April 8, 2024 • 46 mins
Timestamps:
0:00 Tommy John Surgeries are Terrifying
7:00 Starting Pitching Needs to Make a Comeback
18:00 Shocking Stats From the MLB Season
19:00 Impressive Offenses
26:20 Bad Offenses
35:45 Surprising Pitching Stats
45:15 UConn
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, and welcome to Awaken Jake, myself, Jake's story, Ellie,
Big Baby, David, and it's a total eclipse of the
heart today clip season. We're actually we're recording this right beforehand.
So if the world ends, maybe this is like the
last piece of content posted. I could see the world
not ending, though, because we did an eclipse in twenty seventeen.
(00:22):
There was just not nearly as much hype on it.
Or is the path better this time? Everyone to the
path is better this time? We're closer to that.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Umm.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
I recall there being some hype last time. I was
in college though, so there, Yeah, I am googling twenty
seventeen eclipse path. Okay, so it was a little further north.
It was like Oregon and diagonally down and there were
some hotspots. I don't know. I was living at Denver
in the time. There was a picture of me I
(00:58):
smoked a cigarette. I thought it'd be funny and be
my eclipse thing. So now I'm debating, go I have
to do that again? Anyways, I want to do some
team most surprising stats of the MLB season so far.
Maybe I'll talk a little college basketball with you. WrestleMania
not really, although I did like seeing people's tweets about
(01:18):
it and how excited they were. I'm just not in
that world. I feel like I know a lot of
people who I don't know they're in that world until
they You look at the timeline and you're like, damn.
I mean McAfee, dude, he crushes football in WWE. He's
got like everything covered. I want to do some MLB
(01:43):
uh most Alarming, surprising, exciting stats of the young Baseball season,
and I'll segue into it because the most alarming stat
is something we opened Major League Baseball with, and it's
how many guys are getting Tommy john Slash injured. I
reached out to hos Serras, I reach out to Jeff
Passing and we talked about a lot on talking baseball.
(02:06):
The problem is there's no solution, and Passing Jess posts
an article and he mentions how in forty eight hours,
Yuri Pereh, Shane Bieber, and Spencer Stryder all went down.
It's insane, and I think it's for baseball. It's kind
of the new most pressing problem, Like the pitch clock happened,
(02:27):
and whether or not you believe game time or pitchclock
was a problem. It was one of the most discussed
things in baseball for years that the game's getting too long.
Blah blah blah. Pitchclock came in and was kind of successful,
although MLBPA will tell you it's part of the problem
with these injuries, which I don't fully believe in. I
(02:49):
think my maximum percentage I could give the pitch clock
for these pitching injuries is like two percent. Sure, there's
more reps in a close period of time, but if
you go back and you watch old baseball games, that
was the whole thing. I mean, the pitcher got the
bomb through it back in the day, like they didn't
shake off signs. It just happened. The game was moving.
(03:14):
Not to say there weren't pitchers that took breaks and
things like that. And again I'm always open to adaptation.
When when these first when the pitch clock first got announced,
I said, hey, let's see it, and I I just
want to see more of it and let's adjust because
when it first happened, I was a little panicky. Uh,
some baseball games were going by like too quick, and
(03:37):
I had to check myself a little bit because a
chunk of that was also the Yankees offense that they
were atrocious last year, that innings were flying by, innings
were flying by, and I was like, I don't love this.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
There are a lot of games so far this year
watching primarily Yankees, and I'm like, oh, these games feel much.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Longer on a little bit of a more normal timeline.
Isn't that crazy? Oh you guys rally now. Yeah, So
that that was a little bit of a Yankee problem
last year. The other thing was it took the hitters
two weeks to figure out to use their times at
the plate, and you see it now almost every at
bat a hitter will use their their time call, usually
a lot of them if they get two strikes, if
(04:16):
there's a three to two count, some will do it
just to like start the bat. I know, I think
Soto came up the other day and I think one
of the players was was arguing with the umpires still,
I think Glabor and Angel Hernandez, and there's a little
bit of a scene and I think the pitch clock
kind of started, so Sodo just uses time. He's like, hey,
let's I'm not getting started on this note, Like, let's reset.
(04:39):
So maybe there's something. Maybe the pitchers need that that
you know, if there's a two zero count and you
need to catch your breath for a second, you just
made a play covering first. You can call time circle
the mound, thirty seconds, whatever it is. I don't know.
I'm I'm very open to more adaptations. The MLBPA came
(05:00):
back and said that the pitch clock was a big
reason for it. There's no data behind that. Eno Saris,
who works with data, he said that the thing that
does correlate with this is the pitching injuries, and we're
we're trying to brainstorm solutions, but there's not much there.
I mean, even Passing just came out in his article
(05:20):
and said, basically he doesn't have an answer, like he's
basically begging pictures like the veteran pictures to come out
and tell guys like, hey, stop throwing with Velo. Let
me know how that goes. Have be a young pitcher
and have Justin Verlander and Max Schurz are telling you, hey,
(05:43):
don't try to throw as hard. Those guys stayed in
the league for so long partially because of how hard
they throw, and they still throw. I don't know, there's
not a solution. Soon kids are getting hurt at an
alarming rate. That is a crazy, no, no, no, no
good problem that I don't know what you do, because
(06:03):
kids are going to try to throw harder to get recruited,
to get scouted to play college ball, to try to
play pro ball. That right now, I mean the best
solution that I think I've heard. And these start to
get into crazy rules, like these are crazy game changing
rules that the pitch clock on paper, We were like,
(06:25):
this really isn't going to change the game, Like this
is just going to change, like you know, the relievers
that were taking fifty seconds between pitches and throwing over
to first all the time end of the day. That
was nonsense time in baseball, just complete nonsense. So the
fact that most of it got cut out, that's good,
(06:46):
is a good thing, but it still felt like a
drastic change to the game itself. This we're talking about
changing rule rules. We're talking about the amount of pitchers
you can carry, We're talking about you know, the one
that again smart people keep stumbling into is the you
lose your DH when the starting pitcher comes out of
(07:08):
the game. I kind of love that one, but there's
still problems because I've been doing and now I'm full
blown in this. I didn't think I was gonna get
this far. I have fully pivoted to the game needs
starting pitching again. And I know everyone's done that, like
(07:29):
that's not a new thought. Uh, but I kind of
realized it. And I forget if I did this. But
when I was watching Iowa the women's final four, Paige
Becker's ukht you know, the Husky brand, and if you're
in that world or have been around that world, you
know you know Paige Kaylen Clark Iowa. Like if you
(07:52):
hadn't heard of her, you've been under a rock. My Jessica,
who doesn't get deep in sports talking about Kaitlyn Clark
a sports world was talking about Kayln Clark South Carolina.
I mean, they're kind of the the dominant team. And
then NC State made it for the ladies, so that's
good for them. But the marquee matchup before the final
(08:14):
was Yukon Page Iowa Caitlyn Clark, and it was, you know,
the most viewed women's game ever, et cetera, et cetera.
And for me, it came down to the concept, it's
where basketball has always won and baseball has always gotten hurt.
Page was gonna have the ball a lot of the time.
(08:35):
Almost every time Yukon brought the ball up the court,
they were gonna look for Page. Iowa's whole offense is
get it to Kaylan Clark or be creative enough around
Kayln Clark to get a bucket somewhere else. They were stars,
and stars always play. Look at Kobeyashi in the hot
dog eating contest, like, if there's a star, we'll find you,
(08:57):
and we're gonna be interested where baseball gets hurt. Aaron, Judge,
Mookie Betts, Seeger, whoever it is, you're gonna see them
in their four at bats. Who knows at what part
of the game that's gonna be. You know, it could
(09:18):
be leading off an inning nobody on. It could be
two outs nobody else. Like, you know, Judge has been
getting walked a lot recently because they needed to see
if Rizzo and Stan can protect him. I think Judge
is leading baseball in walks. So think about that product.
The guy that a chunk of the building is there
(09:39):
to see, the guy that the Oakland A's owner is
talking about hitting home runs against his team. That's another
one for another time. You could show up to the Ballpark,
and that guy gets walked two of his four at bats.
So during your three hour game, you're getting to see
Judge actually take at bats. It's where baseball gets hurt,
(10:03):
where baseball used to have it, and I think is
gonna come back at some day because the fact we're
talking about it this much means there's gonna be a solution.
It's starting pitchers like that used to be the whole thing. Man,
I mean Maddox versus Cone, trying to think of Josh
Beckett versus el Duque, kind of making up names and matchups.
(10:27):
Even though those guys weren't necessarily the star of that game,
they were the beginning ticket. You knew you were gonna
see Greg Maddox with the ball into the sixth inning.
You knew you were gonna see those guys, and they
were a big part of the appeal. So that's when
a big pitching matchup happened. WHOA that was the like
(10:49):
man Chilling and Johnson, like you know some of these
guys that came through. And we still have big name pitchers,
but A are we keeping them healthy? And B are
we getting them? Are we getting them in the postseason?
I remember the Braves. A couple of years ago, they
were doing some opener stuff just to survive.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
That.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
I don't know, the starting pitcher is gonna come back.
It feels like it was coming back because teams were
burning out their bullpen. Last year we saw pictures going
deeper because teams were burning out their bullpen. The new
problem is it's vilo, and these guys throw as hard
as they possibly can, because that's how you get noticed.
There is a correlation with the harder you throw, the
(11:31):
harder it is to hit. Trevor had a great point
where he was like, well, why aren't hitting numbers going
down like normal? Ops and stuff is kind of staying
the same. So maybe this villo isn't helping pictures a
ton and you need to locate it to be good.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
They'll the teams will call up the guys who hit
villo better, right, That's what they've done.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
So I'm I don't know the next steps and it's
gonna be as because you need to shake the thought
process of now kids that are ten years out trying
to make major league baseball, and the best way for
them to do that is to throw harder, and throw
nastier and spin it more. That's where for a little
bit I was dreaming of a speed limit, like, what
would you make it? Ninety six, ninety eight, one hundred?
(12:19):
Does that stop anyone?
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Like?
Speaker 1 (12:21):
How many players are so plenty of guys who can't
reach one hundred. They're still maxing out. It's the maxing
out that's a problem, and that just doesn't work with sports,
because the whole idea of sport is we want to
see guys do it at the highest level. So if
you can throw hard, we want to see that. I
guess the thing is, clearly we've gotten far. We have
(12:42):
gotten further away from guys trying to pitch innings, the
whole original Blake Snell getting pulled and starting pitchers not
going three times through a lineup because they got hit more. Well,
there's some hitting action, you know. I know baseball was
looking for more of that, more hitting, more base running.
I do think the answer lies between shortening pitching staffs,
(13:04):
which means you need more pitchers stretched out and ready
to go on a given day, and then maybe something
as nutty as losing the d H when you pull
your starting pitcher, because then length gets valued even more.
I don't know the solution. I don't think anyone knows
a solution, and right now, any anytime you search for one,
there's more of a problem because, like I said, with
(13:25):
that speed limit, you know, if you're one of the
guys that can throw one hundred, you're probably gonna work
on throwing your slider at ninety four. And again not
a doctor chiming in, but I don't think that's good
for your elbow. So I don't know. This is the
new story in baseball. Hopefully we're gonna get more updates
and soon. And that's kind of what Jeff Passon's article
(13:47):
is like begging, Like and MLBPA and MLB are already
using this as a negotiating chip as a you know,
MLBPA coming out with pitch clock was a horrible first move.
And that's just honest, because they're trying to negotiate on it.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
Basically, they're they're upset that they were able to put
this rule in with that or add to the rule
without more approval, and and and like, truthfully, I'm sure
the pitchclock is a factor, Like it's all of these things.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
And Trev noted, you know, it's not like Tony Clark
acted alone like players apparently don't love the pitch clock,
otherwise they wouldn't just be throwing that out there. And
probably pitchers in particularly or at least what degree the
pitchclock is at. So I don't know, man to try
to get pitchers to not throw as hard as they can.
(14:39):
You know, there's just a couple of ideologies, like how
much strikeouts are valued from pitchers, you know those three
true outcome results that you know, we were laughing at
Mike Timlin's baseball card the other day because Mike Timlin
had a nasty long career. Mike Timlin used to bang
(15:01):
sinkers in the zone. Man, Mike Timlin was also really good,
So I don't want to pretend he was just this
just old guy vagabond.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
But you know, come and strikeout numbers are just not yeah,
it's less than a strikeout.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Let's than a strikeout perinning. There's strikeout numbers from a
different era because you know, he would throw that ball
in there and hope they kind of hit it where
his defense was. So I don't know, I feel like baseball,
I don't know the next steps. You know, we the
shift was a big one, and we kind of addressed
(15:36):
that kind of properly. I still have I don't want
to say issues's gonna be tweaks to that at some
point too. Man, I still get driven nuts. Sometimes there's
a ball just roped in the gap and the outfielder's
right there, just right there, and it's like this, I
(15:57):
don't think that's necessarily a good product. I guess what
I'm saying is we're always constantly working on the game
we love, and I'm interested to see the next steps, because, man,
baseball needs it. And if you shorten pitching staffs, man,
I can't even imagine. Dude, teams navigate their bullpens so
(16:17):
tight at the end of each series, like teams are
just surviving and it's like, well, these three guys need
to pitch today. I don't know. It's a really weird formula.
And I guess I'm I'm excited for when the answer
does come in two, four, five, ten years, but right
(16:38):
now we're in a weird spot with it.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
What's like we talked about it on the on the
other episode two and alluded to some of the because it's, uh,
what's like the crisis is at like the youth level,
Like even if they put in some change tomorrow. Right,
that's eight ten years until, like the MLB problem is fix.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
And let's say we daydreamed a little bit about you know,
if you're going to be a guy in a bullpen,
you need to throw, be able to throw at least
three innings. I mean maybe it's more than that, but
think about all the pitchers that have turned to becoming
a reliever, Like relievers become a good career path for
guys if you can throw one lights out inning, I
(17:22):
think that needs to change. And I'm not gonna get
myself credit for this. There's just too many flamethrowers coming
out of the pen that I don't think that's a
good product either. Like when you turn on a game
and it's just here's a new guy that throws ninety eight,
and then that goes back to Mookie Bets, Aaron Judge,
whoever your star player is, they're now seeing a couple
(17:44):
freak shows out of the bullpen for half of their
at bats. That I don't know. I don't know if
it's led to a better product. And more importantly, we
need to be keeping guys healthier. So I'm interested to
see the next steps. I'm not sure what they'll be.
Uh all right. I wanted to do against most surprising
(18:05):
stats from the MLB season. We are depending your team,
we're seven to twelve games, in which I mean twelve
games BBD. You're my math guy. That's not let's say
eight percent. Sure, it's under ten. It's a little high
and tight. Uh So I didn't even want to do
(18:26):
players either, because to to come at a player for
a week and a half sample size or two week
sample size, every player has had an over rent. I
was looking at the players. I mean, Tyler O'Neill currently
leads in OPS with a one dot four over nine games,
and it's like, hey, we do we do talking baseball regularly?
(18:47):
Like I see that. I see that stat line a lot.
Uh So I wanted to look at the teams and
see where there's some red, yellow, or green flags. Let's
start off with the good offensive BBD. Do you know
the Braves team batting average? Can't say I do?
Speaker 2 (19:06):
I would.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
I would guess it's very high. They're hitting three hundred
as a team. Disgusting. They're hitting three hundred as a team,
three fifty four ops. It's an eight eighty six OPS.
Second place in OPS is your Texas Rangers, the Los
Angeles Dodgers both in the eights, and then how about
(19:27):
the Milwaukee Brewers and Chicago Cubs. Chicago Chicago Cubbies, man,
they're trying to turn heads in the Brewers. Some of
their young guys are clicking right now, which is seemingly
changing their their season outlook a little more on the
(19:48):
Atlanta Braves. If you search by on base percentage, the
Cubs and Rangers are tied like that, good for them.
The Dodgers are stepped down at three fifty eight. The
Atlanta Braves are getting on base at a three point
fifty four clip. That's good for fourth place there between
the Dodgers and the Pirates. The NL Central Man, I'm
(20:11):
telling you the Centrals have more juice this year, and
I am very much here for it. Here is the difference.
The Pittsburgh Pirates team slugging four to oh two. That's
good to put them tied for eleventh. Okay, Pirates, their
offense has been off to a nice start. The Pittsburgh Pirates,
(20:35):
who have the fifth place OBP the eleventh place slugging.
The Atlanta Braves above them are slugging one hundred and
thirty points higher, a five thirty two slug out of
the Braves that is the highest in baseball, and it's
the highest in baseball by eighty two points. We talked
(20:56):
a lot about the Dodgers this offseason, lot about the Dots,
a lot about a lot of teams. We didn't talk
a ton about the Braves. And I know they just
lost Strider. They're hitting and they did this last year
and maybe that's why we're not talking about it a ton.
(21:18):
But even with Sean Murphy out, they have Darnault who
he jumped in, he had a game winning hit the
other day. Ozuna is going nuts again, Matt Olson, yup,
Riley Albi's Michael Harris too. Ronnie hasn't even kind of
kind of hit his full stride yet. The Atlanta Braves.
I know it's known, but right now it's at such
(21:41):
a different level. And hey, I always try to get
into the athlete mentality, which is kind of funny with
my body type. If I was on the Atlanta Braves,
we had this historic offense season. Remember do you remember
how high Peter moylan was for the Braves? Can he
(22:03):
make his like background of his phone? The lineupps or
something something like. Peter moylan was pretty sure he was
watching one of the more special teams he's ever seen.
They get bounced from the playoffs and it's over. If
I was on a team like that, the offseason would
drive me clinically insane. And by the time real baseball
(22:26):
came back, I think they'd be putting up the same
number these these Atlanta Braves have been doing so uh,
just something to think about. The Braves are still on
a different level. They have the most doubles in baseball
so far by five and they've only played eight games
while some of these teams have played twelve. And they
(22:51):
are third in home runs again having played less games
than the Royals, Astros, and Dodgers. And how about the Royals.
That was Trevor Pluf's fun fact he dropped today. The
Kansas City Royals currently t two in homers. MJ. Melendez
had a big weekend. The team stats are around average,
(23:14):
but with the way they've been pitching, which I think
we'll get to that in a minute. Again, we can
be tough on the centrals. We've shown that and we
will be. The centrals are better this year. I don't
know what it means. Yet I can't get fully hype
about a Royal sweeping the Chicago White Sox, who are
(23:35):
in the world words of a famous Twitter video ass
but the product in the Central Division AL and NL
is a lot better this year. Let me see what
other offensive stats stand out. The Pirates I gave you
their obp speech. They have the most walks in baseball, again,
(23:58):
more than the Dodgers, having played two two less games,
So the Pirates have something going on on that end
of the field. Stolen bases is just maybe a fun
thing to look at on your own time, on your
own time. This is your own time. That's what we're
doing here. There's one team in Major League Baseball that
(24:20):
does not have a stolen base BBD red Socks, San
Francisco Giants. San Francisco Giants are zero for two two
caught stealings. Toronto Blue Jays only have one, and that's
I don't know. There are one, two, three, four, five,
(24:42):
five teams with two stolen bases. I guess the reason
why I said to search it out on your own
time is basically there are teams. There are teams that
are stealing, and then there's kind of teams that just
do not care our Yanks.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
It's I think, first like almost full week they really
didn't go and then they've since kind of turned it
on and been gone to amazing. Maybe that's an ideological
like first week, let's he's in.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Still a week and a half. If you run into
the the right or wrong catcher depending their pop time
and yours, your stolen base guy gets on. I just
think it's funny. The Cincinnati Reds have eighteen, the Brewers
have sixteen. NL Central people NAT sixteen, Rays fourteen, and yeah,
(25:30):
just to compare, you know, the feel of fourteen plus
stolen bases to the comparison of two stolen bases. And
this is a Hodgeproject teams, those same braves I mentioned,
they're doing everything else. So it's okay. Cubbies off to
a nice start. They're fine, White Sox and Twins up
against it. They've only played seven games. Cardinals have always
(25:54):
felt old, but mostly they're pitching. And the Blue Jays
that was a surprising one for me. Would you want
to guess who the only blue Jay Steele is? Only
blue Jay Steele? Gimme, IKF.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
I was hoping you would say it's ICF. It is
thirty four year old Kevin Kiermyer.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
Wow, So I want to do a little bit of
the bat on the offense before we jump over to
the pitching. Your worst ops in baseball BBD is White Sox.
Still White Sox are number two to the New York Mets.
(26:33):
Mets have gone off to an awful start with the bats.
Lin d'Or was in a horrible funk. It looks like
he might have just popped out of that nine games
expect the Mets to hit. Explains their slow start just
a little bit more.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
I know, like going into this series, it was like him,
Nemo and McNeil like combined three for forty.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
They were in the bad place in a bad way.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Three guys doing that that are supposed to be three
of your best hitters, right, that'll hurt.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
It's a bad time. The Mendoza ligne is is popular
in baseball. It's uh, you know, hitting over under two hundred.
It used to not be super prevalent, but when three
true outcomes came back, the mendoz align kind of came
back in a big way, and people also stopped caring
about it. Because hitters stopped caring about it as much.
(27:28):
Those hits. Our home used to be a lot of
if you were near the Mendoza line and someone said
that in a broadcast, it was like, whoa, this guy's
got to do something quick or he's not going to
be playing baseball bad time. Uh My offensive mendoz aligned
for this early part of the season will be the
Oakland Athletics. They become a little bit of a goof
(27:51):
around baseball for obvious reasons, mostly their owner. The Oakland
A's are twenty third in ops. OPS isn't everything, but
it's something. It's a good It's a decent, all encompassing statut.
Like any stat you need to dive more to find
(28:12):
the rest of the story. The Oakland Athletics are twenty
third in OPS to start this baseball season. Behind them
the Toronto Blue Jays. The Toronto Blue Jays that they're
waiting for an update on Kevin Gossman, who his velo
is down on the mound. Hope he's okay right now.
(28:34):
They have Romano and Swanson heard in their bullpen, which
I like their depth. Menah just got rocked in triple A.
I think it was the Toronto Blue Jays that were
supposed to be kind of this hitting dynasty hitting team.
The top of their lineup is alrighty and I don't
(28:56):
know how scary it is anymore. Uh, let's see where
George Springer lands this year. His last season wasn't super impressive.
I'm not gonna be out on George Springer until it's out.
Go Huskies tonight in a big way. Flatty and Boishett.
I mean those two can hit. It's how much and
(29:18):
what else are you getting everywhere else? And the rest
of that Blue Jays lineup, everyone feels the same Ernie Clement,
ikf Vigio Kermeyer. I know they're all different ballplayers, but
there's not a lot of fear factor at the bottom
of that lineup. And Jimmy was thinking the same thing,
(29:39):
and he was scared to say it because Toronto people
can be some of the loudest on the internet. Toronto,
there's some red flags up right now, especially if the
Red Sox are something I don't know, something to watch
out for. Below them are the Detroit Tigers. A lot
of people were drinking Tiger kool aid before the season.
(30:00):
Uh six twenty three. Ops, let's see if they get
anything going. Miami Marlins below them, one in nine one
in nine from the Marlins. We're about to watch them
with the Yankees. I don't know, man with Uri Perez
going down, traded John Birdie before the season, not that
(30:22):
that was probably gonna be the difference maker in their
season in the starting lineup this evening. Man, when we
did when we did the Marlins TPP, all of us
kind of looked around, like, all right, I know these
Marlins haven't been exciting for the past little while, but
they made the playoffs last year, same record as the Snakes.
(30:45):
Their pitching staff is always exciting. You want to love
Jazz Chisholm. Jake Berger went over and moved the needle.
Ariaz was awesome for a chunk of the season. When
we did their team profile and projection, we all kind
of looked at each other. I'm not seeing it at all,
and I know they still have some pitching. Lozardo's a
(31:06):
high velo guy, like he's he was on the list,
you know, tweeted so what. I don't know. You don't
not wishing anything upon anyone, but those Vilo guys are
dropping like flies. The Marlins ain't hitting, and they've lost
the chunk of ball games and it's gonna be hard
to get the juju going in the right direction down there.
(31:27):
Trevor Pluffs, Minnesota Twins have not been hitting. One of
the guys that was supposed to be a big part
of their hitting this year, Royce lewis out for a
chunk of time. We talked about Correa before the season,
big year coming for him, man his last year was ugly.
(31:47):
If Carlos Correa trends on that path, I don't know
that Twins lineup starts to look a lot different. It's
seven games, they've played the least games. Seven games. You
could have a bad week. Not ruling them out of anything.
Still the most talented team in the Ale Central I
believe mentioned the Mets at the bottom. The White Sox
(32:10):
were the team above them. Both of their those teams
hopes are are sailing away a little bit. The third
team that has an OPS that starts with a five
to start off this baseball season is Seattle Mariners. And
I did it a little bit in the recap today.
(32:30):
They haven't won a series yet. I don't I guess
Seattle help me help you a little bit. I don't know.
Does it feel like the lineup's not clicking. I've talked
a lot about the Julio April stuff and the Julio
(32:51):
first half stuff, and I don't want to believe it.
I guess what's going on there because the other thing
and Mariners got mad at me when I was angry
that ta Oscar left in Aohenio got traded away from
then the dude too many strikeouts. The Seattle Mariners are
(33:12):
tied for third in strikeouts and one of the teams
above them is the Los Angeles Dodgers, who have played
two more games and they so if you took out
the Dodgers, there one strikeout below the Pittsburgh Pirates, who
are just seeing pitches. Apparently Walker strikeout in Pittsburgh. So
(33:35):
Seattle Mariners, I hey, like I said with the Twins,
hopefully it's a blip. Hopefully it's a ten game blip.
But that offense that I didn't like their offseason, and
then I convinced myself a little bit because there's there's
balance there. Whoa go click on Seattle's roster resource right now.
(34:02):
Their lineup is JP Crawford at the top, lefty Julio
Polanco third, who again I like Corge Polanco, but I
don't know. I like Corge Polanco a lot more fifth
or sixth, but I'd say fifth would feel better than third.
And Mitch Hanneger, who I think has been their best
hitter so far this season. Clean up Mitch Garver, who
(34:26):
remembered that was that contract was a value play. Mitch
Garver is thirty three, He had a good year, dhing
for half the season. He hasn't played a lot of
full seasons, but it looked like he's hitting. He hasn't
been so far, but let's see what that looks like.
(34:47):
And then cal rally switched now and then I laughed
because it has the bottom of their lineup is three
straight lefties, Rayley, Canzone and Rojas, which, by the way,
don't I don't necessarily know what efforts you're gonna begin
from those guys.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Yeah, they they lost Ty Francis in the seven games
he did hit, it was going pretty well.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
Paternity list, congrats tie. Yeah, so for a few days,
that roster looks a little different. But the Seattle is
going to Toronto, which that's gonna be a little bit
of a desperation ball. Let's see what that looks like
by the end of this week and then Seattle comes
back home for Chicago and Cincinnati. So I don't know.
(35:29):
I don't know Seattle. I guess let me know. It
can't feel good? Are they just? Is it tough at bats?
Is there is there something else going on? Because right
now that's a little bit alarming on the pitching side
of the ball. It starts with the Boston Red Sox.
(35:52):
I did not have that on my Bengo card, and
neither did you. And I listened to a couple of
my Reds fans, and I try to be as fair
as Postle about it. And I can almost run through
this speech very naturally because I've done it a few times.
Ryan Bayo, the jump is gonna come? Is it now?
(36:15):
Is it next year? Is it mid?
Speaker 2 (36:16):
This year?
Speaker 1 (36:17):
It's coming. Bo's problem was lefties. He has a change up.
It's all gonna come together. I think he's been the
worst starting pitcher for them so far. Cutter Crawford had
a sneaky good year last year. Run that through the
pipeline a bunch of times. Pavetta supposedly had the best stuff.
Plus this preseason, which again my guy, you know Saras,
(36:40):
that's kind of what he swears by he's going whitlock
and how I mean are those two brothers, both ages
listed twenty seven point eight, both looked like they were
on a path for the bullpen. Both of them have
been lights out this year. So the Boston Red Sox,
you knew they had a bit of a bullpen. Ken
(37:01):
Lee Jansen and Chris Martin. I mean, that's a that's
rock solid. And Justin Slayton has been shoving for them good.
I mentioned the Toronto Blue Jays not hitting. If the
Boston Red Sox, they're probably not going to pitch to
the tune of a one four nine era, you know,
(37:23):
it's gonna be one of those things we find out.
The Boston Red Sox played Seattle earlier this year. How
much did that help their pitching SATs or was it
is that what's hurting the Mariners. The Cleveland Guardians also
played those Seattle Mariners. They have the second best ra
in baseball. I think both those teams did Seattle and Oakland,
(37:44):
So let's see what that feels like a little later
in the year. And then your third place teams. And
one of the stats that has turned heads a little bit.
The Kansas City Royals a two five to three team era,
their starting rotation has shoved. They retooled their whole bullpen.
(38:07):
I don't know what it means for one sixty two.
I just know there is a lot more talent in
the central divisions. He keeps beating the same drum. And
if Cole Reagan's is a guy which there were scouts
calling him lefty to gram in spring training, had a
massive year last year, Seth Lugo and Michael Waka, both
(38:29):
of them had really good years as part of that
Padres pitching staff. Rady Singer was the wild card for me.
He looks He's always looked like he's had the arm talent.
He's a first round pick. He broke out, but then
he kind of got broke in last year. He has
been pitching phenomenally. And Alec Marsh twenty five years old,
(38:51):
give them a good effort. My big thing coming into
the season was like, you can't have Jordan Lyle start.
I've seen a lot of Jordan Lyle stat pages. Can't
have Jordan Lyles in a starting rotation for you, and
then let them spots start a little bit. I think
I did laugh, and I think I texted this to
Jeff Passon while talking about arm stuff, and I said,
I can't I can't believe I'm asking for more Jordan
(39:13):
Lyles in baseball because I think I think guys like
Jordan Lyles in a bullpen is part of the solution.
I really do. I'm not saying you have to get
hit like Jordan has sometimes.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
The uh Royals you you mentioned two five three team
era something like that. Uh, just the starting rotation is
in the is a one to six Red Sox are
ahead of them one five to three.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
From just the rotation.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
The RA plus is obviously each guy only has two starts,
so you're gonna get silly numbers. But I've been laughing
at it kind of all day. The R plus is
going down the list. Brady Singer five eight three, Seth
Lugo five to five four, Reagan's two seventy, lock A
one seventy five, and Alec Marsh They're all they're they're
all performing significantly above average through two starts.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
Apiece could see that flattening out a little bit. But yeah, man,
the Mets have been pitching really well. Let's let's see
how that develops and manifests for them. On the bottom
of the list. Oh my god, one of my buddies
sent me a graphic today and he was trying to
(40:25):
send it for sports gambling reasons. And this isn't rocket scientists,
rocket science, he said, bet the over on Rockies games.
Colorado Rockies have a seven to five R seven to five.
People right above them, the Los Angeles Angels insert joke
(40:49):
here above them is the national Sure that might not
shock you. The next three teams will. That was a
really dramatic delivery. The Toronto Blue Jays five four to
six Era Bassett's gotten hit a couple times. Toronto bottom
five pitching, bottom five hitting so far. Let's hope that's
(41:12):
a weird ten game sample. The Tampa Bay Rays with
a five two four early on, and then it's Giants,
Marlins and Mariners. So Mariners have had a bottom seven
offense or excuse me, bottom seven pitching, bottom seven offense,
(41:34):
and Blue Jays are bottom five both ways too, So
I'm hoping for both of these teams. It's a little
bit of way too early, and we get to look
back at this and laugh. ERA not always the best indicator.
I get that. Let's see the Chicago Cubs. Man watch
out there. ERA is middle of the pack. They're striking
(41:56):
out people. The whips a little high. Orioles deserve to
shout out to when talking pitching two eight five ERA,
and we never respect the Orioles pitching. It's just a
weird thing we do as baseball fans. Maybe it's the field,
maybe it's the name power, but the Birds are back
at it. So uh my conclusion as always respect the
(42:19):
central a little more. Red Sox are officially on this
season's radar. It's early, but West Coast trip to go
seven and three is massive. They're about to start a
home stand. Like, if the Red Sox have a good
home stand, they're gonna be in it till end of May.
(42:42):
Like that's how baseball works.
Speaker 2 (42:44):
You're like locked into a if the Red Sox have
a let's go look at their schedule and I'll try
to be realistic or not realistic.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
They've got assuming it's three versus Cleveland. They have Baltimore,
LA and Cleveland. Let's say they take two out of
three from Baltimore. They're hot opening day, basting Bayo on
the bump, Bao and Burns, who I might watch, probably
won't paveta Irwin, Cutter and Gray Rod. Let's say they
(43:17):
get two u three. They're hot. Sure, Orioles are good
and they're pitching. Angels come to town. How about this,
let's call them. Let's call it four for six, whether
you're sweeping the Halos and you're only getting one against Baltimore,
or you're going two and two and then Cleveland comes
to Boston and let's just say it's another another two
(43:38):
for three. Sure, Uh, Cleveland is a four gamer. Okay,
so it's a four gamer. So let's let's just say
two for four, just to be even conservative with it. Uh,
So we win four out of six, we win six
out of ten. Let's go see out of town, they're hot,
(44:01):
that's what they just did. Find a way to not
lose any of these. If the Red Sox run it
back a home stand, Angels are very winnable games. The
other two may not be, but it's baseball. If the
Boston Red Sox are sitting at fourteen and six, they're
at least a part of the season through mid to
(44:22):
late May. And I don't they They've still they have
their issues. Trevor's story got hurt again. Tyler O'Neill's probably
not gonna stay at the one dot four pace. We
saw Duval do that a little bit last year. Duran,
one of my buddies, called him an A's merchant. I'm
not doing that. Devers hasn't gone yet though, like Yoshida
(44:45):
hasn't gone yet. Costas hasn't gone yet. Uh that Yeah,
I guess Red Sox are trending this way. Blue Jays
are trending this way, and if one of them doesn't
flatten out sooner. We got a kind to reevaluate the
whole ale East this year. So that's a lot of
evaluation for some teams that are nine games in, but
(45:09):
it's what we have so far. Interested to see what
we have for you this Wednesday. I honestly haven't thought
about it yet because go Huskies. People go watch tonight.
I think they're one of the best, if not the best,
college basketball team of all time. Depends what they do tonight.
If they lose, they're definitely not I think they're gonna
(45:30):
win in impressive fashion. They've been waiting for this for
so long. They're so talented. They have the perfect the
perfect balance of guys back for a repeat season that
roles increased and guys that weren't around for the championship
that will be trying to get it for the first time.
(45:53):
I'm obviously a little too close to the situation. I
love Yukon. They've always been kind of a one a
with the Yankees. For me, went to Yukon there. I'm
a Connecticut sports guy. Their Connecticut sports team. I don't know.
I think they're gonna roll. The women's college basketball was
awesome this weekend. I hope you check some of that
out and you're not just kind of boomerng Well, women
(46:17):
women's basketball. What are we doing here? Great product, great stars,
fun games? Is there anything else sports this weekend? There
always is earthquake and eclipse, wow and Masters this weekend.
So when sports kicks into gear man, it gets pretty good.
It gets pretty good. So we playoffs soon? Yeah, NBA Man,
(46:41):
NBA is going to be real. In a minute, Go
Huskies tonight. We will see you in the midweek episode.
I hope everyone survived the eclipse and it's still seeing this. Goodbye.
Hello, and welcome to Awaken Jake, myself, Jake's story, Ellie,
Big Baby, David, and it's a total eclipse of the
heart today clip season. We're actually we're recording this right beforehand.
So if the world ends, maybe this is like the
last piece of content posted. I could see the world
not ending, though, because we did an eclipse in twenty seventeen.
(00:22):
There was just not nearly as much hype on it.
Or is the path better this time? Everyone to the
path is better this time? We're closer to that.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Umm.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
I recall there being some hype last time. I was
in college though, so there, Yeah, I am googling twenty
seventeen eclipse path. Okay, so it was a little further north.
It was like Oregon and diagonally down and there were
some hotspots. I don't know. I was living at Denver
in the time. There was a picture of me I
(00:58):
smoked a cigarette. I thought it'd be funny and be
my eclipse thing. So now I'm debating, go I have
to do that again? Anyways, I want to do some
team most surprising stats of the MLB season so far.
Maybe I'll talk a little college basketball with you. WrestleMania
not really, although I did like seeing people's tweets about
(01:18):
it and how excited they were. I'm just not in
that world. I feel like I know a lot of
people who I don't know they're in that world until
they You look at the timeline and you're like, damn.
I mean McAfee, dude, he crushes football in WWE. He's
got like everything covered. I want to do some MLB
(01:43):
uh most Alarming, surprising, exciting stats of the young Baseball season,
and I'll segue into it because the most alarming stat
is something we opened Major League Baseball with, and it's
how many guys are getting Tommy john Slash injured. I
reached out to hos Serras, I reach out to Jeff
Passing and we talked about a lot on talking baseball.
(02:06):
The problem is there's no solution, and Passing Jess posts
an article and he mentions how in forty eight hours,
Yuri Pereh, Shane Bieber, and Spencer Stryder all went down.
It's insane, and I think it's for baseball. It's kind
of the new most pressing problem, Like the pitch clock happened,
(02:27):
and whether or not you believe game time or pitchclock
was a problem. It was one of the most discussed
things in baseball for years that the game's getting too long.
Blah blah blah. Pitchclock came in and was kind of successful,
although MLBPA will tell you it's part of the problem
with these injuries, which I don't fully believe in. I
(02:49):
think my maximum percentage I could give the pitch clock
for these pitching injuries is like two percent. Sure, there's
more reps in a close period of time, but if
you go back and you watch old baseball games, that
was the whole thing. I mean, the pitcher got the
bomb through it back in the day, like they didn't
shake off signs. It just happened. The game was moving.
(03:14):
Not to say there weren't pitchers that took breaks and
things like that. And again I'm always open to adaptation.
When when these first when the pitch clock first got announced,
I said, hey, let's see it, and I I just
want to see more of it and let's adjust because
when it first happened, I was a little panicky. Uh,
some baseball games were going by like too quick, and
(03:37):
I had to check myself a little bit because a
chunk of that was also the Yankees offense that they
were atrocious last year, that innings were flying by, innings
were flying by, and I was like, I don't love this.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
There are a lot of games so far this year
watching primarily Yankees, and I'm like, oh, these games feel much.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Longer on a little bit of a more normal timeline.
Isn't that crazy? Oh you guys rally now. Yeah, So
that that was a little bit of a Yankee problem
last year. The other thing was it took the hitters
two weeks to figure out to use their times at
the plate, and you see it now almost every at
bat a hitter will use their their time call, usually
a lot of them if they get two strikes, if
(04:16):
there's a three to two count, some will do it
just to like start the bat. I know, I think
Soto came up the other day and I think one
of the players was was arguing with the umpires still,
I think Glabor and Angel Hernandez, and there's a little
bit of a scene and I think the pitch clock
kind of started, so Sodo just uses time. He's like, hey,
let's I'm not getting started on this note, Like, let's reset.
(04:39):
So maybe there's something. Maybe the pitchers need that that
you know, if there's a two zero count and you
need to catch your breath for a second, you just
made a play covering first. You can call time circle
the mound, thirty seconds, whatever it is. I don't know.
I'm I'm very open to more adaptations. The MLBPA came
(05:00):
back and said that the pitch clock was a big
reason for it. There's no data behind that. Eno Saris,
who works with data, he said that the thing that
does correlate with this is the pitching injuries, and we're
we're trying to brainstorm solutions, but there's not much there.
I mean, even Passing just came out in his article
(05:20):
and said, basically he doesn't have an answer, like he's
basically begging pictures like the veteran pictures to come out
and tell guys like, hey, stop throwing with Velo. Let
me know how that goes. Have be a young pitcher
and have Justin Verlander and Max Schurz are telling you, hey,
(05:43):
don't try to throw as hard. Those guys stayed in
the league for so long partially because of how hard
they throw, and they still throw. I don't know, there's
not a solution. Soon kids are getting hurt at an
alarming rate. That is a crazy, no, no, no, no
good problem that I don't know what you do, because
(06:03):
kids are going to try to throw harder to get recruited,
to get scouted to play college ball, to try to
play pro ball. That right now, I mean the best
solution that I think I've heard. And these start to
get into crazy rules, like these are crazy game changing
rules that the pitch clock on paper, We were like,
(06:25):
this really isn't going to change the game, Like this
is just going to change, like you know, the relievers
that were taking fifty seconds between pitches and throwing over
to first all the time end of the day. That
was nonsense time in baseball, just complete nonsense. So the
fact that most of it got cut out, that's good,
(06:46):
is a good thing, but it still felt like a
drastic change to the game itself. This we're talking about
changing rule rules. We're talking about the amount of pitchers
you can carry, We're talking about you know, the one
that again smart people keep stumbling into is the you
lose your DH when the starting pitcher comes out of
(07:08):
the game. I kind of love that one, but there's
still problems because I've been doing and now I'm full
blown in this. I didn't think I was gonna get
this far. I have fully pivoted to the game needs
starting pitching again. And I know everyone's done that, like
(07:29):
that's not a new thought. Uh, but I kind of
realized it. And I forget if I did this. But
when I was watching Iowa the women's final four, Paige
Becker's ukht you know, the Husky brand, and if you're
in that world or have been around that world, you
know you know Paige Kaylen Clark Iowa. Like if you
(07:52):
hadn't heard of her, you've been under a rock. My Jessica,
who doesn't get deep in sports talking about Kaitlyn Clark
a sports world was talking about Kayln Clark South Carolina.
I mean, they're kind of the the dominant team. And
then NC State made it for the ladies, so that's
good for them. But the marquee matchup before the final
(08:14):
was Yukon Page Iowa Caitlyn Clark, and it was, you know,
the most viewed women's game ever, et cetera, et cetera.
And for me, it came down to the concept, it's
where basketball has always won and baseball has always gotten hurt.
Page was gonna have the ball a lot of the time.
(08:35):
Almost every time Yukon brought the ball up the court,
they were gonna look for Page. Iowa's whole offense is
get it to Kaylan Clark or be creative enough around
Kayln Clark to get a bucket somewhere else. They were stars,
and stars always play. Look at Kobeyashi in the hot
dog eating contest, like, if there's a star, we'll find you,
(08:57):
and we're gonna be interested where baseball gets hurt. Aaron, Judge,
Mookie Betts, Seeger, whoever it is, you're gonna see them
in their four at bats. Who knows at what part
of the game that's gonna be. You know, it could
(09:18):
be leading off an inning nobody on. It could be
two outs nobody else. Like, you know, Judge has been
getting walked a lot recently because they needed to see
if Rizzo and Stan can protect him. I think Judge
is leading baseball in walks. So think about that product.
The guy that a chunk of the building is there
(09:39):
to see, the guy that the Oakland A's owner is
talking about hitting home runs against his team. That's another
one for another time. You could show up to the Ballpark,
and that guy gets walked two of his four at bats.
So during your three hour game, you're getting to see
Judge actually take at bats. It's where baseball gets hurt,
(10:03):
where baseball used to have it, and I think is
gonna come back at some day because the fact we're
talking about it this much means there's gonna be a solution.
It's starting pitchers like that used to be the whole thing. Man,
I mean Maddox versus Cone, trying to think of Josh
Beckett versus el Duque, kind of making up names and matchups.
(10:27):
Even though those guys weren't necessarily the star of that game,
they were the beginning ticket. You knew you were gonna
see Greg Maddox with the ball into the sixth inning.
You knew you were gonna see those guys, and they
were a big part of the appeal. So that's when
a big pitching matchup happened. WHOA that was the like
(10:49):
man Chilling and Johnson, like you know some of these
guys that came through. And we still have big name pitchers,
but A are we keeping them healthy? And B are
we getting them? Are we getting them in the postseason?
I remember the Braves. A couple of years ago, they
were doing some opener stuff just to survive.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
That.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
I don't know, the starting pitcher is gonna come back.
It feels like it was coming back because teams were
burning out their bullpen. Last year we saw pictures going
deeper because teams were burning out their bullpen. The new
problem is it's vilo, and these guys throw as hard
as they possibly can, because that's how you get noticed.
There is a correlation with the harder you throw, the
(11:31):
harder it is to hit. Trevor had a great point
where he was like, well, why aren't hitting numbers going
down like normal? Ops and stuff is kind of staying
the same. So maybe this villo isn't helping pictures a
ton and you need to locate it to be good.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
They'll the teams will call up the guys who hit
villo better, right, That's what they've done.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
So I'm I don't know the next steps and it's
gonna be as because you need to shake the thought
process of now kids that are ten years out trying
to make major league baseball, and the best way for
them to do that is to throw harder, and throw
nastier and spin it more. That's where for a little
bit I was dreaming of a speed limit, like, what
would you make it? Ninety six, ninety eight, one hundred?
(12:19):
Does that stop anyone?
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Like?
Speaker 1 (12:21):
How many players are so plenty of guys who can't
reach one hundred. They're still maxing out. It's the maxing
out that's a problem, and that just doesn't work with sports,
because the whole idea of sport is we want to
see guys do it at the highest level. So if
you can throw hard, we want to see that. I
guess the thing is, clearly we've gotten far. We have
(12:42):
gotten further away from guys trying to pitch innings, the
whole original Blake Snell getting pulled and starting pitchers not
going three times through a lineup because they got hit more. Well,
there's some hitting action, you know. I know baseball was
looking for more of that, more hitting, more base running.
I do think the answer lies between shortening pitching staffs,
(13:04):
which means you need more pitchers stretched out and ready
to go on a given day, and then maybe something
as nutty as losing the d H when you pull
your starting pitcher, because then length gets valued even more.
I don't know the solution. I don't think anyone knows
a solution, and right now, any anytime you search for one,
there's more of a problem because, like I said, with
(13:25):
that speed limit, you know, if you're one of the
guys that can throw one hundred, you're probably gonna work
on throwing your slider at ninety four. And again not
a doctor chiming in, but I don't think that's good
for your elbow. So I don't know. This is the
new story in baseball. Hopefully we're gonna get more updates
and soon. And that's kind of what Jeff Passon's article
(13:47):
is like begging, Like and MLBPA and MLB are already
using this as a negotiating chip as a you know,
MLBPA coming out with pitch clock was a horrible first move.
And that's just honest, because they're trying to negotiate on it.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
Basically, they're they're upset that they were able to put
this rule in with that or add to the rule
without more approval, and and and like, truthfully, I'm sure
the pitchclock is a factor, Like it's all of these things.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
And Trev noted, you know, it's not like Tony Clark
acted alone like players apparently don't love the pitch clock,
otherwise they wouldn't just be throwing that out there. And
probably pitchers in particularly or at least what degree the
pitchclock is at. So I don't know, man to try
to get pitchers to not throw as hard as they can.
(14:39):
You know, there's just a couple of ideologies, like how
much strikeouts are valued from pitchers, you know those three
true outcome results that you know, we were laughing at
Mike Timlin's baseball card the other day because Mike Timlin
had a nasty long career. Mike Timlin used to bang
(15:01):
sinkers in the zone. Man, Mike Timlin was also really good,
So I don't want to pretend he was just this
just old guy vagabond.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
But you know, come and strikeout numbers are just not yeah,
it's less than a strikeout.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Let's than a strikeout perinning. There's strikeout numbers from a
different era because you know, he would throw that ball
in there and hope they kind of hit it where
his defense was. So I don't know, I feel like baseball,
I don't know the next steps. You know, we the
shift was a big one, and we kind of addressed
(15:36):
that kind of properly. I still have I don't want
to say issues's gonna be tweaks to that at some
point too. Man, I still get driven nuts. Sometimes there's
a ball just roped in the gap and the outfielder's
right there, just right there, and it's like this, I
(15:57):
don't think that's necessarily a good product. I guess what
I'm saying is we're always constantly working on the game
we love, and I'm interested to see the next steps, because, man,
baseball needs it. And if you shorten pitching staffs, man,
I can't even imagine. Dude, teams navigate their bullpens so
(16:17):
tight at the end of each series, like teams are
just surviving and it's like, well, these three guys need
to pitch today. I don't know. It's a really weird formula.
And I guess I'm I'm excited for when the answer
does come in two, four, five, ten years, but right
(16:38):
now we're in a weird spot with it.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
What's like we talked about it on the on the
other episode two and alluded to some of the because it's, uh,
what's like the crisis is at like the youth level,
Like even if they put in some change tomorrow. Right,
that's eight ten years until, like the MLB problem is fix.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
And let's say we daydreamed a little bit about you know,
if you're going to be a guy in a bullpen,
you need to throw, be able to throw at least
three innings. I mean maybe it's more than that, but
think about all the pitchers that have turned to becoming
a reliever, Like relievers become a good career path for
guys if you can throw one lights out inning, I
(17:22):
think that needs to change. And I'm not gonna get
myself credit for this. There's just too many flamethrowers coming
out of the pen that I don't think that's a
good product either. Like when you turn on a game
and it's just here's a new guy that throws ninety eight,
and then that goes back to Mookie Bets, Aaron Judge,
whoever your star player is, they're now seeing a couple
(17:44):
freak shows out of the bullpen for half of their
at bats. That I don't know. I don't know if
it's led to a better product. And more importantly, we
need to be keeping guys healthier. So I'm interested to
see the next steps. I'm not sure what they'll be.
Uh all right. I wanted to do against most surprising
(18:05):
stats from the MLB season. We are depending your team,
we're seven to twelve games, in which I mean twelve
games BBD. You're my math guy. That's not let's say
eight percent. Sure, it's under ten. It's a little high
and tight. Uh So I didn't even want to do
(18:26):
players either, because to to come at a player for
a week and a half sample size or two week
sample size, every player has had an over rent. I
was looking at the players. I mean, Tyler O'Neill currently
leads in OPS with a one dot four over nine games,
and it's like, hey, we do we do talking baseball regularly?
(18:47):
Like I see that. I see that stat line a lot.
Uh So I wanted to look at the teams and
see where there's some red, yellow, or green flags. Let's
start off with the good offensive BBD. Do you know
the Braves team batting average? Can't say I do?
Speaker 2 (19:06):
I would.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
I would guess it's very high. They're hitting three hundred
as a team. Disgusting. They're hitting three hundred as a team,
three fifty four ops. It's an eight eighty six OPS.
Second place in OPS is your Texas Rangers, the Los
Angeles Dodgers both in the eights, and then how about
(19:27):
the Milwaukee Brewers and Chicago Cubs. Chicago Chicago Cubbies, man,
they're trying to turn heads in the Brewers. Some of
their young guys are clicking right now, which is seemingly
changing their their season outlook a little more on the
(19:48):
Atlanta Braves. If you search by on base percentage, the
Cubs and Rangers are tied like that, good for them.
The Dodgers are stepped down at three fifty eight. The
Atlanta Braves are getting on base at a three point
fifty four clip. That's good for fourth place there between
the Dodgers and the Pirates. The NL Central Man, I'm
(20:11):
telling you the Centrals have more juice this year, and
I am very much here for it. Here is the difference.
The Pittsburgh Pirates team slugging four to oh two. That's
good to put them tied for eleventh. Okay, Pirates, their
offense has been off to a nice start. The Pittsburgh Pirates,
(20:35):
who have the fifth place OBP the eleventh place slugging.
The Atlanta Braves above them are slugging one hundred and
thirty points higher, a five thirty two slug out of
the Braves that is the highest in baseball, and it's
the highest in baseball by eighty two points. We talked
(20:56):
a lot about the Dodgers this offseason, lot about the Dots,
a lot about a lot of teams. We didn't talk
a ton about the Braves. And I know they just
lost Strider. They're hitting and they did this last year
and maybe that's why we're not talking about it a ton.
(21:18):
But even with Sean Murphy out, they have Darnault who
he jumped in, he had a game winning hit the
other day. Ozuna is going nuts again, Matt Olson, yup,
Riley Albi's Michael Harris too. Ronnie hasn't even kind of
kind of hit his full stride yet. The Atlanta Braves.
I know it's known, but right now it's at such
(21:41):
a different level. And hey, I always try to get
into the athlete mentality, which is kind of funny with
my body type. If I was on the Atlanta Braves,
we had this historic offense season. Remember do you remember
how high Peter moylan was for the Braves? Can he
(22:03):
make his like background of his phone? The lineupps or
something something like. Peter moylan was pretty sure he was
watching one of the more special teams he's ever seen.
They get bounced from the playoffs and it's over. If
I was on a team like that, the offseason would
drive me clinically insane. And by the time real baseball
(22:26):
came back, I think they'd be putting up the same
number these these Atlanta Braves have been doing so uh,
just something to think about. The Braves are still on
a different level. They have the most doubles in baseball
so far by five and they've only played eight games
while some of these teams have played twelve. And they
(22:51):
are third in home runs again having played less games
than the Royals, Astros, and Dodgers. And how about the Royals.
That was Trevor Pluf's fun fact he dropped today. The
Kansas City Royals currently t two in homers. MJ. Melendez
had a big weekend. The team stats are around average,
(23:14):
but with the way they've been pitching, which I think
we'll get to that in a minute. Again, we can
be tough on the centrals. We've shown that and we
will be. The centrals are better this year. I don't
know what it means. Yet I can't get fully hype
about a Royal sweeping the Chicago White Sox, who are
(23:35):
in the world words of a famous Twitter video ass
but the product in the Central Division AL and NL
is a lot better this year. Let me see what
other offensive stats stand out. The Pirates I gave you
their obp speech. They have the most walks in baseball, again,
(23:58):
more than the Dodgers, having played two two less games,
So the Pirates have something going on on that end
of the field. Stolen bases is just maybe a fun
thing to look at on your own time, on your
own time. This is your own time. That's what we're
doing here. There's one team in Major League Baseball that
(24:20):
does not have a stolen base BBD red Socks, San
Francisco Giants. San Francisco Giants are zero for two two
caught stealings. Toronto Blue Jays only have one, and that's
I don't know. There are one, two, three, four, five,
(24:42):
five teams with two stolen bases. I guess the reason
why I said to search it out on your own
time is basically there are teams. There are teams that
are stealing, and then there's kind of teams that just
do not care our Yanks.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
It's I think, first like almost full week they really
didn't go and then they've since kind of turned it
on and been gone to amazing. Maybe that's an ideological
like first week, let's he's in.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Still a week and a half. If you run into
the the right or wrong catcher depending their pop time
and yours, your stolen base guy gets on. I just
think it's funny. The Cincinnati Reds have eighteen, the Brewers
have sixteen. NL Central people NAT sixteen, Rays fourteen, and yeah,
(25:30):
just to compare, you know, the feel of fourteen plus
stolen bases to the comparison of two stolen bases. And
this is a Hodgeproject teams, those same braves I mentioned,
they're doing everything else. So it's okay. Cubbies off to
a nice start. They're fine, White Sox and Twins up
against it. They've only played seven games. Cardinals have always
(25:54):
felt old, but mostly they're pitching. And the Blue Jays
that was a surprising one for me. Would you want
to guess who the only blue Jay Steele is? Only
blue Jay Steele? Gimme, IKF.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
I was hoping you would say it's ICF. It is
thirty four year old Kevin Kiermyer.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
Wow, So I want to do a little bit of
the bat on the offense before we jump over to
the pitching. Your worst ops in baseball BBD is White Sox.
Still White Sox are number two to the New York Mets.
(26:33):
Mets have gone off to an awful start with the bats.
Lin d'Or was in a horrible funk. It looks like
he might have just popped out of that nine games
expect the Mets to hit. Explains their slow start just
a little bit more.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
I know, like going into this series, it was like him,
Nemo and McNeil like combined three for forty.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
They were in the bad place in a bad way.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Three guys doing that that are supposed to be three
of your best hitters, right, that'll hurt.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
It's a bad time. The Mendoza ligne is is popular
in baseball. It's uh, you know, hitting over under two hundred.
It used to not be super prevalent, but when three
true outcomes came back, the mendoz align kind of came
back in a big way, and people also stopped caring
about it. Because hitters stopped caring about it as much.
(27:28):
Those hits. Our home used to be a lot of
if you were near the Mendoza line and someone said
that in a broadcast, it was like, whoa, this guy's
got to do something quick or he's not going to
be playing baseball bad time. Uh My offensive mendoz aligned
for this early part of the season will be the
Oakland Athletics. They become a little bit of a goof
(27:51):
around baseball for obvious reasons, mostly their owner. The Oakland
A's are twenty third in ops. OPS isn't everything, but
it's something. It's a good It's a decent, all encompassing statut.
Like any stat you need to dive more to find
(28:12):
the rest of the story. The Oakland Athletics are twenty
third in OPS to start this baseball season. Behind them
the Toronto Blue Jays. The Toronto Blue Jays that they're
waiting for an update on Kevin Gossman, who his velo
is down on the mound. Hope he's okay right now.
(28:34):
They have Romano and Swanson heard in their bullpen, which
I like their depth. Menah just got rocked in triple A.
I think it was the Toronto Blue Jays that were
supposed to be kind of this hitting dynasty hitting team.
The top of their lineup is alrighty and I don't
(28:56):
know how scary it is anymore. Uh, let's see where
George Springer lands this year. His last season wasn't super impressive.
I'm not gonna be out on George Springer until it's out.
Go Huskies tonight in a big way. Flatty and Boishett.
I mean those two can hit. It's how much and
(29:18):
what else are you getting everywhere else? And the rest
of that Blue Jays lineup, everyone feels the same Ernie Clement,
ikf Vigio Kermeyer. I know they're all different ballplayers, but
there's not a lot of fear factor at the bottom
of that lineup. And Jimmy was thinking the same thing,
(29:39):
and he was scared to say it because Toronto people
can be some of the loudest on the internet. Toronto,
there's some red flags up right now, especially if the
Red Sox are something I don't know, something to watch
out for. Below them are the Detroit Tigers. A lot
of people were drinking Tiger kool aid before the season.
(30:00):
Uh six twenty three. Ops, let's see if they get
anything going. Miami Marlins below them, one in nine one
in nine from the Marlins. We're about to watch them
with the Yankees. I don't know, man with Uri Perez
going down, traded John Birdie before the season, not that
(30:22):
that was probably gonna be the difference maker in their
season in the starting lineup this evening. Man, when we
did when we did the Marlins TPP, all of us
kind of looked around, like, all right, I know these
Marlins haven't been exciting for the past little while, but
they made the playoffs last year, same record as the Snakes.
(30:45):
Their pitching staff is always exciting. You want to love
Jazz Chisholm. Jake Berger went over and moved the needle.
Ariaz was awesome for a chunk of the season. When
we did their team profile and projection, we all kind
of looked at each other. I'm not seeing it at all,
and I know they still have some pitching. Lozardo's a
(31:06):
high velo guy, like he's he was on the list,
you know, tweeted so what. I don't know. You don't
not wishing anything upon anyone, but those Vilo guys are
dropping like flies. The Marlins ain't hitting, and they've lost
the chunk of ball games and it's gonna be hard
to get the juju going in the right direction down there.
(31:27):
Trevor Pluffs, Minnesota Twins have not been hitting. One of
the guys that was supposed to be a big part
of their hitting this year, Royce lewis out for a
chunk of time. We talked about Correa before the season,
big year coming for him, man his last year was ugly.
(31:47):
If Carlos Correa trends on that path, I don't know
that Twins lineup starts to look a lot different. It's
seven games, they've played the least games. Seven games. You
could have a bad week. Not ruling them out of anything.
Still the most talented team in the Ale Central I
believe mentioned the Mets at the bottom. The White Sox
(32:10):
were the team above them. Both of their those teams
hopes are are sailing away a little bit. The third
team that has an OPS that starts with a five
to start off this baseball season is Seattle Mariners. And
I did it a little bit in the recap today.
(32:30):
They haven't won a series yet. I don't I guess
Seattle help me help you a little bit. I don't know.
Does it feel like the lineup's not clicking. I've talked
a lot about the Julio April stuff and the Julio
(32:51):
first half stuff, and I don't want to believe it.
I guess what's going on there because the other thing
and Mariners got mad at me when I was angry
that ta Oscar left in Aohenio got traded away from
then the dude too many strikeouts. The Seattle Mariners are
(33:12):
tied for third in strikeouts and one of the teams
above them is the Los Angeles Dodgers, who have played
two more games and they so if you took out
the Dodgers, there one strikeout below the Pittsburgh Pirates, who
are just seeing pitches. Apparently Walker strikeout in Pittsburgh. So
(33:35):
Seattle Mariners, I hey, like I said with the Twins,
hopefully it's a blip. Hopefully it's a ten game blip.
But that offense that I didn't like their offseason, and
then I convinced myself a little bit because there's there's
balance there. Whoa go click on Seattle's roster resource right now.
(34:02):
Their lineup is JP Crawford at the top, lefty Julio
Polanco third, who again I like Corge Polanco, but I
don't know. I like Corge Polanco a lot more fifth
or sixth, but I'd say fifth would feel better than third.
And Mitch Hanneger, who I think has been their best
hitter so far this season. Clean up Mitch Garver, who
(34:26):
remembered that was that contract was a value play. Mitch
Garver is thirty three, He had a good year, dhing
for half the season. He hasn't played a lot of
full seasons, but it looked like he's hitting. He hasn't
been so far, but let's see what that looks like.
(34:47):
And then cal rally switched now and then I laughed
because it has the bottom of their lineup is three
straight lefties, Rayley, Canzone and Rojas, which, by the way,
don't I don't necessarily know what efforts you're gonna begin
from those guys.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Yeah, they they lost Ty Francis in the seven games
he did hit, it was going pretty well.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
Paternity list, congrats tie. Yeah, so for a few days,
that roster looks a little different. But the Seattle is
going to Toronto, which that's gonna be a little bit
of a desperation ball. Let's see what that looks like
by the end of this week and then Seattle comes
back home for Chicago and Cincinnati. So I don't know.
(35:29):
I don't know Seattle. I guess let me know. It
can't feel good? Are they just? Is it tough at bats?
Is there is there something else going on? Because right
now that's a little bit alarming on the pitching side
of the ball. It starts with the Boston Red Sox.
(35:52):
I did not have that on my Bengo card, and
neither did you. And I listened to a couple of
my Reds fans, and I try to be as fair
as Postle about it. And I can almost run through
this speech very naturally because I've done it a few times.
Ryan Bayo, the jump is gonna come? Is it now?
(36:15):
Is it next year? Is it mid?
Speaker 2 (36:16):
This year?
Speaker 1 (36:17):
It's coming. Bo's problem was lefties. He has a change up.
It's all gonna come together. I think he's been the
worst starting pitcher for them so far. Cutter Crawford had
a sneaky good year last year. Run that through the
pipeline a bunch of times. Pavetta supposedly had the best stuff.
Plus this preseason, which again my guy, you know Saras,
(36:40):
that's kind of what he swears by he's going whitlock
and how I mean are those two brothers, both ages
listed twenty seven point eight, both looked like they were
on a path for the bullpen. Both of them have
been lights out this year. So the Boston Red Sox,
you knew they had a bit of a bullpen. Ken
(37:01):
Lee Jansen and Chris Martin. I mean, that's a that's
rock solid. And Justin Slayton has been shoving for them good.
I mentioned the Toronto Blue Jays not hitting. If the
Boston Red Sox, they're probably not going to pitch to
the tune of a one four nine era, you know,
(37:23):
it's gonna be one of those things we find out.
The Boston Red Sox played Seattle earlier this year. How
much did that help their pitching SATs or was it
is that what's hurting the Mariners. The Cleveland Guardians also
played those Seattle Mariners. They have the second best ra
in baseball. I think both those teams did Seattle and Oakland,
(37:44):
So let's see what that feels like a little later
in the year. And then your third place teams. And
one of the stats that has turned heads a little bit.
The Kansas City Royals a two five to three team era,
their starting rotation has shoved. They retooled their whole bullpen.
(38:07):
I don't know what it means for one sixty two.
I just know there is a lot more talent in
the central divisions. He keeps beating the same drum. And
if Cole Reagan's is a guy which there were scouts
calling him lefty to gram in spring training, had a
massive year last year, Seth Lugo and Michael Waka, both
(38:29):
of them had really good years as part of that
Padres pitching staff. Rady Singer was the wild card for me.
He looks He's always looked like he's had the arm talent.
He's a first round pick. He broke out, but then
he kind of got broke in last year. He has
been pitching phenomenally. And Alec Marsh twenty five years old,
(38:51):
give them a good effort. My big thing coming into
the season was like, you can't have Jordan Lyle start.
I've seen a lot of Jordan Lyle stat pages. Can't
have Jordan Lyles in a starting rotation for you, and
then let them spots start a little bit. I think
I did laugh, and I think I texted this to
Jeff Passon while talking about arm stuff, and I said,
I can't I can't believe I'm asking for more Jordan
(39:13):
Lyles in baseball because I think I think guys like
Jordan Lyles in a bullpen is part of the solution.
I really do. I'm not saying you have to get
hit like Jordan has sometimes.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
The uh Royals you you mentioned two five three team
era something like that. Uh, just the starting rotation is
in the is a one to six Red Sox are
ahead of them one five to three.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
From just the rotation.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
The RA plus is obviously each guy only has two starts,
so you're gonna get silly numbers. But I've been laughing
at it kind of all day. The R plus is
going down the list. Brady Singer five eight three, Seth
Lugo five to five four, Reagan's two seventy, lock A
one seventy five, and Alec Marsh They're all they're they're
all performing significantly above average through two starts.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
Apiece could see that flattening out a little bit. But yeah, man,
the Mets have been pitching really well. Let's let's see
how that develops and manifests for them. On the bottom
of the list. Oh my god, one of my buddies
sent me a graphic today and he was trying to
(40:25):
send it for sports gambling reasons. And this isn't rocket scientists,
rocket science, he said, bet the over on Rockies games.
Colorado Rockies have a seven to five R seven to five.
People right above them, the Los Angeles Angels insert joke
(40:49):
here above them is the national Sure that might not
shock you. The next three teams will. That was a
really dramatic delivery. The Toronto Blue Jays five four to
six Era Bassett's gotten hit a couple times. Toronto bottom
five pitching, bottom five hitting so far. Let's hope that's
(41:12):
a weird ten game sample. The Tampa Bay Rays with
a five two four early on, and then it's Giants,
Marlins and Mariners. So Mariners have had a bottom seven
offense or excuse me, bottom seven pitching, bottom seven offense,
(41:34):
and Blue Jays are bottom five both ways too, So
I'm hoping for both of these teams. It's a little
bit of way too early, and we get to look
back at this and laugh. ERA not always the best indicator.
I get that. Let's see the Chicago Cubs. Man watch
out there. ERA is middle of the pack. They're striking
(41:56):
out people. The whips a little high. Orioles deserve to
shout out to when talking pitching two eight five ERA,
and we never respect the Orioles pitching. It's just a
weird thing we do as baseball fans. Maybe it's the field,
maybe it's the name power, but the Birds are back
at it. So uh my conclusion as always respect the
(42:19):
central a little more. Red Sox are officially on this
season's radar. It's early, but West Coast trip to go
seven and three is massive. They're about to start a
home stand. Like, if the Red Sox have a good
home stand, they're gonna be in it till end of May.
(42:42):
Like that's how baseball works.
Speaker 2 (42:44):
You're like locked into a if the Red Sox have
a let's go look at their schedule and I'll try
to be realistic or not realistic.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
They've got assuming it's three versus Cleveland. They have Baltimore,
LA and Cleveland. Let's say they take two out of
three from Baltimore. They're hot opening day, basting Bayo on
the bump, Bao and Burns, who I might watch, probably
won't paveta Irwin, Cutter and Gray Rod. Let's say they
(43:17):
get two u three. They're hot. Sure, Orioles are good
and they're pitching. Angels come to town. How about this,
let's call them. Let's call it four for six, whether
you're sweeping the Halos and you're only getting one against Baltimore,
or you're going two and two and then Cleveland comes
to Boston and let's just say it's another another two
(43:38):
for three. Sure, Uh, Cleveland is a four gamer. Okay,
so it's a four gamer. So let's let's just say
two for four, just to be even conservative with it. Uh,
So we win four out of six, we win six
out of ten. Let's go see out of town, they're hot,
(44:01):
that's what they just did. Find a way to not
lose any of these. If the Red Sox run it
back a home stand, Angels are very winnable games. The
other two may not be, but it's baseball. If the
Boston Red Sox are sitting at fourteen and six, they're
at least a part of the season through mid to
(44:22):
late May. And I don't they They've still they have
their issues. Trevor's story got hurt again. Tyler O'Neill's probably
not gonna stay at the one dot four pace. We
saw Duval do that a little bit last year. Duran,
one of my buddies, called him an A's merchant. I'm
not doing that. Devers hasn't gone yet though, like Yoshida
(44:45):
hasn't gone yet. Costas hasn't gone yet. Uh that Yeah,
I guess Red Sox are trending this way. Blue Jays
are trending this way, and if one of them doesn't
flatten out sooner. We got a kind to reevaluate the
whole ale East this year. So that's a lot of
evaluation for some teams that are nine games in, but
(45:09):
it's what we have so far. Interested to see what
we have for you this Wednesday. I honestly haven't thought
about it yet because go Huskies. People go watch tonight.
I think they're one of the best, if not the best,
college basketball team of all time. Depends what they do tonight.
If they lose, they're definitely not I think they're gonna
(45:30):
win in impressive fashion. They've been waiting for this for
so long. They're so talented. They have the perfect the
perfect balance of guys back for a repeat season that
roles increased and guys that weren't around for the championship
that will be trying to get it for the first time.
(45:53):
I'm obviously a little too close to the situation. I
love Yukon. They've always been kind of a one a
with the Yankees. For me, went to Yukon there. I'm
a Connecticut sports guy. Their Connecticut sports team. I don't know.
I think they're gonna roll. The women's college basketball was
awesome this weekend. I hope you check some of that
out and you're not just kind of boomerng Well, women
(46:17):
women's basketball. What are we doing here? Great product, great stars,
fun games? Is there anything else sports this weekend? There
always is earthquake and eclipse, wow and Masters this weekend.
So when sports kicks into gear man, it gets pretty good.
It gets pretty good. So we playoffs soon? Yeah, NBA Man,
(46:41):
NBA is going to be real. In a minute, Go
Huskies tonight. We will see you in the midweek episode.
I hope everyone survived the eclipse and it's still seeing this. Goodbye.
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