June 5, 2025 • 21 mins
Former Mariners pitcher and TV analyst Bill Krueger joins Dick Fain to talk about the M’s struggles on the mound with pitchers back from injury and at the plate with the lack of offense outside of Cal Raleigh, plus Wilson’s treatment of pitchers and Cole Young.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's time for our weekly conversation with Bill Krueger, brought
to you by the brand new Occidental Hall next to
Lumanfield On Occidental, Seattle's newest hot spot for sports fans,
with massive HD screens and a menu backed with Seattle's
best smash burger wings and the best local craft beers
in town. Now with Bill Krueger, here's Safti and Dick.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Oh.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Bill, welcome in.
Speaker 4 (00:28):
We normally don't get you right after a game where
the emotions are raw, so I'm just gonna welcome you
in and start with just kind of general thoughts of
what you just saw for the last two and a
half hours.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Well know that I could actually see it like I
would have liked you today, But I'm pretty familiar with
the game. Yeah, man, I looked at it pretty carefully,
so I know the gist of it. The Mariners struggle
to score. Raley carries the offense, and there's nothing more
than that they strike out over a ten times and
Brian Wu runs into a pack of left hand hitters,
(01:05):
And I would say this, you know, obviously we're playing
at these really close to the vest margins, and right
now our offenses are is not doing as much as
it did early in the season. It's sort of reverting
to the mean, and we probably could be pitching a
little bit better, but obviously we're just at that point
now where you need something to change. They've got to
(01:28):
have an infusion on offense, and they probably need you know,
they need their big, big guns back in the rotation
at full strength. But if you want to give me
a I can give you some finer perspectives. And I
see this happening all the time, Dick. In our game today,
our pitchers are basically operating where they're getting in going
because of the PitchCom they're not really owning the strategy
(01:50):
as much as they used to. And I think what
happens to our pitchers is that everybody's been taught, Hey,
look what we want you to do is have great stuff.
We want should throw a backspin fastball the top line,
and we want you to spind a breaking ball below
the bottom line. And that's all you do. You just
go as hard as you can top line, bottom line,
(02:11):
top line, bottom line, and you know what happens is
that's great. If that's what you want, four or five
innings of high strikeout, high pitch count baseball. And I'm
not picking on today's pitcher, Don't get me wrong, because
I think he's one of the more efficient guy. Yes,
but what I'm getting at here is that the game
wears on. Sometimes it comes down to more than how
many guys swing and miss. Sometimes it's about as the
(02:34):
game wears on, the location of a pitch and the
top the style of a pitch and the place in
the game and the type of hitter you're facing becomes
very important. And baseball is losing its way on that.
I've seen mistake after mistake now because we're seeing a
ton of right left hand hitters, and we we are
not doing a very good job of understanding. Hey, look,
(02:57):
when you're at a point in the game where your
pitch kind of high and you've got a guy that's
got some pop that pulls the baseball, you got to
keep the ball away from him. Okay, you got to
keep the ball away. At some point you're making an
effect pitch in, but you keep them ball away. We
saw Emerson get hurt last night. We saw Munos get
hurt where he blew a save. We saw Brian mood
(03:17):
today on consecutive hitters lose on the inner part of
the plate. You're pitching. You're pitching a team over park.
It's forever the left center. Let's see Ally Rutchman and
Gunner Henderson, let's see them leave earth and left center.
Let's see him do that. And so I live and
breathe that because that's how I pitched. We just try
to strike everybody out. We pitched to the defense, and
(03:38):
we pitched the location, and we understood where the fastball
had to be. And I don't think we're doing a
very good job. And that's across baseball. But it's weird.
It's ugly head. And the other thing is tons of
left hand hitting in the game. Now it's all back.
We saw the Nationals with nine of them. We saw
seven against the Orioles, and you know what, the rovers going,
sports fans and everybody's loading up on left side and
(04:00):
our right handed pitching. That just blows everybody away like
the big bad wolf. You can't do that now you
got all those left hand hitters. It's not that easy anymore.
So that's those some finer perspectives on this. I mean,
there's some bigger picture issues offensively, for sure, and probably
a need in the bullpen that we don't have. Absolutely.
(04:20):
Those are just some quick thoughts.
Speaker 4 (04:22):
Yeah, well, the offense, and I think you're right, I
mean reverting to the mean. Now, they are still twelfth
in OPS in Major League Baseball, and I think if
you told me they would be twelfth in OPS in
Major League Baseball at the end of the year, I
would absolutely sign up for that. But what are they
really twelfth? Are they closer to what we've seen the
last month where they're twenty fifth in OPS since May
(04:45):
the first, or are they closer to the you know,
fifth in OPS in the first month and twelfth overall
that they are right now, where.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
Do you think this offense is?
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Well, I think it's probably you're you're you're challenging this
team to be a midpoint offense, maybe a little bit
more home run because they have to be, because they
don't have a lot of high average hitters. But they're
never going to lead the league at home runs. Their
numbers in the first month were just eye popping, top
league at homers, top of the league, slugging, top league
(05:19):
on base and uh their strikeouts have improved. Now this
last week they've gone back up again double digits. Last
night double digits today. Yeah, they're just they they they
This team was not put together to be a juggernaut offensively,
there's no way. And and that's with cal Rawley having
an unprecedented season, so and that that we could never
(05:42):
have expected Crawford to come back to where he was. Uh.
So you know, yes, uh they whether they had opportunities
or not, it becomes a more complicated discussion as how
they you know, when they stripped the offense out of
this team because they just had to get rid of
money when you lost Josher canandis when you lost Gino Suarez. Uh,
(06:04):
and you made the deal that they made, the deals
that they made to get Hanneger who was on his
last leg, and getting rid of Robbie Ray and how's
he doing? And we want to get off two years
of his deal. And you start doing those kinds of things,
and you get rid of people that make money, and
you do it for the sole reason of dumping money
and not trying to get anything in return, those things
(06:24):
go bite you eventually, right because maybe there wasn't the
correct deal at this debt, at this off season. Maybe
there wasn't Maybe there wasn't a correct fit for this team.
But you go you have to go back in time
and understand what they've had to what they've jettison from
the team in order to like make quick fixes on
their their their revenue issues. Because as their revenue drops,
(06:45):
they have to drop their costs. They have to keep
all that in line to the margin. They have to
stay steady with that margin. That's the overriding thing with
this team. It's maintaining that profit margin. So that doesn't
mean this team is dead in the water. It's not.
Pitching is coming back. We saw George Kirby pitch a
little bit better. Bryce Miller will get better, Logan Gilbert
(07:06):
will get back. I hope he pitches again in the
minor leagues. Please please do that. Please don't make the
mistakes you made with George Kirby. We watched him rehab
twice in the major leagues. We watched Bryce Miller rehab
in the major leagues. And you know something, there was
a way around it. There was a way around it.
You could have pitched Brian moo on turn. You could
have kept Logan Evans who was whirling in the rotation.
(07:26):
You could have pitched Casill, who's got a generational arm
and can throw one and ten to one hundred and
twenty pitches every time out on turn instead of pitching
on his six to seventh day. There was a way
to keep Kirby where he was and to keep Bryce
Miller down in the minor league till the he pitches
five innings, and they better do that with Logan Gilbert,
because we don't want to this. Sports are not about hey,
(07:49):
well you're not one hundred percent, but we're just gonna play.
You just go half speed or you know, play play
two sets of downs or play a corner. Come on,
that's not how we do it. This is real game baseball.
Speaker 4 (07:59):
How much concerns should we have that Logan wasn't able
to sustain his top velocity through his whole sixty pitches
yesterday he dipped in the fourth.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
He was down to about ninety three.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Probably not anything to really get too shook up about,
unless he's saying that there's some issue and he's holding
back a little bit. I've had the flexure tendon bundle
problem multiple times. I'm very well familiar with it. It
doesn't really tell you where you are until you get
to absolute full extension. You can tell when you have
(08:31):
a shoulder problem when you start, no matter, as soon
as you start throwing at any level, you can throw,
and you won't know if your flexure bundles right until
you're absolutely at full extension. You won't know. I don't think.
I'm not trying to suggest there's anything wrong with him,
but it also says something about you know there's a
loss in arm strengths and you need to You can't
(08:52):
gather it all back in one gulf. That's why these
guys need more time in the minor leagues pitching where
they get their pitch come up and they get their
workload up. So you're not watching somebody come up and
we're counting pitches and oh gee, that's a seventy two pitches.
What is it spring training? It's the big leagues. We're
playing for keeps. When you come to the big leagues
(09:14):
and you're ready to pitch, not a guy. That's even
when I was in the bullpen at times where I
was asked to be the emergency starter. A couple of
times I went through a stretch of time in Milwaukee,
I did that. They sure sex expected me to pitch
at least five innings and I was sitting in the bullpen.
So the idea that these guys are being you know,
nursed along in the big leagues. I like them, I
(09:38):
want them to be there. I love them. They're great,
but they shouldn't be doing that in the big leagues.
They had a solution. They got seven starters. There's a
way to do it.
Speaker 4 (09:50):
Were you encouraged by what you saw from George Kirby
in his last start better?
Speaker 2 (09:55):
You know, he's a fastball pitcher, and you watched them
come out and felt like he just didn't feel like
he was getting behind the ball right away. He saw
him throw a ton of breaking balls and right now
his slider is his best breaking ball, but with leftanders
he's not going to throw it. And his curveball two
years ago was becoming a weapon. He had big extension.
(10:16):
He had that big kind of twelve six with a
lot of arc and a big drop on it. And
then he fell in love with the split and the
curveball started to go away and he got a little
short army with it. He got a little slurry with it,
and it's not the same. Not everybody can throw spider
and curveball. So he kind of got back to his fastball.
(10:37):
He got behind it a little bit, he got some
run on it, and we saw it for three innings
where you know, the ball started to leap a little
bit and he started to find his location so you
can see it's coming. But he's a fastball pitcher. He's
got to win with the fastball. Whether you know the
thinker that he can, he can. He can knock the
corners out with or the climb at the top line
(10:57):
when he wants to. That's his game. The split looks
really he's the worst of the three on the fork
ball split. His is just marginal. I'd love to see
him get behind the baseball and throw a circle change.
I'd love to see George do that would serve him better.
But nobody's asking me to coach him, so I mean,
I think i'd mean personally, getting back to the topic,
(11:18):
I'm thinking about my resume going out to all thirty
two teams to be a pitch strategist, because I'm telling
you right now watching the game, whoever's doing that, they
don't know what they're doing.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Bill Krueger right now, Bill, Well, we're glad we have you.
We don't want to lose you.
Speaker 4 (11:33):
We keep losing our analysts you know, we've lost all right,
We've lost Steven Suso, we've lost Bret Boone.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
They're all gone back into baseball. So we're glad to
have you.
Speaker 4 (11:43):
Bill Krueger on a weekly basis, brought to you by
Occidental Hall and Bill, I was thinking about you last
night watching Emerson Hancock, and when I saw with two
outs in the fifth, I was like, uh oh, there,
I understand. You got the big bad left he's coming up.
He just gave up a home run. But the dude's
been dealing. He's only thrown eighty nine pitches. They're gonna
take him out and they're just gonna try to squeeze
(12:06):
ten outs out of a very limited, high leverage bullpen
that they got, and they weren't able to do it.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
Did they make the right call yesterday?
Speaker 4 (12:14):
Just because the big left handers were coming up against
hand Cocker, should they let him go more because he
was pitching really well?
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Well? The safe play was to bring uh, to bring
Spire in. And the thing is is that they're they
just they want it all right, You want your cake
and eat it too. You want the defensible choice. So
that's to bring Spire in at that moment, well, you
got the middle of the order left, he's coming up.
And then then you know, you can't have them in
the eighth because we have no other left her. I
(12:44):
think they're choice and then they want him tomorrow. See,
so what they should have done is let him go
through the lefts. Yep, they should have after after he
walked on and he struck out Kowser and then they
took him out to face Mayo. I mean, he's your
he's your number three reliever. He can pitch the lefties
and rightings. He's one of your best guys. So I
just say to myself, Burnham, let him pitch all the
(13:06):
way through it. Just let him pitch an inning in
two thirds. Let's let him do it, because because we're
going to try to win here, you know. And on
the other side of it, Hancock has not gained that
kind of you know. But honestly, they pull them all
at that point, they pull them all. It doesn't even matter.
Well they pull them all. At that point they played
the mix and match game instead of checkers, they played chess.
(13:29):
We have one left handed pitcher, you know, we the
club could have could have possibly made made the run
and won last year and everybody's like, well, that was
because you know their offense. No, it wasn't. It was
because they had we didn't have any left handed pitching. Yeah,
and Dan tried to push the starters in the sixth
and seventh inning. And it goes back to the same topic.
(13:51):
These guys are all trained for ninety pitches and then
you're asking to pitch the seventh and they don't understand
where the bald needs to go. And we got beat
by left handed pitching last year. Down the streets and
our starters trying to beat left handed hit left handed hitters,
and the deadline called aj puck was there. There were
a couple of guys there. They could have gone again,
and they didn't do it. This offseason. They probably knew
(14:13):
Spire was coming back, but they need another one because
they had no left handed starter. I mean, if there
were me, if you'd have made me the GM just
for fun, and I don't know head from tail, okay,
but just for fun, I would have traded. I would
have signed Matt Boyd and I had to trade Luis Castillo.
I had gotten salary relief, I'd had gotten a hitter
for Castile. Boyd would have signed for a hometown discount
(14:33):
for a couple of years, and then you have a
left hander in the rotation which balances you out Castillo,
who's good, but he's not going to get better at
this point in his career. Let him go Somewhay South,
get a bat in return, a little bit of horse
trading on money, and then you're you're actually what they were.
They want to be left money, I'm I'm with you,
and got a bat return.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
Jackson knows.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
I was a proponent all the way through the off
season of trading Luis Castill for a bat, no question
about it. Well, one thing they got stuck with yesterday
is because they didn't allow Spire. At first, they they
did pull Hancock, and then they didn't allow Spier to
get through those right handers that they had to use.
Vargas and I guess you know, Vargus has got some
good stuff.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
I get it.
Speaker 4 (15:13):
But Bill, the dude's thrown thirty four innings in Major
League Baseball and has allowed fifty five base runners. I
don't understand why he's a high leverage reliever right now.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
Well, some of that is because of past performance. We're
not talking about what he's done this year, he's made
some marketed improvements. The problem is he's gone from a
kid that now can find the strike zone with big stuff.
But when you're pitching in tight situations where again the
hitter profile matters and situations matter, don't you don't make
(15:46):
you don't you don't put sliders in the middle of
the plate. You know, you have to make sure the
slider to a right hand hitter that can hurt you.
Like Judge, you got beat by Judge. You gotta miss,
You gotta try to hit the corner. You got to miss.
His stuff is so good. He's used to being able
to win, and he saw himself win in the middle
of the strike. So I'm just going here ninety nine
with this sideway sinker and I got a tight slider cutter,
(16:11):
and my stuff is good and he's confident, which is good,
but it takes a little bit more refiner right when
you're pitching in the ad part of the game. Now
we're putting you up against left hand hitters where the
slider isn't a good match. It may not be a
good match unless you can backdoor it or really bury it.
You got to have something that turns over. Besides your
(16:31):
two seamer, or you get you got a ladder climber,
or you know how to get in on a lefty. So,
like I said, I would have gone with Spire and
I pitched him right through the bottom. I just would
have pitched him and I lost him today and said
to myself, well, who's good, Who's gonna pitch seven? Yep,
and we'll be okay. That's what That's how I would
have thought about it. But it's unfortunate one left handed pitcher. Hey,
(16:53):
Spire's good man, he's back, he's throwing the ball good.
I like him. You gotta have another left handed pitcher,
you do they find some guy gone or something. He's
down triple A or where have they got it from
the Dodgers. He's a side armor, but he's got a
sixty iran triple A. I don't think that's your answer, right,
you know, Yes, these are tough things for Dan. It's
not Dan's fault.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Right, No, they got to do it at the deadline.
Speaker 4 (17:14):
I mean there's gonna be there's gonna be a plethora
of lefties out there from crappy teams that are willing
to get them. Give him up for a you know,
a fifteenth best prospect in your system. It's not gonna
be it's not gonna be too hard, hopefully to find
another lefty. What do you think about Cole Young Bill,
he's got one hit since he's been up now, he's
picked it really good, Like I like his defense, but
(17:35):
I mean, is he a major league hitter in your
opinion right now?
Speaker 2 (17:40):
Well, they start you out pretty quickly. You know, they
say it looks like, you know, fastball above the hands
is the problem, and it is. You know, he's just
he's twenty one. It was so interesting when you know,
they interviewed his dad in the stands. He's like, I
didn't think he'd be there for two more years. The
marriage are reaching because they don't have an answer right now.
(18:00):
And you know the part that that this is a
little disturbing. And granted, we watched Dylan Moore in the
last few games. He's not doing anything, but they stopped
playing him. He stopped playing him. He was in like
two to eighty with like what he got eight bombs
runs like the wind. I mean, don't you just play him?
Speaker 4 (18:17):
Yeah, he played again today, but that's you're right, they
haven't been playing him very much.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
But he stopped playing him. They stopped playing Okay, Now,
I'm not saying he's the every day, all day, one
hundred and sixty two in guy, but you know it's
a it's a tough one, right. They don't have an answer.
Polanco can't play second, can't play third, he can't play defense. Really,
and you've got Master Draboni who's a gritty guy but
not gonna hit for high average, and Cole Young is
(18:42):
an exciting prospect. I don't I'm not passing judgment on
what he's done so far. I think he's holding his own.
He's he's he's he shows a maturity at the plate.
He does know the strike zone. They're exposing him above
the hands and uh, you know, he looks a little
bit like I haven't seen him, Like, how many balls
does he and when he's playing trip away, how many
(19:03):
balls does he hit left of the second base? Does
he hit any balls over there?
Speaker 3 (19:07):
I don't know. Does he have a game seen rainier
sprats like him?
Speaker 2 (19:11):
You should be thinking about knaw by the bats of
the ball, staying inside the ball, trying to hit the
ball the other way. And he's not quite there yet
in that respect. He's got some pop. He's going to
hit some homers when he's back. He's twenty one. Yeah,
I like the kid a lot. He looks prolished, and
he looks he looks mature for his age, and he
(19:31):
seems God, he's got ahead. He's gonna be a good player.
It's a rush for sure.
Speaker 4 (19:37):
Well, Bill, when we talk next, we will have seen
three with the Angels and three with Arizona. I mean,
those are games, like I would say, those are games
you should get. But you know we should have not
lost two of three to Washington and got swept by Baltimore.
So I mean, I don't know what's coming up next.
Hopefully it's at least a four and two four and
two stretch and we'll have a happier tone. But I
(19:59):
love I love your takes, man. I really agree with
almost everything you had to say today. So great stuff.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
We'll talk to you next week.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
I enjoyed it, Pick, and yes, we're looking for better things.
But the team, it's gotten off to such a great start.
It's just a little wind out of your sales and
you got feeling like you were going to just like
run away of the division. It's not going to be
like that. But they still got a good team. So
I think good times they had just hanging there.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
Love it, love it. Thanks Bill, appreciate it.
Speaker 4 (20:27):
Occidental Hall brings you Bill Krueger on a weekly basis.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
He is so fantastic, Jackson. I really wish Bill had
an opinion, right, I mean goodness, all he smokes. Bill
is fantastic.
Speaker 4 (20:40):
You are always going to get raw emotion and opinion
out of Bill Krueger every single week on a Thursday
at four o'clock. So Hu breed love Millan spoke today
to Ian and talked a little bit about Sam Darnold
vis A VI, the comparisons being made from him to
Gino Smith, and we got some interesting stats to play
(21:00):
that Hugh gave you in today, and i' wanted some
comment on him.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
Get Jackson's take on as well. On ninety three point
three k JR F
It's time for our weekly conversation with Bill Krueger, brought
to you by the brand new Occidental Hall next to
Lumanfield On Occidental, Seattle's newest hot spot for sports fans,
with massive HD screens and a menu backed with Seattle's
best smash burger wings and the best local craft beers
in town. Now with Bill Krueger, here's Safti and Dick.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Oh.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Bill, welcome in.
Speaker 4 (00:28):
We normally don't get you right after a game where
the emotions are raw, so I'm just gonna welcome you
in and start with just kind of general thoughts of
what you just saw for the last two and a
half hours.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Well know that I could actually see it like I
would have liked you today, But I'm pretty familiar with
the game. Yeah, man, I looked at it pretty carefully,
so I know the gist of it. The Mariners struggle
to score. Raley carries the offense, and there's nothing more
than that they strike out over a ten times and
Brian Wu runs into a pack of left hand hitters,
(01:05):
And I would say this, you know, obviously we're playing
at these really close to the vest margins, and right
now our offenses are is not doing as much as
it did early in the season. It's sort of reverting
to the mean, and we probably could be pitching a
little bit better, but obviously we're just at that point
now where you need something to change. They've got to
(01:28):
have an infusion on offense, and they probably need you know,
they need their big, big guns back in the rotation
at full strength. But if you want to give me
a I can give you some finer perspectives. And I
see this happening all the time, Dick. In our game today,
our pitchers are basically operating where they're getting in going
because of the PitchCom they're not really owning the strategy
(01:50):
as much as they used to. And I think what
happens to our pitchers is that everybody's been taught, Hey,
look what we want you to do is have great stuff.
We want should throw a backspin fastball the top line,
and we want you to spind a breaking ball below
the bottom line. And that's all you do. You just
go as hard as you can top line, bottom line,
(02:11):
top line, bottom line, and you know what happens is
that's great. If that's what you want, four or five
innings of high strikeout, high pitch count baseball. And I'm
not picking on today's pitcher, Don't get me wrong, because
I think he's one of the more efficient guy. Yes,
but what I'm getting at here is that the game
wears on. Sometimes it comes down to more than how
many guys swing and miss. Sometimes it's about as the
(02:34):
game wears on, the location of a pitch and the
top the style of a pitch and the place in
the game and the type of hitter you're facing becomes
very important. And baseball is losing its way on that.
I've seen mistake after mistake now because we're seeing a
ton of right left hand hitters, and we we are
not doing a very good job of understanding. Hey, look,
(02:57):
when you're at a point in the game where your
pitch kind of high and you've got a guy that's
got some pop that pulls the baseball, you got to
keep the ball away from him. Okay, you got to
keep the ball away. At some point you're making an
effect pitch in, but you keep them ball away. We
saw Emerson get hurt last night. We saw Munos get
hurt where he blew a save. We saw Brian mood
(03:17):
today on consecutive hitters lose on the inner part of
the plate. You're pitching. You're pitching a team over park.
It's forever the left center. Let's see Ally Rutchman and
Gunner Henderson, let's see them leave earth and left center.
Let's see him do that. And so I live and
breathe that because that's how I pitched. We just try
to strike everybody out. We pitched to the defense, and
(03:38):
we pitched the location, and we understood where the fastball
had to be. And I don't think we're doing a
very good job. And that's across baseball. But it's weird.
It's ugly head. And the other thing is tons of
left hand hitting in the game. Now it's all back.
We saw the Nationals with nine of them. We saw
seven against the Orioles, and you know what, the rovers going,
sports fans and everybody's loading up on left side and
(04:00):
our right handed pitching. That just blows everybody away like
the big bad wolf. You can't do that now you
got all those left hand hitters. It's not that easy anymore.
So that's those some finer perspectives on this. I mean,
there's some bigger picture issues offensively, for sure, and probably
a need in the bullpen that we don't have. Absolutely.
(04:20):
Those are just some quick thoughts.
Speaker 4 (04:22):
Yeah, well, the offense, and I think you're right, I
mean reverting to the mean. Now, they are still twelfth
in OPS in Major League Baseball, and I think if
you told me they would be twelfth in OPS in
Major League Baseball at the end of the year, I
would absolutely sign up for that. But what are they
really twelfth? Are they closer to what we've seen the
last month where they're twenty fifth in OPS since May
(04:45):
the first, or are they closer to the you know,
fifth in OPS in the first month and twelfth overall
that they are right now, where.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
Do you think this offense is?
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Well, I think it's probably you're you're you're challenging this
team to be a midpoint offense, maybe a little bit
more home run because they have to be, because they
don't have a lot of high average hitters. But they're
never going to lead the league at home runs. Their
numbers in the first month were just eye popping, top
league at homers, top of the league, slugging, top league
(05:19):
on base and uh their strikeouts have improved. Now this
last week they've gone back up again double digits. Last
night double digits today. Yeah, they're just they they they
This team was not put together to be a juggernaut offensively,
there's no way. And and that's with cal Rawley having
an unprecedented season, so and that that we could never
(05:42):
have expected Crawford to come back to where he was. Uh.
So you know, yes, uh they whether they had opportunities
or not, it becomes a more complicated discussion as how
they you know, when they stripped the offense out of
this team because they just had to get rid of
money when you lost Josher canandis when you lost Gino Suarez. Uh,
(06:04):
and you made the deal that they made, the deals
that they made to get Hanneger who was on his
last leg, and getting rid of Robbie Ray and how's
he doing? And we want to get off two years
of his deal. And you start doing those kinds of things,
and you get rid of people that make money, and
you do it for the sole reason of dumping money
and not trying to get anything in return, those things
(06:24):
go bite you eventually, right because maybe there wasn't the
correct deal at this debt, at this off season. Maybe
there wasn't Maybe there wasn't a correct fit for this team.
But you go you have to go back in time
and understand what they've had to what they've jettison from
the team in order to like make quick fixes on
their their their revenue issues. Because as their revenue drops,
(06:45):
they have to drop their costs. They have to keep
all that in line to the margin. They have to
stay steady with that margin. That's the overriding thing with
this team. It's maintaining that profit margin. So that doesn't
mean this team is dead in the water. It's not.
Pitching is coming back. We saw George Kirby pitch a
little bit better. Bryce Miller will get better, Logan Gilbert
(07:06):
will get back. I hope he pitches again in the
minor leagues. Please please do that. Please don't make the
mistakes you made with George Kirby. We watched him rehab
twice in the major leagues. We watched Bryce Miller rehab
in the major leagues. And you know something, there was
a way around it. There was a way around it.
You could have pitched Brian moo on turn. You could
have kept Logan Evans who was whirling in the rotation.
(07:26):
You could have pitched Casill, who's got a generational arm
and can throw one and ten to one hundred and
twenty pitches every time out on turn instead of pitching
on his six to seventh day. There was a way
to keep Kirby where he was and to keep Bryce
Miller down in the minor league till the he pitches
five innings, and they better do that with Logan Gilbert,
because we don't want to this. Sports are not about hey,
(07:49):
well you're not one hundred percent, but we're just gonna play.
You just go half speed or you know, play play
two sets of downs or play a corner. Come on,
that's not how we do it. This is real game baseball.
Speaker 4 (07:59):
How much concerns should we have that Logan wasn't able
to sustain his top velocity through his whole sixty pitches
yesterday he dipped in the fourth.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
He was down to about ninety three.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Probably not anything to really get too shook up about,
unless he's saying that there's some issue and he's holding
back a little bit. I've had the flexure tendon bundle
problem multiple times. I'm very well familiar with it. It
doesn't really tell you where you are until you get
to absolute full extension. You can tell when you have
(08:31):
a shoulder problem when you start, no matter, as soon
as you start throwing at any level, you can throw,
and you won't know if your flexure bundles right until
you're absolutely at full extension. You won't know. I don't think.
I'm not trying to suggest there's anything wrong with him,
but it also says something about you know there's a
loss in arm strengths and you need to You can't
(08:52):
gather it all back in one gulf. That's why these
guys need more time in the minor leagues pitching where
they get their pitch come up and they get their
workload up. So you're not watching somebody come up and
we're counting pitches and oh gee, that's a seventy two pitches.
What is it spring training? It's the big leagues. We're
playing for keeps. When you come to the big leagues
(09:14):
and you're ready to pitch, not a guy. That's even
when I was in the bullpen at times where I
was asked to be the emergency starter. A couple of
times I went through a stretch of time in Milwaukee,
I did that. They sure sex expected me to pitch
at least five innings and I was sitting in the bullpen.
So the idea that these guys are being you know,
nursed along in the big leagues. I like them, I
(09:38):
want them to be there. I love them. They're great,
but they shouldn't be doing that in the big leagues.
They had a solution. They got seven starters. There's a
way to do it.
Speaker 4 (09:50):
Were you encouraged by what you saw from George Kirby
in his last start better?
Speaker 2 (09:55):
You know, he's a fastball pitcher, and you watched them
come out and felt like he just didn't feel like
he was getting behind the ball right away. He saw
him throw a ton of breaking balls and right now
his slider is his best breaking ball, but with leftanders
he's not going to throw it. And his curveball two
years ago was becoming a weapon. He had big extension.
(10:16):
He had that big kind of twelve six with a
lot of arc and a big drop on it. And
then he fell in love with the split and the
curveball started to go away and he got a little
short army with it. He got a little slurry with it,
and it's not the same. Not everybody can throw spider
and curveball. So he kind of got back to his fastball.
(10:37):
He got behind it a little bit, he got some
run on it, and we saw it for three innings
where you know, the ball started to leap a little
bit and he started to find his location so you
can see it's coming. But he's a fastball pitcher. He's
got to win with the fastball. Whether you know the
thinker that he can, he can. He can knock the
corners out with or the climb at the top line
(10:57):
when he wants to. That's his game. The split looks
really he's the worst of the three on the fork
ball split. His is just marginal. I'd love to see
him get behind the baseball and throw a circle change.
I'd love to see George do that would serve him better.
But nobody's asking me to coach him, so I mean,
I think i'd mean personally, getting back to the topic,
(11:18):
I'm thinking about my resume going out to all thirty
two teams to be a pitch strategist, because I'm telling
you right now watching the game, whoever's doing that, they
don't know what they're doing.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Bill Krueger right now, Bill, Well, we're glad we have you.
We don't want to lose you.
Speaker 4 (11:33):
We keep losing our analysts you know, we've lost all right,
We've lost Steven Suso, we've lost Bret Boone.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
They're all gone back into baseball. So we're glad to
have you.
Speaker 4 (11:43):
Bill Krueger on a weekly basis, brought to you by
Occidental Hall and Bill, I was thinking about you last
night watching Emerson Hancock, and when I saw with two
outs in the fifth, I was like, uh oh, there,
I understand. You got the big bad left he's coming up.
He just gave up a home run. But the dude's
been dealing. He's only thrown eighty nine pitches. They're gonna
take him out and they're just gonna try to squeeze
(12:06):
ten outs out of a very limited, high leverage bullpen
that they got, and they weren't able to do it.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
Did they make the right call yesterday?
Speaker 4 (12:14):
Just because the big left handers were coming up against
hand Cocker, should they let him go more because he
was pitching really well?
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Well? The safe play was to bring uh, to bring
Spire in. And the thing is is that they're they
just they want it all right, You want your cake
and eat it too. You want the defensible choice. So
that's to bring Spire in at that moment, well, you
got the middle of the order left, he's coming up.
And then then you know, you can't have them in
the eighth because we have no other left her. I
(12:44):
think they're choice and then they want him tomorrow. See,
so what they should have done is let him go
through the lefts. Yep, they should have after after he
walked on and he struck out Kowser and then they
took him out to face Mayo. I mean, he's your
he's your number three reliever. He can pitch the lefties
and rightings. He's one of your best guys. So I
just say to myself, Burnham, let him pitch all the
(13:06):
way through it. Just let him pitch an inning in
two thirds. Let's let him do it, because because we're
going to try to win here, you know. And on
the other side of it, Hancock has not gained that
kind of you know. But honestly, they pull them all
at that point, they pull them all. It doesn't even matter.
Well they pull them all. At that point they played
the mix and match game instead of checkers, they played chess.
(13:29):
We have one left handed pitcher, you know, we the
club could have could have possibly made made the run
and won last year and everybody's like, well, that was
because you know their offense. No, it wasn't. It was
because they had we didn't have any left handed pitching. Yeah,
and Dan tried to push the starters in the sixth
and seventh inning. And it goes back to the same topic.
(13:51):
These guys are all trained for ninety pitches and then
you're asking to pitch the seventh and they don't understand
where the bald needs to go. And we got beat
by left handed pitching last year. Down the streets and
our starters trying to beat left handed hit left handed hitters,
and the deadline called aj puck was there. There were
a couple of guys there. They could have gone again,
and they didn't do it. This offseason. They probably knew
(14:13):
Spire was coming back, but they need another one because
they had no left handed starter. I mean, if there
were me, if you'd have made me the GM just
for fun, and I don't know head from tail, okay,
but just for fun, I would have traded. I would
have signed Matt Boyd and I had to trade Luis Castillo.
I had gotten salary relief, I'd had gotten a hitter
for Castile. Boyd would have signed for a hometown discount
(14:33):
for a couple of years, and then you have a
left hander in the rotation which balances you out Castillo,
who's good, but he's not going to get better at
this point in his career. Let him go Somewhay South,
get a bat in return, a little bit of horse
trading on money, and then you're you're actually what they were.
They want to be left money, I'm I'm with you,
and got a bat return.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
Jackson knows.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
I was a proponent all the way through the off
season of trading Luis Castill for a bat, no question
about it. Well, one thing they got stuck with yesterday
is because they didn't allow Spire. At first, they they
did pull Hancock, and then they didn't allow Spier to
get through those right handers that they had to use.
Vargas and I guess you know, Vargus has got some
good stuff.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
I get it.
Speaker 4 (15:13):
But Bill, the dude's thrown thirty four innings in Major
League Baseball and has allowed fifty five base runners. I
don't understand why he's a high leverage reliever right now.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
Well, some of that is because of past performance. We're
not talking about what he's done this year, he's made
some marketed improvements. The problem is he's gone from a
kid that now can find the strike zone with big stuff.
But when you're pitching in tight situations where again the
hitter profile matters and situations matter, don't you don't make
(15:46):
you don't you don't put sliders in the middle of
the plate. You know, you have to make sure the
slider to a right hand hitter that can hurt you.
Like Judge, you got beat by Judge. You gotta miss,
You gotta try to hit the corner. You got to miss.
His stuff is so good. He's used to being able
to win, and he saw himself win in the middle
of the strike. So I'm just going here ninety nine
with this sideway sinker and I got a tight slider cutter,
(16:11):
and my stuff is good and he's confident, which is good,
but it takes a little bit more refiner right when
you're pitching in the ad part of the game. Now
we're putting you up against left hand hitters where the
slider isn't a good match. It may not be a
good match unless you can backdoor it or really bury it.
You got to have something that turns over. Besides your
(16:31):
two seamer, or you get you got a ladder climber,
or you know how to get in on a lefty. So,
like I said, I would have gone with Spire and
I pitched him right through the bottom. I just would
have pitched him and I lost him today and said
to myself, well, who's good, Who's gonna pitch seven? Yep,
and we'll be okay. That's what That's how I would
have thought about it. But it's unfortunate one left handed pitcher. Hey,
(16:53):
Spire's good man, he's back, he's throwing the ball good.
I like him. You gotta have another left handed pitcher,
you do they find some guy gone or something. He's
down triple A or where have they got it from
the Dodgers. He's a side armor, but he's got a
sixty iran triple A. I don't think that's your answer, right,
you know, Yes, these are tough things for Dan. It's
not Dan's fault.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Right, No, they got to do it at the deadline.
Speaker 4 (17:14):
I mean there's gonna be there's gonna be a plethora
of lefties out there from crappy teams that are willing
to get them. Give him up for a you know,
a fifteenth best prospect in your system. It's not gonna
be it's not gonna be too hard, hopefully to find
another lefty. What do you think about Cole Young Bill,
he's got one hit since he's been up now, he's
picked it really good, Like I like his defense, but
(17:35):
I mean, is he a major league hitter in your
opinion right now?
Speaker 2 (17:40):
Well, they start you out pretty quickly. You know, they
say it looks like, you know, fastball above the hands
is the problem, and it is. You know, he's just
he's twenty one. It was so interesting when you know,
they interviewed his dad in the stands. He's like, I
didn't think he'd be there for two more years. The
marriage are reaching because they don't have an answer right now.
(18:00):
And you know the part that that this is a
little disturbing. And granted, we watched Dylan Moore in the
last few games. He's not doing anything, but they stopped
playing him. He stopped playing him. He was in like
two to eighty with like what he got eight bombs
runs like the wind. I mean, don't you just play him?
Speaker 4 (18:17):
Yeah, he played again today, but that's you're right, they
haven't been playing him very much.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
But he stopped playing him. They stopped playing Okay, Now,
I'm not saying he's the every day, all day, one
hundred and sixty two in guy, but you know it's
a it's a tough one, right. They don't have an answer.
Polanco can't play second, can't play third, he can't play defense. Really,
and you've got Master Draboni who's a gritty guy but
not gonna hit for high average, and Cole Young is
(18:42):
an exciting prospect. I don't I'm not passing judgment on
what he's done so far. I think he's holding his own.
He's he's he's he shows a maturity at the plate.
He does know the strike zone. They're exposing him above
the hands and uh, you know, he looks a little
bit like I haven't seen him, Like, how many balls
does he and when he's playing trip away, how many
(19:03):
balls does he hit left of the second base? Does
he hit any balls over there?
Speaker 3 (19:07):
I don't know. Does he have a game seen rainier
sprats like him?
Speaker 2 (19:11):
You should be thinking about knaw by the bats of
the ball, staying inside the ball, trying to hit the
ball the other way. And he's not quite there yet
in that respect. He's got some pop. He's going to
hit some homers when he's back. He's twenty one. Yeah,
I like the kid a lot. He looks prolished, and
he looks he looks mature for his age, and he
(19:31):
seems God, he's got ahead. He's gonna be a good player.
It's a rush for sure.
Speaker 4 (19:37):
Well, Bill, when we talk next, we will have seen
three with the Angels and three with Arizona. I mean,
those are games, like I would say, those are games
you should get. But you know we should have not
lost two of three to Washington and got swept by Baltimore.
So I mean, I don't know what's coming up next.
Hopefully it's at least a four and two four and
two stretch and we'll have a happier tone. But I
(19:59):
love I love your takes, man. I really agree with
almost everything you had to say today. So great stuff.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
We'll talk to you next week.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
I enjoyed it, Pick, and yes, we're looking for better things.
But the team, it's gotten off to such a great start.
It's just a little wind out of your sales and
you got feeling like you were going to just like
run away of the division. It's not going to be
like that. But they still got a good team. So
I think good times they had just hanging there.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
Love it, love it. Thanks Bill, appreciate it.
Speaker 4 (20:27):
Occidental Hall brings you Bill Krueger on a weekly basis.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
He is so fantastic, Jackson. I really wish Bill had
an opinion, right, I mean goodness, all he smokes. Bill
is fantastic.
Speaker 4 (20:40):
You are always going to get raw emotion and opinion
out of Bill Krueger every single week on a Thursday
at four o'clock. So Hu breed love Millan spoke today
to Ian and talked a little bit about Sam Darnold
vis A VI, the comparisons being made from him to
Gino Smith, and we got some interesting stats to play
(21:00):
that Hugh gave you in today, and i' wanted some
comment on him.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
Get Jackson's take on as well. On ninety three point
three k JR F
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