segment to talk about what she see in Toledo.
She did a PAX article. I've talked about the some
of the John Pack in which she saw with him.
In the article you can find on Baseball America. So,

(02:28):
but for those who are fans of keeping score, what
have you? I do have the I'll be having the
banner rolling here in a second keeping tabs on a
tighter score tonight if you're doing two things at once.
But thanks for much for watching things, for much listening.
And we also got a newsletter out today, issue number ten.
If you're a Patreon member or Patron member, that's out

(02:49):
and issue number ten, issue number ten, and we also
have to talk for issue number Oh yeah, yeah, okay,
I know where you're going with that. Issue number ten.
Should pap bu cunning very uh difference, very very for
anybody that's watched as well, you'll get that. But yeah,
LABORATORI has left the game early. So but yeah, at

(03:13):
any rate, our top forty six is updated finally, So
you can go to a website Tigers m Report dot
com and you can see the top forty six. Majority
of the Scott reports are there. There's a few missing.
And then Chris is working on article. We're starting a
draft coverage too. I'm doing a draft piece. I got
tip from U. I showed you that tip. I sent
you Chris the email I got.

Speaker 4 (03:35):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, catch it from New Jersey.

Speaker 3 (03:38):
Yeah, and there was a player working out today. Shout
out to Jake and the Tiger's turpmoil who tweeted out
a player that was that America Park only uh the
it was a picture from Wichita State that was getting
it looks like a tryout or believe it Coke America.
Do you remember that guy's name was Chris?

Speaker 4 (03:57):
I don't remember his name, but yeah, he was. He
was interesting because I looked at his stats and he
was really he was an all star in the kipe
Cod League. Uh, but his overall stats in college weren't
all that great. Maybe it's just better against wood bets,
but yeah, it's you know, I generally think that's a
pretty good way to determine. Like if if you can
get information on who actually comes in for a workout,

(04:18):
that's probably probably a pretty good idea of who they
might be looking at, because we know that, like, you know,
Olavetto came in for a workout last year. But uh not,
no guarantee that they're gonna take that guy. And also
I don't know how crazy the Tigers would be about him.

Speaker 3 (04:33):
Well yes, yeah, yeah, home run for cold Keith, hell yeah,
hell yeah, I was just talking about that. What's up.
I'm sorry, go ahead, We'll.

Speaker 5 (04:43):
Just said no, it's all coming together.

Speaker 4 (04:45):
Yeah, to run bomb.

Speaker 3 (04:46):
Yeah, to run bomb year. Well how far was that? Uh?
Whoa wan to wait off the bat for eleven distance too?
That's a beauty.

Speaker 4 (04:58):
Let's see. So McGonagall walked. That's hit by pitch. Cold
Keith hit by Oh it coke Keith was hit by
a pitch before the first run. So that's his third arm.

Speaker 3 (05:09):
We had the game Ethan Rodgers pitches at Wichitas State. Okay,
thank you, it was Ethan Rodgers. Thank you.

Speaker 4 (05:14):
Wait, no, that's not it Ethan Rogers, the kid that
they drafted before.

Speaker 3 (05:19):
Oh okay, okay, okay.

Speaker 5 (05:21):
Let me see. I'm sure we can go in here.

Speaker 3 (05:23):
Look at Ethan Rogers.

Speaker 4 (05:25):
I thought Ethan Rodgers was the kid that they drafted before.
My my mistaking, if I'm I'm mistaking.

Speaker 5 (05:32):
Uh, this is.

Speaker 4 (05:34):
Brady Hamilton was the kid from Wichita State.

Speaker 3 (05:38):
Okay, well eight point nine off the bat mm hmm
yeah that was okay, Yeah, that's yeah, that's great. Sorry,
I was just it was just a min there draft
of the last year did not sign, thank you. Okay,

(06:00):
there you go. Mystery behind that as you as you
know the David Chantner was he witch St a heavy, heavy,
heavy area.

Speaker 4 (06:08):
But well, and that's another year. We've talked about some
of the areas that this new crew seems to be
drafting players from, you know, the northeast you've talked about
and I talked about like the LA area, right. Yeah,
but they also take an awful lot of kids that
go to that you know, pitching w r x UH facility,
which I think is in Oklahoma City area. Yeah, like

(06:32):
Cash Kuiker Whiska. I think Bryce the Allawline was from there.
Maybe maybe he's from a different place, but they've so
he wouldn't shock me again. If you get somebody from
like the Oklahoma Jucos this year, oh.

Speaker 3 (06:44):
Oh hell yeah. Now sports and those deep wall there
you go big enough for that. I was just talking
about him not hit, went the bases loaded. But give
guess what if he's not so old shot, it's fine.
What all three off the bat? Three hundred and seventy
two feet and well, you know what we're just gonna
do for now, we're gonna share our I'm having the
I had the game time feed, so we'll just share

(07:05):
that until we get to the to the screens. But
but just wanted to talk about the Tigers series with
Cleveland a little bit and we'll get to like I said,
we'll talk to Emily Walden a little bit while she saw.
But you know, it's voodoo. There's some sort of voodoo
Chris with Cleveland. I I'm I'm I'm convinced of this.
And this is something that it's a cycle thing. If

(07:27):
you never noticed this before. Yeah, when we were younger,
Cleveland had the Tiger's number. Then for a while, the
Tigers had Cleveland's number. Now it's kind of turned back
a little bit, but it just the amount of like
just the bunch, like the little things. Cleveland is a
branded baseball that anoise the hell out of me. Sometimes

(07:48):
it's just the bunting, the little things like that. Like
its irritating.

Speaker 4 (07:52):
Yeah, that there's uh, it kind of reminds me of
of like like you're a basketball team that isn't particularly
great and handling the ball and you run up against
the team that does like full court pressure and then
you just because every time the Tigers play Cleveland, they
start doing things that are like bizarre and make a
mistake like Dingler had that throwing air at a third Yeah,

(08:15):
and and they just you know, make these mistakes and
then they're not they don't ever execute with men on base. Now,
maybe Cleveland has some sort of amazing you know, scouting
reports and they're just elite executing, but you look at
the number of like the pitchers from Cleveland who aren't
any good really, who just shut down the Tigers. It's
really frustrating. And yeah, I think it's I honestly do

(08:37):
think it's mental. There's something like they're pressing super hard
against Cleveland and Cleveland just doesn't make a lot of mistakes.

Speaker 5 (08:43):
And the Tigers keep doing it.

Speaker 4 (08:45):
So they got to get over that because they are
oer and six against Cleveland this year.

Speaker 3 (08:48):
I think, right, yeah, they're on in six. They have
lost six in row to Cleveland. But you know, Chris,
I think I really think it's there's there's someone else
to someone else out there. I really think there's some
sort of of you know, as somebody who grew up
in a Cuban household and and and and dealt with

(09:08):
Santa Ria in a first hand experience. My father did
practice it, I said, before I'll say it again. You
see it, you see it in my garage and being
able to throw away. I mean, I think, hey, he
has a lot to do with this. I really think
Joe bu really has something to do with this. Like
this there's yeah, I mean that there's a I'll have
to like I said, I'll have to show you the picture.

(09:29):
You know, I'll have to picture is wrong. But my
dad had like this whole thing with it, like so
it's like it's it looks like a it looks like
a little volcano thing with little symbols on it. And
my dad would put candy in it. That was part
of the and then you would say something in Spanish,
and there was like this clay pot and all this

(09:49):
stuff with it, and one day I'll show it on here.
But I'm just always scared to talk about a little
bit because my dad was a strange man. When he
came to his religion. He never talked about it. He
just said would say, somebody's you know, like one time,
I uh, I think I've told the story before. You
had money in this clay pot. It was like this
porcelain pot with like stones and there's symbols in there,

(10:10):
and I needed money for mountain dew and barbecue chips
after a baseball game. Took the money, end up getting
hitting the nuts during baseball And yeah, so.

Speaker 4 (10:21):
You know, don't don't take the money out of the claypot. Yeah,
I do think that's what happened in May.

Speaker 3 (10:26):
Yeah, No, that is like I like, what a salty
here says Cleveland has a jomp boo when we have
a joke.

Speaker 4 (10:35):
Yeah, I mean I Meanwhile, what you've did is do
you think is there a pictrick kai waiting?

Speaker 5 (10:40):
Is that it?

Speaker 4 (10:41):
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (10:42):
The Tigers are not waiting to get up under the
batters box? Is that right?

Speaker 4 (10:45):
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (10:46):
They got there. They're waiting to wicktail.

Speaker 3 (10:51):
Oh yeah, we got the punk, we got the punt tonight.
But uh no. And the other thing about the Cleveland
Series two is the for example, right now, they had
three home runs at three innings. Somehow they just cannot
It was something that tannered Bibby. I was noticing this
and Dickerson will talk about this.

Speaker 2 (11:08):
Him.

Speaker 3 (11:09):
They were able the joy Cantrell also was throwing more
sliders cutter, and they were able to change the pass
like Tigers could not. We're getting no fastballs from him
at all, and then Bibby was just throwing fast holes
by him. So it's just really weird how both pitchers
approached Friday and Satury's game very differently.

Speaker 4 (11:28):
Yeah, and they seem to do a really good job
of keeping When the Tigers do make contact, it's all
to the center of the field, right, it's the you know,
barrel three hundred and seventy feet to left center.

Speaker 5 (11:37):
But it's an out.

Speaker 4 (11:37):
It's easy out because uh yeah, they just they do
a really good job. And like I said, they got
to get over it somehow. They just need to go
out there and not worry about making little mistakes. But
for now, you know, play the team in front of
you play the Astros and they have a bunch of
games against the Yankees, right and then.

Speaker 3 (11:55):
Yeah, yeah, the first things first, I thig beave, it's
the White Sox are up this weekkend with I think
Negro League weekend on Friday and Saturday. And by the way,
if you're not doing anything on Friday, June nineteenth, which
is juneteenth, the ham Traffick Park is having a game.

(12:16):
They're having a prep game on Saturday. So let me
let me this out before we get to Emily here
in a second, because I promise Gary would talk about
this a little bit. Garrett Gulett Jerry Gallett, the president
of the Saber Saber chapter here in locally, a really
good friend of mine and he's become kind of a
mentor guy too. So the friends of the Historic Hamtrammick

(12:38):
Stadium and Parks Park's Conservatory are probaly announce we're turn
of the fifth annual Ham Trammick June Team Celebrations on Friday,
June nineteenth at the historic ham Tracks Hamtrack Ham Trammick Stadium.
Don't neither Rush located at thirty two to oh one
Dance Street, in Hamtrammick. This free public event will feature
community celebration honoring June Teeth, the legacy of black baseball

(13:01):
youth opportunities. The keynote speaker is Dorian Harriston, a poet, educator,
and former college baseball player from Kentucky. Harriston is the
author of Pretend the Ball is named after Jim Crow,
The Story of Josh Houson, a collection of poems that
showed baseball's reflects a society at the time. His work
explores the Black American experience through Mortal Negro League's superstar

(13:24):
Josh Gibson. So the ceremony starts at eleven o'clock and
then the Detroit Propp Classic Home Run Derby at noon
with for the Turkey Steam Yeah, Turkey Turkey. Sterns Foundation
Dune teenth Multidisiplined Art Contest and the home on Derby
Softialplinterers will take place at one thirty. So the game
is going to be at two o'clock. The teams the

(13:45):
Team Sterns versus Team Tissley. So there you go.

Speaker 4 (13:49):
Yeah, very cool, like yeah that the ham cramentating doesn't
get renovated without Gary.

Speaker 5 (13:54):
Really yeah, it's that's.

Speaker 4 (13:57):
That's a huge undertaking and very cool to you know,
to celebrate the other baseball team in Detroit. That kind
of you know, that's one of those things about you know,
obviously everybody deserved it the same chance, but you know,
when the when black players were able to go with
the major leagues, the negro leagues kind.

Speaker 5 (14:14):
Of died out.

Speaker 4 (14:14):
Yeah, and unfortunately Emily from the pits of Hell, Where Emily,
where are you?

Speaker 3 (14:20):
Yeah?

Speaker 6 (14:22):
So full confession, I was having some technical problems. So
I'm currently sitting on my bed. I'm being fully transferent.
I need a new laptop. I'm just I'm going to
put that out there. I need a new laptop. So
that's next on the list for me.

Speaker 3 (14:40):
So Emily, you come in time and sort of brain
and just came in time for this question here Mitch.
Mitch wants to know because you did see Taledo over
the weekend. I wanted to ask you. We brought you
in for the segment to talk about your peck article
in Baseball America and mainly what you saw in Toledo.
Always saw you on Saturday and Clark made that really
nice dive and play. You think we'll get a Clark
call before July. First, that's a really good question.

Speaker 6 (15:07):
I'm gonna say probably not. That just comes from a
place of I feel like a j is gonna do
everything he can rat the guys he has first, and
then I think until he gets to a point of saying, Okay,
now that time has come, I think we'll see Max Clark.

(15:27):
But something tells me I think we've still got a
little bit more time. But you know, I guess we'll
see what's on the horizon.

Speaker 3 (15:36):
Yeah, I don't think he's ready yet, but I did
see some signs over the weekend that he's taking better defensively.
That nice catch he made, We'll talk about that a
little bit Saturday. But overall, his overall demeanor and hitting
more pull side, he just seems like he's starting to
figure things out quicker in Toledo and at the right
time too. And everybody. I mean, well, Jerry Valencia, I

(15:58):
was right about this newsletter. But what all stood out
to you in Toledo this weekend? Because I know Saturday's
game was it's on mince words, he was a stinker.
But Sunday's game was a lot more of what we've
been seeing consistently from Toledo's Bats, which is really just
home like extra bases.

Speaker 6 (16:15):
Essentially well, and I honestly feel like we're seeing a
bit of the same thing we're seeing in Detroit, where
you have a collection of guys who are honestly pretty
good offensively, but it seems to be the challenge of
getting that just stay consistent where you see the ability there,
but for whatever reason, there always feels like there's a

(16:35):
bit of a disconnect. And you mentioned Ben MAJORI he's
somebody who just continues to surprise me. He always seems
to find ways to produce offensively. I think he's a
solid defender. I've never seen any real concerns from him defensively,
but just really easy power, really easy power. And I
feel like over time he's sort of, I don't know

(16:57):
if matured is the right word, or just developed into
really an offensive force. And I think we got to
see that on better display on Sunday, because yeah, Saturday
Saturday was a little challenging to watch.

Speaker 3 (17:09):
Yeah, the Saint Paul like just a matter of a
matter of minute, like it was Carl Edwards Junior's toast.
I'm sorry, no, to there was Carl Edwards Junior fans
out there. That was one of the longest hittings I've
sat through in a long time like that. I think
I sent Chris to I sent a picture of the
count at the time. It was like forty one pitches.
Thirty five of them were strip balls or something like that.

(17:30):
No exaggeration. It was bad and but that was that
was brutal, but a get into I wanted to talk
to you about your John pack article a little bit,
and Peck has been turning on was like in three
hundred over the last month or so between him Checko,
who's I got admitted, I'm surprised a little bit about
the Checko's fast adapted advatation of double A. What about

(17:53):
Peck this year? I mean, I know Peck got out
to rough start defensively, but it seems like the bat
also got off those little start. But as late, what's
click for Peck?

Speaker 6 (18:03):
You know, I had a long talk with Tony Cappachelli,
who is he was the manager at West Michigan for
those who are unaware, for twenty four and twenty five,
and now he's with Eerie now for the twenty six season,
so he's essentially had John Peck for three years. This
is a third year with him, and he did acknowledge
that that bit of a choppy start. But the thing

(18:25):
with John is that that quiet confidence that you kind
of see in him once you get to know him
a little bit and you kind of see how he operates,
you learned very quickly that he's working things out in
his own mind. And I feel like some people are
just wired that way where they want to hear the
coaches feedback, they want to hear what the organization is
telling them. But he's the type of person where he's

(18:48):
got such a high baseball IQ that he's looking at
these situations and he's looking at his personal performance and
he's saying, I know what I need to do here.
It's just a matter of me figuring out how to
get there. And I think we're seeing him develop even
more because as we saw with him last year, I mean,
he became a force last year. And this to me,
not to obviously knock prospect rankings, I almost feel like

(19:12):
those of us who follow baseball closely, the rankings almost
unintentionally disqualify certain guys if they're not on those lists.
And I think that's what makes minor league baseball so
special is that you see these guys sort of come
out of the woodwork and they become legitimate talents, and
they become household names, and you find those names and conversations.

(19:32):
And since I first connected with John early last year,
that's really what that whole journey has been about for him.
So it's really been a lot of fun to see.

Speaker 3 (19:41):
Yeah, especially a guy like I think about Jim Jarvis
for example, now with the Braves, who Yeah, you're right,
he wasn't a guy he wasn't on any prospect lists
or anything with that, but got also a really good
start in Triple A and he's been he's got to
see a big league level just for a little bit.
But still that's a story where jar this was going
about his sting and I don't think he was really

(20:02):
high on our list, Chris, right, I mean we had
him maybe the twenties maybe.

Speaker 5 (20:07):
Yeah, I'm not sure if he ever got into the
twenties or not.

Speaker 4 (20:09):
But yeah, it's sometimes the players grow on you, right,
They just grow on you the more you see him,
the more they perform. There's a certain level of that
with like we got that from col keitham on the
way right, Like in Hot in how you lead wugus.

Speaker 3 (20:23):
Peak parades, hit a home run to the last.

Speaker 4 (20:27):
Yeah, yeah, Pack is another one of those guys, Like,
you know, we wrote about him as a guy to
watch before last season because of some of he didn't
have like super loud numbers, but the backing data was
interesting and he had a whole bunch of steals and
a short number of games, and yeah, he really kind
of jumped onto the sort of into the Tigers mental
verse there with with his performance at spring training.

Speaker 2 (20:51):
Yeah, I mean, this isn't a shot that like you know,
the national writers or this or that. It's just that,
you know, it's pretty hard to pay close attention to
the guys who weren't like high drafts or who are
you know, putting up huge power numbers.

Speaker 1 (21:05):
You know, I mean, I've been bit by the same thing.

Speaker 2 (21:07):
Like, you know, it's just easy to undervalue like defense, speed,
like the full collection of tools. Sometimes and all of
a sudden, the guy starts to hit a little more
than people expected, and you've got a complete player. Whereas yeah,
you know, you may not have seen that guy in
the top one hundred, or he may just have been
a guy who you know, look like a solid org
player who might be a utility guy someday, and all

(21:28):
of a sudden they start to hit and they're a
lot better than that because all those secondary tools were
already there.

Speaker 3 (21:35):
By the way, guy like that, Yeah, Peck could be
that guy, and Peck I think like it was talking
to Zach about it earlier in the year the broadcaster ERII,
the kind of slow start, kind of surprisingly by the way,
the Astros structure back to back home runs, a two
run shot by Parades and then jose L two. They
went deep on They're eating eating who who uh is?

(21:58):
Five three now at the end of the third inning?
But no Emily the other one of the other takeaway
from your trip to Toledo? What else stood out to
you among any pictures stood out to you? Because I
know right now who's up Goo is put up with
some really impressive numbers, But the velocity is kind of
concern a little bit because nineteen ninety three is that

(22:20):
going to still play up in the big LEA level?
But who else stood out to you over the weekend?

Speaker 6 (22:26):
I have to be very honest because I know the
fan base appreciates the honesty. There really isn't much depth
when it comes to pitching in Toledo right now, I
think there are guys who can definitely step in and
help the situation at times. But if we're looking at
real prospect pitching potential, I think you're looking at the

(22:47):
Florida State League to the Midwest League right now. Some
of those college arms. Ben Jacobs, I know, has been
in a lot of conversation as far as someone that
we could really see sort of grow more into his
ownness than we've already seen. And isn't that minor league baseball? Though?
You see this ebb and flow of the whole crop
of pictures. We had the Casey Mice, the Trek Scooble,

(23:10):
the Alex Baido wave that sort of pushed through, and
then you almost had to wait again for that cycle
to come through. The next wave of pictures started to
work their way up. So I think as far as
pitching up in Toledo, I think, you know, if we're
being honest, I think it is lacking right now. But
I think with that wave we should start to see
more of those arms work their way up and see

(23:32):
a bit more. But honestly, the one who I was
really looking forward to seeing was Max Anderson defensively, just
because that's someone who I've spoken with him specifically about
finding his rhythm defensively. The Tigers have been in a
position where they've had so many guys in the middle
infield that they've almost had to sort of play that

(23:54):
chess game of figuring out, Okay, if this guy's going
to thrive here, can we shift this guy over here?
Of this guy here? And Max Anderson, if you know him,
this is one of the most adaptable, even tempered. I'm
just here to play. That is as real as it
gets with Max Anderson. He loves the game. Product out

(24:15):
of Nebraska. Jaba Chamberlain is actually his biggest fan. Fun
fact for anybody, wasn't aware of that, and he's just
somebody who he's hungry to grow. He goes about it
with that same similar to John Peck, just a quiet
confidence and he puts the product out on the field.
So getting to see him work defensively was really i'd

(24:36):
say the highlight of the trip for me.

Speaker 3 (24:38):
Yeah, you know what, he showed a really good range
at third last time I was down in Toledo. He's
getting better at third, He's getting more comfortable there, and
it was interesting where. I know the Tigers have had
him all over the infield a little bit, but he
has continued to be adaptable. The one thing that I
wanted to ask you before we get you back to
your dungeon of doom background there, it's so sorry. I

(25:01):
can help myself as far as like just overall impressions
with West Michigan too. I know you've been hitting up
the white Caps. It's been a rough year record wise,
it has not been a great year for the white Caps,
but there has been some glimmers of hope, one being
Bryce Rainer and his swing. I'm not going to ask

(25:21):
you specifics because we laughed about the other day, but
Rainer aside, what else has stood out to you West
Michigan because I know we've also we were both big fans,
and I know Chris is a fan and brand I'm
not really sure if you're a fan of wood Woody Hayden,
but there's some on the record, I mean, besides the record,

(25:42):
there's some talent there in West Michigan that stands out.

Speaker 6 (25:45):
There definitely is And if anyone follows me on Twitter,
shameless pluck I like to do. I'm a video nerd
and I'm such a visual person. You talked about Bryce's swing.
It's honestly been fascinating to me because you kind of
have a lot much looking back at some of the
footage from last year, looking at how he was before

(26:05):
his injury, after his injury, and then coming up to
another new level this year, and you almost have to
adapt all over again because he had to rediscover himself
post injury, and then you get up to the Midwest League,
which I've preached this so many times. Midwest League is
not a simple league, no matter what position you're playing,
and you've got guys who they're coming into their own more.

(26:26):
They're more polished, they're more disciplined, and I think he's
really kind of starting to find his rhythm because he's
still young, still has that really big body to work with.
And I remember talking with Isaac Pacheco last year about
the challenges of having these long arms, long legs. You
almost have to learn how to tame that at the

(26:47):
plate without the risk of losing some of that offensive power.
And I think we're starting to see that from him.
But outside of Rayner, I'm a big fan of Jackson Strong.
I really like seeing the power numbers he's put up,
he's been I'm not sure off the top of my
head his home run numbers, but I believe he homered
in three straight games recently. And he's really just been

(27:10):
showing a lot more, a lot more of that power
than I saw last year. And then Woo, Woody hay
Dean is just fun. I'm a big fan of Woody
hay Dean. He's such a not only is he such
a positive person, he just brings just this light and
this always smiling, always jumping around, always having fun. And

(27:30):
he put on actually a little bit of weight over
the off season. He told me, I think he gained
somewhere between like seven to ten pounds if I remember correctly.
And this is a guy he's naturally thin. I'm not
going to say Peyton Grahan thin, but you've got that,
You've got that kind of the similar, very thin, lean muscle.
But he's really showing that that weight gain I think

(27:53):
has only made that much more valuable because he's always
had a good hand eye coordination situation going on. But
this year, I think we're seeing a more mature version
of a few of these guys in West Michigan. And
like you said, that the tables have turned, because now
we're seeing a team like the Dayton Dragons, who were
literally at the bottom of the barrel last year, and

(28:13):
now they're starting to move up through the ranks and
they've sort of switched positions with West Michigan. So it's
it's that ub and flow again of the game. And
we're just seeing another example of that.

Speaker 3 (28:25):
Guys want to add anything else before we move on?

Speaker 2 (28:29):
I mean, I mean I'm interested, Yeah, just to see
if Rainer can like build up his kind of his
legs and his lower half mobility to kind of you know,
because he's he is kind of an upper body hitter
right now, and he does have the long limbs and
they tend to get away fromhim a little.

Speaker 1 (28:42):
Bit, and that you know, kind of naturally.

Speaker 2 (28:44):
Leads to him, you know, going at the opposite field
a lot, being late a little bit, not turning on
some pitches that he could turn on probably, And yeah,
I just think we just need to be very patient
with Bryce Rayner. I know, we just keep making this
point over and over again, but then swing a bat
for you know, eight months.

Speaker 1 (29:01):
He was straight out of.

Speaker 2 (29:02):
High school at the time, you know, came into the
season with maybe one hundred plate appearance or something like that.
It just we just gonna have to kind of see
how it plays out this year. We all know he's
kind of a high risk bat as far as the
hit tool, but when you have stupid power and a
huge arm and speed, you know you got to give
him time.

Speaker 1 (29:20):
He's right now facing guys who pitched.

Speaker 2 (29:22):
In college who are two or three years older than
him in some cases, and you just got to kind
of let him work and see how it goes for
the rest of the year, I think, before we really
start making any solid judgments about how things are going
to turn out for him.

Speaker 1 (29:34):
And yeah, Woody hating is fun.

Speaker 2 (29:36):
He is. He just does a lot of a lot
of little things. He's a scrappy player who might might
turn out to be some kind of a Zach McKinstry
type in the end, and putting on some muscle mass
would definitely be advised for him just to get a
little more bat speed going. He can make contact, but
he just doesn't doesn't impact the ball very hard very often,
So maybe that's maybe that's going to change this year.

Speaker 6 (29:56):
We'll see, well, And I talked to him at the
start of the seasons for your talking about that weight game.
He actually got married in the off season, and I said,
is it because he's got somebody cooking for you now?
And he goes, he kind of shot me at grade.
He goes, she's a good cook. He said, I can't lie, Emily.

Speaker 4 (30:14):
Did you have you talked to Lucas Alas at all
this year or last when he came up there?

Speaker 6 (30:20):
Yeah? So last year. And I actually have a video
on which I can reshare on Twitter if anyone's interested,
where he talks about his pitch mix this year. This
year has been interesting because I might have touched on
this with Roger a little bit, but we're seeing sort
of I don't know if you want to call him
growing pains from some of the arms from last year

(30:40):
in West Michigan that they're sort of not seeing that
same consistency they saw last year. And I know with
Lucas specifically, he was really focused on polishing and fine
tuning what he had, but he was also working to
kind of introduce I want to see it was his
kick change that he would trying to put more into

(31:01):
the mix a little bit too. And he's one of
the ones that just seems to be kind of going
through a little bit of growth from a performance standpoint,
because I don't feel like we're seeing the same sort
of bite to the numbers that he had last year.
And I could say the same about a few other arms,
but it just seems like they're kind of trying to

(31:21):
refine some things, and unfortunately, when you're going through that
refining process, it's not always pretty. But I think that's
where the state of a few of those pictures are
at right now. With the white Caps.

Speaker 3 (31:33):
Yeah, especially with the guys like Breen or Castillo, who
I think is it's weird to see almost like a
I don't want to say aggression, but just stunned growth,
like he stopped growing. I don't know what it is.
I don't know. By the way, my Jones.

Speaker 5 (31:51):
The fourth inning.

Speaker 3 (31:52):
Forfeiting, come on, come on, what are we doing?

Speaker 4 (31:57):
So you know, no, Emily a great drive. I know
you had an article about Christian Santana.

Speaker 6 (32:05):
Yeah, putting, putting, Yeah, putting one together. He for those
who don't really know him so well, he's actually Wenzel
pere As his cousin. They come from the same town
in the Dominican Republic, and so he he talked to
me in linked about how much of an inspiration Winsil
has been just watching his career, watching the way he's developed,

(32:26):
and he really has that hunger to say, you know,
how much, how much can I follow in that path?
How can I sort of carve my own path into
the game. And he also shared some very passionate views
on coffee. So that's something that I'm really going to
have to get into because in his experience, he said
American coffee does not measure up to Dominican coffee. So

(32:50):
that's that's definitely a debate that we might have to
have more conversations on.

Speaker 2 (32:54):
Yeah, ask him how it compares to Cuban cofee, because
I've had some really good Cuban coffee.

Speaker 1 (32:58):
I don't I don't, you know.

Speaker 2 (32:59):
I don't want to just sparage the d R, but
I'm just saying I'm not I'm not sure they're they're
quite at that level.

Speaker 6 (33:03):
See, we might we might have to bring him on
as a guest and we can have a little debate
about that.

Speaker 2 (33:09):
Sometimes yelled at Yeah.

Speaker 3 (33:11):
In my back mantle, I have a Cuban coffee maker
back there. You're my dad for a reason. I mean,
that's just that's retired because the game of that Cuban
coffee is and y Riley Green strikes out.

Speaker 4 (33:28):
Not necessarily what you know, something shocking with a lefty
out there. It's the mushroom stuff that just needs needed
to end a couple of weeks ago. Man, we don't
like to my Jones as a person. But again, the
way he's performed, I think he.

Speaker 5 (33:41):
Can clear waivers. I think he can go right to
Toledo and you'll keep them.

Speaker 3 (33:45):
But what do I know, Yeah, especially when the aj Hinch,
I want to read the ag Hinch comments.

Speaker 1 (33:51):
Yeah, we exactly.

Speaker 2 (33:52):
We need to get into that because it feels like
we're in a j Hinch like, Hey, what are you
gonna what are you gonna do about this? Scott Harris,
I'm just gonna keep playing this dude, so you know,
either get me something. I mean, it's really starting to
feel egregious to where it's just like, you know, I've
got this guy, this is where he's supposed to play.
I'm just gonna keep playing him there, and you know,
it kind of feels a little bit like it did
at the deadline last year, where there was some irritation,

(34:15):
you know, or at least it felt like there was
between the two of them, like this is what I got.
You know what am I supposed to do with this guy?
So yeah, he could just sit him.

Speaker 3 (34:23):
You know, you could sit him. So let me before
we get in that, Emily, what do you want to
plug him? By the way, graduations on getting the Fox
Fox two Sports.

Speaker 6 (34:33):
Oh, thank you, thank you guys. Yeah, it's it's been cool.
I think just sort of getting back into my rhythm
with everything. I've been trending in a really promising direction
with my treatments and so it's allowed me to get
back to the park, start getting some more conversations and
more more article ideas going. So it's good to feel
more like myself again.

Speaker 2 (34:54):
For sure.

Speaker 3 (34:56):
Your energy level is very noticeable and in a very
good way. So I'm thank you so but yeah, you
finamily on Baseball America. Find out our website. You can
also find it out just Baseball as or we're all
we're all part just Baseball now too, So it's a
it's all coming together. But yeah, it's a good stuff.
And Emily, thanks again. And like I said, we'll probably
see you probably West Michigan sooner than later. So I

(35:19):
haven't been there a while this week, yeah, Lanty by
the way, gave up twenty five runs. Twenty five runs
on Saturday. That was insane. I don't know if you
saw that. Not only it was thirty hits crazy.

Speaker 6 (35:33):
I heard about the score and you just kind of
step back and go, well, Tiger's affiliates haven't done that yet,
so I guess we can count our blessings.

Speaker 3 (35:42):
Yeah, go nuts, nuts, go nuts. By the way, I
had the Philly steak nacho and they came up with
this nice helmet there.

Speaker 6 (35:48):
But your mate could be hungry.

Speaker 3 (35:49):
Now, Emily, thanks so much for joining us, and we'll talk.

Speaker 6 (35:54):
All right, Thanks guys.

Speaker 3 (35:55):
Yeah, yeah, so yeah, here's where's what Jamia Jones said.

Speaker 2 (36:00):
To wait where somebody somebody had the perfect spike pinch hitting.

Speaker 1 (36:04):
That's that's exactly what that feels like.

Speaker 4 (36:08):
Well, I mean, so yeah, do we do we really
think that this is Scott Harris? Like I really believe
in this guy? Or is it a j hints believing
in this guy?

Speaker 6 (36:15):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (36:15):
I really don't know.

Speaker 3 (36:16):
Yeah, yeah, this is what he said. It's been a
tough year. I'm not gonna read all of it, but
here's the here's here's what he said that the last
part I want to read here. We need Jamai to
do his part to truly function the way the strategy
is design and how the roster's built. Continue to continue
to give him opportunity because we believe in him, but
we clearly need production in order to continue that and

(36:38):
walk into those exact situations we know are coming because
we've seen him deliver before in the biggest stage that
we've played. I don't know how long it lasts. I
don't know. The rosters are always in flux production matters,
and we're gonna continue to work with him because we
believe in him. End quote. And you can be the
rest here obviously, But uh.

Speaker 2 (36:57):
I mean that's what you're gonna say. I mean, that's
that's the problem. Like what you know, what is he
gonna say? Yeah, he's sucking you.

Speaker 1 (37:04):
Know, I don't want to play him anymore. This guy's
killing us.

Speaker 2 (37:08):
I mean, he can't say those things, but he's still
but he's still putting him in in that kind of
a situation. And it's to a point where I'm ready
to like call up Jase Young and just let Jace
Young play first base and we'll just keep Torque on
the bench to be the lefty master, you know, like.

Speaker 1 (37:23):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (37:23):
I don't have a solution, and Scott Harris isn't gonna
go trade for anybody because Scott Harris doesn't do things.
So I really don't know. And if Glaber's hurt, you know,
I think we're probably cooked.

Speaker 5 (37:33):
Brother.

Speaker 1 (37:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (37:35):
Look, seeing that right after McGonagall Homer and I was
just like, okay, all right, this is it's just it's
not gonna happen.

Speaker 5 (37:41):
Sure.

Speaker 4 (37:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (37:41):
Well, I mean at this point, now, if if Labor's
out again, you have to consider the possibility that Lee
is going to be. They're gonna probably stick with Lee again.
And it's well And as far as Max as Max
Sanders is gonna get consideration, I don't know. But as
far as Jase Young goes. There was an interesting stat
that a Toledo guy told me the other day he has

(38:02):
never hit a home run off curve balls, Like he
has one hit for curveball. Yeah something like that. Noah, Yeah,
what we need for Max Anderson to get to call
up maybe maybe an injury to Torres if that's possible.
But I don't know that. The thing is that I
wrote this about this in an article the Weekend The Rock.
I don't think the Tigers are gonna make any big

(38:23):
roster decisions. Even you look at the minor league level,
no guys have been promoted. It's all been Chris pointed
to me out the other day. It's all been or
guys or guys going back and forth. Go ahead.

Speaker 4 (38:36):
Well, yeah, I mean just in the last couple of years,
they haven't. They haven't really promoted anybody before late June.

Speaker 2 (38:43):
I don't think it's kind of been around the All
Star break last year, right right before then.

Speaker 4 (38:48):
Yeah, I think, yeah, was the one a couple of
years ago when they promoted him right when Eerie was
not like officially not making the playoffs in the first half.

Speaker 5 (38:55):
Then he got promoted Toledo.

Speaker 4 (38:56):
But other than that, like they wait until after they
All Star break with Clark and McGonagall, Briscegno and I
can't really think of anybody. I mean, Rainer got promoted
to begin the year sort of, but yeah, they generally don't.

Speaker 5 (39:10):
Move guys very quickly. It's just and you know, you'll
see other.

Speaker 4 (39:13):
Teams like the Nationals have moved Devin Fitzgerald up to
Double A now. I think he started in low A,
like there are other teams moving guys quickly. Atlanta has
it was Eric Cartman. I think they started him in
high A. He's a nineteen year old. But let's it's
just not the way the Tigers do it. And I
don't think we'll see Max Anderson. If they need a
Batman Toledo, it'll be maybe Cruz, maybe workmen, those guys

(39:35):
who are already in the forty man Yeah, maybe Young.

Speaker 2 (39:38):
Yeah, That's what it comes down to, is they you know,
they're not gonna want to use another forty man spot
for him. But again, it just comes back to you, Okay,
but if you have Trey Cruz and Jase Young, I'm
the forty man roster, and you won't use them in
the situations that we've already been in this year. What
are they doing here anymore?

Speaker 3 (39:55):
You know?

Speaker 1 (39:55):
Like why did you keep them? You know?

Speaker 2 (39:59):
And it's not that I think Max Anderson's ready to
come up here and do a whole lot either, to
be honest, but you know, they.

Speaker 1 (40:06):
Just don't have a whole lot of other other options.

Speaker 2 (40:08):
But yeah, I mean, I don't know, maybe you bring
up Trey Cruz and then you play him at short
some and you use McKinstry and play McGonagall at second
base a little bit something. But I don't know, but
based on labor Torres reaction, it looked it looked like
it was going to be another another Iyel stint.

Speaker 1 (40:23):
I mean he was, he was in.

Speaker 2 (40:24):
Real pain, and it like immediately knew he was gonna
have to come out.

Speaker 4 (40:27):
So did Yeah, I mean I missed it. I was
what part of his body was it?

Speaker 1 (40:32):
Oh? It was he was.

Speaker 2 (40:33):
He was indicating left side again, Yeah, left oblique, which
is exactly what.

Speaker 1 (40:37):
Was injured last time.

Speaker 2 (40:38):
So I'm assuming that's exactly the same thing. Fire everyone,
fire the trainers, fire a j fire Harris, put Rod
Metzler in charge. I don't know, or Garko or something.
I have no idea anymore, I don't.

Speaker 3 (40:53):
I think the one thing that I was going to
say during my takeaway with when I was talking to
Emily Saturday night was the lack of bullpen. It was
just it was bad. Bit like there was a crew,
there was an error by Trey Cruise. It was just
the lack of execution at some points in time from
just the littlest things. And it's like this regression that's
been so strange to see. But when I know there's

(41:16):
the picture from Cleveland that they picked up that it's
been pitching pretty well. Hell yeah, all right, well don't
diggle with the triple.

Speaker 5 (41:25):
Get up there and vote for Dingler. Yes, the All
Star Game.

Speaker 3 (41:29):
Let's talk about these let's talk about these All Stars
shenanigans by Toronto. What the hell? Man?

Speaker 4 (41:33):
Like, it's you've got an entire country, uh, rooting for
one team?

Speaker 2 (41:37):
Yeah, voting, I mean, voting is just not the way
they should be done like that, because yeah, they've got
way too many people, way too many people on their side,
and we're all divided down here among twenty nine other teams.

Speaker 3 (41:49):
Yeah again, but like every time Toronto's sniffed any kind
of success that this is what happens. And it's really
annoying because but here's the thing. Toronto fans travel well,
they travel well, But how the hell is he fourth?
Dingler is fourth behind she having damn city the name

(42:11):
after them.

Speaker 5 (42:12):
So they've got three cities, now that's why?

Speaker 6 (42:14):
What?

Speaker 3 (42:15):
So what you have? So you have what Sacramento, Vegas?
And what was the other city?

Speaker 6 (42:20):
No?

Speaker 3 (42:20):
Oakland's like, screw you.

Speaker 5 (42:22):
I'm sure there's still people there voting for their their
favorite days.

Speaker 3 (42:25):
But yeah, Ryan Jeffers is right behind. Though Jeffers.

Speaker 5 (42:30):
Make any sense?

Speaker 4 (42:31):
Come yeah, you know I went in there, Come on, Keith.
I went in there expecting to vote for McGonagall at shortstop,
and I ended up picking Cults of Montgomery. I was like, oh,
you know, he's got seventeen home runs, that's kind of
a what. But I did vote for Dingler for sure,
because yeah, he's been spectacular this year.

Speaker 5 (42:50):
He's top ten player in baseball.

Speaker 4 (42:53):
But yeah, part of it is is I think just
just the general enthusiasm about the Tigers right, Like May
killed all the enthusiasm the entire city had for the Tigers,
and I think probably seventy five percent of those people
haven't come back, even with their you know, solid performance
over the last couple of weeks. But yeah, but I

(43:13):
think ten games Tinkler definitely needs to be in the
All Star Game. I mean, he's having an amazing season,
like like you know, Portline MVP season.

Speaker 2 (43:24):
Yeah, I mean he's the best defensive catcher in baseball
and he's arguably the best hitting catcher in baseball. I mean,
you could give it to Langeliers, that's fine. You know,
there's there's there's arguments on that score, but he's right there.
I mean, to be fourth in the AL is yeah,
pretty just just kind of stupid. But it's the All
Star Game, and the All Star Game is stupid.

Speaker 1 (43:43):
Guys. It's just fun, just fun time. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (43:46):
I mean, we've you know, I know, we've just said
we've done this topic. You know, in the past, All
Star voting is irritating, and last year everybody got in
and then the team went to absolute craft afterwards. So
you know, this year it's finely not gonna matter. But yeah,
it didn't do us any good last year, that's for sure.
And then yeah McGonagall, you know, I mean there's this
tough competition at Shorts Up. You know, I mean you

(44:07):
could vote for wit for sure, you could vote for
Montgomery whoever you want.

Speaker 1 (44:11):
It's totally understandable.

Speaker 5 (44:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (44:14):
Look, and I said this, Kevin's gonna be there in
the future, guaranteed.

Speaker 3 (44:18):
Once we go through the slides, we'll have to talk
about the White Sox. Seris coming out because the White
Sox are playing some damn baseball and they're they're loaded
the gills with a system that's producing talent to them,
and they've been drafting better special trouble. Some just drew
a walk here, so runners at first and third here
with I believe it's one out, it's one out. Yeah,
it's one out. Yea mcistry up right now against Yeah,

(44:42):
blue balls, blue balls. So all right, I like this.
I like this comment here. I'm not mad about the
bad season. My beef is management. Not playing for a
guaranteed tie, learned to learn to bunt tie, like maybe
I guess maybe playing small balls. I think who's trying

(45:04):
to say that's why that's why I gathered him?

Speaker 1 (45:06):
Maybe just in general. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know.

Speaker 2 (45:09):
I uh, I hate I hate small ball, so.

Speaker 1 (45:11):
You know they're they're That's what I that's what I
think about it.

Speaker 2 (45:14):
I would love to see situational hitting is what I
would like to see.

Speaker 1 (45:18):
I don't like giving away outs.

Speaker 2 (45:20):
I I personally think like Cleveland's offense is trash and
the way boat manages their offense is trash. And he
just has a genius bullpen every year. So yeah, that's
that's my take on it. I don't I don't give
away outside is. I absolutely don't believe in it. So
it is what it is, but it would be nice
if if you can bunt, that'd be great. I mean,

(45:41):
you know, I would love to see someone butt and
be good at it. But who on this team like
is like dialed into bunt. Well, like maybe mckinstrey. You
can butt with Rogers because he's not gonna do a
whole lot anyway.

Speaker 1 (45:52):
But other than that, yeah, I don't I don't really
want to see that.

Speaker 2 (45:54):
But if we're talking small ball, like a little more
hit and run, like hitting behind the runner, yeah, like
I'd love to see that and love would love to
see some contact and guys who look like they know
the situation.

Speaker 4 (46:05):
Yeah, So if, if, and when Max Clark does come up,
he will, but it's part of his game.

Speaker 3 (46:09):
He will.

Speaker 4 (46:09):
He will bunt for hits when when you're not you know,
garden the line or whatever. So that's that's one thing
that I think fans.

Speaker 2 (46:17):
And he will put the ball in play a ton,
which which helps with all of that.

Speaker 1 (46:20):
You know, just put the ball in play.

Speaker 2 (46:22):
You should move the runner most of the time if
you're putting it in you know, to the right side
of the infield.

Speaker 3 (46:27):
So yeah, the Tigers scoring well, uh Degler's court on
while that ye have passed ball. There's six three Tigers
in the top of the fifth as we continue to
just go ahead and prand as.

Speaker 1 (46:38):
You were, I don't know that was about it. That
was because I'm getting I'm getting the same thing like that.

Speaker 2 (46:43):
You know, We've got some commoners who just think, you know,
like everything the Guardians do is genius, and I'm like
their offense is like mid to garbage every year. They
just have a great bullpent. They you can't score on
them in the late innings when they have a lead,
and that will let you do anything and I'll show
yourself one run and call it a day. But they
run themselves out of big innings all the time too,
and that was against us because they have our number

(47:04):
and it's in the Tigers heads apparently when we play them.
But yeah, I by large, I think all that is
a little overrated on what they do offensively.

Speaker 3 (47:13):
I did want to ask your take about this too,
because I was not going to Chris about this earlier
before we get to the slides. I thought they did
a really good job. Cleveland did a really good job
on Friday and Saturday adapting their starting pitchers. For example,
Joey Control Trillo started throwing more. I think it was
a change up. He was throwing a pitch he doesn't
normally throw often, more into his mix in his cutter,

(47:35):
and he was going he did not throw it like
he threw me one or two fastballs maybe tops in
the first three innings and Tigers just could not. He
was able to adapt pretty quickly and Sante with Tanna Biby,
who got blewed like I watched him. I watched the
game a couple of weeks ago against the Nationals. We
all just like four home runs at first three innings,
center cut fastballs, like the same pitch as he was
going on Tigers. Tigers were missing them. Meanwhile Nationals were

(47:58):
teeing off on this guy. Both wins Figgers, but that
was one thing I noticed that they are very like
pitch design wise. I think Cleveland is able to put
a game plan together every time he gets the Tigers,
and Tigers can't figure it out.

Speaker 2 (48:12):
Yeah, I mean, all those guys are capable of commanding
four pitches, you know, and and they'll adjust, like if
the Tigers are jumping something early, they'll adjust to what
the Tigers are swinging at. And the Tigers don't adjust back.
And I mean this kind of goes to like the
thing I was reading the other day about the Brewers,
where the Brewers might be the best team in baseball,
like identifying like micro trends and knowing how to use

(48:35):
their bench and on how to rotate guys up from
triple A, like knowing who's hot right now, who's seeing
the ball well, identifying it really quickly, getting those guys
in games, making those adjustments in games, and the Tigers
often seem yeah, behind the curve, and it's hard, you know,
it's just hard to judge this team because we haven't
really seen it in it's in its fullest form, and

(48:56):
there's almost always like some weird issue that you could
that is he they're an excuse or maybe maybe explains it.
Like everyone's mad because Drew Anderson got pulled at fifty
nine pitches today.

Speaker 1 (49:07):
But he's a reliever. You know, he's been relieving all year.

Speaker 2 (49:10):
And they're short and arm I don't know, Melton gets hurt,
You're you're in a weird situation.

Speaker 1 (49:16):
I don't love that.

Speaker 2 (49:17):
I can I can yell at aj all day about
like still hitting Jamai Jones, but like I just don't
see a whole lot of like answers that they have
in hand for a lot of the issues that have
come up.

Speaker 1 (49:28):
And yeah, but at the.

Speaker 2 (49:29):
Same time, it does feel to me like every time
we play The Guardians, they adapt to whatever we're doing
really quickly, and we don't adapt back. But then if
you go watch the Guardians play other teams, the Guardians
don't look impressive, you know. Yeah, it's not like they're
like out there like record shop everywhere else. And meanwhile,
the Tigers had this weird knack for beating up on
certain teams that you know that they usually that everyone

(49:51):
else has trouble with, and it's hard to kind of
pinpoint exactly why those things happen.

Speaker 3 (49:56):
By the way, thanks Jake for the update. Their gable
rayis Lefty pitching for West Michigan was Uh, it looked.

Speaker 2 (50:02):
Like TJ I saw I saw the pictures earlier, just
just based on how that we was set up in.

Speaker 3 (50:07):
Starn It man or I want to say more explicit.

Speaker 5 (50:10):
I think that's the I think it's a second.

Speaker 2 (50:12):
So, yeah, it's great, kind of explained why how he
was looking this year too.

Speaker 4 (50:17):
Yeah, there was somebody somebody walks there must have been
something going on there, but no, I guess we didn't
discuss uh what It was kind of a pyrhic victory
for for Cleveland on Saturday, they lost Angel Martinez and
chased the later and then Jose Romeirez broke his hammetbone.

Speaker 2 (50:32):
Yeah, so that was and then we don't get to
play them the next game. Yeah, like absolutely classic for
the way this three hitters and then that game gets
fringed out, you.

Speaker 5 (50:41):
Know, you know what.

Speaker 4 (50:42):
I feel like the Tigers were fine with that too,
because they probably did not feel like facing uh William Yeah,
and wanted to get to Houston a little earlier.

Speaker 2 (50:53):
A little more time to like heal up to I
suppose maybe.

Speaker 3 (50:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (50:57):
The other strange thing, and it's about today's game, is
what the hell's going on the Tigers. The Tigers have
seven hits in thirteen strikeouts.

Speaker 5 (51:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (51:07):
I think there's like two balls in play that weren't
home runs. Maybe three. Uh, it's a very bizarre babbev
game for them.

Speaker 1 (51:16):
It has been a very strange one.

Speaker 2 (51:18):
And then we saw yeah, like you know, I mean
things first inning like you couldn't couldn't find the strike zone,
but then he'd strike somebody out and then you know,
it was like one of those classic effectively wild bizarro
innings right off the right, off the jump, and then
we kind of started doing the same thing. Yeah, Chris,
I have one word for it, pass balls wild.

Speaker 5 (51:37):
That's right.

Speaker 4 (51:38):
It is d d meg a doo dooo.

Speaker 2 (51:42):
So I kind of wonder if there's something larger going
on though, too, because, like looking around the league, like
for some reason, the brand of baseball this year just
seems to suck, like all over the place. And I
do watch the ALE more and the AL has been
bad this year just in general, but I.

Speaker 1 (51:56):
Just don't I don't know what's going on.

Speaker 2 (51:58):
It just seems like there's like random streaks going on
all over the place, which a lot of good players
have been dead.

Speaker 1 (52:03):
Yeah, I don't know. It's just been really, really strange.

Speaker 2 (52:06):
And that's why I keep going back to abs brain
because it's the only like plausible, vague explanation I can
give it is that there's just too much thinking about
that going on and it's just just messing up the
way people normally would play the game. But I doubt
that's all of it. It's just I don't know. I
watched a lot of baseball for a really long time,
and it just seems like, I don't know off this
year or somehow I'll also explain.

Speaker 5 (52:28):
It, you can.

Speaker 4 (52:29):
You could argue that there's only like a handful of
actually good teams this year, like yeah, like and if
you look at the records that with the Mariners lead
the West with what thirty seven and thirty six record?

Speaker 2 (52:38):
Yeah, yeah, And there's I mean like Trey Turner has
been trash, you know, Vladimir Gurew Junior has been kind
of Jose Ramirez was kind of bad.

Speaker 1 (52:45):
There's been a lot of Yeah, I don't know, there's a.

Speaker 2 (52:48):
Lot of good players, like like did they hit a wall?

Speaker 1 (52:50):
Like what is happening? What's going on there?

Speaker 3 (52:53):
I don't, you know, I'm not going to get into
the sky Harris' terrible crap because quite frankly, I don't.
I don't have the energy for it. It's there's a
lot of weird things going on, and I'm looking at
this side right now.

Speaker 2 (53:03):
We're gonna be talking about it a lot. There's plenty
of time.

Speaker 3 (53:08):
I fin against pitching because it's a bullpen game. Tom Thomas.
That's why that's the reason why he it was a
it's a bullpen game. They're using everybody they can right
now this moment.

Speaker 2 (53:17):
Roy Melton with scratched with back trouble before the game.
He was supposed to start, so now they're scrambling.

Speaker 1 (53:22):
That's why this is happening. I can do anyway anyway.

Speaker 3 (53:26):
Joe Miller also on the IL. The IL like every day, Chris,
this list, by the way, every time you do this list,
I have not seen it. You could. You can probably
have three more spots at the bottom too. This list
has been full every time.

Speaker 5 (53:40):
Ye back, oh yeah, went for two? Yeah.

Speaker 4 (53:45):
I mean the people had asked us about Trevor Heschman,
you know, the the other high school pitcher they took
this year, one of the three.

Speaker 3 (53:53):
Like that.

Speaker 4 (53:53):
I don't know he's on the roster, he hasn't pitched,
and sure enough, yea sixty day IL.

Speaker 5 (53:56):
So it really is.

Speaker 4 (53:58):
They are one for ten on a high schoo pictures
having like long extreme injury. Jonathan Rodgers is the only
one who hasn't been heard at all, and they released
him in the back. Uh. Jake Diaz has had I
think a seven day ill, the sixty day out I
l but he's actually thrown summoning its it's remarkable.

Speaker 1 (54:18):
But he's been terrible. So yeah, yeah it has been.

Speaker 2 (54:21):
And yeah, now you can add Rays to the list.
And we just got you know, so yeah, Miller and
Reyes go down, and we just got Hall and uh,
Paul Wilson going.

Speaker 1 (54:30):
A little bit Rogers pack.

Speaker 2 (54:33):
Jake Miller is not showing any signs of velocity all
of a sudden.

Speaker 1 (54:38):
I don't know, I'm a little worried about that.

Speaker 2 (54:39):
Yeah, that was a little concerning. I know it's only
but his like third or fourth outing, but that was
that was upsetting. So yeah, I don't know, it's not
it's not looking too good on the pitching side either.

Speaker 3 (54:50):
But you're not looking good. Toledo Saturday, six to one loss,
and it's Carla, I was, I was talking about this
before you got on.

Speaker 5 (54:57):
Brandon.

Speaker 3 (54:57):
Carl Edwards is toast. Yeah, the guy was. It was
like forty five pitches, thirty five of them were balls,
Like a kid, you not. He walked the bases loaded,
and then I think it was I forgot what player
for Saint Paul. He had a home run after that
a little bit short while later. It was ridiculous. It
was it was a really bad watch and Connor Pickerton

(55:20):
started the game primarily Slider ninety one ninety two. I know,
uh Marco Rogers a fan of Nick Sandlin, who was
the best pitcher on Sunday a little bit. But Verlander
got roughed up in his rehab start four home runs
in a simulation game today. Uh how Lee went off
on him a couple of times. The offense, the offense

(55:41):
is the only thing that was interesting over the weekend,
and then even then they had off they had off
day Saturday. But look, I'm gonna like I've said this
once in uh bra shout out to Scott Bentley who
had Ben mel Jerry on his Lockdown Tigers last week
on his podcast, and he did a really job with that.
I've been I'll I will beat that del mal Jerry

(56:01):
drum until until people get annoyed with it. I don't
care it. Looky yeah, and Brandon he's hidden lefties, he's hidden, yeah,
and bringing Baldy struggle with a little bit. But come on, like,
what do we do? What are we doing here?

Speaker 2 (56:16):
Why we got James Outman because they don't trust Matt
Vieling in center field. It's like, you know, if Matt
Vieling can't outplay, you know, enough to just play defensively.

Speaker 1 (56:26):
Then just put Maljerry in there because.

Speaker 2 (56:28):
He at least he's hitting, and he's as good a
defenders as Vieling is, probably even center. So yeah, I'm
I'm with you, but I'm also at a point of
mental breakdown where I'm kind of in a very strong,
effet state of mind that.

Speaker 1 (56:42):
With this team right now.

Speaker 2 (56:44):
But you know, it's nice to win a couple of
games in a row and like they had their their
little run, but it just I don't know, man, the
more the more I've been thinking about it and trying
to write about things, the more it just feels like
there's something rotten in the entire org right now, Like
there's just something wrong.

Speaker 1 (56:57):
There's just something deeply wrong going on.

Speaker 2 (57:00):
Everyone's hurt, no one is really developing, They're not solving
any problems at the major league level. They seem out
of sorts. AJ seems snippy, the vibes are bad. Yeah,
I don't know, it's uh, it's all around feeling very
much like it did in August September, and I kind
of thought we would get through that, you know, once

(57:21):
the injury started to clear up in late May, but
it still feels the same. And yeah, I mean the
offense went nuts for you know, five or six games
there and they look kind of more like we thought
we were gonna get But I.

Speaker 1 (57:33):
Don't know, I don't know what's going on.

Speaker 2 (57:37):
Nice to see Keith Hitton, it's like, I'll say that
at least that was that was a pleasant surprise to
see him hit a couple homers now, so hopefully he's
starting to find his groove. But oh man, it's been
it's just been ugly.

Speaker 5 (57:49):
I maintainer monkey posh situation, you.

Speaker 2 (57:54):
Know, I mean it might be and I mean, honestly,
what are they gonna do there? You know, I mean
you can't you know, they have they can, they can
keep him rehabbing for thirty days, But it's justin Berlander
like if you know, at a certain point, he's probably
not going to be very happy with the situation, but
he also has to know that he's not getting it done,
like how you leave just you know, see it off

(58:14):
on him and batting practice still can't get out.

Speaker 1 (58:17):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (58:18):
Yeah, I mean, Carl Edwards Junior was still in you know,
Scott Harris's roll of decks and so they had to
had to bring him back out because they don't have
any other ideas.

Speaker 4 (58:27):
Thomas Roro here says Berlander equals Alex Cobb at this point.
I mean, it wouldn't shock me if we get get
the same sort of conference call thing where Berl Lander
comes in and says, you know, it's just not going
to work. I gave it a shot, but because I mean,
I feel like part of this simulated game is on
him right, like he probably doesn't want to go onto
the field unless he's feels like he's himself again.

Speaker 5 (58:48):
And I don't know, it's it's who knows though with
you know, if.

Speaker 4 (58:52):
Melton's hurt again, then maybe starting for him to come
back with Mises coming back and I don't know, they
got school back.

Speaker 5 (58:58):
That was nice.

Speaker 4 (58:59):
He didn't necessarily look like vintage Scobel, but I mean
his his stuff looked pretty good. But he was, you know,
not executing, which is totally understandable for a guy who's
been away from the major leagues for for forty days
or whatever.

Speaker 2 (59:11):
But yeah, it's honestly, yeah, it really does. I mean,
and yeah, Scooble's lost. He look better actually than it
did early in the season it was a little little
steadier ninety eight ninety seven, So yeah, you assume he'll
he'll get it dialed in. But yeah, I mean Melton.
The Melton thing kind of throws a wrench in it.
But you know, we didn't really want Verlander back at
this point unfortunately, So I mean, I'm kind of an

(59:35):
advocate for moving Melton to the bullpen, but you know, they,
I don't know, We'll just have to see what comes
up with the back surgery. But if you give me
Melton in Montero and say who's who do you want
to stay starting? I lean Montero, and I do because
he's been absolutely the most durable pitcher in the entire
organization tom for four or five years now.

Speaker 1 (59:56):
He keeps doing what they need him to do.

Speaker 2 (59:58):
And you know, I mean moving a good, you know,
a talented pitcher with good stuff like Melting to the
bullpen never feels great. But again, if we're gonna, you know,
compare ourselves to Cleveland, you know, I mean, Kate Smith
could be a starter somewhere, but you know, he throws
ninety eight ninety nine and he's got nasty freaking stuff,
and there they understand the value of being able to

(01:00:20):
lock down those late innings and not losing games when
you have a lead, and the Tigers may have to
you know, accept that a little bit.

Speaker 1 (01:00:26):
But then again, you look.

Speaker 2 (01:00:27):
Toward next year and we don't really have much of
a rotation going, so they're probably going to need him.
So I don't know, we'll just see what they decide,
but you know, until the trade deadline, I think I
would still kind of prefer him to be in the
bullpen if you can swing it, and then you know,
maybe adjust and put him back in the rotation later
on once you deal. Yeah, Thomas is presumably Mice and Scooble.

Speaker 3 (01:00:49):
Yeah, by the way, you said, let policy will walk.
He wasn't Walt Poulsy. Wont didn't do shit here, I'm sorry.

Speaker 5 (01:00:55):
So yeah, I mean that's that one that that.

Speaker 4 (01:00:58):
Maybe you could could hold on to him and hope that,
you know, he would have figured things out. But I
don't think anybody was really screaming for him to come
back after what he throw two innings.

Speaker 5 (01:01:05):
For him last year.

Speaker 6 (01:01:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:01:07):
I'll add to that list though, I mean, because because
you know, there's more.

Speaker 1 (01:01:10):
There's Tommy Cainley.

Speaker 2 (01:01:12):
So far, there's been ken Lee Jansen, there was Shelby Murray, Yeah,
Shelby Miller.

Speaker 3 (01:01:17):
Yeah Yeah, there's Yeah, your list, Thomas, you can you
could have gone better with like yeah, with a Shelby Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:01:23):
No, it's a lot a lot harder to find the successes,
I'll say that.

Speaker 5 (01:01:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:01:27):
Yeah, And you know, and that's obviously very concerning. I mean,
I think we all think Max Clark's going to be
a pretty good player.

Speaker 1 (01:01:32):
You know, he's gonna need he just needs time.

Speaker 2 (01:01:34):
And you've got three of the top forty players in
baseball probably between Green, Dingler and McGonagall, and you're gonna
have Framburg next year and we'll see what Joe gives you.

Speaker 1 (01:01:45):
But yeah, where where's the pitching going to come from?

Speaker 2 (01:01:48):
It's a it's a it's gonna be an off season
question and question that we're going to keep answering.

Speaker 3 (01:01:53):
Yeah, and that's not going to come in Toledo because
Toledo right now is just a hodgepodge of veterans and guys.
Are the bullpen starts? Chris, what do you want to
say about Toledo before we move on?

Speaker 5 (01:02:03):
Nothing?

Speaker 2 (01:02:04):
Nothing, Sorry, I kind of went out of just an
absolute rant mentioning everything that was annoying me, all in
sequence with no no through thread except that it's irritating.

Speaker 3 (01:02:15):
No and uh and it was its speed of irritating.
Though Joe Miller went down with an injury, which Eerie
now officially outside Kenny Swarre, every picture in the projected
rotation was has been injured for the Sea Wolves, and
that's it's it's ridiculous. But uh, another hand, Brett Callahan
as he's been tearing it up and when I was

(01:02:36):
doing a deep dive on Pacheco and last month he's
had eight home runs in the last he's been on
an absolute tear, quietly having a good tear between him
and Pack. These guys have been doing pretty well. Uh
uh uh. Rossano has struggled a little bit there, but
it's been Kenny Swore the last two starts. It's actually

(01:03:00):
been pretty good. But good is in what he's been
able to provide for the Sea Wolves.

Speaker 5 (01:03:05):
Never know what you're gonna get from Knuckleballer.

Speaker 2 (01:03:07):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Lobronzo, you know, I mean, I guess
the thing I can say from him is that his
splits have been pretty balanced. Yeah, but he is still
striking out way too much, and you know, if that
doesn't change by you know, by the end of the year,
I think that's probably just who he is, and probably
probably is just who he is. And then the rest
of it just comes down to how good his defense
can be, because you know, if he's if he's a

(01:03:28):
quality backup who matches for you a little bit, you know,
maybe he's a one more player, but that kind of
drops him down into your you know, your forty plus
type tier, maybe forty five if you're if you're generous.

Speaker 1 (01:03:38):
So we'll look kind of to see how that that
plays out this year. But yeah, I've been.

Speaker 2 (01:03:42):
Really really excited about Callahan though. Yeah, that's a little
bit of a breakout going on there.

Speaker 3 (01:03:46):
It feels like, yeah, his walk, he's he walks and
strikeouts through the exact same last month. Yeah, walking is
just as much as he's striking out. So that's that's
really encouraging because as I recall when we saw down
West Michigan, he swung long, like his his swing was
like so hard sometimes he would tellet to fall off.

Speaker 4 (01:04:04):
No, he still does that. He gets a pitch to
swing out, he swinged really hard. It's one of the
things I like about him like he goes for it.
But yeah, he's he's seeing pitches better. I think he
changed his stance a little bit. He seems a little
bit more closed, like like he's almost a little bit
towards third base.

Speaker 5 (01:04:22):
But yeah, yeah, I mean doubling your walk.

Speaker 4 (01:04:24):
Right is pretty spectacular going from from Higata double A
and the power and we talk all the time. The
supplementary tools are there too, So yeah, one of the
one of the better stories in the system this year.

Speaker 5 (01:04:34):
And you hope that at some point he gets a
chance to try toledom.

Speaker 2 (01:04:39):
You know who else has kind of closed his stance
a little bit. And I just thought about it because
he just popped up on the screen here again. But
is mister McGonagall, like it feels feels like he just
just is just like standing a little bit more closed now,
maybe to keep himself from from pulling pulling off a
little a little too much lately, because they are trying,
obviously trying to pitch him away and he knows this,
so yeah, maybe that's a little bit of an attempt

(01:04:59):
to counter that.

Speaker 5 (01:05:01):
That's one of the fun things about McGonagle.

Speaker 4 (01:05:02):
It's like, oh, you know, it's not really it's not
like great, then you go off once it's still like
a one thirty WRC plus for a twenty one.

Speaker 5 (01:05:08):
Here a rookie who's.

Speaker 2 (01:05:09):
Yeah, but oh free eighty ovp starting to hit, start
starting you know, to ambush pitches too, like, starting to
look like he's starting to anticipate a little bit more.

Speaker 4 (01:05:21):
Yeah, he's gonna make adjustments and he's going at some
point he's going to terrorize the league in a fun way.

Speaker 3 (01:05:25):
So yeah, yeah, it's just, you know, the one thing
that I will I don't think it's going to terrorize
the league at all that we're talking about velossity, the
one thing that the Tigers don't happen anymore. It seems
like guys that throw velosity. One guy that you have
his voices, Rigez, but he's not straight anybody.

Speaker 4 (01:05:46):
Well yeah, I mean his slider is no good. Yeah,
And I was texting you he got saved by the rain.
I put it there. He came in and maybe maybe
his performance was partially because of the rain, but he
came in and gave up like five pits in a
grand slow him. On Sunday, it was brutal, and then
they called the game and it was no game, so
it doesn't count.

Speaker 2 (01:06:06):
Yeah, he hadn't really had an outing like that before,
but I don't know, I don't know if it was
wet ball, I don't.

Speaker 4 (01:06:11):
Know, Yeah, it who knows. I mean it was he
was getting hit, which was an unusual to it. But like, yeah,
it's a pretty nasty sinker. And if you can figure
out something like he's got the semblance of a change up,
I don't know, like there are ways to cheat for
a change up these days.

Speaker 5 (01:06:27):
I don't know if you can really cheat for a
breaking ball yet. Still.

Speaker 4 (01:06:30):
I mean there's this sort of the death ball, but
I don't know if you still have to spin it.
I think, well, I don't know Brandon would know better
about that because I don't think Alex Lang had a
terribly high spin rate.

Speaker 5 (01:06:38):
But he threw a pretty good death ball.

Speaker 2 (01:06:40):
Yeah, he just threw it was just the shape of it,
you know, because it was like a curve ball. But
it was like eighty five miles per hour. So yeah,
I mean, if you can throw that kind of pitch
harder then they're used to seeing it a.

Speaker 1 (01:06:52):
Lot of times, that can work.

Speaker 2 (01:06:54):
I mean, maybe he could throw some kind of weird
like sinker variant and turn that into a change up
or he kind of does look like he might be
a kick change type guy actually, but I don't. Yeah,
I'm not not real sure. I'm not really sure what
to do with him exactly on that score, because you'd
like him to have a better breaking ball because you
really want him jam and right handers and and kind
of being that type of specialist. But yeah, I mean,

(01:07:15):
I I agree with that point that if your team
can't provide timely hitting, then better learned timely bunting. It's
just that if you can't if you can't hit, you're
probably not going to learn to butt in the major leagues.
That's all.

Speaker 1 (01:07:26):
I mean.

Speaker 2 (01:07:27):
I'm speaking of it in terms of developmentally, like we'd
all like to see the Tigers be better at this
and situational hitting, you know, all the way through the
minor leagues, and the guys that, to his credit, Scott
Harris has focused on positionally are more that type of
contact speed defense type of guy, like they hope that
they'll develop into power, you know, yost, et cetera. But

(01:07:49):
you know, in McGonagall obviously has and and we hope
Clark will as well. But yeah, I just don't know
at the major league level, Like I don't, I don't
know what you're gonna do to like have some of
these guys. But you know, like Matt Fielding, Matt Fielding,
like trying to bunt frightens me.

Speaker 4 (01:08:05):
And there are certain things that Aja Hinch just won't
do like old school managers like like Jim Wheeland would do.
I can't maybe if they've done one or two squeeze bunts,
And since Hinch has been here, I don't think they've
ever done a hit and run proper, right, Like nobody
does that anymore.

Speaker 2 (01:08:21):
Yeah, I don't see that much in general. But yeah,
but but occasionally, yeah, Cleveland, Cleveland will do that sometimes.
A j I guess if he's a throwback, he's more
of an Earl Weaver type throwback.

Speaker 3 (01:08:29):
Yeah, Zabie Jones flies out the center two outs, but
on the on the day, Kemmic Goggle two walks single
in a home run. Man, Yeah, pretty pretty pretty good.

Speaker 4 (01:08:41):
But yeah, you know, I put in some numbers in
June here, which is a little you know, maybe misleading.

Speaker 5 (01:08:46):
It's only nine games, but it's nice to see that.

Speaker 4 (01:08:49):
You know, Rainer had a couple of big you know,
one of those home runs put him up eight to
six in the ninth inning, right was to dead center.

Speaker 6 (01:08:55):
Yea.

Speaker 4 (01:08:56):
And something happened with Jackson Strong, like he just flipped
a switch and sudden, that's just hitting like crazy, and
that's good to see because you know, we dropped him
pretty far down our list as he was not making
any impact at all. So he felt that Yeah, yeah,
maybe maybe, but you know, when those two guys are going,
suddenly the white Caps have some offense. So it's it's

(01:09:16):
been a little bit better for them. Obviously they're still
eighteen games of their five hundred.

Speaker 1 (01:09:20):
Yeah, but more watchable. Definitely.

Speaker 2 (01:09:22):
They've been a lot more fun the past week. And
it did feel like just that the Tigers flipped the
switch and started playing better, and so did they And
they got Hayden back, and you know, Patrick Lee and
Hohrewstitch and some of those guys are coming, so hopefully
they'll play they'll play at least a better brand of
ball in the second half. Yeah, so that you know, Okay,
I'm just just on the white Caps thing. Like the

(01:09:44):
one thing I was I meant to ask Emily, but
I had just kind of wandered into the conversation because.

Speaker 1 (01:09:48):
My microphone was being paid.

Speaker 2 (01:09:50):
Was if Lucas Lassault like throwing a little harder and
kind of building up his body, Like if he if
he'd had any issues like with his mechanics as a result,
like if he felt like he was having to kind
of adjust back to being a little overpowered compared to
what he was last year. I just want I just
wonder about that, because like at times he still looked
pretty good and I have been kind of locked in
on him a little bit the last few weeks, but

(01:10:10):
he's been a little wilder just in general, and that
was not the m last year. And it can be
that he's he's working on stuff and you know, tweaking
grips and some of those things. But yeah, overall, like
it hasn't really clicked for him yet. But at least
he's healthy.

Speaker 1 (01:10:27):
At this point.

Speaker 2 (01:10:28):
I'll just take that and just hope, I hope it
comes together with enough reps.

Speaker 3 (01:10:32):
By the way, Sears is going back to Erie. Okay,
yeah that's what I thought. I thought I saw that yesterday.
I thought that was report like actually goes to my Gmail.
Pretty sure. Zach sent me the roster that Seriares is
heading back to Erie.

Speaker 1 (01:10:47):
Yeah that's what I thought too.

Speaker 4 (01:10:48):
I thought you sent me the you know that that
he was, you know, getting set to West Michigan. But
maybe that was just a you know a lot of
times these are just procedural moves, like they didn't you
don't have room on this roster. They need somebody on
that roster, you know. I don't think it would hurt
him to get a couple more starts in West Michigan
at this point, like neither of these teams are making

(01:11:09):
the playoffs, h and if he doesn't, he's only going
three innings I think in any outings so far. It's
no kind of spring training for him, you know, let
him face a little easier competition.

Speaker 3 (01:11:19):
Okay, So all right, so yeah I did get that
mixed up a little bit there, But he is also
head back to Eerie and by the next week or
two to just get some more innings. That's all it is.
But West Michigan or right now, the Seawall's rotation has
been I mean, while Lockhart got sent back down for
because of the Joel Miller injury, but they are really

(01:11:41):
it's basically outside of Max Elba, it's been pretty much
bullpen starts. I mean, Sean Henley technically is a bullpening guy.

Speaker 4 (01:11:47):
Yeah yeah, Carlos Alba, sir, it's it's yeah, it's a
real mash unit there, like everywhere in the damn system.
But yeah, like I'm seriously be backup there. I think Jake,
we'll see Seiars and Jake Miller there in the second half.
Maybe Jake Miller eventually get up to triple A. I
don't know, like what Brandon was saying. The velocities hasn't
been back yet, but yeah, at this point, I'm just

(01:12:11):
happy to see guys healthy and throwing.

Speaker 5 (01:12:13):
Like you know, like every week I'm.

Speaker 4 (01:12:17):
Getting more and more of a Wilmer flora as vibe
from jayde Ham, Like we just haven't heard anything, haven't
seen him so on you know backfield early it was
giving up home runs to nobody's.

Speaker 5 (01:12:28):
I just think the shoulder might be toasted unfortunately.

Speaker 3 (01:12:31):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's been no updates whatsoever on him
at all. Like even I've asked Terry and she hasn't
seen him in the backfield at all.

Speaker 4 (01:12:40):
So I will say, you know, Jacobs had an interesting
outing and you know he I think once he gets
to like the second time through the order, the hitters
seem to be picking up the fastball better and so
he has to really battle and that results in a
fair amount of walks and uh, just the sort of
development that that I think he needs. You need to
start going deeper the games, and if and when he

(01:13:02):
figures that out, then maybe he'll go up to Irkku.

Speaker 2 (01:13:05):
Yeah, I mean, we we'd like to, you know, we'd
like to see him, you know, build a little more
velocity obviously too, but but yeah, but just getting challenged
and having to sequence different and you know, mix mix
things up and pitch guys backwards a little bit more
and kind of keep things on their on their toes
and throw strikes while he does it. It is probably
good for him.

Speaker 3 (01:13:24):
But by the way, Holton has pitched better as of late,
So yeah, why we want to turn off the TV
when he's supposed Uh, he's been pitching better as late Thomas.

Speaker 1 (01:13:32):
Coming, Yeah, he has.

Speaker 2 (01:13:34):
He has actually kind of been a little bit nasty
lately actually with the with the sweeper. When he has
that dialed in, that really does give him that little
extra weapon against him. So but yeah, you know, you
might want to turn your tvf anyway, because.

Speaker 1 (01:13:47):
Yeah, well it's just been rough.

Speaker 2 (01:13:49):
You know, I guess Tigers are head. Just just don't
tell me if anything goes wrong.

Speaker 3 (01:13:52):
So that home run by the way by rain or
the deep center barely just went over the yellow line
because at first he ruled it a double and then
he saw they crossed the line. But it was it
was one hundred and seven. It was one hundred and
seven off the bat something like that. It was four
hundred and twelve feet. It was ridiculous. Yeah, the one
that helped them with the lead the other day. So
it was talk about Hazu's pinto kind of slung, gonna

(01:14:14):
slump a little bit there. Jordan Yost his first was it? No, no,
his first home run? Was it his first home run? No, No,
it wasn't. Yeah it was, yeah, it was the first one.

Speaker 4 (01:14:24):
Okay, yeah, the other.

Speaker 2 (01:14:27):
One was in the spring and the yeah, yeah, he's uh,
we talked about last week, but like he's he's coming
along just fine.

Speaker 4 (01:14:36):
It's you know, we knew the power was going to
be something that would come later if it comes, and uh,
he's you know, he's starting to get a little bit
more extra base pop here.

Speaker 5 (01:14:48):
And we saw the home run.

Speaker 4 (01:14:49):
Everything else is like you said, you know, he's walking
almost as much as he struck out, which again we
kind of take that for granted with McGonagall again, but
that it's not terribly common for high school kids.

Speaker 2 (01:14:59):
Yeah, and his swinging stripe swinging strike rate is super low.
I mean, yeah, he's kind of been his advertised I.

Speaker 5 (01:15:06):
Think he battles.

Speaker 4 (01:15:07):
Yeah, there's a little bit of like like each row
at his swing where he just kind of he'll bail
out and put the bat on the ball with two strikes,
not running as much as I think he will later,
but defensive solid. So yeah, he's been fun and that's
been on all continues to hit. Jerry had an interesting
stat that, despite you know, having four home runs, he's
only got two barrels in the year. But I'm not

(01:15:31):
too concerned about that. Like I looked at his his launch.

Speaker 2 (01:15:33):
He's another one who kind of bails out a little
bit sometimes, Yeah, like just flare something somewhere, but he
always seems to get the bat on it.

Speaker 4 (01:15:40):
His launch angle and exit velocity are like you know,
it's low. Ay, So it's obviously not the same as
big leagues, but it's almost like identical to Bobachett, Like
you can live with that, especially if you're walking like
he does in Bobochette. It's not but and you're yeah yeah,
and you know he's small, so I don't I would
never project like, you know, probably even above average powerful them.

(01:16:00):
But if you're walking, you're hitting, you got some extra
bass pop and and you managed to learn how to
play catcher, that'll be very valuable.

Speaker 3 (01:16:08):
And Christensen doing Christensen things. Just yeah, he's not long
for Lakeland.

Speaker 5 (01:16:14):
Yeah, yeah, he finally got hit a little bit.

Speaker 4 (01:16:16):
But also when he wasn't getting hit and he was
striking everybody out and then he hit a couple of
guys for fun. He doesn't walk people, He'll just hit you.

Speaker 2 (01:16:22):
Yeah, yeah, I mean the only pitch that isn't super
nasty is the is the sinker, and even that, you know,
like just that you know, the low release and kind
of the quick arm there, like really had them off
balance early. And then it seemed like they just they
just you know, tagged a string of singles against him.

Speaker 1 (01:16:38):
Really they weren't.

Speaker 2 (01:16:39):
They weren't hitting the ball too hard, but man, yeah, slider, nasty,
change up, nasty, getting with all over the place, controlling
them bull it was. It was a pretty impressive showing.

Speaker 3 (01:16:49):
Again, by the way earlier, what happened the only two
current Taiwanese players face off against each other. That's pretty cool.
How you we got to off of? Uh?

Speaker 5 (01:17:01):
Yeah, it is a tanging. He struck him out.

Speaker 4 (01:17:04):
He struck me out in the first at bat, I think,
and then got a single in the next second one.
So that's when each other texts tonight.

Speaker 3 (01:17:10):
Yeah, that's pretty cool.

Speaker 2 (01:17:11):
Sorry, that first thing from Tang was crazy. I I
haven't actually watched him pitch before, and it was like, Okay,
he's all over the place.

Speaker 3 (01:17:18):
The curve that curve to that like the curve that
kind of looked like a sweeper or not.

Speaker 5 (01:17:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:17:22):
Yeah, it was like up in the zone too.

Speaker 2 (01:17:24):
With no with no depth either, Yeah, just like kind
of the horizontal one. Yeah, that was that was pretty well.

Speaker 3 (01:17:29):
That was pretty crazy. Uh, anything else you wanted to
highlight on Lakeland before Lancres, No.

Speaker 4 (01:17:34):
I just get to every time I do this side,
I'm like oh yeah, him, oh, him, Like there's always
there's just so many interesting players there in Lakeland that
that yeah, they're worthy of highlighting every week. But if
we do that, it'll take thirty minutes.

Speaker 2 (01:17:46):
Yeah, it's like there's nobody going crazy, but there that
there's a lot of guys who are very interesting. So
and I guess we could throw Witherspoon into that because
he's interesting, but he's also you know, already like the
type of dude who can get really infuriated with Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:18:00):
Well, and I don't know if you know, you know,
people looked at what his brother's doing, but his brother's
having the same issues at a level higher. He's getting
zero whist with his fastball. It's like, oh, there's something
here with the arm action.

Speaker 2 (01:18:13):
But yeah, I mean, and you know, like that's not
going to be the bread and butter, Like you're hoping
that the sinker gets a lot of ground balls and
weak contact and then you know, the cutter and the everything.

Speaker 1 (01:18:22):
Else get the whifts for him.

Speaker 2 (01:18:24):
But yeah, it's it's still getting just just teed off
on too often for sure. And that's not the type
of picture that the Tigers, like the last four or
five years, have really worked with. And it's kind of
the same thing with with Christiansen, Like they don't have
a lot of like low three quarters slinger type. Yeah,
so it'll be interesting to see how they go about

(01:18:44):
figuring that out and if they decide to hire a
director of pitching.

Speaker 3 (01:18:48):
At some point.

Speaker 2 (01:18:50):
At this point, they need some fresh just it feels
like they need some fresh voices down there, for sure.
I don't know what to say about the injuries. It's
hard to believe this is all bad luck at this
point because it's just so prevalent. But you just never know.
Baseball is weird, and they did draft a lot of
prep pictures, and sometimes this is what happens.

Speaker 3 (01:19:09):
I guess, I guess, Yeah, I know.

Speaker 4 (01:19:12):
David Santos continues to hit, and your bra Mantilla is
finally back. I think Brandon scooped us on that one.
Oh yeah, which was uh, you know, we all attracted.

Speaker 2 (01:19:21):
I think he just announced that, Yeah, I think he.
I think he announced it on Instagram or some place.
I just saw it somewhere.

Speaker 4 (01:19:27):
But yeah, you know, he's got two games and took
four walks, so well.

Speaker 1 (01:19:33):
He's just seeing pitches.

Speaker 5 (01:19:34):
Yeah, I don't care. As long as he's back.

Speaker 4 (01:19:37):
That's you know, that's a guy that I think kind
of universally Hey with another homer.

Speaker 2 (01:19:44):
Yeah, okay, it's on, all right, I'm going right over
to my diamonds.

Speaker 4 (01:19:48):
But wait a minute, it's a it's a three hundred
and forty four foot home run.

Speaker 5 (01:19:51):
That's right.

Speaker 3 (01:19:52):
I don't care. I don't care, you know what, I
don't care.

Speaker 5 (01:19:54):
Fine, he's.

Speaker 1 (01:19:58):
Yeah, it's all.

Speaker 5 (01:19:59):
He's owned those home runs from a couple early ones.
But yeah, very good to see.

Speaker 1 (01:20:03):
Yeah, that's necessary, guys. That has to feel good.

Speaker 2 (01:20:05):
Yeah, he has been losing his mind for about two months,
Like what am I doing?

Speaker 5 (01:20:10):
Go to break the seal?

Speaker 1 (01:20:11):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (01:20:12):
But yeah, oh, so said I was going to say something,
Oh Jack, Jack Bushell, Oh yeah, Jack Walkers.

Speaker 5 (01:20:20):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:20:20):
I'd love to see his data because he pitched a
couple of years ago. But he had five innings, ten strikeouts,
one hit. It's like, wait, but what's going on Jack Bushell?

Speaker 5 (01:20:28):
Yeah? Have we cornered the market on interesting Australian pitchers?

Speaker 1 (01:20:31):
Yeap?

Speaker 2 (01:20:32):
Or does he just have like a really good breaking
ball and just those kids were just like absolutely flummexed.

Speaker 1 (01:20:36):
I heard it all.

Speaker 4 (01:20:37):
Well, that's the case with Alamon Cruz, who I think
is only nineteen maybe twenty now. We saw him. He
pitched right after Coba when we were in the backfields
in Lakeland, so I stayed around and watched him, and
it was like ninety ninety two. But he had a
curveball that he could just throw for strikes whenever he wanted,
had good depth. Oliveto was like, I wish I would
have hit that curveball. But uh yeah, so some interesting

(01:21:01):
arms down there.

Speaker 3 (01:21:03):
Yeah, I was gonna say, Alman Cruz is a they
don't have, really don't really have a lot of Mexican
pictures in their system, right, I think.

Speaker 4 (01:21:11):
He's maybe Yeah, I think I think Sammy's Arraga is
he's a guy who's been pitching in the Dsluh.

Speaker 3 (01:21:16):
Yeah, that's right for them.

Speaker 5 (01:21:17):
I think he's another Mexican. But yeah, I don't think
they have a ton.

Speaker 3 (01:21:20):
It's pretty cool. By the way, this is random. Just
want to throw it out there. Dustin May complete Game
one so oh really.

Speaker 2 (01:21:29):
Dustin May is one of those guys that I just
always loved back, you know, six seven years ago. I
always thought he's gonna be great and just never came around.

Speaker 1 (01:21:36):
So that's good.

Speaker 2 (01:21:37):
Good for him.

Speaker 4 (01:21:37):
Yeah, Well, he was always hurt, you know, like moorn
esophagus and all those weird things, and I think, yeah,
I mean he was he was with Boston last year,
but he's with the Cardinals this year.

Speaker 5 (01:21:46):
Like the Cardinals have.

Speaker 6 (01:21:49):
Blue.

Speaker 1 (01:21:50):
Yeah, yeah, I wish we had I wish we had Blue,
all right.

Speaker 3 (01:21:58):
Yeah, it's yeah. Anyway, the bottom line is Cole Keys
just hit home runs. That's all that matters right now
at this point.

Speaker 1 (01:22:05):
I'm happy about that.

Speaker 3 (01:22:06):
Three eight Tigers top of seven here and.

Speaker 1 (01:22:08):
Got Harris figure out the back of the back of
the lineup.

Speaker 2 (01:22:11):
Just just get them some kind of like situation, whether
it's mal Jerry, they just need someone who's like a
ninety WRC plus down there, you know, to fill the
gap because they just got like three or four guys
every every day who are you know, in the.

Speaker 1 (01:22:23):
Sixty fifty range.

Speaker 2 (01:22:25):
And then we'll worry about the bullpen, then next year's
rotation all that later, all right.

Speaker 3 (01:22:30):
So cool Pete crawl, I'm showing on the it's a
cycle there and Tigers over ass.

Speaker 1 (01:22:38):
I know that's one of those things.

Speaker 2 (01:22:39):
And it's like Tigers over the Yankees too, Yeah, Like,
you know, for whatever reason, we like playing the Yankees
and Cleveland comes to town and I don't know, they
just crumple career.

Speaker 3 (01:22:50):
High by the way for RB I s for cold
Keith five rb ice for him, so yeah, that's that's awesome.
So he had seven for like, no, yeah, everybody, I look,
I know people have been giving a loud crap that
somebody saw me earlier in the week. That sucks. It's like, dude, no,
he's fine, he's fine. Just give him some time. And like,

(01:23:12):
I'm not worried about Colkie and I haven't been for
a long time, and my my faith has been yeah, yeah, reward.

Speaker 2 (01:23:22):
Now let him play first base of whole bunch, and
like I used torkash, your lefty matcher.

Speaker 1 (01:23:26):
That's that's all.

Speaker 2 (01:23:26):
That's all I got.

Speaker 3 (01:23:28):
Yeah, by the way, I saw I don't know if
you saw the stat Brandon.

Speaker 2 (01:23:32):
Yeah, I saw the all the bases loaded stats. I think,
isn't he three for thirty six, but the bases loaded
in his career, it's it's something horrific like that.

Speaker 1 (01:23:41):
Honestly, Riley can't be much better.

Speaker 2 (01:23:43):
But both of them, you know, I mean, Riley's obviously
a very talented player and and does his damage, but
like they just I don't know, man, there's just something
about that duo that it almost feels like they need
to be broken up or are sent out of town,
uh to.

Speaker 1 (01:23:59):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:24:00):
I don't want to say anything dispaging because I don't
know either one of them personally. But they just don't
seem very bright as hitters.

Speaker 1 (01:24:06):
That's all.

Speaker 2 (01:24:07):
That's all I'm getting at, you know, like like Riley's
a natural, you know, like I'm sure Riley was just
always like you know, like I break That's what I do.
I've got crazy bat speed, can dip down here, you know,
bend my waist like no one else can, and launch dingers.
But but yeah, I mean, they just they never seem
to shorten up. They don't seem to adapt in certain situations.

Speaker 1 (01:24:27):
I don't know. And they've they've got a lot of experience.

Speaker 2 (01:24:30):
Now this is supposed to be their prime, you know,
where they're in their peak physically, and they have all
this experience, and the experience doesn't seem to show up much.

Speaker 4 (01:24:38):
Yeah, you know, I haven't looked at the stats, but
it feels like an outside number of Like when when
they're a bunch of rugnuts on base, Riley Green, it's
like a three pitch strikeout or four pitch strikeout and
he's leaving the zone and it's.

Speaker 2 (01:24:50):
And it's often just like three or four straight breaking balls,
you know, like maybe they throw him a fastball up,
but they just just spam breaking balls down and he
can't just decide to chill and shorten up.

Speaker 1 (01:25:01):
You just can't do it.

Speaker 5 (01:25:03):
But that's funny.

Speaker 4 (01:25:04):
I mean, right now, you're you're you know, you'll never
win a World Series if Priady Green is your best
position versus O g un name yourtube user.

Speaker 1 (01:25:10):
That may its true, but he is not.

Speaker 4 (01:25:12):
He is not now, Yeah, and it's funny. I was
just looking. So you do the live Stants updates, and
cold Keith is now fifth on the team and more
and three point two McGonagall like three Green at one
point nine, Tourus at point nine, Colt Heath at zero point.

Speaker 2 (01:25:32):
Two man, and then everybody else is like negative one,
you know, like it's hard to get lower than negative
one because other teams just cut you.

Speaker 5 (01:25:42):
Yeah, Jones is negative one. It's it's absurd.

Speaker 7 (01:25:47):
I like this question here, will Jake Rodgers and d
H help with I know it, I mean it's worth considering,
but Jake Rogers just doesn't hit enough either, Like he's
very much he's very much Jamia Jones, like you might
as well just hope that my Jones figures it out
and turns into last year Jamia Jones, because Jake, it's
just it's just not gonna happen.

Speaker 2 (01:26:06):
No, I think we know that it's been too many
years now.

Speaker 3 (01:26:09):
So thank you so much for listening. Thanks from much
for watching. By the way, for anybody who we had
a nice no Nation last week, shout out to I'm
drawn blank. I know who donated the money, but I
just wanted to think thank him. He sent me a
message on Instagram, thank you for signing up to a Patreon.
Please describe to our YouTube channel you haven't already. Uh,

(01:26:31):
we're gonna start a draft coverage up this week. We're
gonna ramp it up a little bit. I've actually been
I got a tip catcher Brandon to tell you about
this offline. Really it was really weird. But overall we're
just looking forward to the We are going to do
a draft show case. You're curious because people, you know,
I think we might start it a little later this year.

Speaker 4 (01:26:49):
Is that well, the draft itself starts much earlier this year.
It starts at one thirty. I think, really peacock for
the first four.

Speaker 2 (01:26:59):
M I know, I know, I don't even have peacock guys.

Speaker 3 (01:27:03):
Yeah and.

Speaker 5 (01:27:05):
Asshole between the draft and mcgruver.

Speaker 3 (01:27:12):
Or the infamous nineteen eighty five season in SNL where
Damion Wayne's and oh yeah yeah yeah, but yeah I
don't Yeah. All right, Well, we are gonna be doing
a draft show, so we'll be announcing what's all going
into that. But like I said, please subscribe, donate whatever
you gotta do, we definitely appreciate it. With h there's
gonna be a trip to Erie coming up to talk

(01:27:33):
to Callahan. I know. I'm well over due to go
to West Michigan. It's been a while. I was gonna
go to a game yesterday and Lancing, but because the
field conditions, they had to cancel. So instead I got
to go to Pinball Piet's and then I had some
Cuban uh, some Cuban food downtown East Lancing Casina Cosina
out there. It's a shout out to them. They fantastic job, fantastic.

(01:27:55):
I had a trifecta which was like chicken, ham and pork.

Speaker 2 (01:27:58):
Oh yeah, oh pretty good, perfectly.

Speaker 3 (01:28:01):
Yeah, cool cannonballs, Yes, Jake, you better believe there will
be a place. Yeah, it's a tradition.

Speaker 4 (01:28:07):
It's tough to make a big splash these days. But
who knows, maybe that the Tigers can float Spangler down
to them, or who knows what's going on there. But yeah,
I got a I'm going to Minneapolis tomorrow for about
an hour. That's it, Oh, relying, I went about at nine,
I'm there, I have an appointment at ten thirty and
then I fly home by three thirty.

Speaker 1 (01:28:29):
Look at you. Yeah, it's the territory. Yeah, I know
it does it sounds.

Speaker 4 (01:28:34):
I'm going to I just have to get a badge renewed.

Speaker 2 (01:28:37):
Oh god, You're like, do I have to be there
in it's twenty twenty six? You have because I send
money all over the world, you know, via via wires
and magic this badge.

Speaker 5 (01:28:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:28:50):
Yeah, But a shout out to Harrison's team by the way,
finishing second innam yesterday.

Speaker 5 (01:28:55):
Yeah, we had a we had ah that was that
was a tough one man. We had. We had a
soccer turn around Grand Rampids and they won.

Speaker 4 (01:29:02):
They won two games on Saturday including there was a
great play where one like our best goal scorer. We
told him the pressure the goalie, the goalie, you know,
they passed it back to the goalie. So the goalie
couldn't pick it up. We're like pressure, so he ran
and pressured him, and the goalie kicked the ball right
off his face and classed in the face.

Speaker 5 (01:29:19):
But it blew. It went over the goalie and into
the goal. So he's yeah, it.

Speaker 1 (01:29:24):
Was like had her. Yeah, you just tell him it
was a hat.

Speaker 4 (01:29:28):
That was like a full on cheek shot. But yeah,
they made it to the final and then the lost
three to the other team scored like last five minutes
that you know, given then twelve year olds get tired
of playing back to back games and so but it
was fun.

Speaker 5 (01:29:42):
It was a fun expense for those kids.

Speaker 3 (01:29:43):
That's awesome.

Speaker 2 (01:29:44):
Yeah, Mitchell, ad and Spangler and Aidan Ruiz sounds sounds decent.
Watch him take a picture this year and just melt
everyone's little little heads. Yeah, we need pitching. We're gonna,
we're gonna, We're getting a college reliever.

Speaker 3 (01:29:55):
No, this is not just Rani Smith. Come on, man
to Randy Smith, but Ryan Parry, Ryan Perry, Steve Perry. Okay, anyway,
enough randomness, Thanks so much for watching. Keep it classing everybody.

Speaker 5 (01:30:09):
There's James Bushell. Oh heck yeah, hell, let's put jack throat.

Speaker 2 (01:30:13):
Yeah yeah, yeah, messages, we have questions.

Speaker 3 (01:30:16):
Yeah yeah, please yeah you're Yeah. The fantastic job in
the week in the FCL. That's awesome. Man appreciate it.

Speaker 5 (01:30:26):
He feels about New Zealand beating He run right now.
But somebody's got to beat around Australia beaty. So yeah,
that's a good guess. It's true.

Speaker 3 (01:30:35):
All right, thanks to the oleman. Keep a class, everybody,
have a good night.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Crime Junkie

NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal

.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 Week 11: Colt Beef is back

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

NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal

All Episodes

TMLR Week 11: Colt Beef is back

Stuff You Should Know