Padres Analytical Deep Dive (w/Dylan from Letters2AJ)

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:23):
Welcome to Podras, Hotep, everybody, Greg Elston, Chris Read, Rayfie Canter.
We have a special guest on a special episode, our
pre deadline deal episode. It is our pleasure to welcome
back the guy I think is doing the best independent Padres,
writing that there is just period period exclamation point letters.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
To a j. If you haven't subscribed to the substack yet,
it's time to get going. The man who makes it happen, Dylan,
joining us on this edition of POT. Hi Dylan, good
to see you again.

Speaker 3 (01:00):
Hi, thanks for having me. Good to see y'all.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
Well, the pleasure is ours. It is great to have
you here. It's an exciting time. This is the last
show before the next emergency podcast.

Speaker 4 (01:15):
I hope there's gotta be a trade between now and
next week.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
There just has to be. We're recording on Sunday, July
twenty seventh. July thirty first is Thursday.

Speaker 4 (01:26):
It's an off day for the Padres, but hopefully not
for a J.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
Brelers. So we've got a lot to talk about on
today's show, including a ten game road trip that came
to a much more satisfactory end than the middle. Like
a lot of Netflix series, baggy in the middle, episodes,
strong at the start, Strong, finish, little padding. Could this
have been a movie instead of a ten episode road.

Speaker 3 (01:56):
Way?

Speaker 5 (01:57):
Indeed?

Speaker 2 (01:57):
But I but I digress with first a quick note
for everybody, then all the way through deadline. So basically
for the next week, okay, we are continuing a deal
on our Patreon with ten percent off on all annual memberships.

(02:18):
And there's already well ten percent off period okay, but
when you have an annual membership there's another ten percent off,
so it's really twenty percent off an annual membership, ten
percent off a month to month. Try. All you got
to do is go to Patreon dot com slash padres
hota pr p at p A t r e o N.
I know, I still do know it p at r

(02:39):
o n dot com slash padres hota, don't judge it,
just based on this idiot and enter the code deal
ten d e A L ten and you'll get ten
percent off on a monthly subscription, or if you go yearly,
you get an extra ten percent off. That'll be a
twenty percent deal that continues for the next week. We

(02:59):
invite you to come in find out why this vibrant
community community continues to grow and to be an outstanding
place to take in a Padre season. Find out for
yourself patreon dot com slash padresata.

Speaker 3 (03:15):
Worth every penny.

Speaker 2 (03:15):
By the way, Oh thanks Don, Thank you, Dan. I
appreciate you. Still free letters to aj on substack, so
technically a better value than us. But Dylan, thank you
so much for being here. Let's start with, just as
a point of entry, your thought on on where this

(03:38):
club eight games over five hundred, coming back home to
take on the Mets and the Cardinals. Where they stand
approaching the deadline.

Speaker 3 (03:45):
Sure, so, any baseball season has a regular cadence, and
that's the first half. It's about banking wins, and it's
about finding out what you're revealed as opposed to your
projected strengths and weaknesses are. And the second half is
about addressing the revealed weaknesses, forecasting what your team will

(04:09):
be down the stretch, and executing trying to get into
the playoffs. So thus far they've banked enough wins and
maybe more than any other year in recent memory. Their
weaknesses are pretty you know, comprehensible. It's not a mystery.

(04:31):
And so I think from you know this, the implied
strategy there is address the weaknesses and see if you
can execute down the stretch.

Speaker 2 (04:42):
Fair guys, any any way that you would massage that
to make it your own.

Speaker 6 (04:57):
Well, first of all, I just want to thank them
for being here. Is like probably my favorite person to
read about the Padres. So I'm just like, thank you,
thank you for your work. I love what you do
and I can't wait to talk to you in specifics
about a couple of the pieces that you've written this
year so far. I think that the Padres revealed weaknesses

(05:19):
and strengths. I think that's a very good way that
that word revealed, as opposed to projected. It's a very
good way of putting it. Because we saw it come
into play this weekend. We saw it come into play
in this road trip. This team is incredibly, incredibly strong
on the on the pitching side of the ball and

(05:41):
incredibly frustrating on the offensive side. And I listened to
you guys' post game show last night. It's fantastic. I'm
sure we'll get into the Manny Machado Instagram tinfoil hat
corner later on in the show. But Craig, you said
something along the lines of if this team adds a
run than the they're a series contender for our World Series.

(06:03):
Correct me if I'm wrong.

Speaker 2 (06:05):
Yeah, I do feel that way.

Speaker 6 (06:07):
Yeah, yeah. I think it was doctor Cosmo, one of
another one of our patriots who posted in our discord
chat today that the Padres are forty and twenty four.
When they score four runs or more, that's it. It's
four is the threshold, and that was going into today's game.

(06:27):
So the answer is actually forty one and twenty four,
something like a sixty three or sixty four percent win clip,
you know, that'll get you close to one hundred games.
That the formula is not like rocket science for this team.
I think the rocket science of it, as we'll get

(06:47):
into later in the show, and I'll hand it off
to you after this, Craig is just how are they
going to make it work. It's there's rumblings about not
being any money. The farm system is obviously depleted. That's
something that we are hearing consistently, not just from people
who write about the Padres every day, but also people
who talk nationally about baseball that what they're hearing from

(07:08):
other executives is that Padres just simply don't have the depth,
and that potentially teams like the Reds and the Giants
will have an advantage in the buyer's market because the
Padres simply can't compete. So I think Dylan did a
great job of pointing out that the padres strengths and
weaknesses have been revealed. The million dollar question is do
they have the resources to fix them?

Speaker 4 (07:30):
The multimillion dollar question are they willing to commit a
few more million dollars.

Speaker 2 (07:36):
To turn this thing up and make it grow. In
that sense, when we start by asking Dylan for a
thirty thousand foot view, I'd like to offer to start
things off a three foot view. I'd like to zoom
all the way in and say we're.

Speaker 5 (07:52):
Gonna talk about Joseias.

Speaker 4 (07:55):
Oh yeah, that's exactly even further.

Speaker 2 (08:00):
Now you can see him. He's beautiful. No, the last
two wins were so important. The past Ken Rosenthal column
I read, which was written Saturday morning, was essentially, Hey,
Reds and Giants smell blood in the water. Here they come.

(08:25):
They see the Padres are struggling. They think the Padres
don't have the resources to add. They are going to
jump and they're gonna make a big move and they're
gonna leap frog San Diego. And of course Rosenthal's bow
tie like spinning and joy as he's typing it. Nonetheless,
I'm like, yeah, well kind of. I mean, those teams

(08:47):
gained like three games in three days on San Diego.
So to take Saint.

Speaker 4 (08:53):
Louis, push them back in a corner, say, nope, three
and a half when we started, three and a half
when we finished.

Speaker 2 (09:00):
Go back in your corner. You're a game over five hundred.
To take the Giants, push him back a game to
take the Reds. Push him back a game. I think
that's huge. And I don't know, none of us know
what's going on in the Ivory tower, you know, when
Aj swipes his key card to go in and speak
to the group dog and to speak to John Seidler

(09:22):
and everybody else. But like, it's got to help to
pull two out here and to go five and five
and to be back in a more controlling position than
it would have been to stumble all the way through
get mopped in Saint Louis, you know, and B three
and seven. So I love thirty thousand feet, but right
now I think three feet is important too. Well.

Speaker 5 (09:45):
I mean, this team hasn't lost five in a row
of the season, so getting mopped in Saint Louis it
was kind of unlikely because they haven't shown them in them.
They've got the best stopper in the league, Randy Vaskuez,
going out for them every fifth game and making sure
it doesn't happen. I almost got through it with a
straight face. I almost got through it. Dylan's summary of

(10:08):
the beats of the season was really excellent. And I
think the Padres can know the truth. It's whether they
can handle the truth, you know, whether they can handle that.
There needs to be adjustments in the game to gay
in the game day decisions like a you know, the bunting,
so to speak, and whether they can handle the truth

(10:28):
that you know, Gavin Sheets has been really good so
far this year. Maybe you don't want him is like
an every day, every day player the entire season. Maybe
like his strength is beginning to wane a little bit.
Maybe like you don't want your roster to have Trenton
Brooks on it another day longer. Like it's whether they

(10:52):
have they like I feel like they're seeing the exact
same stuff that we are. It's whether that they can
handle it and the adjustment on it. And that goes
for the ownership too. Like, I know ownership wants to
see a playoff run because they get to cash all
those receipts, right Like we get all the concession money,
they get all the ticket money. And if they can

(11:14):
handle that, this is a five hundred squad. It's coming
off of a five and five road trip without the
banked wins in the first month and a half of
the season. It's a five and five squad. It's a
five hundred squad. So if you can handle that truth
and you want the playoff receipts, you got to invest
a little bit more. Baby. I know they invest a lot,

(11:36):
and I think it's going to be really crucial because
the farm system being what it is, you can't change
that overnight. That's not a decision you can make. Oh,
I want my prospect to be worth more, all right, No,
you can't do that. But you can choose to put
out another ten million dollars and pay the last third
of a guy's salary. And whether they choose to do
that is going to make a huge difference and then

(11:57):
becoming that one run more team that we want.

Speaker 2 (12:00):
Well, let me use that as as a turning point
to take it back to our guest, because the last
piece you put up Dylan was about in Spanish to
to Tokyo your namesake, Dylan Sees and talking about his
very difficult season. Chris just talked about the idea of

(12:22):
potentially having to reduce payroll from this current team in
order to add to it. You know, the names that
come up are the obvious ones, and I think Dylan
Cees is really at the top of that list. What
are your thoughts after a road trip where we got
one really good start from Dylan Ceees and one kind

(12:43):
of like classic twenty twenty five five innings, three runs,
you know, the mistakes in critical times not terrible, but
not good, you know, just another kind of Dylan Ceees outing.
What are your thoughts and where the padres stand and
what they could possibly do with this player, well with.

Speaker 3 (13:07):
Cease in particular, you know, he really struggles the longer
the game goes on, and it's not a matter of fatigue.
It seems like it's a matter of familiarity. And there's
an archetype of that specific pitcher, really really good pitches,
not that many of them, so you know, the game
theory for the hitter is fastball slider. Take a really

(13:29):
good hack at what you think it is, and I
think with Ceas in particular, it's forcing fastball slider. Those
are thrown from different arm angles. Sinker slider pitchers can
be just a little bit more effective because you throw
those from such similar angles. It's incrementally a little bit

(13:49):
harder to pick up for the batter. And you wonder
if just subtle changes in either of those pitches, even
though their overall, you know, shapes are fantastic, has led
to him having a record a familiarity problem the second
and rarely the third time through the order, because he
hasn't pitched as many innings third time through. So what

(14:11):
do you do about that? I loved what they did
in Washington second time through the order. He mixed in
sinkers and knuckle curves, and the difference in Washington is
he really executed those. The pitch that got to him
in Miami was a knuckle curve that he left way

(14:32):
over the plate and Haesus Sanchez crushed it, And that
probably tells you that that's why he's not thrown that
pitch more often. He doesn't quite know where it's going.
All the time. So what do you have there? You
have a pitcher that's probably going to be really good
the first time through the order pretty reliably, and the
numbers show that, and the study of similar archetype pitchers

(14:54):
show that. So what does that imply? That implies you
got to pay attention to the first time through the
order went and if he's at sixty pitches as you're
turning over, you got to take a long, hard look
at who's coming up and what arms you got ready
to go in the bullpen, and you got to make
some hard decisions about adding some stress to that bullpen.

(15:18):
And so what comes to mind to me is is
there a way to get some you know, cheap, reliable
help in the bullpen to preserve the I know you
coined this phrase the four horsemen, and still get some
good production. So I'd be looking around the league for
starters that have, you know, similarly great first time through

(15:39):
the order but pretty mediocre aggregate statistics, and see if
we can bring back the long relief game, not as
a mop up duty, but as a weapon. And I
think I feel like Rafie, it was you and John
Pracota maybe a couple of years ago talked about the
idea that if you just insert a league average pitcher

(16:00):
for your starter who's about to go, you know, third
time through, the expected value of that is quite high
because you're not going to get first time through the
order results with your starter. That type of creativity, using
you know, the same assets but using them slightly differently
can incrementally add a lot of value, and that doesn't

(16:21):
cost probably as much as you know. I heard the
bank shot trade of like Cease to one team, Sandy
Alcantra to the Padres, replacing him in the order probably
a lot easier to just go out there and get
like a JP Sears type.

Speaker 5 (16:39):
Do you think much of Dylan adding the sinker and
a sweeper to the pitch mix the last few times
out because since the break those have been around, whereas
before he was primarily those other two with the rare
knuckle curve mixed in. But I don't know if the

(16:59):
first time we saw the sinker and the sweepers at
the Nationals, but they've definitely been featured a lot more
in the past couple of weeks.

Speaker 3 (17:05):
I think it's definitely deliberate. I think his usage of
the four seam slider had gotten up to like eighty
eight percent or something, and hitters are just too good.
They've got the traject machines. They're taking batting practice off
of pitches with your shapes, at your speed, and getting
familiar even before the game. I think it comes down
to is locate.

Speaker 4 (17:31):
Dan.

Speaker 6 (17:31):
I had a question about about this because part of
my other thesis about the team, besides our limited resources
to potentially improve it, is also the stubbornness and doing
things kind of the baseball way, and you know, we
can see tons of examples of that in lo Loise
Rise this season in terms of the batting order, et cetera,

(17:55):
et cetera. I think because Dylan Cees came into this
season as our sort of prototypical ace, the idea of
like he's supposed to this is the guy he's supposed
to be. To me, he reads to someone who would
benefit greatly from using an opener. And then you know,

(18:16):
like if we want to, for instance, think about how
we can effectively deploy Kyle Hart on this team. You
have Kyle Hart out there, you know, for the first
time through the order, and then bring in Dylan Cease
and then all of a sudden, hopefully you are getting
a strong pitching performance without necessarily having to use all
of your four horsemen because you have Dylan throwing a
little deeper in the game. Is that something that you

(18:39):
think that Dylan would benefit from and is that something
that you think is realistic for it that the team
will deploy.

Speaker 3 (18:44):
It depends what you mean by benefit, because he probably
isn't going to benefit from that in his off season,
you know, contract negotiations, and it looks like there's something
wrong with him, so it's probably you know, baseball is
an orthodoxy. It always has there's a lot of group think,
and that's not a typical way that you deploy a
true ace. So there's going to be a personal cost

(19:06):
to him for sure. And the reality is, you know,
we have no way of knowing the details of this,
but he has an agent. That agent's going to be
in the front office's ear. They're most probably not going
to have good things to say about deploying someone like that.
But from a strict the goal is to try to

(19:27):
win baseball games. Yes, you've got to think about these
kinds of unorthoodox strategies. There's only a few teams in
the league that can just you know, stick to the
decisions that you know, follow the orthodoxy, and consistently win
because they have the resources to do so. If you're
not one of those teams, then you have to be

(19:47):
creative because that's one of the only ways that you're
going to get a source of value is deploying the
assets that you have as efficiently as possible. So could
Kyle Hart open and baid out a lineup of alrighty's
get through it one time, hopefully without a disaster, and
then bring in a dominant Dylan Ceas for the second

(20:07):
time through the order. I would think that would be
tremendously efficient and would benefit the padres, maybe benefit Cease
a little bit in terms of his overall er, but
there'll be a personal cost to that. So I think
the culture is what that comes down to. Do you
have the culture where you can ask someone like that
to do it and you can actually execute that. That's

(20:31):
the unknowable thing from the outside.

Speaker 5 (20:33):
I don't know, man, this club can't get Luis Rise
to stop bunting this. You know, it seems this isn't
the group of folks for that type of thinking. I
think I'd rather have Kyle Hart come in after they're
already geared up for Dylan Sees. I'm terrified to watch
Kyle Hart start any more games in the San Diego
Padres f I don't care how long.

Speaker 2 (20:53):
Yeah, yeah, I mean I think you said it. Whatever
the ideal strategy is, whatever you would do and out
of the park are stratumatic. You know that's not what's
going to happen for Dylan Cees because the day that
he's turned into a bulk reliever, a question can be
asked by every single GM.

Speaker 4 (21:13):
That then goes on to negotiate with him in the winter, like, well,
what's going on? I thought you were this guy? But
here here's the way I wanted to bounce it back
to you, though, Dylan, Like, we've.

Speaker 2 (21:23):
Gone from this vague, amorphous Dylan Cees. What is he?
What has he been? What could he be? Things are
a lot more finite now. Dylan Ceese has made twenty
one starts, so he'll make eleven or twelve more starts
this year in all likelihood. That's it. It's eleven or

(21:48):
twelve more starts for Dylan Cees. So to me, the
Padres equation in my mind, if we're talking about like
strategies and whatnot. They're not going to turn him into
a bulk reliever. They're not gonna do any of those things.
They're gonna roll him out there as if he's Max Scherzer. Basically,
they're just gonna roll him out there to be an ace.

(22:11):
The numbers that he's put up, you know, b war Wise,
you know one three, whip four six era f war Wise.
Sure the FIP is in in the threes, It's okay.
Are we sure that the next guy down the road,
a guy that you trade for and or Bergert can't

(22:31):
do eleven starts of this to get you to the
postseason mark.

Speaker 3 (22:41):
It's a good question. He's probably a much better pitcher
than his era suggests this season, and it's good to remember,
like every outcome always involved luck, there's probably some bad
luck also in this season, but it's probably not all luck.

(23:02):
It's probably specifically with the way that he was pitching
in the first half, becoming very very predictable, just simplifying
the game for the hitters, and you saw what he
deployed the last two games. It looks like there's an
intentional corrective that's probably going to be a lot more
effective than his first half. But as you said, there's
eleven starts to figure that out. So I think the

(23:24):
challenge is you just have to forecast that, and what
is in favor of that is his overall track record
and the stuff. The stuff looks good, So I would
say it's likely he's going to be a better pitcher
than Burger down the stretch. It's definitely not guaranteed, and

(23:47):
you have to weigh on the other hand, whether you
know the incremental difference between those two is more valuable
than what you might be able to do moving a
pitcher like that, as and rumored all week, and there's
going to be some irreconcilable uncertainty there, but I'd say
it's more likely has a better second half than first

(24:08):
half for those reasons.

Speaker 2 (24:15):
Guys, any thought to the thief, it's it's less about
dreaming on Dylan and now kind of getting to the
hard facts of ten to eleven starts left. What are
you going to get in these in these limited days
and weeks until he leaves your team.

Speaker 5 (24:34):
It all goes back to what they're playing with, and
I don't know the money they're playing with. I'm terrified
that they're, you know, trying to balance out payroll added
by losing payroll. I don't like that thought, you know,
one little bit. But Dylan Cees is making a lot
of money, and he's the guy I trust probably the least.
I mean, with Louis Rise getting a close second place

(24:56):
at this point of the guys making money, that would
have to go, I prefer the Padres just add it's
not my money, it's not my team. So like, and
I've come around to your guys this way of thinking
about Dylan repeats here that Dylan Cees is almost certainly
going to put up a better second half than he

(25:17):
is than he has so far.

Speaker 7 (25:19):
Excuse me, I should say last third really exactly. That's
kind of my whole point is like second half, second half.
It's it's eleven starts now, so yeah, he's running out
of time.

Speaker 2 (25:31):
One more bad start. He's kind of digging a hole
that he can't get get out of.

Speaker 5 (25:36):
I do think it's kind of silly to rely on
Ryan Berger being as good as him, just because of
the track record, and that we do see Dylan making
these adjustments on the fly with our all world pitching coach.
I've been team trade seas all year long. You guys know, that,
and if that's what the club has to do in
their battle plan to make it happen, then yeah, he's

(25:57):
the guy at the top of the list. But backfilling
is not gonna get easy. Eric Fetti just moved from
the Cardinals to the Braves, which is super bizarre. But
he was pitching in Triple A anyway after getting designated
for assignment, and I'm sure no contender wanted to give
him a spot in the rotation. But like, there's pretty
slim pickens out there. Like you're talking about what's his

(26:19):
name from Washington, not Soroka, but something like that. You're
talking about the Patrick Corbyn's of the Major League Baseball
Charlie Morton. Like, if you're back filling Dylan sees the
Charlie Morton or Ryan Berger, I feel like you're gonna
lose more games than you win. Even with his struggles
so far this year, So uh.

Speaker 2 (26:40):
See, I don't know, you know, I don't honestly know
if Tomu Sagon or Charlie Morton over eleven starts. Based
on what I've seen from Dylan sees that that I
can't two runs out of one of those guys.

Speaker 5 (26:56):
I'm fine with moving Dylan strength for strength getting a
bat on the club. If that's the trade that must
be made for that to happen, I'm okay with it.

Speaker 2 (27:03):
But if we're like relying on our.

Speaker 5 (27:05):
Current depth pieces to suddenly be him, I ain't buying it.

Speaker 6 (27:09):
Well, I think those are two different questions, Chris, because
if you're saying yourself, well, Dylan Ceese has been operating
at a four to six era, If we can trade
him and go and get a bat while also getting
someone else who can throw at a four six era,
well I think that that's a compelling interesting I don't
know if I necessarily agree, but I think that that

(27:29):
is an argument that at least holds some water. But
I think the idea that Dylan Ceese is going to
pitch worse than Charlie Morton or Sugano or Ryan Bergert
is insane. And I think Craig, I have to appeal
to your stratamatic sensibilities. Do you really think that you're
going if you're playing strata matic, are you really taking
you know, Charlie Morton, Come on, man.

Speaker 2 (27:53):
No, probably not, but I might trust level on Dylan
Cees is honestly at an all time low and he's
gotten this deep into the season being Diletant Dylan the
whole way and never giving you even two straight starts
of like, oh yeah, here he comes, he's on the
way now, he's turned a corner. It's always one decent start, Nope,

(28:16):
up back to three innings or three runs in five innings,
back to ninety five pitches in the fifth, and you
know he's not going to be able to get any
further than this. So this could just be this season
for Dylan. This could just be a lost season, and
everyone has to bet that the next season is better
for Dylan See's again, two more bad starts and the

(28:38):
numbers are locked in for Dylan Sees. He needs to
kind of run the table a little bit in the
last not eleven great starts, but you know, eleven decent
starts to really turn his numbers for the year around.
So I'm not trying to be hyperbolic. I'm just I
don't trust the guy. He's on the way out the door, guaranteed.

(29:03):
So if you can get better than a fourth round
draft pick, and you can on the market find the
prospects you need in a Cize trade to swap to
get the outfielder, slash dh slash catcher, slash relief, the
stuff you need. Look, I ain't mad at it because,

(29:27):
as you guys know, and this is where I draw
the line, and I'm in crazy town, and you can
join me or you can't. It's fine. I'll draw the
borders of my own little city here. But I don't
trust Ellan sees one lick in a playoff game. I
think he's essentially an automatic loss. So because of that,

(29:51):
to me, he's got a really defined period of time
he can be valuable to this team. And it's the
eleven starts remaining in season.

Speaker 3 (30:00):
You know, go ahead, That's exactly That's exactly right. That's
what it comes down to is the trust about the
playoffs because the theory of the picture, the ceiling is
so much higher for Cease than any of the other
names that we've mentioned. He has this stuff where when
it is all together, he can shut down. It doesn't

(30:21):
matter what order he's facing. He can shut down any team.
He can get you six innings, no runs, ten strikeouts
and turn it over to your lockdown bullpen. So if
you can trust that, you're going to get that in
the playoffs. The cost of trading him becomes astronomical, and
if you can trust that you're not going to get that,

(30:44):
then yeah, the gap between what you're going to get
over eleven starts and what you've seen from the other
names mentioned doesn't seem as big. I think that's the
key question.

Speaker 5 (30:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (30:54):
Sorry, I didn't mean interrumpt you, Donna, but I also
just want to point out that there's only a pool
of about ten to twelve teams to which you can
trade Dylan Cees, and you better hope that that he
actually gets traded to an American League team, which would
put you in a you know, a four to five
team raign because I can guarantee you if Dylan ces
is in a cub uniform or a met uniform and

(31:17):
he's going up against the Padres in a playoff series,
guess who's not getting a single run against him? The
fucking Padres.

Speaker 3 (31:23):
So that's the thought experience, that's the perfect thought experiment.
Just fast forward. You trade Cease to patch the holes
to get you through the regular season into the playoffs.
Great pivotal game ceases on the mound for the other team.
How do you feel.

Speaker 2 (31:41):
Awesome?

Speaker 8 (31:42):
Because I know exactly what's coming it's a four seam
fast baller, it's a slider, and the dude's gonna overthrow it,
and I'm ready to go. He's gonna walk the nine
hitter to get to the d s and d is
gonna hit a bomb.

Speaker 4 (31:53):
Like I know, I know, I'm being I'm kind of
playing a role at this point with what I'm saying, But.

Speaker 2 (32:03):
I just I'm not precious about the guy because I've
seen what I've seen, you know, and and going back
to the playoffs, it's like twenty three starts in a
row what I've seen from Dylancey's and it's it's nothing
that I'm really excited to put out there in a
must win game compared to Okay, again, Craig's in crazy town.

(32:28):
You know, let's draw the let's draw the city flag.
But Kolik stepped up today in a in a nail start.
He pitched really strong in hot weather in a position
that the Padres needed. Vascuez only gave up one hit,
you know, I mean metrically, Randy Vasquez isn't even in

(32:49):
the same practically, he's not considered a pitcher compared to
Dylan Cy. He's so far outside of the group in
terms of his numbers, as metrics is stuff, et cetera.
But only now the kid locks down in games and
gets things done. And now I sound a little bit
like Candara, you know, but still I'm I just hm.

(33:12):
I feel like there's a lot of guys on this
team that have pitched pretty strong in some pretty tough situations,
and I haven't seen Dylan pitch strong in a tough
situation in a long time.

Speaker 3 (33:26):
Well, could we talk about Randy just for a moment.

Speaker 5 (33:29):
Yes, because that's a guy who pitches strong in the
big moment.

Speaker 3 (33:33):
Yeah, he has. But I just I can't help but
shake the thought that part of why he's been so
effective is not the innings that he pitches, but the
innings that he doesn't pitch.

Speaker 2 (33:47):
Mm hm.

Speaker 5 (33:48):
Our discord was on fire when he got taken out
with sixty seven pitches thrown this past start. But it's worked, man.

Speaker 3 (33:57):
So I don't have the numbers off hand, but I
believe it was something like third time through the order.
Last year he gave up like ten runs and thirteen innings.
I believe he's not being given the third time through
the order, and that's probably where the blow ups that

(34:17):
we were all like waiting to see you know, would
have been and they're preempting that. And what's the padres
record in his starts? They're pretty good.

Speaker 6 (34:28):
Yeah, yeah, So I just wanted to let you know
he had a five seven nine ERA last year third
time through the order that was twelve earned runs in
eighteen and two thirty innings.

Speaker 3 (34:38):
Yeah, not great. And you don't want to think about
a pitcher like Dylan sees the same way because he's
supposed to be an ace. Ace gives you quality starts,
dominant quality starts, and you don't want to think about that.
But at the end of the day, it's about trying
to win games with the revealed weaknesses, strengths and weaknesses

(35:02):
of your players. One way to maximize dylan cease is
to lengthen the bullpen, not with mop up guys, but
with another arm that can catch two innings on a
great night, three innings and give one time through the order.
The way that kind of relief pitching used to be
in the eighties before the sub specialization basically meant you're

(35:23):
a one inning guy or you're a starter, and that's it.
There's a list that you can look up of the
pitcher's individual seasons with the highest win probability added. And
you'll see, like in the top twenty, it's all these
guys that threw like three hundred innings back in like
the early nineteen hundreds. And then you'll see one modern
player in the top twenty, and it's a pitcher named

(35:46):
Willie Hernandez and he only threw one hundred and forty innings.

Speaker 2 (35:51):
That year nineteen eighty four.

Speaker 3 (35:54):
How did you know, Craig He was the.

Speaker 2 (35:56):
MVP American League. This is what he does. He was a.

Speaker 3 (36:01):
He was a reliever that one MVP, which sounds preposterous.
They didn't know how to assign value. But then when
you look at the value that he provided his team,
it was astronomical. And the way that that was for
the Tigers, the way that the Tigers deployed him. He
was a two pitch pitcher, cutter, screwball.

Speaker 2 (36:24):
Is.

Speaker 3 (36:25):
They would deploy him when there was a fire and
he was the fire brigade. So he was their nominal closer.
But he was coming in when the save needed to
be made, not always at the end of the game.
He was in there to put out the fire. So
he was coming in third time through the order to
relieve their starters, not infrequently, and he would pitch an

(36:46):
inning two, sometimes three, not more than that. And that
nineteen eighty four Tigers team was pretty good. He could
argue that, he could argue that maybe there's one team
in the entire league that should have had it seared
into their brains how successful the Tigers were because there

(37:10):
was one team that was kept from a potential World
championship that year.

Speaker 5 (37:17):
Do we learn lessons over forty years now? I don't
feel like we learned lessons year to year.

Speaker 4 (37:24):
Yeah, Kerpavaqua still hasn't learned the lesson of the eighty
four World Series. He just thinks that they shouldn't have
walked the guy to get to Gibson.

Speaker 5 (37:33):
That's it.

Speaker 3 (37:34):
Well, Dylanc's isn't going to become Willie Hernandez. That that's
not going to happen. But is there a pitcher out
there right now that has a bloated er because he's
consistently given the second and third time through the order,
but shows dominance that first time through and could be
had for not that much because that doesn't sound like

(37:55):
a very good starting pitcher, and you bring him to
San Diego and you just have to ready to go,
and the Randy Vasquez and the Dylancy starts have him
ready to go. Give you one time through the order.
JP Sears makes seven hundred thousand dollars this year. I
don't know what that is pro rated for the last
fifty six games left handed, So perfect compliment to a

(38:18):
right handed starter. Bait out the all left handed lineup.
If it's one of those trouble games where ceases at
eighty pitches by the time he gets through, you know,
second time through the order, give it to JP Sears,
see if he can get it all the way, all
the way, all the way through.

Speaker 6 (38:37):
I love that idea, Dylan, and that was always the
hope that I think John Pracota and I had for
Matt Waldron was that he could be that guy who
could throw seventy percent knuckleballs and go twice a week
throwing two or three innings at a time. But I
think what JP Sears or someone like him also brings
to the team that I will say Mandy Vasquez and

(38:58):
Stephen Kolk and Ryan Berger bring to the team as
opposed to someone like Dylan Cees is they're not really
anybody yet. And the team can basically tell them what
to do and say, this is how you're most effective,
and fuck you, Randy Basquez, you face nineteen batteries and
then you're gonna take a seat. You're gonna grab some

(39:18):
pine at the end of that bench because you did
a great job and that's all you're gonna do. And
the team is never going to do that to Dylan
sees much in the same way that they're never going
to tell Louisa Rise to stop bunting, and that is
the achilles heel of the Padres organization.

Speaker 2 (39:34):
If you have any shiny piece of hardware on your shelf.

Speaker 6 (39:37):
At home, an award or a batting title or even
a psia on finalists finish, the team's never going to
tell you what to do, because that's the grit squad.
That's how they got to where they are. But young
guys who come up or journey, then they have no
problem telling them because Ruby Diebol, we know, is one
of the best bitching coaches in the country, and we

(39:58):
have one of the best like biomechanics labs, like we
have turned guys who are you know, effectively done with
their careers. You Nick Martinez says, you're Robert Suarez says,
your guys that goes to Japan and come back and
have careers, the Potters have been able to bring out
something from those guys. I choose to believe that Ruben

(40:19):
Dieble has ways that he knows how to fix s
dill and cease, and he maybe might not have been
able to implement yet much in the same way that like,
I'm sure that Joe Musgrove is gonna fight to pitch
in October even though damn well shouldn't be pitching.

Speaker 5 (40:33):
It's gonna happen.

Speaker 6 (40:34):
It's gonna happen, and I think, unfortunately for the Podreson,
I desperately hope I'm proven wrong at some point in
my life. As long as they continue to have that
philosophy with teams, with their players, I mean, with their
veteran star players, they're not going to be successful. And
that's how I really fear about the team.

Speaker 5 (40:53):
You can know the truth, can you handle the truth?
These are championship players you're talking about. Ignore the fact
that they came from the White Sox and the Orleans, uh,
you know, respectively. Mike Soroka is another one of these
guys who like should be on the block.

Speaker 4 (41:07):
Uh.

Speaker 5 (41:08):
First time through the lineup six eighteen ops the ops
blood the ops plus split against him is seventy eight.
Second time it jumps to seven twenty two and down
up to one oh eight. But I mean, hi, babb it, uh,
this is a young guy who we just saw who
looked nasty.

Speaker 3 (41:25):
These are the old ways. These are the old ways.

Speaker 5 (41:30):
Yes, trust the old gods.

Speaker 3 (41:31):
It's not everything that was done back then was a
good idea. It's like we got a good thing that
we don't do a lot of the things that we
used to do. But there's a few things that were.
They were the right idea then, and they're the right
idea now.

Speaker 5 (41:43):
We got to burn some shit.

Speaker 4 (41:44):
Dylan, Well, you know, it's funny Dylan not to not
to go too far into the garden and off the path.
But when you bring up Willy Hernandez, I kind of
feel in a way that that morahone is doing the
twenty twenty five Willie Hernandez because he's not going to
throw one hundred and forty innings. No reliever's going to

(42:06):
be asked to throw the way the relievers were in
nineteen eighty four. Hey go three innings, go sixty pitches do.

Speaker 5 (42:12):
What you want.

Speaker 2 (42:13):
But he's pitched like in every inning from the fourth
to the tenth this year for the San Diego Padres.
So whereas Suarez comes in when it's the ninth, Morahone
comes in when the fire is hot.

Speaker 3 (42:30):
Yeah, his development has been what everyone's been waiting for
for years, and he's provided so much value, specifically because
he can just be brought in when the fire's burning
and then you can give you a little more length
than that, and that accrues so much value to the
rest of the bullpen.

Speaker 2 (42:50):
All right, let's move, just to keep things moving again,
I wanted to stop and admire the Morohone pedestal in
the garden path for a second. So five and five,
as I said earlier, I think I think it's big.
Five and five compared to three and seven, compared to
four and six, really important. But if I was gonna

(43:12):
have a takeaway from this road trip, Dylan, it would
be that, in the immortal words of the late great
Dennis Green, they are who we thought they were. You know,
Padres haven't done anything to convince me if if you
thought out there that there was a shilt second half

(43:34):
switch that just gets flipped from off to on and
all of a sudden, the team wins seven out of nine.
You know, every seat, you know, every set going down
the road. That's not the case. This is still a
team that if you leave it the way it is,
half the games they're going to score three runs or less.
It's just the way it's going to be. That's who

(43:55):
this team is. And there was nothing between Washington, Miami,
I mean, and Saint Louis that disabused me of the
notions I already held.

Speaker 3 (44:07):
Yeah, it's still a very vulnerable team. So it's a
pretty fragile team too, because of the lack of optionality
off the bench and because of the specific weaknesses of
some of the you know, tent pole hitters. So Gavin
Sheetz was a nice development, and for a while he
seemed like he was doing okay against lefties. But he's
pretty neutralized against left handed pitching. And that's that's not

(44:31):
a shock that's come in for a lot of hitters.
If you look up what O'Neil Cruz has done against
lefties in his life, he's below replacement level. Yeah, you
cannot have him taking important at bats against left handed pitching.
Sheets is not that bad, but he's he's a shell
of himself against lefties. Same with a Rise, same with

(44:52):
Jackson Merrill, and you don't have any optionality off the
bench to change that. So there's a late game, you know,
path that's pretty easy to navigate. If you haven't gotten
a big lead early, then it's going to be really
tough in the late innings. Early there haven't been a
lot of leads because there is the simultaneous overlapping all

(45:14):
time career slumps of three of the hitters that were
supposed to be ten pole hitters for the offense. That's
you know, Tatisse, Merrill and in my opinion, Arise. I think,
going back to the second half of last year even
just hasn't been the same hitter. And when those three
are not producing, you're not going to get a lot
of early runs either. So it's a very vulnerable team.

(45:39):
The outlook is whether those trends are likely to reverse.
So is Tatis, Merrill Arise going to be a closer
to their typical selves down the stretch And I think
to some degree that's unknowable. The team probably has a
much better idea of why their numbers raid in May

(46:01):
and June. But the fragility in left field and really
everywhere in the lineup with no effective bats off the bench,
that can be addressed. That's something that the team has
a bit of agency to just fix.

Speaker 5 (46:21):
Like Nando's turned it on a little bit lately. He's
hitting over three hundred the last fifteen games. He like,
we're we're seeing him come back to life a little bit.
Rise had a good road trip. Jackson not not really
doing great, he's doing bad. But Gavin Sheets has been
awful boys, and like as much credit as we gave

(46:41):
him early on. Last seven games one forty three slug,
one forty three average, two hundred on base, last fifteen
games one seventy five average, two forty six slug Like this,
it's not somebody I'm trusting to carry the team. He's
found money at this point, and he gives you, at
worst a fantastic left handed bat off the bench, but

(47:05):
they need that right handed equivalent right now, Like right now,
does it happened? Passing? You got anything for me?

Speaker 2 (47:18):
Nothing yet? Nothing yet? No, I obviously agree. Here's the
one other thing I want to talk about this road
trip before we move on. If there's one thing that
I walk away from the road trip worried about it's you, Darvish,
because you're hoping to see improvement from you, darbish. And

(47:41):
maybe next time out is the one where it locks in.
Maybe he needed four starts to get it going, and
then it's the fifth one that he gets in. And
I would not bet against you, Darvish, finding his way
back to efficiency, finding his way back to success. But
what we've seen so far, if I called Dylan season

(48:05):
auto loss in the playoffs, you darbish is automatically out
in the second inning in a playoff game, just completely
useless essentially, and the stuff hasn't been there. He's been
getting hit really hard. You know, there's some swing and miss,
but there's also a lot. You know, he throws the

(48:27):
kitchen sink anyways, but it really looks like somebody who
knows he doesn't have an out pitch right now, and
so he's trying to fool the hitter basically every pitch.
And my concernometer is pretty high right now on you
darbish period. Whoever wants to take.

Speaker 3 (48:48):
That, that's the objective correct way to feel right now.
There's no reason to think everything's going to be fine.
It might not be I think there's undoubtedly a lot
more information that the team has about whether they can
rely on Darvish, but I think there's no way that
they can be certain either. One observation when he made

(49:12):
a start against the Phillies. Do you remember that pivotal
at bat against Schwarber. It wasn't the last at bat
of the game, but it was the one everyone was
stressed about. The final pitch of that at bat to
strike him out was just like an S tier fastball.
He cranked it up to I think ninety six point
eight miles an hour. The movement brushed back the left

(49:35):
handed batter, and it was dotted right on the edge
of the strike zone. So he's got that in him,
but you're not seeing that every pitch. He clearly saved
it until then, so he probably does have, you know,
some of those pitches in his arsenal, But the stuff
was not great in his last start and the location

(49:58):
was not great. He's he's ramping up. You usually see
pitchers struggle with stamina and location as they're ramping up.
You saw that was Sandy Contra all season. And then
when he faces the podres he is back to looking
like a scio winner, and at age thirty nine, what
does a ramp up look like. I don't think we

(50:18):
have a lot of, you know, previous examples to go by.

Speaker 5 (50:24):
And it's weird. He's using his fastball at like a
career low pace right now. I mean, maybe it makes
sense if you're trying not to blow out your elbow
and you're trying to be cute with it. But less
than ten percent usage on that four seemer and that's
a pitch that had never slunk below fifteen, and that

(50:45):
was coming back from injury, not oddly enough. So hopefully
I'm never not going to give up on you Darnish
guys till he hangs up. He's my boy. I'm gonna
keep going back to that crap table and rolling the
dice until you. Darvish himself is the one that says
I can't do this because you know the potteries aren't

(51:07):
going to do that. They're going to let him go.
But you're right, I can't point to one thing and
go like, but he's doing this good because his location,
which can be wizard like, has not been wizard like.
It's been over the plate. His ospied junk can be
masterful and as junkiest as you ever seen, and it's

(51:29):
not it's getting hit pretty hard, and he is like
just kind of presence on the mound can be intimidating
and daunting and impenetrable. And it doesn't look like that
when he's pitching right now. You know, he looked frustrated.
He looks like a guy searching for answers, which is
to be expected this early. But it's a playoff race,

(51:52):
contrary to what Josh Hader might think, and they need
him quick.

Speaker 4 (51:57):
I'll tell you what he looks like, Rafie, let me
talk toss this to you at the second base pivot here,
I'll tell you what he looks like. To me, he
looks like early season Joe Musgrove last year, a guy
great with an elbow that he knows is about to
go pop and is doing everything he can to be competitive,

(52:18):
managing around just what he knows is going to happen eventually.

Speaker 6 (52:26):
I think that that's such a great call, Craig. And
the reason why is, you know, Chris, you mentioned the
location as a concern point, and you know you Darvish
in his entire career, you know, outside of when he
first came over from Texas, and one sort of weird
season in Chicago in twenty eighteen. He's never been a
walk guy. He is a career average walk rate of

(52:48):
two point eight nine per nine innings, and this season
that number, you know, in a few short outings is
up to almost five four point eighty six walks per
nine innings so far. And when you watch him, just
one of those eye test things, he just doesn't have
command of his pitches. And I know he has an
incredible arsenal, and look, he's three weeks away from turning

(53:10):
thirty nine, like one would expect that some of those
pitches don't necessarily have as much bite, or you know,
he might not have that swing and miss stuff that
he had, But you drivers, was never someone who was
looked completely lost in terms of trying to find his zone.
And that's the part where I'm I think I'm going
to be laser focused on these next few starts and

(53:31):
kind of the determination of is he simply just too
old and and you know, kind of over the hill
a little bit, or is it really as Craig, you're
implying something that is structurally wrong with him that doesn't
allow him to command the pitches and the way he wants.

Speaker 2 (53:47):
Did Well, that's going to be the open question going forward.
And if there's one for mister crazy crazy town mayor
over here that was happy to trade Dylan Cees, I
think the strongest most compelling argument against it is you
darbish just might be cooked. And if your Darvish has booked,

(54:10):
even the reduced version of Diletont Dylan is just essentially
get you over the finish line from here to there,
and you probably can't cover two rotation spots. You know, Now,
make a trade, something comes back, aj goes Crazy, makes
a deal with Minnesota, Joe Ryan comes back. You know,

(54:30):
some wild ass thing happens. Then the metric changes, but
that leads us to talking about the deadline, and you know,
the Elston caveats still are in full effect. So any
speculation about trades is generically useless. All trade discussion that

(54:54):
is created by national aggregators is done so in order
to get people to click on their pieces. A lot
of it is farmed through agents. Agents have their own
agendas which are one different than the agendas of the
front offices of teams. This is how disinformation spreads like

(55:17):
wildfire in Major League Baseball, and then it is all
papered over forty eight to seventy two hours after the
deadline with how it got done deal, you know, passing
and Rosenthal pieces. That's like, no, we had our finger
on the pulse all along, we just couldn't tell.

Speaker 4 (55:36):
You until it was all done. No, they're just cleaning
it up as they go along. So any deal that
comes along, I evaluate it when it arrives.

Speaker 2 (55:48):
Who did we give up? Who did we get? Everything
else is fantasy baseball. Everything else is fantasy baseball, So okay.

Speaker 5 (55:57):
Fantasy fun it is.

Speaker 4 (55:59):
It's right, and over the last week I really haven't
changed my position. The Rangers might have changed theirs. According
to some of those.

Speaker 2 (56:08):
Aggregator pieces, Texas has thought about not cashing their chips
and instead going for it. So my clean out Kyle
Higashioka from their closet an unnecessary, you know expenditure for them,
you know, give them Campusano. I still think it's a
great idea. I don't know if it's going to happen,

(56:29):
But when it comes Dylan to targets and acquisitions, you
wrote yourself about Luis Robert a few weeks ago, and
I feel like what he's done in the ensuing weeks
has only reinforced my idea that this guy could be
a very clean fit into the Padres.

Speaker 3 (56:51):
Yeah, he's a cleaner fit than it might seem. His
aggregate stats aren't great, but he continues to mash lefties.
He always did all the way through the nay dear
of his ugals, even last year. He's always a plus
bat against lefties. His defense is great, his base running
is plus, and he fits you know, the aj Preller
mode of always wanting there to be you know, infinite upside.

(57:14):
He has a lot of optionality too. You're not locked
into that contract next year or the year after, and
in a lot of ways that makes him a pretty
clean fit. But there's money attached to his contract this year.
You you really can't trade for him unless the you know,
purse strings are opened up to spend or you move money.

(57:34):
So those are the ways in which he's not as
clean of a fit. But what he would provide is that,
you know, raise the ceiling of how much you can
get from your defense in terms of stealing extra base
hits and winning games. That's almost guaranteed. As long as
he's healthy, he's going to be effective on the base.
Pats and it looks like he's going to be a
good hitter against lefties, which this lineup has really struggled with.

(57:58):
There's a lot of value there, And because he was
so bad last season and for the first half of
this season, you have to think that his price point
is going to be less. But it all comes down
to that, and that's pretty unknowable. But in a lot
of ways, that's a very clean, clean fit.

Speaker 2 (58:22):
Guys. Any thoughts on move ub, I mean, I guess
we've kind of talked through it.

Speaker 4 (58:30):
Nonetheless, he's on the top of my list.

Speaker 2 (58:34):
I take that over the multi year big swing trading
debrees and we get O'Neill, cruz or trading degrees, and
we get Duran. You know, like, I'm not into that
nearly as much as I'm meant to give us Robert
a little bit of money. We control the club option
for next year, we can we can jettison that, you know,

(58:56):
it's sunk cost, or renegotiate with him to fold that
into an eleven million dollar deal or something for next year.

Speaker 3 (59:05):
Anybody else, well, in some ways, there's a couple other
guys that are on that same roster that are a
very nice fit. Austin Slater's hit lefty as well. His
whole career this year is no exception, plays a credible outfield.
It's not going to be Luis Robert level, but it's
going to make that position much less fragile. You're going

(59:26):
to get more consistent at that's the you know, the
ability to just late in a game, insert him against
lefty reliever is going to carry a lot of value
compared to what we've been getting all season, which is
just strong left handed relief can just decimate parts of
our order where there's those lanes of left handed batters,

(59:50):
and that's incremental value. But that's kind of what this
team needs and most likely will come at a significantly
less less of a cost. And they also have Mike Takman,
who he's left handed hitter, but he's never had much
of a problem with left handed pitchers and he actually
plays a pretty good outfield. So compared to just leaving
things as is, there's a lot of value that they

(01:00:12):
can accrue just by addressing it. With the White Sox,
someone would have to go off the roster. And I think,
you know, the way I think about the bench all
season is it's happened.

Speaker 2 (01:00:24):
No, don't let Trenton brook cleave go. No, not Trenton Brooks.

Speaker 3 (01:00:30):
This this this bench has had like three to four
twenty sixth man on the roster. Types. You know, players
that can make an argument they should be on a roster,
but only a couple of them, and I think Trenton
Brooks is the obvious choice. He's got to be upgraded
right now. The theory of the player. You know, a

(01:00:51):
late inning pinch hitter, left handed bat. There's just been
no execution and there's nothing in his pedigree to suggest
that he's actually going to fit that role to be upgraded.
And then you have a tough choice with you know,
Wade and Bryce Johnson and Jose Iglesias. But you got
to start looking at which of those guys really has
plus tools that can help the team win down the stretch.

(01:01:14):
Some hard choices are going to be made, but you
can get a lot of value through upgrading two of
those spots and creating the ability to have tough at bets,
especially late in the game and potentially early in the game.
You know, if you have an Austin Slater type that's
taking the starts against the lefty, so the game theory
of it. You know, you have to think about and

(01:01:35):
if the resources are as constrained as they seem to
be by some reports, you really got to be exhaustive
about looking for options where it's affordable with with what
the padres have to work with.

Speaker 2 (01:01:48):
All right, can I let me introduce this as we
move forward again, we don't know who's going to be traded.
I think those are some great ideas. I would love
to see a left handed reliever come to this team.
I think they could use one more that would take
a little pressure off of more hone and give them
a little bit more optionality. If there was some way

(01:02:09):
to do that and move Yuki's contract. You know, Yuki
hasn't been bad, but clearly from a trust standpoint, they
they don't trust him in anything above a C level
leverage spot unless everyone is gassed, you know, and then
like they have no choice, they'll give him the ball.
They'll be like, Okay, give me a shot.

Speaker 5 (01:02:31):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:02:31):
So there's things i'd love I'd love you know, are
the a's an option? How much are they going to
ask for? These things are unknowable for us for another
four days. I'd love to see what happens. Here's something
that's been driving me crazy, Dylan, so much that I'm
the old man waving this envelope that I've been riding on. Okay,

(01:02:54):
this is my Xander Bogarts with runners in scoring position. Oh,
we've talked.

Speaker 9 (01:02:59):
Yesterday on my wishlist. You better not skip my wishlist,
Craig wishlist. You better not skip my wish skip talk
about Sander Bogart sucking again.

Speaker 5 (01:03:11):
He had a home run today.

Speaker 2 (01:03:13):
Guess what was anyone on base? No, didn't know. Run
of course, leading off the ybody, beating off the inning.
He did it. But two more times of rundners on
base he came up to plate and he did not
get a hit. And this is now three hundred and
twenty one at bats as a Padre over three years,

(01:03:33):
three hundred and twenty one at bats, sixty four hits.
That's a one ninety nine average. So one ninety nine average.
And yet where has Xander Bogart's hit the vast majority
of his Padres career. He's hit fifth for the San
Diego Padres. Dylan, I feel like this is a correctible error. However,

(01:04:00):
it's very, very difficult because you cannot just port Bogarts
into the two spot, which would be a place where
his runners in scoring position issues would disappear like magic,
because then you'd have to tease Bogart's machado right right, right,
followed by you know, merrill sheets arise left, left, left,

(01:04:22):
and everyone would just chew up this lineup. You know,
every single bullpen would chew up the lineup. Everyone understands that.
So I get it. I get it. Maybe it's a
corner they've painted themselves into. But at some point, as
the wise man formerly who occupied the manager's office of
the San Diego Padres, Bruce Bochie, used.

Speaker 4 (01:04:45):
To say, all the time, you keep doing what you're doing,
you'll keep getting what you're getting. And if the Padres
keep doing what they're doing, putting Xander Bogarts in the
number one r ISP slot in the lineup.

Speaker 2 (01:05:00):
They're going to keep getting what they get, which is
a team that is in the bottom quartile with runners
in scoring position.

Speaker 3 (01:05:12):
Yeah, it does seem that way. Bogarts is He's actually
had you know, pretty similar bat at ball profile this
whole season. His numbers were better kind of in the
latter half. But some of that is just luck. But
he's moved into a phase of his career where the
hard exit velocities are typically on you know, low launch
agle hits, and teams play him very deep when there

(01:05:36):
are runners in scoring position, and that means he's hitting
it on the screws and he's making outs, and I
don't know that there's a lot that he can do
about that. That's why I forget what it was, but
made some common in one of the articles that I
think this is who he is now, and that's not
to mean a bad player. He can definitely be a

(01:05:56):
winning player. But you don't see him launching fly balls
with those hundred five mile an hour exit velocities with
the same frequency as he did before, and that's normal.
He's become more of a line drive hitter, and nothing
in his swing mechanics suggests that he's being coached that way.
It's more likely that he's at that phase of his

(01:06:17):
career where that's what happens.

Speaker 5 (01:06:19):
And so.

Speaker 3 (01:06:22):
One thing that I wonder about is whether he needs
to be looking for opportunities to do something that he
has control over and just mix it up. On the defense,
there was a specific at bat where it was in
San Francisco, Matt Chapman was playing one hundred and forty

(01:06:44):
feet back on third base, basically playing in the outfield,
and you know, Bogart scalded the ball, but it's a
very easy play when you're playing that deep. The ball
that gets to you quickly, but you've got so much
range you can get to it. This is going to
be probably the least popular thing I've ever said, but

(01:07:05):
do you want to take a guess at what the
batting average on right handed hitters dropping a bunt when
the third basement's playing more than one hundred and thirty
feet back.

Speaker 5 (01:07:16):
Is it's above three hundred?

Speaker 6 (01:07:21):
Oh?

Speaker 4 (01:07:21):
Yeah, yes, I'm above like four hundred, above five yeah,
maybe I.

Speaker 3 (01:07:26):
Think it's well above seven hundred. It's about five sixty nine.
And the thing is is like, you can't just have
that in your back pocket for any moment, but you
can pepper that in there when teams are cheating so
hard on the line drive and the ground ball, which
you know you're prone to at this time in your career.

(01:07:48):
If you drop that down when teams are cheating the
way Matt Chapman did, you might get some good outcomes
in those at bats, but you might have the third basement,
playing just incrementally a little bit closer, and then of
those hits are getting through and you're not hitting whatever
it is one thirty with runners in scoring position anymore.

(01:08:08):
Beyond that, the next best thing you can do is
lineup changes. Put Bogart's in a lineup spot where he's
not constantly in that position lead off. Sorry, that's not
a bad idea he has. To his credit, he's reinventing
himself as a hitter. His swing decisions have been better

(01:08:30):
in twenty twenty five, and they've been you know, anytime recently.
He's taking tough at bats, he's swinging at good pitches,
he's working counts. There's a theory of a leadoff hitter
where that's quite beneficial.

Speaker 5 (01:08:42):
I mean, this is really inside and it won't be
for our podcast listeners at all, but for our YouTube viewers.
I'm putting up a handy graphic that our graphics team
put up. The Padre's bunting and I don't know if
you guys can see it, but.

Speaker 2 (01:08:58):
Yeah, was this Memes A did?

Speaker 4 (01:09:00):
Did?

Speaker 2 (01:09:01):
Did Memes approve this graphic?

Speaker 5 (01:09:03):
This is our our entire graphics team work on this
for a long time. And it clearly shows Sander Bogart's
in the maybe section as far as bunting goes, so correct.
This has been run through the machine, Dylan, and is
approvable at this point. So yeah, yeah, yeah, lay it down.

Speaker 4 (01:09:25):
PhD Graphics coming through again. Just undefeated all time, Chris
wish List.

Speaker 5 (01:09:36):
I think I already threw it across the room, Chris,
I think I threw it. H oh, no, here it is.
It was just over on the desk. So what I
had on the menu was three guys you want and
three guys that you can go okay, because it's the
trade deadline, and this is what we're talking about, the
trade deadline podcasts about baseball. Sure, and we already talked

(01:10:00):
about Taylor Word on the postgame show. But guys, after
watching Wilson Contreras this weekend, I want him. I want
that Wilson Contreras's money. I want that right handed bat.
I want that one WRC plus. And Heim Bloom is
taking over for the you know, the long time Cardinals manager.
And what did heim Bloom do the last time he

(01:10:20):
took over a franchise?

Speaker 3 (01:10:21):
Boys Bets he gave He gave Mookie Bets away.

Speaker 2 (01:10:27):
Let's do that. Let's edit that business.

Speaker 3 (01:10:30):
I read the other day that the trade was his idea,
which I was sure he must have been talked into
that it was his idea.

Speaker 2 (01:10:38):
Oh okay, I've.

Speaker 5 (01:10:38):
Credit for this one if he wants to send us
Willie Contreras for absolutely nothing. Also, Travis day Er knobs
right up the freeway, just sitting there on a six
million dollars a year contract for the next two years
for an Angels team that does weird shit all the time.
So let's let's let's shop with those places, boys and all.

(01:11:00):
So Mike Soroka, we also just saw him. He looks good.
We've talked about ways he could be used. He doesn't
have to be a starter on this team, even though
he's had success doing there before. He can be are
just like you mentioned Dylan Are featured long relief. That
is a feature, not a bug. He's not the guy
that comes in and gives away games. He's the guys

(01:11:21):
that keeps you in tight ones that maybe you're up
one or two, that you don't have to go for
the horseman every single game. And my three guys that
can go are Luise Campusano. Because I think he's going
to be traded this deadline. I don't know what else
they're going to do with him besides that Luisa Rice
who's making a lot of money and does exactly what
he does and he bunts too much and uh, just

(01:11:43):
to piss everybody off, Jeremiah Strada boo two.

Speaker 6 (01:11:49):
Okay, is there guys you want to go or you
or you think that they think that they are going
to go?

Speaker 5 (01:11:54):
Yeah, these are the guys I would know. These are
guys that I would be looking at, like be shopping
around if I was a j oh. Yeah, by the way,
you interested in Jeremiah Strada and all they're like, wait,
what you're training Jeremiah Strata? And then you trick them
like they're not quite ready that you're going to trade
such a stud, such a fiery, awesome person. But get
a little bit more value for him because he is

(01:12:14):
a reliever who throws gas and those guys tend to
kind of go away a year and a half, two years,
everyone well, and he seems like the most likely one.

Speaker 2 (01:12:23):
That's all.

Speaker 3 (01:12:26):
This was your wish list.

Speaker 2 (01:12:27):
Yeah, I mean I think you have correctly identified value.
Jeremiah Strata would have value to a lot of other teams.
So I think you're indisputably correct about that, and then
on behalf of the arrest of Podrey's nation. How dare you?
And I am not in favor of trading a horseman.

(01:12:49):
In fact, I am not in favor of trading Robert Suarez.
And if they wind up doing it, I'll understand the
math of it. No, but it will break the chain.
You've got to keep the horsemen intact. You need all
four of the horsemen. You don't turn it into the
three horsemen down the stretch when they're already tired and

(01:13:12):
expect them to succeed. I'd rather add a fifth horse,
maybe a Shetland pony, you know, I'd rather add another
horse to the stable rather than take a horse out
of the stable. Now trading a rise, trading cease. I'm
completely fine with these things. I'd be happy with these things.
But one question interrogating you on Contreras, you'd be bringing

(01:13:35):
him in to be a first baseman, right, correct, Yeah,
because he's not a catcher. He would go inside out
if he made him a catcher.

Speaker 5 (01:13:47):
What explain not likeing this?

Speaker 2 (01:13:52):
This kid got his all time, lifetime contract to come
be the catcher of the Cardinals and six replace he
was in right field. Yeah, six weeks into it.

Speaker 5 (01:14:05):
No, he'd be first space. He's played for a space
all year at DHD. That he would just be a
right handed bat, you know, going to first.

Speaker 4 (01:14:11):
Base, right handed bat and taking that to XPO. Yeah,
we need him all kinds of hit by pitches and
his control situation is what big money.

Speaker 5 (01:14:22):
Right, big money through twenty eight This is a whole
ownership has to pony app like twenty million dollars a
year at the.

Speaker 2 (01:14:28):
Next like pony up. Yeah, talking about ponies.

Speaker 6 (01:14:32):
Yeah, I'd assume St. Louis t a good amount of money.

Speaker 5 (01:14:36):
But I think so too, Like that that's a club
that is looking for a new identity and like did
he didn't live up to his expectations, like Craig said
within months of the deal. So I just think there's
value there. It's the type of thing that we can

(01:14:56):
get creative. And I just keep seeing the same names
brought up over and over again. And that's not what
AJ's gonna do. He's gonna throw something at us that
we're not ready for. At least you better.

Speaker 3 (01:15:05):
Yeah, that's kind of my wish list. Is my wish list?
Is that aj Preller dives deep, deeper than any of
us are going to do because it's not our job,
and goes all the way down the entire depth chart
of the major leagues and looks in Triple A and
finds those players that can come to San Diego and

(01:15:27):
be deployed in such a way that they provide value
that they haven't yet and fix the parts of this
team that are making it a very fragile roster. And
if he can identify those players, the cost shouldn't be prohibitive.
And when it comes to, you know, the minor leagues,

(01:15:48):
I'd really like to keep the powder dry as it
pertains to you know, the top ten prospects in the organization.
But the fact is players where it's clearly the league
knows this is a productive player. You're just not gonna
get those for cheap, not at the trade deadline. So
my wish list would be players I've never heard of.

(01:16:08):
And then when I start reading about them, Oh, wow
he excels hitting against left handed pitching. Wow, he is
really good in Triple A. Oh this guy's numbers on
the year are terrible, but first time through the order.
That's what I'm hoping for. I hope we trade for
guys I've never heard of. And as soon as I
read about it, the theory of the player makes so

(01:16:28):
much sense. And what we gave up is similarly players
I have never heard of. That would be a dream deadline.

Speaker 4 (01:16:37):
I love what you're saying. I'm gonna just to fulfill
your to fulfill the requirement, and I'm gonna keep it easy, okay,
because these are people I've already talked about. So my
three in are Luis, Robert KYLEI Gashioka, and I will
take from the Rangers bullpen, Robert Garcia the left and

(01:17:00):
who can strike some guys out.

Speaker 2 (01:17:02):
And if you if you flip flop out Robert Garcia
and give me you know, our old friend Steven Wilson instead,
you know, from the White Socks. Yes, that would be
That'd be fine by me as well. So those are
three guys in. I don't think you ever have to

(01:17:23):
go to your top three or four prospects to get
those guys in. I think Campasano, a Tyson, Neighbors, you know,
a single a starter like that that should get you
over the line, uh to get that level of talent in.
And I think it makes the Padres a lot better

(01:17:45):
team if you had those three players added.

Speaker 5 (01:17:48):
I thought you were going to say Louis a rise
for sure, Rafie, do you have a list?

Speaker 2 (01:17:51):
Oh, send Louis.

Speaker 8 (01:17:52):
I just don't know the White Socks and the Rangers
an't going to take him, so that's gonna be a
different deal.

Speaker 5 (01:17:57):
No, No, they're not.

Speaker 6 (01:18:01):
Yeah, I mean I think a lot of my guys
are there's some overlap. I think that in terms of
the guys who are gonna guys I would want to
come in. I think one person I would add to
the list because I think Luis Robert is like the
most like let's get a pack of Marlboroughs and just
start smoking and fucking Like watch the Tacker tape as

(01:18:21):
we see if you can do up and down like
how we're gonna do It's it's the most insane take.
But like I I think it like is weirdly a
great fit for the Padres. I like Kyle Hagashioka. It's
not very exciting, but it is a auditioned by subtraction
of adding by taking Martin Maldonado off of this team,

(01:18:42):
and one name I'd like to add to the mixes
Ramon Loreano. I don't know what he's gonna cost, but
he has been fantastic for the Orioles. I think Cedric
Mullens is obviously getting a lot of attention. The thing
about Loreano is that he also has a cheap club
option next year, which is obviously going to up the
price on him. But he is a career one twenty

(01:19:04):
WRC plus hitter against lefties this season, he has reverse splits.
He's actually much better against right this year than lefties.
But I would bet on the track record that you
know he has that he truly at heart is a
guy who can match lefties. He's gonna play good outfield.
You'd have a fantastic defensive outfield. So he's intriguing to me.

(01:19:25):
I would say my wish list, so to speak, with
guys who I think the Potters will trade from, not
so much wishless so to speak, is like these are
guys that I think are realistic because I think it's
it's easy to say, like, yeah, they should trade Martine Weldonondo.
Obviously you know it's like no, Like it's like, I think,
like guys who are one hundred percent out of the door.

(01:19:48):
Louise Campusano already mentioned. I think personally, AJ's gonna overpay
for someone because as we've documented, he's not a good
deadline dealer, and one of those people that he's going
trade away is going to be Ryan Berger, who is
going to be a successful three to four starter for
some other team somewhere when they develop his change up,
and that scares the shit.

Speaker 3 (01:20:09):
Out of me.

Speaker 6 (01:20:10):
And I don't think that a j preller has the
stones to trade a horseman, So I don't think he's
going to trade Estrata, even though I do think it
makes the most sense out of all of the four
horsemen that Estrada would be the most dealable, so to speak.
I think if any reliever that's currently on the Padres
is going to be traded, it's David Morgan. David Morgan

(01:20:32):
has insanely good stuff. He's a rookie, and unfortunately for
the Padres right now, he's let the sixth or seventh
guy out of the bullpen, and so he's not really
in a position to make an impact on this year's team. However,
I think David Morgan will be an impactful arm for
whoever he's pitching for in twenty twenty seven. Twenty twenty eight,

(01:20:55):
because right now he has four pitches which grate out
at above average stuff and his location is actually what's
hurting him at this moment. But he has truly excellent
stuff as a reliever, and someone's going to figure him out,
and I'm confident that whoever figures him out is going
to get some sort of value out of him. I
just am wondering if AJ's like, well, this is our

(01:21:17):
guy who other teams would be interested in because he's
got so much controllable service time, who isn't necessarily helping
the Padres this season.

Speaker 3 (01:21:29):
So I think that those are my three.

Speaker 2 (01:21:34):
Mortgan, it's a great call. People aren't talking about that.
That's one of those ones like, oh, after the fact,
it makes a lot of sense. You know the thing
I'm going to just throw into the into the mix.
And maybe it's being pie in the sky honestly, but
when they talk about buy and sell, one of the
ways that you can buy and sell is you can

(01:21:55):
attach a prospect to a contract. And one thing the
Pod could do is move one of their young minor
league pitchers and attach that to Wandy Peralta or Yuki
Matt Suey. When you're bringing in another left hander from
another organization that you're going to put more leverage innings onto.

(01:22:16):
You could move one of those contracts, attach enough prospect
value to it that another team is willing to absorb
that uh, and then you have reduced your payroll while
making a trade. So it doesn't have to be cutting
off your arm a La Suarez or cronin Worth, you know,
or even a Rise, although I'd be happy to see

(01:22:36):
a Rise moved in the right deal, but you know,
those moves change the clubhouse, even a Rise. You know,
you have to respect that if you move to Luisa Rise,
that changes the clubhouse. There's a lot of guys there
who really believe in Luisa Rise, and they're going to
feel betrayed to move him for Mike Talkman. You know,

(01:22:57):
even though Mike Talkman would be more valuable to the
San Diego Padres than Luis arrived, probably year over year
over year. Like still, that's gonna be a hard sell
to Manny Machado and other players could be speaking of

(01:23:18):
which before we get out of here, before were going
were going to are we going to? Did you notice
that Manny Machado's Instagram is down we're going two days though, Yeah,
checked again today, still down now. It went down yesterday Saturday,

(01:23:42):
July twenty sixth. Friday, July twenty fifth, Manny clicked or
somebody somebody is somebody.

Speaker 5 (01:23:54):
The Manny's account, the.

Speaker 2 (01:23:56):
Manny Machado Instagram account verified blue check marked, well over
a million followers. You know, an account that Instagram will
pay attention to and therefore promote, And therefore, if he
is one of a thousand or one hundred people who
like a post, it will say Manny and ninety eight
others liked this post. Well, he liked a post where

(01:24:19):
Scott Kaplan was talking about some other aggregators writing and reporting,
and he was saying, the padres have no money and
they're not gonna have any money, and they're not gonna
spend any money. And then there was a little like
underneath there that said liked by and it was it
was Manny's account. And then the next day Manny's account

(01:24:44):
was no more, and today it remains no more. Now
they could pop up again tomorrow. I don't believe the
question has been asked, but you know where this went
for me, Chris, Where this went from tinfoil hat discussion
to news was when his account went offline.

Speaker 5 (01:25:08):
That's that's a moneymaker, baby.

Speaker 2 (01:25:10):
That's a literal moneymaker for Manny Machado, his agent, his
marketing team. They'll get him to like a product in
a post for X amount of money, you know, like
that's a real thing. He didn't just turn it off
because he's mad at Meta, you know, like something happened there.

(01:25:32):
And the idea that the podres pulled his chain behind
the scenes is is not beyond the pale for me
and my experience of what this organization might do now
Manny taking his They wouldn't say, many take your account offline.
They couldn't do that, No, but I could see them

(01:25:54):
going like Manny Burber berber Berber and him going, f
you group, slide the off the deal?

Speaker 4 (01:26:02):
What account group? There's no account and then hang up
the phone. You know, like I could absolutely see him
do that.

Speaker 5 (01:26:10):
You know, just the facts, ma'am. The team's highest paid
player like to post criticizing team ownership, and within a
day that account was gone. And a week ago, Manny
Machado gave an interview to Marty Caswell talking about his
relationship with a j preller and how much it had grown.

(01:26:31):
And you know that those are the facts. The speculation
is Aj has been telling Manny about his his handcuffs,
about the restrictions on him, and Manny is pulling levers
that he can to try to do what everybody knows
it needs to happen, which is the club needs to improve.

(01:26:54):
And you know that's the speculation, that's the reading in
between lines. That's the of the fortune teller's glowing crystal ball.
But it's newsworthy, man like the club house of the
San Diego Padres. It doesn't belong on Netflix. It belongs
on like MTV or something like that, you know, I.

Speaker 8 (01:27:17):
Mean, Netflix does a pretty good job if you you know,
if you let him in fair Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:27:26):
Well, the tinfoil hats analysis, you know, none of that
can can really ever be known.

Speaker 2 (01:27:35):
Unless he talks about it.

Speaker 3 (01:27:36):
Yeah yeah, unless there's a tell all. But you know,
the exculpatory organic explanation can be pretty well understood. And
that's I mean to invoke like a quote that uh
I remember you referenced this at some time in the past.
For much of the season, the Padres have been playing

(01:27:57):
like a five hundred team, which means from day to
day everyone's feeling it. It's an emotional crisis one day
and then your top of the world the next day.
But taking the long view, you don't know what you have.
Is this really a team that you want to invest
big in? And there's big questions we talked about some
of them. You, Darvish, has to be a big question

(01:28:19):
to the padres. Michael King is still a question. And
I think the team knows more about why Tatis and
Merrill fell into such, you know, deep slumps, but probably
don't have one hundred percent certainty that that's going to
be resolved either. And the one thing that you do
get by waiting as long as the team has waited

(01:28:40):
to address its weaknesses is you get more information. You
get a clearer and clearer and clearer picture. And at
some point there's an assymp tote you're not going to
get any more clarity, and you're going to have to
make some decisions under uncertainty, and we're coming up, you know,
four days from that. But you could argue that there's
enough uncertainty that from an efficiency standpoint, from an expected

(01:29:03):
value standpoint, it makes sense to just wait until you
have the best idea of what to expect and then
make your moves because you know you're going to be
doing that with some degree of irreconcilable uncertainty.

Speaker 6 (01:29:19):
I need to tell you, guys, is my last thing
on the show about my emotional crisis right now with
this team, which is that I'm currently staying in Encinitas
for the weekend and I am swear to god, I'm
having like a being John Malkovich moment where every like
middle aged guy with brown hair like walking along highway
one on one, I'm.

Speaker 2 (01:29:39):
Like, aj, is it you?

Speaker 4 (01:29:41):
Aj?

Speaker 5 (01:29:42):
Aj?

Speaker 2 (01:29:43):
I'm I sure to guy.

Speaker 6 (01:29:46):
I'm stopping because I'm like, am I going to be
able to confront this party and ask him when we're
getting a right handed power back? And it's never him.
He's probably like posted up inside Tony Lynn drives at
the moment forever, but also are doing circles around the
and seeing this YMCA basketball courts.

Speaker 4 (01:30:04):
I was just gonna say, just grip towards outdoor courts, uh,
and then if you don't succeed, they're a Denny's, like
your your nearest Denny's, and just check those back corner
booths and you you just might find you just it's
a little bit of breaking.

Speaker 5 (01:30:24):
Yeah, breaking, it's not the breaking we want. But the
Patricks have announced the rotation for the upcoming Mets series.
Monday we will have Dylan Cees. Tuesday we will have
to be determined. Wednesday, we will have to be determined.
None of those names, are you Darvish?

Speaker 2 (01:30:42):
Interesting right, because it should be Darvish? H third? Was third?
Was Vasquez?

Speaker 5 (01:30:53):
Or wasn't it?

Speaker 2 (01:30:55):
But it should be thought.

Speaker 5 (01:30:57):
Yeah, I thought would be Darbish PIV But yeah, huh
ross a resource would have had it as you Darvish,
Nick Povetta. Yeah, so we got Dylan Cees going tomorrow.
But that other than that, the Padres are throwing a
wrench into things.

Speaker 2 (01:31:17):
Okay, well, get the scouts out there.

Speaker 4 (01:31:22):
Uh yeah, and get this one, get this one figured out.

Speaker 2 (01:31:28):
Okay. Well, here's the one last thing I wanted to
say about this, and it's not any grand observation. It's
just something to note about Manny Machado. Manny Machado is
a part owner of San Diego FC. Man Machado is
seeing in real time, in real life, the other side

(01:31:50):
of the business. And just to drop a little Chromaniacs,
you know, silver glitter here over the end of the show.

Speaker 4 (01:31:59):
It was just two weeks ago that Manny Machado was
quoted inside the Peco Park locker room saying, man, we've
got to keep Milana Loasky.

Speaker 2 (01:32:10):
We need that guy. We got to figure out a
way to get that done. And like three days later,
Milana Husky was gone. The loan reached its end and
was mutually terminated, and he was headed back on a
plane to Copenhagen. So like the idea that Manny is

(01:32:33):
a petulant player who is going to utilize social media
as his lebron style. You know, I'm gonna influence with
an emoji, I'm gonna be the news cycle. I don't think.

Speaker 4 (01:32:49):
That's necessarily Manny, because this is the literal same guy
who is getting calls from Tyler Heaps or from the
ownership from Cody Martinez over at Sequon going like.

Speaker 2 (01:33:04):
Yeah, dude, we're not keeping Malanolosky. He's gone. Here's the
eighteen year old we're getting from Spain instead, We're not
going to have that guy. Here's the reason why he
was asking for one point one and we had three
point you know, three hundred and thirty available, you know
that type of stuff, And he goes, Oh, okay, okay,
I get it. So I just don't think he's like

(01:33:24):
impetuous enough to not understand how the sausage is made
at this point.

Speaker 5 (01:33:34):
It's just drama, man, It's a it's an interesting turn
of develop of events that we can't know what the
consequences are as don't alluded to like, we don't, we can't.
We're never gonna know almost certainly what would it means
or the actual timeline of things. Uh, it's just like
it's the trade deadline, and to have this stuff happening

(01:33:55):
in Padre's world when everything's getting a little hot. But
it's fascinating.

Speaker 2 (01:34:02):
Help.

Speaker 5 (01:34:02):
I can't help but be intrigued.

Speaker 3 (01:34:05):
Well, I think you can assume it means he wants
to win, and he probably thinks this team can win.

Speaker 5 (01:34:12):
I agree, or as constructed might not.

Speaker 2 (01:34:17):
Well, it can, but it needs a little help, you know,
I think we all agree this team can win. This
team can win a lot. It just needs a little help.
If you leave it as it is, it's a rickety
structure that could fold down. It might make it across
the line. It might collapse before if you reinforce it.
It could be something that crashes through the line, you know,

(01:34:38):
and is a battering ram into the playoffs. I really
do believe that. I think the Padres have championship run
prevention and they've got a bottom five offense. So just
just like it would be in the NBA, it's like,
don't go you're twenty fifth in the league in three
point shooting. Just get to fifteenth, you know, like you

(01:34:58):
don't have to be first, Just get to fifteenth. Like
clean it up a little bit, tick it up a
few percentages, and everything is going to be a lot different.
I really really believe that tick this offense up a
couple percentages, and this team looks a lot different because
there's a lot more nine to two's that go post
up on the board that take morohone and Adam and

(01:35:20):
the rest of the Horsemen out of the top four
spots in relief appearances, and then all of a sudden,
the victory equation looks a lot firmer along the way.
All right, let's put a cap on this one, Dylan.
Tell everybody if they don't know where they can read
letters to AJ.

Speaker 3 (01:35:39):
Yeah, it's on substack Letters to AJ at substack dot com.
Letters two with the number two AJ then pretty commonly
on Blue Sky and X or Twitter or whatever day
to day you can find us there.

Speaker 5 (01:35:55):
I want to highlight it and just say that if
you subscribe to the substack, you are going to see
the stuff the Padres broadcast uses before they do it.
So no smarter analysis on San Diego Padres baseball right
now anywhere the besides then that letters to AJ and

(01:36:16):
we didn't get.

Speaker 6 (01:36:16):
A chance to talk about it, but Dylan your series
on the Anatomy of a Slump series where Dylan and
Letter's AJ goes in depth on you know, for some
fan of Tatis Junior and then Luis Rise and just
breaking down you know, what's been going wrong with some people.
It was Merrill was the third player in.

Speaker 3 (01:36:33):
That, right, Meryl's expanding the zone, you know, yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:36:37):
Yeah, yeah. So if you're looking for an entry point
into if you haven't read Dylan's work before and you
want to, you know, just look for a place you
can dive in and understand this team in twenty twenty five,
highly recommend the Anatomy of a Slump articles. They're fantastic.

Speaker 3 (01:36:53):
Trendy words. Thanks ens.

Speaker 2 (01:36:55):
You can follow Rafee on Instagram at Rafe's brand. You
can follow Chris at Chris Read six nine. You can
follow myself at six one nine Sports and Life. Chris
and I'll be out at the beginning of this coming
week with a new Crossing Streams podcast.

Speaker 5 (01:37:10):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:37:10):
This week we'll be talking about The Eat or Not,
which is out of Argentina on Netflix and is surprisingly
really good. If that just sounds like weird to you.

Speaker 4 (01:37:19):
I might say just go click play on episode one,
and you know, for me, I do subtitles, yo.

Speaker 2 (01:37:26):
If you need the dub, do the dub, do it
how you got to do it. But you know I
might check that out. Our last episode was Rafie, our
special guest, and he went into such incredible detail about
how Poker Face Season two came to be just a
can't miss episode, So I would say go check that
out as well. Coromaniacs two doing stuff on STFC. Hey busy,

(01:37:49):
all right for Dylan Rafie, Chris, I'm Craig go Podres
and by that I mean AJ.

Speaker 5 (01:37:57):
Come on, AJ go ag you find him, Rafee, you
find him.

Speaker 6 (01:38:03):
I'm going to that Tennis aga

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