Episode 370 - The B-Team Predictions

Rob, Gav and Russ are back to destroy the "A-team" once again with their outstanding knowledge of baseball and predict the win totals for all 30 teams.This is a lively discussion about their predictions for the 2025 baseball season and a fun tiebreaker game for when they don't agree.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:13):
Hello, and welcome to Batflips and Nerds at Baseball podcast
with a British twist. I am your host today, Rob Rivera,
and we're here today to fulfill a very special annual
rite of passage where the backup guys of a niche
podcast predict a bunch of numbers over an unnecessarily long duration. Yes,
it is time to gaze into our crystal balls and
prognosticate for the twenty twenty five Batflips and Nerds B

(00:36):
Team Predictions podcast. Could probably some echo in there, if yeah,
someone even crank the echo up, joining me as always
are right pair of tetas. Firstly resident clairvoyant master of
the website. We got Gavlong. So Gav, how are you?

Speaker 2 (00:54):
I'm doing well?

Speaker 1 (00:55):
How are you not bad? What form of mysticism are
you using to put a prediction your your numbers today?

Speaker 2 (01:01):
It's I think it's the sort of system that BP
would like to have, So you know, it's I can't
get divulge how I've come to these figures, but.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
Okay, lovely and secondly possessed by the spirits of x wOBA,
it's Russell Esum. How you doing. I'm doing good? Rob
I'm doing good, and have you had a particular I
mean usually, of course Russell's been like the numbers are
raining down the back of his eyes like the matrix.
But there's been a special way of you predicting these

(01:33):
this year or have you just gone with feels like
I clearly have.

Speaker 3 (01:36):
There's some effort and then there's feels on who I
think are basically going to do bad and then sell
all of their players. That's that's my feel's aspects of
I've got to work out who I think is gonna
sell off halfway through the season when they're season has
been met so far.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
Wow, there's a lot deeper than I've been thinking. Excellent, Okay, right,
so we all know this is a prediction podcast. These
things tend to run extremely long, So well done. Strap in.
You're in for a long ride with us. What we're
going to do then is we're going to go this year.
We're going to go division by division, and Russell has
kindly produced some graphics for us, which through the magic

(02:11):
of the internet, if you are watching on YouTube, you
should if you look above our heads. It is above
our heads, right Russ.

Speaker 3 (02:17):
Well, that will decide when I actually put the video together.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
Next to or below our heads is a graphic now
which will not only display the predictions we've all made
and then how we we've agreed, but also many of
you who are looking and may have seen this for
the first time, is our brand new logo, which is
our rotating bat for backflips and nerds. I was just
keen to point this out quickly here on the B

(02:43):
Team podcast before the A Team got a chance to
do it, so look and reveler. Our new wonderful logo
is all a bit of a partnership with the wider
MLB community in the UK, so look out for a
bit more of that coming soon. But yeah, so you should.
If if this is work, you'll probably be able to
see it. If not, feel free to listen along. We're
not gonna do anything on the screen that you can't

(03:04):
normally have from the standard podcast format. So as well
as having our normal predictions, given that Gav is a
bit of an Internet edge lord, I'm a man child
and Russe always has to be right, we are building
in some tiebreakers this year. So what we're going to
do is we're going to use a random stat or

(03:25):
something about a player and then pick a random player
from the team that we are disagreeing on. That is
going to be how we decide whose prediction we go with.
Gav shaking his head already because he knows this is
all going to go horribly, horribly wrong. So Russell is
going to be the master of the graphics today. So Russell,
given that we are kind of led by that, which

(03:45):
division are we going to start with today?

Speaker 3 (03:48):
Let's start with a level of mediocrity. So let's go
for the NL Central.

Speaker 1 (03:55):
Okay, So let's start with Gav. Gav, can you take
us down? You're running order for the NL Central and
what you put in there? And why?

Speaker 2 (04:04):
Yeah, certainly you just want the number of winds.

Speaker 1 (04:07):
Yeah, just give us the winds and then you know
if there's anything you want to say about it, and
then we can come back at you.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
Okay, So I have the it's pretty horrible division, but
that's not news to anyone. I say, having seen the
Cubs over the last couple of days, I have knocked
them down a couple of winds now, because well, they
didn't win them. So I've got the Milwaukee Brewers with

(04:32):
eighty four Chicago Cubs were eighty three. Cardinals with eighty
Reds with seventy nine and the Pirates with seventy three.
So the way I came about that is the Cubs, yep.
I love the signing of Tucker, and it's pretty steady lineup,

(04:54):
but I'm not sure what happens with their rotation if
any of the top three get injured. And as we've
seen with so many teams, the top three are getting
injured or three pitchers are getting injured. But it's such
a winnable division. The Brewers, I think I always underestimate
how good they're going to be, and yet again I

(05:14):
am underestimating how good they're going to be. I think
they had ninety three wins last time, and I've put
them down for eighty four, and really all they've lost
is Adamas and Burns. I say, only you know pretty
two great players. They will get back Woodruff sometime. I
don't know Mitchell and Hoskins. They could be the difference

(05:34):
between them being an eighty four win team or being
whatever the other projection systems had them for, which I
think was higher. Who else we got Pirates? I don't
know if I can bother talk about them. I don't
understand how one team can be so so good at

(05:56):
pitching and then just so dreadful at hitting in that
they have such a good rotation, and they've got Harrington
and Chandler in the wings waiting to come through. But
I don't know, is Andrew Cutching their third best sitter?
Maybe he is some Lewis Cardinals. They could be a

(06:18):
playoff team, or they could be absolutely dreadful.

Speaker 1 (06:21):
I just don't know what Russ, Russ, Russ, you're countering
already on the on the Cardinals.

Speaker 3 (06:28):
I literally do not understand how anybody can think this
team is going to win anything.

Speaker 1 (06:33):
Like, what did they add?

Speaker 2 (06:34):
They had such a good team, No, they don't.

Speaker 3 (06:37):
They were crap last year and they added Bill mat
On what what what are you expecting to actually do
this year?

Speaker 1 (06:43):
They were awful? Awful again.

Speaker 2 (06:46):
No, there is so much potential there going to be magic.

Speaker 1 (06:50):
Quite frankly, you've.

Speaker 2 (06:52):
Got Walker and Gorman and Herrera, Mason, win.

Speaker 3 (06:59):
Woman basically failed to show their talent already. So why
would together even younger than you? Russell, Yeah, that's not
particularly hard. I would tell you that probably, like the
major leaguers are younger than me.

Speaker 2 (07:12):
No, I'm not saying they will be because I'm giving
them a losing record, and what I'm saying is that
they have so much potential that they could be a
playoff team. I don't understand about the Aeronado fiasco, and
I figure that because they're changing changing ownership, they won't
spend any money or even if they're they're or thereabouts,

(07:34):
so I won't go for it.

Speaker 1 (07:36):
Have I?

Speaker 2 (07:37):
Oh, No, that the Cincinnati Reds, So that the other
team you.

Speaker 1 (07:41):
Haven't spoken about?

Speaker 2 (07:42):
Yeah, so what I like about them is Elie Delacruz
and Terry Francona and that's it. No, Matt McLain loves
they wayfully underperformed last year. Yeah, Matt McCain could be great.
Spencer Seer might not be as injured as he is,
but Hunter Green maybe he is a MVP caliber. Maybe

(08:03):
Nicolodolo it's going to stay healthy. Singer and Martinez, they're
both pretty steady guys. But it does seem like one
stud and eight average players.

Speaker 1 (08:19):
I mean, yeah, they've they've certainly got also around written
all over the team, haven't they. We're with with the Reds.
I think we're playing around with the middle third of
predictions rather than the absolute bargain bottom or the or
the top end like that. They're not going to win
a hundred games, then they're not going to lose a
hundred games, but they're certainly probably not going to come

(08:42):
anywhere near near fifty to fifty either, So they're going
to be that sort of really dirgy bottom third without
being without being dreadful. I kind of I kind of
agree with you on the Reds there. I still think
you've got them a bit high, if I'm honest, really, Russ,
what have you got?

Speaker 3 (08:59):
Yeah, so we start on the like, I think the
team they have right now could probably win eighty games,
but I think they'll be in a position come pretty
like the end of like mideedon trading and the trade
and deadline, and they'll turn some people over. So that's
why I've knocked them down a few things. Same with
the Cardinals. I don't think they'll be in contention, so
I think they'll get rid of some more people who

(09:20):
will get them some prospects and come through. I just
don't see any kind of like high things from that Pirates.
I don't think they'll do that. Haven't done that in ages.
They don't think it's really the their of their mo
Like you say, great pitching can't produce a bat. Frankly,
for me, Gav, that's just basically Cleveland all over again.
And that's how I know exactly how it works. You
have different people in quite frankly different people who and

(09:42):
different coaches are there to basically coach pitching and they're
to coach hitting, and well, for most teams they've got
one and knock or the other. So and the Brewers
and the Cubs at the top. Like, if I'm honest,
I got no idea. Like we all underestimated the Brewers
last year. We're all thought that like losing counsel would
probably have some impact on there, but they kind of
showed that they kind of know how to get things done.

(10:03):
But obviously the Cubs have made the signings in this division,
they've made the trades in this division, which make you
think that they are better. But like once again, it's
still a bit mare. It's still kind of a who's
coming down to it. The fact that hey, John Bertie
is in their starting nine is not as not a
good sign as far as I'm concerned, even if he

(10:24):
went like three for four today whatever and had two
stolen bases like. I don't think that's a good sign
that you've got a well fleshed out team.

Speaker 1 (10:32):
I think that's that's all very very fair kind of channeling,
very very similar most of the way through the division there.
I would say I'm probably a little bit higher on
the Pirates than you, you guy us guide getting all
fruity early. A little bit higher on the Pirates. I
feel like they've got that up and coming, and every
year there's a team that is a little bit of

(10:53):
ahead of where we think they're going to be. And
I think we can all kind of generally agree that
finally the Pirates are about start digging their way out
this rut. They got the pitching coming along now, and
it's starting to look like they're not going to be
absolutely dreadful, And I think this could be that year
where they sort of catch and they start going a
little bit before maybe next year they'll be a bit

(11:14):
of a fall to sort of reset them a little bit,
which is why I've got them. I've got them a
little bit higher, I mean, not dramatically higher. Russ. I
think you're very very similar to me on the Pirates.
From seventy nine to eighty two, Ish Gav considerably less Cubs.
I think the fact we've seen two games of the
season so far in Japan and we've seen the Cubs

(11:35):
lose them both, it really does hurt it. I mean,
I think consciously or subconsciously, I think there has been
a little bit of a prediction dip already knowing that
they're essentially starting the season zero and two is what
it will feel to most of us, so perhaps have
been a little bit stingy on them there. So running
down my order then, so I had the Cardinals topping

(11:56):
the division on eighty six because there's always that team.
There's always that team goes on a on a tear,
and you know what Gav is right, there is a
lot of players on that team who've got some real
potential or some recent success. You know what could Aaronado
be if he has that bounce back season. You know
that that could really be a bit of change. And
I think there's room for the in these predictions for

(12:18):
a couple of teams to just come out of nowhere
and and really really surprise us, and the Cardinals really
could be that team. So I've got the Cardinals winning
the division in eighty six I've got the Brewers coming
second on eighty five. Irates are third on eighty two,
with the Cubs languishing way down where expected in fourth
place with eighty and then the Reds being a bit

(12:40):
of a dirt at the bottom on sixty eight. So
let's I mean, let's start start with a couple that
we all seem to agree on. Looking at the Cubs,
we're all there or there about your Russ eighty four,
Gave eighty three and I've got eighty. I'm happy to
sort of meet at the lower end there with Gave
on eighty three. Right with me, I'm with three. We go.
Our first prediction is that the the Chicago Cubs are

(13:03):
going to win eighty three games this year, and they're
going to go on a zero to ten run and
ruin that immediately for us, no doubt. Second up, we've
got the Brewers again, we're all very very close. We've
got eighty four and eighty four for Russy Gave, I've
got eighty five. So happy to go to the consensus
and take eighty four on that. I think we should
leave the Cardinals for now. Pirates, me and Russ are close.

(13:24):
Gave is a long way off. What do we think?

Speaker 2 (13:26):
What have you should got?

Speaker 1 (13:28):
So, yeah, Gav, you're on seventy three, Russ has got
seventy nine and I'm on eighty two. So I'm happy
to come down to Russell, but not not an awful
lot lower than that.

Speaker 2 (13:40):
I just don't see where the bats are.

Speaker 3 (13:41):
But you only you can win games one nil, Gav.
If you have some of the Beds pitching the how's.

Speaker 1 (13:49):
The seventy eight to split it?

Speaker 2 (13:52):
Sure?

Speaker 1 (13:53):
Yeah, go seventy eight on the Pirates. Yep, lovely seventy
eight and the Pirates the Reds. I've been I've been
stingy on the Reds. I'm not gonna lie I have
been stingy. I think Gavin has been, so I've gone
with sixty eight on the Reds. Russell's got seventy four
and Gav's got seventy nine. I think I've been stingy.
I think Gav has been a bit of a homer,

(14:16):
so I personally would rather trust Russell on the Reds.

Speaker 2 (14:19):
I don't think I trust Russell with anything, so I
think I'm definitely right on the Reds. If anything, I'm
too low on the Reds.

Speaker 1 (14:27):
Wow, I'm happy to go up to like a seventy
six or something like that, but I'm not going anywhere
here seventy ninety.

Speaker 2 (14:32):
I figured that you'd both have them as a five
hundred team, and I thought I was going to be
the low guy.

Speaker 3 (14:37):
I think they I also think that would they'll sell
mid season because this is like maybe not this year
and when the project.

Speaker 2 (14:45):
So what happens when I'm get you to disagree are.

Speaker 1 (14:50):
We can have a tiebreaker. We have our tiebreak game. Okay,
let's see if this works. Right. So, Gav, you're the
one who is disagreeing with us. So I need you
to pick a stat or fact or something. We can
search about a random REDS player and then I will
try and generate a random red player.

Speaker 2 (15:06):
So you just want the stat.

Speaker 1 (15:08):
Pick us a stat? Yeah, because I don't want to
pick a bunch of pictures. If if it's a hitting.

Speaker 2 (15:12):
Stat, so stolen bases last year?

Speaker 1 (15:16):
Stolen bases? Right, Okay, So that means we need hitters.
I can randomly generate a hitter and then we will
all guess and then whoever is closest their prediction is
the one that will work. So this is fantastic audio
with me frantically typing. Right, let's have a look at this, so.

Speaker 2 (15:35):
Russell, you better not be cheating.

Speaker 1 (15:37):
Nope with this scary mind. Yeah, okay, so you should
be able to see my spinometer of Reds players for
those of you who are listening to it, take my word,
there is a spinometer of Reds players. I'm gonna spin
it and we're gonna land on someone around it goes.

(15:57):
We have Christian Encamassian Strand. Right, so, uh, let's how
we're gonna do this without relieving it to Gab. You're
the expert, then, right, you go first? How many how
many steels? Steels were going with you.

Speaker 2 (16:10):
But stolen basis last year? Zero?

Speaker 1 (16:12):
Zero? Oh well, I'm gonna go with one. The answer
is zero. He didn't play, did he? No? He played
like twenty other play appearances. But there's no way he
stole anything. I reckon he's got one following a double steal? There?
Who can who can search this one quickest? Have your
optimism role Christian and Canassian Strand has zero stolen basis. Okay, right,

(16:40):
what's happened here is we've now not broken our our
tie with our tie breaker. So I'm going to re
spin and it's just now between the two of you, right,
so go spin again and the we have Heimer Candelario.

Speaker 2 (16:55):
Okay, Gav me first again.

Speaker 1 (16:57):
Okay, now fine, Russ, you go first, Sick, I'll go five.
Then the answer is Russ, the answer is or So
Gav wins, Gav we went, and we're going with Gav's prediction.
Then for the Reds, Wow, good grief. Let's hope we

(17:22):
don't have to do any of those tie breakers because
that was painful. No, it was good fun. It was
good fun. Right, so then let's have a look at
the Cardinals, because we are all wildly different on this one.
I think we're probably heading to another tiebreak. I think
there's Cardinals magic with eighty six. Russell thinks they're subw're
in the middle with sorry, Gab thinks that somewhere in

(17:42):
the middle with eighty and Russell reckons they're only going
to win seventy three games. Am I fair and saying
we need to do another another tie break here? I
think so I'm going to wants to change his mind.
Absolutely not.

Speaker 3 (17:56):
This is one of the one things I feel more
certain on where we could be proven in six months time.
But I think the devil magic has gone.

Speaker 1 (18:04):
Okay, then I'm going to go for let's do career
earnings like quickly I can. I've got sports track up
ready to go. Career earning. We're just going for a
guess and then I'm going to throw this into our wheel.
Then you don't want to see the wheel because that
just messes everything up. So let's spin the wheel. Career
earnings of Lars Newtbar. So I'm going to say Lars

(18:29):
Newtbar has career earning is going to be fairly low.
I'm going to say Las Newtbar's career earnings are going
to be one point eight million.

Speaker 2 (18:36):
I'll say seven.

Speaker 1 (18:39):
Just seven dollars or seven million dollars.

Speaker 2 (18:42):
He's got two years of arbitration in the Yeah, I think, Russ.

Speaker 3 (18:48):
I think I'm going to say about three million. Okay, Well,
I've got the answer in front of me, and unfortunately
he's one again.

Speaker 1 (18:56):
Gav is right. The career earnings of last Newbar is
nine point nine million, force two, five hundred and sixty
six dollars. So yeah, we're going to go with the
gal answer yet again.

Speaker 2 (19:07):
But as it was in the middle, that probably helps us,
doesn't it.

Speaker 1 (19:10):
It does it, it's yeah, abolutely are you including this
year's earnings? I don't know. I've just gone through a
website and it's told me that, yes, yes, we are, Yes,
he's not earned that money yet. Mate. Oh well, here's
what it is. I think Gave still would have won
even if even if we didn't include this year.

Speaker 3 (19:31):
All right, well it gets to be eighty, so we've
now congested league, probably fairly similar to almost exactly what
Fangraft said. So yeah, So running it down, we've got
Brewers on eighty four, Cubs on eighty three, Cardinals on eighty,
Pirates on seventy eight. Sorry sorry, Red's on seventy nine,
and then Pirates on seventy eight.

Speaker 1 (19:52):
That's where should we go next? Um, well, let's jump
to the A L West Al West, So revealing our
Al West. Russ, do you want to talk us through?
Then your approach first, and let's see what you got. Yep,
So the Ale West.

Speaker 3 (20:09):
I kind of thought that there are some reasonable teams here,
but I think that's more based on the fact that
there's one very bad team and there's also another very
bad team in the ALE that they're going to play again.

Speaker 1 (20:19):
So I have the.

Speaker 3 (20:19):
Astros and the Rangers getting ninety wins. I like what
the Rangers system looks like right now with their additions
and with the potential of actually having the grand pitch.
While that potential is always there, I will still be
the of the optimist that they'll get more than twenty
innings out of him. So I have the Angels, so
you have the Rangers and the Astros both with ninety wins.

(20:40):
The Astros, I just think are generally a machine and
do better than you think they will do, even if
you don't trust what's going on there. I think they've
got good starting pitching and a very good bullpen that
will keep them involved in a lot of the games.
I think got the Mariners on eighty five wins. I
kind of think they're a pretty average team, but because
I've got everybody in this division beating up on the Angels,

(21:02):
that kind of takes them a little bit higher. I
also think that they're probably actually roughly in line with
most of the teams in the Al Central as well,
So see them coming out kind of like fairly even
across a lot of amount of games. Sacramento Athletics I
have eighty one wins.

Speaker 1 (21:18):
I think this is weird.

Speaker 3 (21:21):
Is a reasonable team. I'm not certain if they will
sell anybody off in the mid season, which is why
I still had them getting to eighty one wins, even
though they might be out of the division. Think that
their approach to kind of trying to stay ahead of
the luxury tax, or not the luxury tax, to saying
ahead of the amount of money they're supposed to spend
otherwise there will be soon. Means I don't think they'll

(21:43):
get rid of any players. I have to have to
deal with, like maybe getting some money in to get
to a line. And then the Angels are bad, and
I think the Angels will be bad, and I think
that they will probably then get rid of players. So
they have sixty eight wins. So yeah, two reasonable teams
at the top and then one very bad LA team
I think, I mean, you can't really differ far far

(22:06):
from that. I mean, I think there's as there is
every year. There is far too much made about the
demise of the Astros. The Astros are still a stonkingly
good team in a division that's that has.

Speaker 1 (22:19):
Pulled its socks up over the last couple of years.
It is, it is a lot better than it was
a few years ago. So I've still got the Astros
sat the top with with ninety one wins, and I
don't think there's really anybody that's going to be that
close behind him. I think the rest of the team
are going to be the rest of the division are
going to be in squabbling so much that that they
sort of take a lot of points off of each other.

(22:40):
I do have the Angels at the bottom on seventy wins.
They're not going anywhere. There's nothing about the Angels. They
don't They don't really have much much behind them in
sort of future coming either. Like their farm ranking isn't
all that great, you know, it's it's it's it's chipped
up a little, but it's it still hasn't felt brilliant
for a good while. The Mariners just don't seem to

(23:01):
be able to get out of their own way. They've
got all the pitching in the world, but none of
the hitting, and that's going to land them squarely on
an eighty for me. And then the Rangers have just
been lucky for years. Last year we saw them fall
down from their false throne, and I think they're going
to see a bit more of that again. Perhaps there

(23:25):
was some hangover last year, so maybe they're not quite
as bad. But I've got the Rangers on seventy nine
at the moment, and then rounding out, I've got the Athletics.
Athletics have spent you know, they have definitely improved their team.
I don't think anyone can argue that. And so this
Athletics team is I think I may have been slightly
stingy at hitting them on eighty one, but I've got them,
got them at five hundred, where I think they have

(23:46):
really pulled their socks up. And this is a team
that was a disaster and absolute disaster a couple of
years ago, and they have chipped away, they've improved, they've
spent money. Despite the whole rest of their saga with
their stadium, I think they're on the way back. So
I've given the Athletics eighty one this time. Gab, what

(24:07):
do you got? Well?

Speaker 2 (24:08):
So I think we're we're fine on the Angels, aren't we?
With all the same on that roughly, And I think
we're roughly the same on the Mariners. Yeah, the Astros
have got winning the division. Maybe if I'd saved a
couple of wins elsewhere I would have had them at ninety.
I don't think the Texas Rangers are much further behind.

(24:30):
I think if everything goes right for the Rangers, then
they could win the division. I am still a bit
scarred from the abuse we got last year when we
predicted that the Rangers, the World Series champions, would not
make the playoffs and they didn't. But yeah, I don't
think there was a need for all of that abuse
on social media. But the big one, the big one

(24:52):
is thee Athletics. Come on, guys, They're not They're not
going to five hundred team. They are dreadful. They're a
dreadful team who have luckily, you know, they've just flung
loads of mud at the wall and some of it's stuck.
And they've got a few good players with Bla Day
and Butler and Brent Rooker who have turned from players

(25:12):
that other teams didn't really want into usable, decent players.
But yeah, they've just got a couple of innings eaters
in the rotation. I can't see them winning eighty games.

Speaker 3 (25:26):
Yeah, I think the method has worked. Like the Athletics
have done. What Chicago White Dogs haven't done right now
is that basically they just let a load of young
players or let a load of players that we don't
know play and kept the ones that have done well.
This is the first season where they've then actually added
some talent. We've all got no idea what's actually going

(25:47):
to happen at Sacramento. I think it's probably going to
be a bit of a hitters park, and I think
they've got good hitters, which and I think the fact
of playing in a triple A stadium, their pictures will
get used to it, whereas I think the the teams
will do it less often and not get used to
what that stadium is like and what kind of For me,
that means that, like, I've given them a few extra

(26:08):
wins that I think is probably like the consensus is
probably in that mid seventies range. But I could come
down like two or three off them. If you're willing.

Speaker 1 (26:18):
To come back to me, I could drop two to
towards GAV. I could do that. Youre willing to come
up to seventy eight nine, seventy nine, Well, I guess
that response means that we'll start this as we have
is calling another tie break.

Speaker 3 (26:33):
Well, I think let's put sixty nine in for the
for the Angels first, Yeah, agree, eighty two on the Mariners.
If you guys are happy or eighty one? Happy with that,
we do eighty two.

Speaker 1 (26:43):
On the Man. They were also fairly fairly close on
the Astros. Have you around that kind of war?

Speaker 2 (26:50):
I just go up on the Astros.

Speaker 1 (26:52):
Yeah, eighty eight, eighty nine, eighty nine I think sounds
yeah in the middle of the Astrods, and then I
think the couple more tie breaks to happen. Okay, Athletic Athletics.

Speaker 2 (27:05):
I don't like about the Athletics is that their fans
are just such wine as an't they?

Speaker 1 (27:10):
Oh my god, Gab, you're trying to get us seriously,
it's run on the internet, jesus.

Speaker 2 (27:15):
I don't want to go to Las Vegas.

Speaker 1 (27:21):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (27:23):
It reminds me of the Disneyland holiday, when you know
the kids didn't want to go away for a weekend
excursion that we're trying to book. I don't know.

Speaker 1 (27:32):
I feel like Gav's religating some past traumas. Now ye sorry,
sorry because of stout Gav or something.

Speaker 2 (27:44):
Which team we do?

Speaker 1 (27:45):
Athletics the sprint speed, sprint speed, Good Lord, Russ start
looking up Sprince Beat. I'm going to spin the wheel
right and hope that none of these players have been
traded since I put the spreadsheet together. Right, we are
looking for the sprint speed of Seth Brown. I will

(28:06):
go first. I reckon Seth Brown is a person who
is going to be relatively fast. I'm going to say,
are we doing this in per second?

Speaker 3 (28:20):
I'll tell you do it in foot per second? And
I'll tell you that the league average is twenty seven.
I'll give you that as a context. Okay, thank you.

Speaker 1 (28:27):
I'm going to go twenty eight point five feet per second,
gav russ Or you want me to go next? Yeah? Good, Next,
I'm just going to go league average twenty seven. Go.

Speaker 2 (28:40):
I think he's very slow, so I'm going to go
twenty four four.

Speaker 1 (28:44):
What's their answer, than Russky. Isn't that pooh hoole speed?

Speaker 2 (28:49):
I can't kill per second?

Speaker 1 (28:54):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (28:55):
Twenty twenty five?

Speaker 3 (28:56):
For goodness sake, Okay, Seth Brown in at twenty seven
point four foot per second?

Speaker 1 (29:05):
So you then, russ that's me. So we get to
have an eighty one win. Athletics wasn't real, effact. That
was also my prediction. So gabas always done the back
for that one. Yeah, well, we get to have two
versus one because two of we thought it was going
to be right, So then we move on to the
other one. They're probably the most divisive in the league

(29:26):
for us. We've got the Rangers. I am currently sat
on seventy nine, Gavin is on eighty four, and Russell
has predicted ninety wins for the Rangers. I think we're
desperately far apart here. I can see nothing other than
the tiebreak situation here again, are we all in agreement
on that?

Speaker 2 (29:43):
Sure?

Speaker 1 (29:44):
Yep? Okay, right? So what am I got? Then? I'm
going to say how far away they live from Swindon? Sorry,
how far away they were born from Swindon. Let's do
that because that's easier to work out where they were
born rather than where they live.

Speaker 2 (30:00):
It's Swindon Wiltshire or Swindon, Nebraska.

Speaker 1 (30:04):
Swindon Wiltshire because this is a British podcast. So right,
So the player we are we're we're we're guessing about
here is Sean Armstrong. Does Sean arms Strong play for
the for the Rangers? Yeah? Still place where the technis Rangers? Okay, right,
I can say that we're see his place of birth.

(30:26):
Let's look that up for so he was born in Newbern,
North Carolina.

Speaker 2 (30:32):
Okay, so that's an easy one. So that is gonna
be Newburn, right, Okay, so that's that's gonna be three thousand,
nine hundred and fifty miles.

Speaker 1 (30:48):
Okay, I will go with six hundred square, four thousand,
six hundred. What did you say?

Speaker 2 (30:55):
Three nine five? O?

Speaker 1 (30:57):
Okay? Three in four nine. Then have the on the
first one.

Speaker 2 (31:04):
Yeah I did, Yeah, I know.

Speaker 1 (31:07):
It's three and a half thousand from London to New York.
So new but new Bern, North Carolina. Right, And the
answer is three thousand, seven hundred and seventy four miles.
We get a nineteen range. I'm never gonna win any
of these, am I? Okay? What? So there we have it.

(31:28):
Then we have we have the Texas Rangers, apparently winning
against my better judgment, ninety games for the for the
AL West twenty twenty five seasons. So they're complete our
AL West. Bringing up the bottom, we all agree, we've
got the Angels on sixty nine. Next up, we are

(31:49):
saying the Athletics are going to win eighty one games.
The Mariners are barely going to break five hundred and
eighty two games. The Astros are going to take eighty
nine games from the year, and then the Rangers are
going to win the division. Despite us all saying that
they were not as good as we all thought they were,
They're going to win the division with ninety games. So
that there, there you have it. That's the AL West. Okay,

(32:13):
I am going to take the NL East. Lest Let's
do the NL East next. I'll start us off then,
so NL East. I reckon big bounce back guys. They've
always had the talent and they should be at the top.
I reckon the Braves, the Land of Braves are going
to come out and they're going to thump ninety seven
games here. They're going to be back to what what
they should have been if they hadn't had the disastrous

(32:35):
injuries of last year. You know, could you know set
seven wins, you know, seven eight wins of injuries. I
think they easily could have had those last year. So yeah,
I reckon ninety seven wins for the Braves. Phillies. I
reckon the Phillies are gonna gonna keep on a hammering
out where they are there. They are a very very
good team. There's plenty to them. They've got great pitching,
They've got some absolute thump with their bats. Maybe some

(32:57):
questions over the bullpedder been answered over the last few years,
but but that variance there, I think there's still still
something to worry about there. So I've got the Phillies
still doing very very well on ninety two wins. Next up, right,
slap bang in the middle. I've got the Mets because
despite despite the fact they spilt all that money, they're
still the Mets. I still think they're gonna Mets Mets

(33:18):
the division, and they're barely going to break break halfway
and they're gonna they're only gonna win eighty two games.
Getting down to the bottom end, I don't think there's
much variance here between us, as there shouldn't be. The
Nationals are going to be poor on seventy four seventy
four games. There's there's nothing really there. They haven't come
on far there there. They're great package they got back

(33:39):
from the Padres has been fine. I don't think they've
been spectacular like they sort of needed to be for
the exchange of so Too and then dropping it to
the bottom is going to be the Marlins. I've got
them on seventy two which could be a little bit generous.
I have how's your How's your ner East, So I've.

Speaker 2 (33:58):
Got the bravest and the Phillies both at the top,
and yeah, thinking about it now, the Braves have got
stryder coming back in a kuna coming back, and yeah,
you made a good point about the Phillies bullpen and
really they don't. It was a bit at dodgy last
year and it's I think it's it's far worse now.

(34:21):
So maybe even though I like Philadelphia the best to
win the World Series out of the everyone in that division,
I think maybe the Braves will finish top. I think
a very very very very generous with the Marlins.

Speaker 1 (34:40):
Got the Marlins on them.

Speaker 2 (34:41):
I've got sixty two, and I think that's generous. The Nationals,
I think we're about saying, and the Mets are they're
quite a high variance team. They've they've really suffered with
the couple of pitching injuries, having got rid of Severino
and who else did they get rid of last year? Anyway,
they got rid of two two of their main starters

(35:02):
from last year, so they've lost a lot of innings
and now they've lost Montes and Manaiah so they're already
struggling a bit. Yes, Soto makes such a big difference
to that team and could mean that Alonso hitting behind Soto,
Alonzo could have an MVP caliber season. I don't think
he will. I think probably he'll be as poor as

(35:24):
he was last year. But so they're quite high variants.
I've got them just on eighty eight. I think that's everyone,
isn't it.

Speaker 3 (35:32):
Yeah, Russ Russ, Yeah, I kind of chickened out on
making a decision here.

Speaker 1 (35:39):
I put them all on ninety.

Speaker 3 (35:40):
Like, I think there are three quite high variant teams here,
but I think they're all good. I think they will
be good. The Braves last season showed kind of how
paul that underbelly is if they kind of don't have
everything go their way. Yes, they still just about made
the playoffs, But like them going back to being a

(36:00):
ninety five ninety seven when team relies on everybody, going
back to the level that we saw two seasons ago,
which I got no idea what a Kenyon is going
to be able to do, given in fact that he's
had injuries to both his legs now or whatever, and
we haven't really seen what we can get back from Strider,
so I'll be a little pessimistic on them before I
kind of see something that from a lineup perspective, I'll

(36:23):
love it.

Speaker 1 (36:24):
I think it's really good. I think they're a good, good,
strong line up again, but of depth is not the
thing Mets.

Speaker 3 (36:30):
We can talk about their pitching not being in the
position they would want it to be, but it wasn't
in that position last season either, Like they had no
Singer for most of last season. They've got him starting,
Clay Holmes, who knows what he can actually have many
innings he's going to pitch. But it's look pretty phenomenal
doing that sort of thing.

Speaker 1 (36:45):
And just Soda is just an unbelievable ad.

Speaker 3 (36:49):
We can talk about it for so many days or whatever,
but I genuinely do believe that Lindor in front of
Soda will see more pitches, and I think all on
so after lind Or will see more pitches because of
Sodo being there, and they both should be the position
to take advantage of it. Nationals are solid, meth They've
got a good couple of players, They're not going to

(37:11):
be in goodtention. I don't think they've really got many
people to flip either. So that's why I'm just put
them as solid thirty two. Anna Marlins might adult flip
anybody who plays well, so they're getting sixty five wins
because they're probably actually a seventy win team right now.
But whoever plays well on that team and isn't young
is getting traded. So because this isn't their year, and
probably even next year is in their year, they're thinking
much further down the line, So anybody is good going

(37:33):
to get traded. So yeah, that's the only reason why
I'm probably in the in the sixties for the Marlins
are not actually at like seventy odd.

Speaker 1 (37:40):
Okay, right, So what I'm hearing is Russell could be
talked up to me on the Marlins. But we'll come
back to that because there's there's some some divisive this there.
There's a couple of places we clearly agree here. So
the Phillies we are all hovering around ninety one, so
I think it's fair. So Russell's got ninety, gav Is

(38:00):
ninety one. I'm saying ninety two, So I'm happy to
meet the middle there and say ninety one. I think
that's fair for the Phillies equally, the Nationals that are
just just bad. They're not spectacular bad. They're not gonna
make it to five hundred, and RUSS are on seventy two.
I've got seventy four, happy to meet the middle on
seventy three. If we all agree on that one, yeah, good, lovely, Right,

(38:20):
then we come to a few divisiveness spits's, and I
seem to be the outlier here. Let's start with the
Marlins at the bottom. Then I've got seventy two saying
sixty two. Russell is saying sixty five. But he's saying
that that is based on them trading people away if

(38:40):
they're any good. I would say to counter that is
that do the Marlins have any players that are any good?
Is there anybody to trade away? Or is it an
entirely meh team that really isn't gonna have all that
much to trade at the deadline, So they actually may
well stay fairly fairly put. And that's that's why I
think RUSS should come up closer to me around the

(39:02):
sort of seventy mark.

Speaker 2 (39:03):
Sandy Alcantara is the only one that they've really got
to trade.

Speaker 1 (39:08):
Old floppy elbow, right, yeah, next, But.

Speaker 2 (39:13):
Even if they do, they're going to get a bag
of balls for it, aren't they They they don't seem
to be able to capitalize on trading the way the stars.

Speaker 3 (39:26):
So cal Countrill, you've got Anthony Bender, either of those
like has a half decent season.

Speaker 1 (39:34):
They're not They're not on the mark. They're not on
this Marlins teams that makes the future like probably even
like Ryan whny wins, are they gonna cost you if
they get traded though? I mean really.

Speaker 3 (39:44):
Yeah, But I'm saying like all it takes is one
of these pictures to be like a two win picture
and they're gone. And so like I think, Rob, you
should be really coming down to us in like the
in the high sixties.

Speaker 1 (39:57):
Okay, I'll capitulate. Okay, let's can I can I tease
you with us sixty six? Yeah, that's fly by me, Gav.

Speaker 2 (40:05):
I could come from sixty two. I could go up
to sixty four.

Speaker 1 (40:08):
All right, meet in the middle sixty five. So Russ
all along, yes, right, all along? Thank you? He calculated that. Yeah,
so we're gonna we're going to meet there on sixty five.
So maybe I've been a little bit bullish on the Braves.
But again, the other one that I this time, I'm
going to pick on Gav. I said ninety seven for

(40:29):
the Braves. Gav said ninety one, and Russell has said ninety.
But Gavin was saying, yeah, there's you know, there's some
agreement here in that maybe the Phillies bullpens a bit
if he which is why they're not going to be
quite up with them, and perhaps the Braves were particularly
injured last year, which they were so, so could you
perhaps be talked up on the Braves coming closer to

(40:51):
my ninety seven.

Speaker 2 (40:52):
I would have been able to if you hadn't taken
all of those wins and given them to Miami. There's
not enough wins to go round.

Speaker 1 (40:59):
So Russell, any budge, I'm not going up to ninety seven.

Speaker 3 (41:06):
I could do like ninety two maybe, but but I'm
not going up to ninety seven.

Speaker 1 (41:11):
I'm ninety two is too low for me. I think
we're going to have to all right, let's let's let's
do the Braves. I'm calling a tie break on the Braves.
I think we initially decided there's gonna be a number
of tie breaks we could have, but that's gone straight
out the window. So right, what what what should we
do for the braves. Let's have more potential tiebreakers. What's that?

(41:34):
Can I choose one or up? Okay, fine, you could
do the tie break. Fine, all right, I was calling it,
but no problems. It's all yours. What do you want
to do? Braves pitched innings pitched right season, career innings
pitched last season. Do you want me to include position players?
Let's say no? Okay, right, okay, So I'm getting up

(41:57):
our list of braves. We spin the wheel. Where's it
gonna land? Dylan Lee. Dylan Lee is a human. I
have definitely heard of Dylan. Give you some contection. He
is a relief pitcher. If that helped that much. I
was aware of Dylan Lee, and he's been around for

(42:22):
many few some years. Should have about.

Speaker 2 (42:28):
I'll get the ball rolling. I will say twenty one innings.

Speaker 3 (42:32):
Okay, I'm pretty cerain. He pitched the entire season, so
I'm going to say sixty three.

Speaker 1 (42:37):
I reckon he was a workhorse that I've never heard of,
and he's pitched seventy innings.

Speaker 3 (42:44):
Russell what we got, But Dylan Lee has fifty nine
point two innings.

Speaker 1 (42:50):
Pitch Russell again, Russell is good at this isn't he yes, well,
just so he could have just been completely lying.

Speaker 3 (43:00):
Yes, you could go with that. So the Braves are
a ninety win team, there, you Gough. I think that
you're doing them a massive disservice. Okay, and then the Mets.

Speaker 1 (43:09):
Was the last team in this division, so well we
got we got Gavin leading. Sorry, no, Russell is leading
the way with ninety wins for the Mets. Gavin is
second with eighty eight wins for the Mets. I admit
I have been stingy on eighty two wins for the Mets,
so I am willing to come up to eighty seven.

Speaker 2 (43:28):
You don't think they'll be closer to their braves than
the Phillies.

Speaker 1 (43:31):
I don't, I really don't. I think the Braves are
head and shoulders above the rest of this division. I
think the Phillies are fine, but they're going to throw
away a lot of games right at the back end.
I think the Mets have a couple of good hitters
and the rest of it's just going to met.

Speaker 2 (43:44):
You can't risk a tie break just for the sake
of coming up to eighty eight or eighty nine.

Speaker 1 (43:50):
Surely, all the way up to eighty seven, I have
moved a long way there, gave you're on eighty seven.

Speaker 2 (43:56):
Now I have, so that's always to myself. Seven, I'm
eighty eight. So you might as well say eighty nine.

Speaker 1 (44:06):
Absolutely, eighty seven. We've got two eighty sevens gab, we're
rounding on you in a corner. Now eighty seven.

Speaker 2 (44:13):
Eighty eight doesn't bother me.

Speaker 1 (44:15):
Eighty seven is there? We go? Right? So how you
do that, master negotiator? He nearly had me right, So Thel, sorry,
NL East. We've got the Phillies winning with ninety one wins,
We've got the Braves coming second with ninety wins. The
Mets are going to get eighty seven wins, a long

(44:37):
way ahead of the Nationals on seventy three wins, and
then the Marlins are going to be dwelling right at
the bottom with sixty five wins. Russell pick us another division.
Let's we might as well finish off the NL Roger
Dodger Dodgers. Indeed, okay, Russ, do you want to John
run us down? Then start us off with the NL West. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (44:58):
So I think we basically have potential the greatest lineup
of all time and the greatest pitching depths of all
time that Major League Baseball has ever seen. I don't
think I could quite predict that they were actually going
to beat them Marlin's record, but.

Speaker 1 (45:10):
I'm pretty close.

Speaker 3 (45:13):
I don't think much of the Rockies. That's a fairly
easy decision to make. And I'm not really certain that
the Giants and the Padres and the d Backs are
that great teams either. So I just think this Dodgers
team is going to rock a lot of people and
they're gonna easily win this division. One hundred and seven
is a bit of a is a bit of a

(45:33):
punt to that. I'm really saying that they're going to
be one of the best teams in baseball history.

Speaker 1 (45:37):
But otherwise I've got three mediocre teams in the middle that.

Speaker 3 (45:42):
I think the Giants probably all worst, but I'm not
certain of that, and I kind of just think that
the Padres and the d Backs will be fighting for
wild card places. So yeah, that's my view of the NL.

Speaker 1 (45:54):
West numbers are giving us. Then, so Dodgers are going
to say one hundred and seven.

Speaker 3 (45:58):
One hundred and seven winners for the Dodgers, eighty four
wins for the d Backs, and the Padres, Giants with
eighty one and the Rockies with sixty.

Speaker 1 (46:06):
Wow. Okay, Garvin, then what's what's your NL West look like?

Speaker 2 (46:14):
I changed the Dodgers from ninety nine to one hundred
because I had an extra win to give to someone
and it was either give it to the Dodgers or
take it off the White Sox. I do think that
there is and it hasn't been helped by the two
games we've just seen, but I do think there's a
bit of this the Emperor's New clothes with the Dodgers.

(46:34):
I don't think they are historically great scene. The rotation
is great. The three top of the lineup when they're
healthy are absolutely fabulous. But let's get realistic. Tourney's had
a few injuries. Freddy really struggled. He was fantastic in
the playoffs. This is Freddy Freeman. He was fantastic in

(46:54):
the playoffs, but we didn't know if he could could
run then, and he and Betts have already missed this series.
Betts is trying to move is what thirty two thirty three,
and he's trying to move to short stop. So there
are injuries to be had there, and then you take
one or two of those out of the lineup and yeah,
they can mix a match. Yeah, it's like Andrew Friedman

(47:19):
is doing what he did at Tampa Bay, but he's
doing it with money. Because no one really thinks that
Kiki and Andez or Edmund or p Haz or Tioska
are really that or Tiosca maybe, but they're not great players,
but they do get the best out of them. So

(47:42):
I would be surprised they didn't win a hundred last year.
I'd be surprised if they won one hundred this year.
But I've put them down for a hundred. I think
the Arizona Diamondbacks are going to give them a run
for the money. I don't think they'll win the division,
but I think they could take them in the playoffs
or go further in the playoffs. The fact that you've
got Corbyn Burns coming to you saying I want to
pitch for you because I I'm from Arizona, that's it's

(48:06):
just such a fabulous bonus for them. I can't really
pick between the Potres and the Giants. Patres seem to
have more, more talent, more quality. And yeah, the Rockies
are just gonna rookie, aren't they.

Speaker 1 (48:21):
M Yeah, the Rockies are going to Rocky. But I
don't think the Rockies are going to Rocky that hard,
you know, I reckon there's there's I've been generous for
the sixty nine wins. They're probably a couple less than that.
But I think I'm in the similar, sort of similar
sort of region to gab there who you said sixty
three for the Rockies, I can see here Giants, I'm

(48:44):
an agreement already yet. Absolutely we're We're about about five
hundred for that, so we can pretty much lock that
one in straight away that the Giants are fine. You know,
there's nothing wrong with that team, but there's nothing particularly
brilliant about it either. I really really like the addition
of Willia Dahmon. I think he's gonna he's gonna be
a big, big plus for them. But beyond that, there's

(49:05):
nothing really really exciting me about about anything new with
the Giants to think they can be anything better than
last year. I reckon the Padres are gonna be better.
I reckon the Padres are a great team. I reckon
they are right bang in the middle of turbulence at
the moment. I think this is a team that a
couple of years ago, we were all predicting to beat
the Dodgers, win one hundred and two games, you know,

(49:26):
and do the business. I think, yeah, there's been a
couple of subtractions, which is why I'm not saying they're
gonna win one hundred games. But I think that same
Padres team right now is sat amongst a club in turmoil,
and that can do one of two things. They can
they can go down the pan and they can be terrible,
or they can kind of get that sort of struggle
against adversity nobody believed in us cliche, and I really

(49:49):
think they got that because they've got the players there,
they've got they've got the staff to really make a
go of it. So I've got the Padres in ninety
two because we are not far detached from them being
predicted to be a great team and then their owner died.
So yeah, I'm in on the Padres probably a bit
higher than you two the d Backs again, yeah, solidly

(50:10):
eighty five. I'm with you on that, and then I
am team GAB when it comes to the Dodgers prediction.
I've got one hundred as well, and for the exact
same reasons. There's far too much James Autman playing on
that team to call them, you know, one of the
best teams of all time. You know, like after that
first three or four guys, that lineup is going to

(50:31):
be okay. Now, yeah, but they may well hit it.
And I'm still predicting one hundred wins. You know, these
this is still going to be a brilliant team. I
just don't think they're gonna be you know, dropped to
your knees and worship brilliant. Yeah, I can see that.

Speaker 3 (50:47):
I just think that people underestimate how actually having okay
from like five to nine actually makes a difference. And
I'm not being bad like that, like some of those teams,
like we'd look at the Braves six and on the
Braves is shocking like that, like that is what's going
to like hurt them in all of the games. I
just we saw basically the Dodgers win two games against

(51:09):
the Cubs without probably the second and third best hitter.
So I just think that depth is like I'm fine
to be brought down to kind of like if people,
if you were.

Speaker 1 (51:17):
Give me one hundred and two, would you go see
I can do one hundred and two. I would prefer
one hundred and one, but I could do one hundred
and two. Yav how do you feel about the Dodgers?
I mean that that is one hell of a hell
of a rotation, isn't.

Speaker 2 (51:29):
It what they win last year?

Speaker 1 (51:31):
Eight? Or no?

Speaker 2 (51:34):
They weren't a hundred win team last year. If they
were last year, we'll say one hundred and two. If not,
we're saying one hundred.

Speaker 1 (51:42):
I like it. And the answer is they won ninety
eight games, giving.

Speaker 2 (51:50):
Them two extra alan more.

Speaker 1 (51:56):
So come on, we meeting them one hundred and one.
Let's let's go one hundred and one. They are damn
good team. My statement has been noted, but I'll give
you one hundred and one hundred one for the Dodgers, right, okay,
So where do we definitely agree? So? Okay, the Giants,
I think. Yeah, you guys have both got eighty one
for the Giants. I had at eighty. So yeah, I'm
happy to come to eighty one with you guys. There's
there's no arguing there. That's that's absolutely fine. D Backs,

(52:17):
we're all pretty close on We've got Russell on eighty four,
gave on eighty nine a bit higher, and then I
am on eighty five. I think we're all similar there, gave.
Are you willing to come down a little bit on them?
Or are you that that keen that the are that good?

Speaker 2 (52:33):
I think out of all of the teams, all thirty teams,
so the ones, they're the one that I'm most confident about.

Speaker 1 (52:40):
Okay, all right, so you're gonna call break.

Speaker 2 (52:44):
I'm quite happy for you. Tuans come up to eighty eight?

Speaker 1 (52:47):
Eighty eight? I can I can talk about eighty seven? No, no, no, fine?
All right? Shall we should we tie break the d backs? Sure? Okay,
it's it's your tie break. Have so pick us something
we're gonna we're gonna use to pull them apart.

Speaker 2 (53:04):
Plate appearances last season, late appearances excellent?

Speaker 1 (53:08):
Right, And whilst Russell cheats and looks up how many
plate appearances they all had.

Speaker 2 (53:13):
I don't think cheated in anything in his life.

Speaker 1 (53:17):
I know he just cheats by having the biggest brain.
The wheel is spinning, it is spinning, and we have
Lords Gurriel Junior, Lord Guriel Junior. Plate appearances last year.
I will stick my neck out. Then I'm gonna say
plate appearances of it wasn't there the whole year? Was he?

Speaker 2 (53:36):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (53:36):
Say? Was he the whole year.

Speaker 2 (53:39):
Yeah, he was traded the year before.

Speaker 1 (53:40):
I thought he was injured for a for a substantial
on the al, he might have been injured, but on
the sorry, not the al. Okay, I'm gonna say. I'm
not gonna drop it as much. I'm gonna say three hundred
and twenty five plate appearances.

Speaker 3 (53:56):
Lord Is Curiel Junior? Yeah, he definitely had some time injured.
So what were looking at?

Speaker 1 (54:01):
I s think four sixty or sixty?

Speaker 2 (54:05):
Galv I reckon higher?

Speaker 1 (54:07):
Four eighty eight. Okay, what we've got, gav er Rous, Sorry,
I'm in the middle of my draft. Four fifty That's
what I'm looking at.

Speaker 3 (54:18):
Who know is Courriel Junior? Five hundred and fifty three?

Speaker 1 (54:23):
Oh de Lordie? Pretty much?

Speaker 3 (54:24):
Wow, he missed like he played one hundred and thirty
three games, but he must have played pretty much all
of those all of the abs in those one hundred
and thirty three games.

Speaker 1 (54:31):
So to gav w Yeah, yeah, I can't argue that
is eighty nine wins for the d Backs. Okay, right, Padres,
you guys are very very close. Eighty four and eighty three.
I am much higher. Have I have I convinced either
of you that there is something in maybe a win

(54:51):
or two, and okay, I'm conceiving I'm too high, But
am I maybe a win or two? Have I managed
to convince you that the Padres are better than you
guys have put basically a five hundred team with all
that talent.

Speaker 2 (55:02):
Yeah, I reckon. Maybe I was a little bit unfair
on eighty three, and I could give them an extra
couple of wins. I don't think the fact that we
thought that they were going to contend with the Dodgers
a couple of years ago and then their owners died,
I don't think that really has that much beering on it.
They've still given away a lot of talent and after

(55:25):
seasoned King and Pervetta, Yeah, you can see it's a decent,
decent lineup. Yeah, I could go to eighty five, eighty six.

Speaker 1 (55:36):
I could take eighty six. I admit I've been I've
been a little bit hasty here. Eighty six it is
how you're feeling about the Padres. Eighty six great, lovely.
And then last of all, we've got the Rockies. You
two have been absolutely hitting down on the Rockies, saying
sixty wins and sixty three wins. I've got sixty nine wins.
I think you've been stingy again. I've maybe been a

(55:58):
little bit over the top. But I'm not going to
shove much further down on the Rockies. I I you know,
I still think there's there's something a bit weird about
the Rockies. You just can't predict it. There's going to
be something coming out of there, you know. So I
could come down to sixty seven, but no lower tiebreaker.

Speaker 2 (56:14):
Find such a such a tricky team because I like
so many of their players, and so many of their
players seem really good, and then when you look at
the like w RC plus or something, they're not really
that good at all. So yeah, I could go sixty seven.

Speaker 1 (56:30):
I'm not going that high. Russell Nope, not in a job. Fine, right,
and then Russell pick as a tiebreaker.

Speaker 3 (56:39):
I want wild pitchers, ill pitches, wild pictures.

Speaker 1 (56:47):
That means we need pictures, wild pitchures. I'm going to
tell you already I know about three of these guys.

Speaker 3 (56:56):
Yeah, right at the point, like none of us know,
Like I don't know how anybody, I mean well pitches
anybody through last season.

Speaker 1 (57:01):
So okay, we're looking for who is that? Okay, so
wild pitchers are Ryan Feltner. Ryan Feltner, Okay, that was six. Okay,
I'm gonna say, uh, he barely pitched in three, six
and three. I'll take I should I'll take seven then,

(57:22):
so I've got the over. That's how this works.

Speaker 4 (57:29):
Who right fell there through four wild pitchers. So Rob,
you know, yes, there we go, Thank you very much.
I finally feel vindicated for this game.

Speaker 1 (57:47):
Absolutely wonderful, brilliant. Okay, Gab, big pick us where we're
going for our second to last division? Sorry, recap there, Sorry,
my apologies. Quickly recap there. So the NL West is
going to be won by the Dodgers and one hundred
and one wins. The d Backs is gonna come second
with eighty nine wins. San Diego is gonna have eighty
six wins, hitting five hundred is going to be the

(58:08):
Giants on eighty one wins, and the Rockies are gonna
do much better than everyone thought they were gonna do
and they're gonna hit sixty nine wins to finish up
the season. That's a right old West. So Gab where
we're going to go.

Speaker 2 (58:18):
We'll go to the ale least we haven't done that,
have we?

Speaker 1 (58:22):
American League East we still have to do the American
League East. Okay, So Gab, do you want to do?
You want to take us through the American League East? Then?
And where you think we're going with these? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (58:32):
So this you could you could just throw it up
in the air and they could come down in any
order and I'd still be happy with it. I have
no idea what's going to happen here. So I've got
Boston and Baltimore with eighty eight. I've got the Yankees
one ahead with eighty nine. I've got the Blue Jays
with eighty four, and the Tampa Bay Rays with eighty two.

(58:55):
The way I'm looking at it is that the Orioles,
they just frustrate me so much that they have an
incredible team. I think all of them are projected to
be above one hundred WRC plus yet and this is
an incredible window they've got where they're not paying that
much for so many of these players. Yet they let Ord.

(59:17):
They didn't let Corbyn Burns go. Corbyn Burns went and
then they replaced him with Charlie Morton. I think there
were probably better options if they'd decided to spend a
bit of money. So, yeah, they have the potential, but
I don't think they have the pitching. I think the
Red Sox are much better than they were last year.

(59:38):
I think it's amazing what forty million dollar player does
to the lineup. But Bregman does make a big difference
in there, I think, and it's sort of lifted the
spirits of the whole franchise, it seems so. Then Duran
Duran having another great season, and Devas getting little stop.

(01:00:01):
I think that's a really good lineup. They've managed to
look okay despite having lost a couple of I think
they've lost three starters now already, but yeah, getting the
new guys in there, that looks pretty good. The Yankees
as well, they've lost a couple of starters, and that's
why they're Both of those teams are in the eighties

(01:00:22):
rather than the nineties. But I think the Yankees have
done quite well. They've lost Sodo, and how do you've
replaced Sodo? You can't really, But having Goldschmidt, which is
an upgrade at first base, and then having Bellinger, who's
just an upgrade I think, not ava Soto, but he's
just an upgrade to the team because he pushes Judge
over to right field, and then Bellinger can play either

(01:00:46):
center or he can play first. And yeah, I don't
know what to expect from from Jazz and Wells and Volpi.
They could be all three of them could be fantastic players.
By ah, I don't know. They've got great rotation, six

(01:01:06):
man rotation and most of them coming back from Tommy John.
But you know that, I don't think that Junior Camenero
is going to be the rookie of the year. I
think he might struggle to be an average player. I
don't think they've got I think that's it. You could
see Josh Lowe, Brandon Law and Yandy Diaz they could

(01:01:28):
be have really really good seasons. Yeah, one hundred and
forty WRC plus or something, or they could be one
hundred WRC plus.

Speaker 1 (01:01:36):
So it's quite a.

Speaker 2 (01:01:37):
High variance thing. And I don't know how this moved
to Steinbrenner's really going to affect them. And then the
Blue Jays' is another tough one to see. They've got
Vladdie and they've strengthened with Santander coming in. It's a
pretty good lineup as soon as is it Varshow, as

(01:01:58):
soon as Varshow comes back, But and it's a nice
rotation as well. Although it's amazing the difference just having
shoes are out of the rotation because I think he's
got an injury at the moment. It's amazing the difference
that it looks now when you have to have Yeri
or Rodriguez go in there. But I think they're going
to be above five hundred just and Tampa Bay just

(01:02:21):
below five hundred. But if you told me that you
had predicted Tampa Bay to win the division, I don't
think I could argue really.

Speaker 1 (01:02:28):
Okay, I mean I was speak a little about the
AA least I probably could argue with that. Taking the Rays,
I would say, I do think there's been a little
bit of an underestimation of that rotation. It is, it
is deep, and it is it is strong. You've got
guys who came on really well at the end of

(01:02:49):
last year. You got you got an eighth going straight
back into the top of that rotation in Seae McClanahan
and a ballpen that there are sneaky guys in this bullpen.
You know. One of the regular breakout picks and a
lot of people have picked is Mason Montgomery this year.
Having seen what he's done yet. He is. He is

(01:03:09):
almost nailed on to be fantastic this year. And the
rest of the bullpen is is good too. It is
really really good bullpen. I think the pitching for the
raising and they always if they can stay healthy. I'm
not even that worried, like they could genuinely afford to
lose a couple of guys at the moment, and that's
still going to be an utterly dominant pitching.

Speaker 2 (01:03:26):
Stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:03:29):
Bottom half of the lineup is, as gav has pointed out,
a bit of a disaster. Like we are. We are
really hoping on some guys turning careers around there in
order to just get back to sort of average. So
Danny Jansen was a nice pick up to take what
was historically been a problem spot for the offense in
the catcher position. And that is going to make a difference.

(01:03:49):
It is gonna make a difference. It's going to pull
that floor up. But is it gonna make much difference
than where we were last year? Probably not. I've got
I've got the raise of eighty two, sorry about eighty
one coming second bottom in that division. The only team
I've got below them is going to be the Blue
Jays and it's it's again. I'm going on vibes here
rather than than on cold hard facts. But it feels

(01:04:12):
like a team that has missed an opportunity to be
great and is sliding out of contention. You know, there's
a very very good chance of Laddie Walk's halfway through
this season, I can I can just see it all
going a bit south for them. So Blue Jays I
got on seventy eight, only just under five hund I've
got on seventy eight the better end of the division though. Orioles.

(01:04:35):
I can see the Oriols doing fine. They're the kind
of the opposite of the Rays. They got that fantastic
lineup I'm not convinced on. They're pitching in the slightest
really really not convinced there. If they were to get
that together, put a couple of bits in, just a
couple of guys over over the next few weeks, they
could really catapult them to being the top top team
in this division. But as it stands, I've got the

(01:04:55):
Oriols at eighty eight. Red Sox the big climbers. I
think everybody knew they're going to be climbers. I've got
them all the way up on ninety. I think I
think they've got a real chance to do something here.
There's a real good feel coming back to that team again, Gavi,
you hit on that. So I'm really really happy on
the Red Sox being I'm not happy about it, but
really expected the Red Sox to be much better on

(01:05:18):
ninety and the Yankees still even despite you know, both
of Jancolis Stanton's elbows, I still have them just pipping
the division with ninety one. Once they missed out and
so too. They did make some improvements they did. They
went out and they got some guys. So yeah, ninety one.
But Gad makes a fantastic point if you just turn

(01:05:39):
this division upside down. Other than really the Rays being
at the bottom with the Blue Jays, I mean the
rest of it. Yeah, they are on the jumble. They
could be anywhere. So that's where I got ninety one
for the Yankees, ninety for the Red Sox, oils in
eighty eight, raised eighty one, and Blue Jays on seventy eight. Ruh.

Speaker 2 (01:05:57):
Now, Russell's gonna tell us how we're wrong.

Speaker 3 (01:06:00):
So I don't necessarily disagree that I think that like
the Blue Jays and the Rays are like a like
the seventy four and the seventy seven wins that I
have is because I think they're going to be bad
and they're gonna trade and they're gonna get worse. So
I think they're going to be significantly behind the other
three teams and potentially even behind the wild card race

(01:06:21):
that they make the decision to flip. And the Rays
I think are and have shown that this is a
possibility if they have somebody like half On Kim do
Well or something like that. Obviously he's got the one
in a year deal or whatever, could trade him on,
could get something nice. The Blue Jays. I just think
how everything is run that. I just think it's a
should show.

Speaker 1 (01:06:42):
I genuinely do.

Speaker 3 (01:06:43):
I just don't think whatever has gone how you just
do not like get a deal sorted with Laddie. Maybe
the money that they were talking got a bit ridiculous,
but you got to make that deal happen, Like you
cannot lose generational talent like that, especially after the season
that is Shoe last year, and so I just see
it all crumbling down this year. Otherwise, red Soux and

(01:07:06):
probably a bit optimistic on I do like what they
did during the off season, but I thought I was
a bit optimistic, and you guys have got even further
than I did, which was a bit surprising. And Yankees
losing Cole makes makes a bit.

Speaker 1 (01:07:21):
Of a difference.

Speaker 3 (01:07:22):
And if I'm perfectly honest, if you want to talk
about a lineup that's not deep, this is basically like
potentially one of the worst lineups on a good team
that you've ever seen. It's basically played the guessing game
of who's going to be the second best.

Speaker 1 (01:07:34):
Hitter on that team? Do you know who it's going
to be convincing?

Speaker 3 (01:07:36):
Do you think they're going to be have a WRC
plus better than like one twenty?

Speaker 1 (01:07:40):
I don't.

Speaker 3 (01:07:41):
And so it's like it's judge and and whoever decides
to turn up. Will they get a full season out
of somebody like Wells or Rice? Will Jazz show what
he can actually do? Will Bellager look like something that
we know he can do but hasn't looked like in
a while. There's lots of if butts, but like as
if a butts a candy, candy, coconuts or whatever whatever
their phrase goes, I I just don't see it there,

(01:08:06):
so to me and I have the Orioles top. I
think they have enough for the pieces in the right place.
So obviously the loss of Burns is not good. I'm
frustrated because I still think the Orioles are a good team,
but they could be better if they'd made those moves,
and they would have really shown that they were the
best team in the AL and that really would have
put them in a much kind of like more competitive position.

(01:08:27):
But yeah, I could move up on the Red Sox
and the Yankees, and probably in the Blue Jays in
the Rays. But that's just my reasoning for them being
so low is that I think they're going to do
bad and they're going to trade.

Speaker 1 (01:08:37):
Okay, so what numbers are you you given us for
the division? Then?

Speaker 3 (01:08:40):
So I have ninety wins for the Orioles, I have
eighty six wins for the Yankees and the Red Sox.
I have seventy seven wins for the Rays and seventy
four wins for the Blue Jays.

Speaker 1 (01:08:51):
Okay, I look looking at these numbers, then I we're
not that far off from each other. We potentially could
avoid a tie break on this one if we're if
we're you know, congenial to each other and you know,
we reach out hands across across the the internet, and
so let's start where we're very very close, then, so Orioles.
First of all, Russell, you've got ninety gave and I

(01:09:15):
are on eighty eight. I think eighty eight is fair,
there isn't it.

Speaker 3 (01:09:18):
They can at least come up to eighty nine. Come on, rock, Well,
there's two of us on eighty eight.

Speaker 1 (01:09:22):
And one of those ninety suspended. There's a suspended game somewhere.
Let's let's go eight eight and a half.

Speaker 2 (01:09:28):
Go on, do eighty nine and then Russell osis.

Speaker 1 (01:09:30):
One eighty nine. Fine, I agree with that. Yeah, okay,
all right? Where else are we close? We are? The
Red Sox are an interesting one. The Red Sox are
an interesting one. I have ninety, Gav has eighty eight,
and Russell has eighty six. Very happy to meet in
the middle. On on Gavin, yep, del yep, lovely eighty eight.

(01:09:51):
It is for the Red Sox. Where else are we close?
So the rest of all close ish, but not that close.
So let's start with the Yankees. There I've taken I've
gone high on the Yankees with ninety one. I'm admitting
I'm a little bit high on the Yankees. There, Russell's
really taught talk me around on the lineup side on that,
so I am willing to drop. So so I was
on ninety one, Gave had eighty nine and Russell had

(01:10:12):
eighty six. I am. I am happy to go to
the other side of Gavin and and me to eighty eight. Yep, yeah, lovely.
So now we go to the non exciting end of
the division. We go to the bottom a couple differ
so the Blue Jays. So we've got Russell on seventy four,

(01:10:32):
I am on seventy eight, and Gavin is on eighty four.
I think what we're really looking at here Gave is
is a drop.

Speaker 2 (01:10:40):
Yeah, it's not gonna happen.

Speaker 1 (01:10:42):
What the tie break? Okay, we're gonna have to tie break?
Tie break it is tie break, it is, now give
us a category, no, go on.

Speaker 2 (01:10:50):
I think that they've got a really good lineup. Yeah, Okay,
they might trade Flattie and if they if they dumped
some players and they think that that's the end of
the window, then yeah, obviously I could be wrong, but
I think it's a solid rotation, it's good bullpen, and
it's it's a good lineup, it's definitely more than a
five hundred team. In my humble opinion, I will choose

(01:11:10):
a category of year they debuted in MLB.

Speaker 1 (01:11:18):
Okay, I like that one, right, and I've got this
all lined up. So let's spin the wheel. Let's spin
the wheel. It is spinning, it is spinning. Where's it
gonna land? It's landed on Jeff Hoffman. Excellent, Jeff Hoffman.
So Russell, do you want to take a stab at
Jeff Hoffman to start with? Yeah, twenty sixteen. Okay, that

(01:11:38):
was really confident.

Speaker 2 (01:11:42):
He's horrible, isn't it.

Speaker 1 (01:11:46):
Key, I am going to say twenty seventeen.

Speaker 2 (01:11:51):
So then I've got to say twenty fifteen.

Speaker 1 (01:11:54):
Yeah, you've got to yeah, absolutely no.

Speaker 2 (01:11:57):
Well I'm not going to I'm going to say, oh,
what did you say twenty Russell got twenty sixteen?

Speaker 1 (01:12:04):
I said twenty seventy.

Speaker 2 (01:12:06):
I'll say twenty eighteen. I'll go the other way.

Speaker 1 (01:12:08):
Okay. The answers a misery Grussel. He looked at this
like two days ago, so that doesn't seem fair.

Speaker 3 (01:12:21):
Okay, looking up people that debuted for Colorado that turned
out to be semi okay, but not for Colorado and
he's right in there debuting back in twenty sixteen.

Speaker 1 (01:12:31):
That isn't in the weed search players who were sort
of okay for Colorado brilliant. Okay, well there we go.
Then we have we have Jeff Hoffman. We have seventy
four wins for the Blue Jays. Gavin is furious, and
that leaves us with the Tampa Bay Rays. So Russell
had seventy seven, I had eighty one, and Gavin has

(01:12:54):
eighty two. Oh, come I can, I can come down.
That's eighty. I'll come up to eighteen. We can do eighty. Yeah,
I'm not eight.

Speaker 2 (01:13:02):
Tiebreak again. Don't like this game.

Speaker 1 (01:13:07):
Because Russell always wins. I knew it was a bad idea,
paying this with Russell, like, no, I'm not gonna win
that I want. I want something I'm gonna win. So
the Alias is going to finish with the Orioles winning
it with eighty nine wins, and then we're going to
have that's gonna be an interesting runoff between the Yankees

(01:13:27):
and the Red Sox. With eighty eight wins, the Blue
Jays are gonna be sorry. The Rays are going to
be next with eighty wins, and the Blue Jays are
going to be basement dwellers with seventy four wins, which,
now I say it out loud, does sound a little
bit harsh, but too late. It is inked in right,
so leaving us with the most exciting and best till last.
We have left ourselves with the AL Central for our

(01:13:49):
grand finish. So if we can reveal our predictions for
the al Central, Russell our predictions for the AL Central, Wow,
my eyes, my eyes. Okay, we are wildly differing on these,
so I'll run down mine first. Then, So I've got
the Twins winning the division. The reason I've got the

(01:14:10):
Twins winning the division is I think they would have.
I've got the winning with ninety and I think this
is kind of where they should have been if something,
goodness knows what the wheels hadn't come off towards the
end of last season. They were on course, they were
doing fine, and then it all went to hell. Now
something's clearly happened, and what to my mind, something's clearly
happened in that clubhouse and they weren't able to pull

(01:14:31):
out the skid. So I'm going to say that the
skid doesn't necessarily happen, and they do end up more
sort of where their natural talent says they should do.
And that's why I've got the Twins winning ninety games.
Following them in the division, I've got the Tigers. I
think they continue the good work they were doing. I
think they're exciting, they're young, they're you know, there may

(01:14:52):
be time to move on from havy buyers, but otherwise
they're good. There's a lot of good stuff going on here.
They've moved talks into the outfield, I believe now, is
that right? They're they're trying some stuff they got to.
They've got a manager I think who is is genuinely
considered to know what he's talking about. So I've got
the Tigers playing eighty eight wins, dropping them to the Guardians. Guardians,
goodness knows what they're doing to keep going the way

(01:15:14):
they have, Like the pitching works. I don't understand why, why,
how they've managed to keep going with the with that lineup,
but you know, it's it's fine. They'll be all right.
Eighty four wins. They're not gonna set anything on fire here,
but they're going to be fine. Uh. And then then
I've got the Royals. I think the Royals last year
I think they're going to fall back a bit. I

(01:15:34):
think a lot went right for the Royals this last year.
I think the Royals we were sort of playing that
ninety percent tile of everything. They've got some some absolutely
great guys in there, you know that a lot of
the supporting cast, the Patscatinos looking great. They'll be obviously
Bobby Witt is going to be leading leading that that
team again. But the pitching side, I think there's there's
some regression to come. And that's why I only have

(01:15:57):
the Royals winning seventy five games, maybe little sting seventy
five games there, and then at the bottom the White
Sox they were dreadful. Then they're going to be dreadful again.
They've not really done anything to sort out that team.
I can't see. You know, definition of insanity is doing
the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

(01:16:18):
They did it all last year by not changing that
team up and trying out a bunch of young guys,
and I think they're probably not doing the same thing again,
So I don't see them them. You know, there's gonna
be a little bit aggression to the mean, But that's
why I've only got fifty wins for the White Sox.
That's you know, that's it as there's not much, not
much going on there. Come at me, Come at me.
We're already different on this one. Russell, what you got?

Speaker 3 (01:16:38):
Yeah, so we might as well started the White Sox.
I have about fifty six. I thought I was going
to be the high on this. I am the high,
but not as much high. God was definitely suggesting at
some point on the weekend that he was going to
throw out a thirty number here. So he's come back
to some sentence on what sort of been this team
is bad, they'll be better than last year maybe because

(01:16:59):
if they're not better than last year, they have something
institutionally wrong at that club that is beyond just like
having a terrible owner and like that. There is something
wronger even like at the player development level, so bad
that it's unbelievable. I have the Twins at seventy seven
being the fourth best team.

Speaker 1 (01:17:21):
I don't think they're good.

Speaker 3 (01:17:22):
I think that like they showed what they were capable
of last season. You can suggest maybe they've had like
some additional players come through or picking up like Ty
France and Harrison Bader. Is is that really what you
think is going to make them improve as a team.

Speaker 1 (01:17:39):
I don't.

Speaker 3 (01:17:41):
I think they're full of injury prone players. They're going
to rely on platooning between like Walner and like Austin Martin,
Harrison Bada and Trevor Larnak and Austin Martin or whatever.
I just do not think they're a good team. And
I think they'll have to flip during the middle of
the season when they're being bad. So that's that Guardians.

(01:18:01):
I generally do not know. But I've put eighty one
wins here. This is the ultimate passing of the buck
here from the person who is the Guardians fan. There
is a piece coming gave. I do promise that. I
did say I would do it on the season preview
for Cleveland.

Speaker 1 (01:18:15):
It's half written.

Speaker 3 (01:18:16):
I've done my pessimism, but I said I would do
some optimisms as well, and I need to kind.

Speaker 1 (01:18:20):
Of come up with the optimism. But yeah, I just
don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:18:24):
This team is like can you can't expect your four
relievers to pitch below two A or A again, It's
just you cannot expect that. So who's actually going to
like throw the innings and do good enough. I just
don't know, and then from a hitting perspective, it's like,
well there's Jose, and then who else actually turns up?
Like Kuan and Thomas could be both very good corner

(01:18:48):
outfielders and that could put a Cleveland into a good position,
but they could also both be pretty gash again and
like this team could not be not be good. So
they're solidly as they had an eighty one win team,
and then the Tigers and the Royals are like the
use that both teams are kind of coming through. I
think that they've both got top of the rotation talent

(01:19:08):
that will be just get them that kind of fifteen
sixteen wins potentially twenty wins in a season that kind
of ties you over and gets you into a position
that you can be challenging for a divisional title or
challenging kind of like for player contention and that sort
of thing. So yeah, I've got them both at eighty
six wins and tied winning the division.

Speaker 1 (01:19:29):
GAV could GAV come back?

Speaker 2 (01:19:31):
I do you really like the structure of MLB with
the six divisions, because it does make it it makes
it really competitive for so many of them, and the
AE or Central Chicago White Socks are obviously the worst
team in the sport, but the others. I've got it

(01:19:51):
going from eighty two for the Guardians and the Tigers,
eighty three for the Royals at eighty seven for the Twins.
Thinking about it, maybe I want the Guardians on the
eighty seven and the Twins on a eighty two. I
think it could be changed any way. Injury has a
lot to do with it. I think the Guardians are

(01:20:13):
better than you're giving them credit for. They do have
your breakout pick of Brian Rocchio, and they have is
Gavin Williams. Willow to be a breakout pick.

Speaker 1 (01:20:24):
Probably like maybe not have enough time.

Speaker 3 (01:20:26):
If you think he's actually going to have like a
four win season, then definitely.

Speaker 2 (01:20:30):
And then whether that's you know, say four win season
that gets me onto the White Sox because they had
two four win pictures last year and they haven't got
them this year, so they are significantly worse. I was
going to yeah, I was going to put them down
for thirty nine wins, but I can't actually remember the
whole conversation because we had had a few beers. But

(01:20:52):
on Friday, Russell was telling me that you could roll
out a bunch of guys any old bods and they
would still get sixty wins something like that. I can't
remember the exact not sixty.

Speaker 1 (01:21:04):
Quard A players. Basically that's a whole the definition of
what replaced A today, right.

Speaker 2 (01:21:08):
Yeah, So basically when you were sort of saying, you
guys around the table, that's what I thought it was, since.

Speaker 1 (01:21:16):
We were all quard A players.

Speaker 2 (01:21:17):
Yeah. The Tigers are another interesting one because they were
so good in the second half of last year, yet
they didn't really outperform their metrics. They should have been
that good, so they haven't really changed that much. Riley
Green he could be he could be MVP. I like
Riley Green a lot. Yeah, So I've got them for

(01:21:41):
eighty two, but maybe that's too low. And the Royals
Jonathan India. That's a nice acquisition, isn't it. He's going
to score at least one hundred runs? But maybe they
overperformed last year with Seth Lugo and Cole Reagan's I
don't know really, So what we've got start with the
White Sox because that was quite easy one, wasn't it.

Speaker 1 (01:22:01):
Uh. Yeah, So looking back over what we've got the yeah,
and you're saying you could have gone thirty nine here.
You know, I think you've been a bit generous. To
my mind, I think we're looking at the Bottoman of
the fifties. What have they done to make this team
better than the drivel they were last year?

Speaker 2 (01:22:18):
Well, Mike Talkman, yes, okay, yeah, Brandon Drury, Travis Jenkowski.

Speaker 1 (01:22:29):
Just I am Amazedenkowski is still playing. Okay, I mean I.

Speaker 2 (01:22:34):
Haven't traded away Lewis Robert yet yet.

Speaker 1 (01:22:38):
I can maybe come up a win or two, but
I can't see it's going much higher than fifty one
fifty two wins. I think, honestly, this team is absolutely
the pits. Come on, Russell, can you can you come
up at all? Come down?

Speaker 3 (01:22:52):
Sorry, I can come down, like yeah, anywhere like in
the fifties is like is fasible to me. I just
chose fifty six somewhere in the middle, so like, if
you want fifty three, I'll come down to fifty three
on fifty two.

Speaker 1 (01:23:04):
If I'm honest.

Speaker 2 (01:23:06):
What did the other projection system say?

Speaker 3 (01:23:09):
Well, they project sixty because effectively, it's really hard to
project to be like that bad like even like they said,
like the Dodgers, if you actually predict one hundred lost team,
you are a very bad team. Like the only reason
why the Rockies are predicted much worse than the White
Sox are is because the Dodgers, the d Backs, the

(01:23:31):
Padres are all better than the Tigers that wins, the Royals,
and the Guardians, So they're just gonna lose more games
against those teams. Not necessarily the fact that the Rockies
are out that much of a worse team than the
White Sox. I think it is an indictment that those
other teams aren't in the central, aren't that good, which
is why the White Sox will get something in the fifties.

Speaker 2 (01:23:49):
Do you know that they they swept the Angels last year.

Speaker 3 (01:23:53):
I Eveland lost more games to the White Sox, I
think than any other team.

Speaker 1 (01:23:57):
So I saw the Race played the White Sox last year,
and it was the the White Sox were sixteen and two,
and I managed to see one of those two, sorry
two and sixteen? Might I saw one of those two?
So yeah, I was impressed by that. Okay, so we're
hovering lower fifty surely right, surely can we say fifty two? Yep,

(01:24:19):
fifty two, Yeah, fifty two, fifty two, lovely one.

Speaker 2 (01:24:23):
I'm regretting not being more bold and going for thirty nine.

Speaker 1 (01:24:27):
Right, So let's have a look at the Guardians. Then
we're all closes on the Guardians. Russell is on eighty one,
being being sad on his own team, and we've all
actually predicted our own teams as being pretty much on
five hundred. So Russell predicted eighty one for the Guardians,
Gavin has predicted eighty two, and I had eighty four.
I am happy to come and meet meet around the

(01:24:49):
Gavin mark at eighty two, not go only two. That's fine, great,
it's to eighty two. Then we start diverging a little bit.
Let's start with the Tigers with a least of versions
of the remaining ones. So and we've got I'm fairly
high on the Tigers at eighty eight. Russell isn't far
behind me on eighty six. Gavin, however's got the Tiger's
on eighty two, which my stingy.

Speaker 2 (01:25:11):
Yeah, I'm happy to go up a couple.

Speaker 1 (01:25:13):
Can you get you up to eighty five? Five?

Speaker 2 (01:25:15):
Eighty five? I could do eighty five.

Speaker 1 (01:25:18):
Go. We're getting through this fantastic. This is where we
start to get unstuck though, Royals, I think we're we're
tricky here. So I've got the Royals on seventy five.
I do not see that they can redo what they
did last year. I really do not see that their
their pitching is going to stand up to that. And look,
seventy five isn't that far under under five hundred.

Speaker 2 (01:25:37):
It's quite a long way.

Speaker 1 (01:25:38):
Gavin has eighty three, so still eighty three, and Russell
is on eighty six. I cannot see how we avoid
a tie break over over the Royals. Did you make
a break? Did I? Whether I make a I didn't
make a bloody type over? How rude? How rude?

Speaker 2 (01:25:58):
It just seems Yeah, it seems ludicrous that you'd think
that they were solo.

Speaker 1 (01:26:04):
I'm trying to be bold here as well. Come on, man,
come roy double tie breaker to finish it off, rob,
let's let's start having Kansas City roles tiebreaker. I will
pick a Kansas City tiebreaker. Then I'm going to say
the number they currently wear on their back. So let's

(01:26:27):
pick ourselves a Royal. It's going into the wheel. The
wheel is spinning. Where's it going to land? Who knows?
Who knows? Who half these people are? It's spinning. It's spinning.
We have two blanks. For some reason, it's landing on
a blank, so we're spinning again. Bobby Witt Junior. Bobby
Witt Junior. I I must say that I have no

(01:26:47):
idea who numbers for like, I know a couple of rays,
but that is about it. Bobby Witt Junior. I'm going
to guess at fourteen two, I thought it was thirteen.
You're thirteen. Yeah, okay, all right, I have get him up.
I think I can find this one. Bobby Witt Junior. Seven.
According to Baseball number seven, seven, gav was closest. I

(01:27:10):
think was closest. We get the gave result here, which
was the outlier? No, God was the middle one over
the middle man. It's fine, okay, no problems. Fine right,
let's finally then, who thought we were going to finish
this with the the highs of the Minnesota Twins. But
we're clearly, very clearly, very divergent on this. I'm on ninety,

(01:27:34):
Gavi is on eighty seven, and Russell is on seventy seven.
So as ludicrous as you think my prediction for the
Royals was, this is possibly even further away from the mean.

Speaker 2 (01:27:46):
Can you easily see what it should be to make
everything tally up.

Speaker 1 (01:27:49):
Russ um easily.

Speaker 3 (01:27:52):
No, but I can do Chris do some maths if
you're all willing to vamp like thirty seconds, yes, what was.

Speaker 1 (01:28:01):
Whilst Russell is Whilst Russell is doing the math for us,
let's do some of our outro first, Gab, Can we
talk a little bit about the website at the moment,
So we've we've been going through the season previews. Where
are we up to with the season previews on the
on the website at the moment.

Speaker 2 (01:28:18):
We're about halfway through and we're just going to go
to two being released a day. Lots of people are
a bit like russ who have said to me, oh, yes,
I will send you my submission, but they haven't yet.
So I figured that this weekend I am going to
be editing lots and lots of previews. But it this

(01:28:38):
is one of the real great things about backflips and Nerds,
and it's nothing to do with me. It's the guys
who were doing it beforehand. Is that anyone can submit
an article and now we've got thirty different British writers,
British fans who just turn their hand at writing and
they're submitting a preview about so it really is becoming

(01:29:02):
a great community to be part of.

Speaker 1 (01:29:05):
Absolutely, and I've got it. The first thing I'm going
to do when I read it. I know. I noticed
today we've got the Tampa Bay Raised season preview by
Mark Stranger has gone up. Haven't had the chance to
read it yet, but that is that is where I'm
going too, straight after we finish here, so half the
team's there, the other half coming. And it's not just
it's not just season previews, as there's there's so much else.
What can you pick out a couple of other highlights,

(01:29:26):
something something to go back and have a look at.

Speaker 2 (01:29:27):
Gav Well one of the recent ones that we're still
waiting for Russ.

Speaker 1 (01:29:32):
Yeah, I have a number.

Speaker 2 (01:29:33):
One of the recent ones that I did was trying
to be a bit controversial, was that now that Donald
Trump has decided that he will pardon Pete Rose, who
will be the next person to be red cocketed back
into MLB. So then I was thinking it, wonder Franco,
maybe Trevor Bauer. There are a few others on there excellent.

Speaker 1 (01:29:56):
Well, I mean that's you know, we have some edge
as well. There are some country obviously on the website too.
It's not just fluff pieces, so that that is excellent,
So do get over to the website because, as I said,
it is our community. This is this is this is
a lot of where we started. This podcast well, started
by four guys talking about baseball, but it's very very
quickly followed up by a whole bunch of very very

(01:30:16):
passionate people here putting stuff down on paper. That's how
you know, Russe and I got involved with the podcast
initially as well, was was by putting pen on paper
and just giving it a go. So if you haven't
yet you've got an idea, you may only need one
idea if you only come with one piece and that's that,
that's no problem at all. But if you've got that
that piece in you, please get down on a piece
of paper because we want to read it and this
is a great place for us to get started on

(01:30:38):
and get involved in the community. Anyway, moving us back
over then, so Russell, you did some maths. What have
you discovered?

Speaker 3 (01:30:46):
If you want this to add up to twenty four
hundred and thirty, which is the number of games that
we've played, the Twins need to win sixty two games,
So I think that's stingy. We've never adjusted to two
hundred two and four under thirty in this podcast, unlike
the eighteam which continue to do that. So I don't
think we need to bother with that because I don't

(01:31:07):
want to incrementally basically take two wins off every team
to kind of get it or a win off every
team to get it to where it should be. So
I think we just go with a tiebreaker rob to
finish this off.

Speaker 1 (01:31:18):
Well, that's essentially that means that you know, whatever Russell's
picked is going to end up being the thing again.
Fight gav do us the honors, then pick us one
one final category for.

Speaker 2 (01:31:27):
The Minnesota Twins. Let's have.

Speaker 1 (01:31:32):
Strikeouts strikeouts, right, and we don't want pictures for strikeouts.

Speaker 2 (01:31:36):
Pictures or it could be hit us, couldn't it.

Speaker 1 (01:31:39):
Okay, I'm going to leave the pictures in then, and
this could get very very si we may have to
have a second round, but okay, I'm gonna spin it
for strikeouts. Fine, we got that is not the Minnesota
Twins doing that again. Griffin Jacks.

Speaker 2 (01:31:57):
Griffin Jacks, so he is a picture.

Speaker 1 (01:31:59):
S Griffin. He is a picture absolutely.

Speaker 2 (01:32:02):
And I am going to say that he had eighty
eight strikeouts last year.

Speaker 1 (01:32:08):
I think Gryffin Jacks is a good picture, and I
think Griffin Jacks, I think he did slightly better. And
I'm going to give him one hundred strikeouts. That's too many,
far too many. Don't be ridiculous. I'm gonna get I'm
gonna give him seventy seven strikeouts. Okay, what did you

(01:32:28):
think out eight eight? Alright, eighty nine? Pretty certain, Rob
Your first one was much closer than your second one. Oh,
survey says ninety five strikeouts. Man, I would have I
would have won it. I would have won it. So
instead we have got Russell yet again, bringing our pessimistic

(01:32:52):
result right down and putting us in seventy seven wins
for the Twins, which I mean that that makes the
division an absolute disaster again. So running from the top
of that division, we are now predicting that the Tigers
are going to win it with eighty five wins, The
Royals are going to come second with eighty three wins,

(01:33:14):
the Guardians are going to have eighty two wins. The
Twins are going to be languishing down in fourth with
seventy seven wins, and the White Socks are going to
pull their bootstraps up and going to get a full
fifty two wins this year, And that, as you have
it is the B team's predictions for the year. The
Twins are going nowhere near the playoffs, the Dodgers are

(01:33:36):
an absolute dead sert, and we're really not sure who's
going to win the NL East. So basically exactly the
same as last year. I think that's it. That's it.
So the A team are going to be doing their
predictions very very very shortly, hopefully pull some stats together
then and we can see how they come they did
last year compared to the actual results and us and

(01:33:59):
we'll see who is the champions. I believe we would
be going three for three if we do all four
for four? Is it? If we? If we? I think
we basically wipe the wipe the floor with them every
year so far, So hopefully we're going to continue that
that trend. So do look out for that. As mentioned website,
you've got all those team previews coming up. Keep reading

(01:34:19):
them that, keep submitting that. If if you haven't done
anything so far, please please please, we do want to
hear from you. You can find all that at bat
flipsnerds dot com and of course you can find us
in all the usual places bat Flips, unscored nerds on
Twitter and backflips and Nerds on Blue Sky on Instagram
and and all those other good things too. So any
final words, Russell on the twenty twenty five season, It's.

Speaker 3 (01:34:40):
Going to be interesting, Like look at a lot of
the divisions that we have multiple people kind of in
and around the top. I don't think there are any
clear favorites, like outside the Dodgers. So I think this
is going to be a pretty amazing season and I'm
looking forward to it.

Speaker 2 (01:34:53):
Cool gav I would give everyone a word of advice,
if you want to save a couple of hours of
your life, don't bother you into the A teams projected projections.
Just have a look at the finishing position last year
because they're undoubtedly just going to choose exactly the same
those for those four. Don't think out of the box.

Speaker 1 (01:35:14):
Excell have done on that bombshell. Thank you very much.
That is That is time for us to end and
we will see you all next time. Thank you very much,