Episode 377 - The 2025 All-Breakout All-Stars - Bat Flips And Nerds

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Hello, and welcome to Battleps and Nerds, the baseball podcast
with a British twist. I am your host once again,
Russell easam, and I am delighted to be joined once
again by Ben.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
How are you doing, Ben?

Speaker 3 (00:26):
I'm good, Russell. He sounded a bit resigned there once
again by Ben Well.

Speaker 1 (00:30):
I was trying to go with the rhyming thing to
kind of like get it go, but I think it
didn't quite give it. Maybe the gravitas that you were
you were deserving. Otherwise the passion, the way that works
the one who if I then speak to our other
man who is one of us, Darius, that really didn't

(00:51):
work either, Darius, how are you doing?

Speaker 4 (00:53):
I'm good. Tottenham have won a trophy. All is right
with the world object terrible game of football were fitting
the two sides playing, but we'll take it.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
Yep.

Speaker 4 (01:05):
Yeah, so I'm good, Thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
Obviously from most Tottenham fans perspective, as a person who
lives right next to Arsenal's stadium, it's quite amusing to
hear them spend a year talking about how they're one
of the best teams in European football, and then Tottenham
winning trophy and they don't in European football, so that's hilarious.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
There has been a few.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
Talking points in baseball which will quickly cover before we
get through what our main aspect today. Today we're going
to walking through what we called the Surprising Nine. We're
going through the positions that we're each going to come
up with somebody who we think has prized us with
their performances so far this year, and to make that
good list of players that hopefully kind of like maybe
some of them will continue, some of them won't. But

(01:44):
we're just going to do a quick fire through of
the things that have happened in baseball. Darius, the Orioles
are bad. They got rid of their manager, who probably
wasn't the reason why they were bad. Do we have
any reason to think that they could be good?

Speaker 4 (01:58):
I mean, I think we have reason to believe that
the lineup will come around. I don't think we have
any reason to believe that the pitching is going to
be good. Not really clear if and or when Grace
and Rodriguez will come back, and the rest of it
is running on fumes, so they're too far gone. I
think now it don't think it particularly matters. I think

(02:21):
their playoff odds are down into the two three percent range.
I'm pretty sure it would be like one of, if
not the most implausible comebacks in Major League history. Now,
if they were to somehow turn this around and make
the playoffs, they've really just dropped so far out of
the race. So we'll see. I mean, strange things have
happened in baseball, but I think sixteen and thirty two

(02:42):
at this point in the season, that's that's a long
way back in the alist.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
Talking about the Al East.

Speaker 1 (02:48):
Then we had Soto taking a return visit to the Yankees.
What are your thoughts on the booing and the turning
around of the fans to Soto as he returned to
the Bronx.

Speaker 3 (03:02):
Great fun. It was all part of the rivalry weekend,
wasn't it, which had some quinde of odd rivalries sprinkled
in there. But obviously Mets Yankees I like the idea
of making that more of a rivalry because they don't
tend to see each other very often. And yeah, we
knew this was going to be fun with Sota coming
back and the way that whole thing played out over
the off season, and it seems like I mean, obviously
Yankees fans were very upset with him because he signed

(03:24):
with a different team, But it kind of seems like
Mets fans are turning on him a little bit too,
and not particularly happy with how he's performing, which I
know we discussed with Nick a few weeks back as
an overreaction because he has still been very good, and
you know, we're like six weeks into a twelve year contract.
Let's not get ahead of ourselves. But yeah, there does
seem to be a little bit of animosity from all
angles pointed towards so to at the moment, whether it

(03:44):
be because he didn't choose the Yankees, whether it be
a lack of effort, whether it be his defensive shortcomings.
So yeah, that was a strange one to keep an
eye on. But yeah, fun to see that rivalry get
things going a little bit in May. It's not often
you kind of see some of the atmospheres we saw
over the weekend at this time of season. So from
that front, I thought that was fun and exciting and
hopefully the sign of more to come from a rivalry

(04:05):
perspective across the sport.

Speaker 1 (04:06):
Yeah, Mets fans, some of the Mets fans and not
all of the Mets fans didn't cover themselves in particular
good vibes when Lindor first started and had like a
bit of a struggle exactly, so isn't new Otherwise when
we talk about the rivalry series, a lot of sweeps

(04:27):
over the weekend, a lot of sweep supply teams. We
were not expecting the Angels sweeping the Dodgers. I think
probably was something that none of us had on the cards.
But obviously the only other big news in baseball is
Jose Alvarado has now got an aid game suspension. We
hear the same thing of all I took a was

(04:48):
it a wait reduction medicine?

Speaker 2 (04:52):
I didn't do it.

Speaker 1 (04:53):
Yeah, I didn't expect this to happen. It's like go on,
boys and girls, like you're paid a lot of money,
Like you shouldn't be putting anything into your body that
you don't know what it is.

Speaker 3 (05:05):
Payton listening to Rob's quiz a few weeks ago.

Speaker 2 (05:11):
Quiz, so he didn't put the things that were not edible.

Speaker 3 (05:16):
The confusion.

Speaker 4 (05:16):
But the something of an industry is extremely unregulated. But
if I was in a profession whereby I was being
regularly tested for drugs, I would basically make sure I
checked it absolutely everything I put in my body to
ensure that I was not going to fail a drugs tests.
And the number of times this happens, it's like, woops,
didn't realize that was in there. It's just, yeah, I'm

(05:37):
not sure that that's really what's happening.

Speaker 1 (05:40):
And also given the fact that it's like obviously he's
not like on a massive contract or whatever, but that's
like two million, two million dollars he's thrown away basically
for being suspended.

Speaker 4 (05:50):
So yeah, maybe he thought it would give him better control.
I don't know. I'm not sure what Elvarado would need
to do this for. But here we are.

Speaker 1 (05:59):
Okay, so that's our quick trip around what's actually happened
in baseball. So now we're going to talk about the
Surprising nine. So we're going to start off with a catcher.
I haven't told Ben or Darius this, but I feel
like it is the place to start. I will go first,
given that I was the one who came up with

(06:19):
this idea, and I'm going to highlight Will Smith. I
don't think it's like this is not coming out of
the blocks with like, oh my god, this is suddenly
amazing that he's kind of like done this. But Will
Smith is playing at the best level I think that
we've seen him play. It's more back to the kind
of like that twenty twenty one year that we all

(06:41):
saw and was like, oh, like he's going to be
like one of the best like hitting catchers in baseball
and had they had a few years where he didn't
quite meet that those highs. But I think what he's
doing in that lineup is actually very important for the
Dodgers right now because they don't have the same level
of kind of depth in that lineup seem to have
towards last year, and his contributions have been.

Speaker 2 (07:05):
Pretty strong.

Speaker 1 (07:06):
Darius and Ben, Where where does that fall on your
scale of surprise?

Speaker 2 (07:11):
Is it? Is it a pretty mediocre one to start
off with.

Speaker 3 (07:14):
Yeah, I don't think it's a huge surprise because we've
seen Will Smith be good for a while. But you
are right, he's elevated his game this season and it's cool.
It's almost like Michael Jordan I took that personally meme
where the Dodgers, I feel like it's Dalton Rushing this season,
who's the sort of top catching prospect that they've caught
up and it's just completely elevated Will Smith's games another

(07:34):
level now, and I feel like that's happened before, and
forgetting who the Dodgers are, the sort of top catching
prospect was a couple of years ago. But you know,
Will Smith continues to be just so good that they
cannot move him off that position or move him out
of the lineup to fit these top guys in, even
though you know he's not quite as herald a or
wasn't certainly back as a prospect. But yeah, he's gone
from like a good solid piece in that line up
to maybe one of the best hitters on the team,

(07:56):
which says a lot when you're as strong as as
the Dodgers are. So I don't, yeah, I don't think
it's a horrible shout. He's been really good. He's raised
a level further than we thought he was going to
this season. But you know, I knew who Will Smith
was going into this year. I knew he was a
good player, So from that perspective, it's not a huge
surprise to see him have a very good six weeks
to start the season.

Speaker 1 (08:13):
Darius, Where would this be on the percentile from Baseball prostectors.

Speaker 4 (08:21):
Pretty high up. I think probably in the eighty to
ninety range, I would guess, without having looked, I'm not
sure what Smith's protection was. He's always been a comfortably
above average hitter, so it's not a shock that he
is productive. But as you say, this is the most
productive stretch of his career, even including I think twenty twenty,

(08:41):
which obviously was not very many games. This is a
new level for him. So yeah, we're towards the upper end.
I tended to shy away from the guys with pedigree,
the guys who have a track record of being great players,
just because I am less surprised when they have hot
stretches like this. If we gets to the end of
the season and you know, he's still got a nine

(09:03):
to fifty ops, then I'll probably be a bit more
surprised than I am now. I guess this is this
is like, you know, decent team ending up in the
Champions League kind of level of surprise for me, I suppose,
which we don't know who's in the Champions League this year,
but that's that's where I'm at. I'm not shocked that
he's going great, but it's better that's less less shocking

(09:25):
than that, much less shocking than that.

Speaker 1 (09:29):
Okay, Darius, giving to that thought, who was who is
your catcher that you've decided to highlight.

Speaker 4 (09:34):
I've gone for Ivon Herrera, which is a slightly weird
one because he got hurt and missed a few weeks.
But when he's been on the field, he has been
absolutely mashing the Cards. Obviously cleared out the catcher spot
by moving Contrarast to first base, and currently Ivan Herre
is slashing four seventeen four eighty six, seven sixty seven.
That's good for a two forty four ops plus. He's

(09:58):
really mashing the ball as well. Well. He's one of
the guys that if you go up to the top
of the old stack cast leaderboard, he's right there. A
few lower those thresholds, he's in eighteenth. He's barreling eleven
point four percent in his plate appearances. Yeah, it just
looks like a really, really good offensive catcher. So Cards
seem to have made a good move clearing up that

(10:19):
playing time for him. I'm sure this level of performance
won't continue, but he genuinely seems like he's going to
be a real offensive weapon for them going forward.

Speaker 2 (10:28):
Your thoughts on that.

Speaker 3 (10:28):
I will confess to having watched zero Ivan Herrera play
appearances so far in twenty twenty five. But the stats
speak for themselves. I mean, his numbers are very impressive,
and as I Sari have said, the supporting metrics seem
to show that he can hit the ball very, very hard,
and if you can do that, you're going to generally
be a pretty good hitter. The Cardinals have got a
good track record of developing catchers, I'd say, And so, yeah,

(10:52):
this is an exciting one. And well, as you can tell,
not someone that I really had on my radar coming
into this season. So I say, on the surprise, you know,
scale pretty high up. Trying to think of an adequate comparison.
Maybe Leinster getting knocked out of the Champions Cup by
Northampton Saints. That's one for the rugby fans.

Speaker 1 (11:11):
Yeah, I think I would be surprised if this was
one hundred and forty play play. It's worth of one
hundred and forty plate appearance worth. We're not like the
seventy to eighty that kind of like it actually is.
He has missed some times, so those outlandish numbers kind
of get. It's still lost in the fact that, like
we know, like some people can just go hot, some

(11:32):
people can just go like mental. For like it's effectively
less than twenty games, it's still like remarkable, but because
it's such like a small sample size, it's more like no, no,
like they'll say even to take this season, like the
Padres starting the season like eleven and o or whatever,
twelve and o wherever they got to. So it's like

(11:54):
it's something you could believe. It was still surprising that
it actually happened, but kind of it then fizzled out
and didn't kind of like continue on.

Speaker 2 (12:04):
With that, I mean.

Speaker 1 (12:04):
Obviously, especially like with what's kind of happened. I think
I would say to Ben's point, I have seen I
think three of his plate appearances. I think I any
watched the card to play one game so far this season,
So from a actually watching game perspective, I do not
have much knowledge on him. Ben, round us off with

(12:26):
the catchers. Who are you going for?

Speaker 3 (12:27):
Yeah? I threatened this before we started, but I've gone
for Colorado Rocky here, And anytime you can get a
player in on a team that's eight and forty one,
you just have to do it. So I'm shouting out
my guy Hunter Goodman, who has been one of the
only bright spots in yeah, a black hole of darkness
for the Rockies this season. Certainly not someone that anyone

(12:47):
would have had on the railer coming into this year
unless you were a really die hard Rockies fan, but
he's been great. One hundred and fourteen WRC plus, one
of the only good hitters in Colorado. I don't know
if I see this continuing. His plaid spin is not great.
He strikes out a lot, but he hits the ball hard.
And like, if you're a catcher who hit who has
power and is you know, okay behind the plate, which

(13:08):
Goodman is, then you know that that probably plays. And
so for the Rockies, that's, you know, something good to
hang your hat on. I don't think he's going to
be an All Star, don't think it's going to be,
you know, in the running for any awards at the
end of the season, but he's been good and I
just wanted to give him a shout out. On the
sort of surprise rankings, I compared this to the number

(13:32):
five seeded Chinese Taipe pay pair of Cheng ea Ching
and Lead Yu Jun falling to the unseeded career of
public duo with Kim Nayong and Lie Yun Kai. Sorry
for the pronunciation. In the twenty twenty five it t
TF World Championships. This year undoubtedly a very big upset.
Unfortunately no one cares deep.

Speaker 4 (13:49):
Cut that was. That was a real deep cut.

Speaker 3 (13:51):
But facing the Rockies, that's really exactly if a tree
falls in the words, if Huntter Goodman has a breakout
season for the twelve winning Colorado Rockies, does anyone?

Speaker 1 (14:00):
But it was like that I saw somebody hit like
a their first home run at the Rocky Stadium, and
like the fan gave the ball back and he was
like and got he got a back given to and
he's like, oh, this is great. I've only just been
getting into baseball like this year, and it's like and
he's going to Rockies games. You're like, like, all right,
we will move on to first base this time. And

(14:24):
I think I'll go first again and have to kind
of maybe get a bit of a mayor culpa, because
there was definitely a few times in towards the end
of last season and before the start of this season
that I've called someone Paul old Schmidt and I'm kind
of being made to eat my words so far this
season with with with Goldie's performance, is it, I'm still

(14:47):
not It's surprising to me, given I think the stretch
of like how bad he had basically performed in the
in the last few seasons, that a trip up to
Manhattan has basically taken him from base he hitting at
what was basically just got himself down to like league average,
and he's now back up to I think he's sat
at basically some close to basically his career highs as

(15:11):
he is right now. Is it lineup protection? Is it
kind of like is it a torpedo bat? I don't know,
but like Goldie is looking every bit of the player
that he did in like twenty fifteen twenty sixteen, which
is utterly remarkable as far as I'm concerned. One for me,
I would put this one with the three and one

(15:33):
come back for the Cavaliers in twenty sixteen against the
against the Golden State Warriors. Looked like dead and buried
and somehow has kind of made his way back to
almost a victory.

Speaker 4 (15:45):
Darius Cord his way back from elimination.

Speaker 2 (15:49):
Yeah, I laughed at the contract, but the Yankees signed him.

Speaker 4 (15:52):
I kind of like this deal, So I didn't think
about this one. You're right that, given his age, that
is somewhat surprising that he has bounced back to this level.
I don't think he is back to peak belge Bit level.
I think we'll see that regress a little bit. But
I loved the fit. I thought it was a great
place for a left handed to hit, obviously, and I

(16:12):
thought it would be a nice bounce back opportunity for
him that the power is down. I think you know
that there's been a bit of good fortune on the
bad balls. I think you'll see this much closer to
a league average line by the end of the year.
But I did think that he could be a respectable,
useful every day here for that lineup, and it looks
like that's going to be a good.

Speaker 3 (16:31):
As much as I'd love to say that I also
saw this coming, I didn't, so I'm going to issue
a Mayo Copper two. Although I'm going to mostly blame
you for this, Russ, But I also thought that Goldman
was cooked and that, you know, his his days of
being productive were over. But I could not be more
delighted to have been wrong. I mean, he's a really
fun player was so good for so long, obviously in

(16:52):
Arizona and then in then Saint Lewis, and it's yeah,
fun to see him be great again in the middle
of that lineup. And yeah, as Darius said, I don't
see this lasting all season, and certainly at his age,
you know, it feels like the wear and tear of
a year or injuries could could easily take their toll.
But a really fun renaissance even if that's all it
is from Goldschmidt so far this season. Cool to see him, yeah,

(17:15):
back up there showing he can still do it at
the top level at age thirty seven. One of the
guys who was kind of coming up when I first
got into the sport. So it's fun to see him
still sort of hanging about and being productive. So yeah,
I like that. Cool credit to Paul gold Schmidt Darrins.

Speaker 2 (17:29):
What Are You Going to Go? Which is a far
more niche pick Aranda.

Speaker 4 (17:34):
I had two names of my list. One of them
is Randa. See I'll take Jonathan Randa, maybe Ben will
take the other. Anyway, Jonathan Randa is one of those
guys who it feels like we've been talking about him,
you know, as a guy break through this year for
five years, maybe like four or five years, which is
not far off. He did first come up in twenty

(17:54):
twenty two, and the Rays being the race, he's never
quite found the playing time to show it, and when
he has played, he's never really been super impressive, so
of course sort of forced their hand until this year,
and now he does look like that real offensive force.
He's kind of tailed off a little bit since a
super hot start, but he's still one fifty seven wrs

(18:17):
plus right now, and he looks like he has finally
lift up to some of that potential. So I wouldn't
say that I was like super shocks, because there was
always this buzz that like, yeah, the Ray is still
believing around there, and you know, whenever the playing time
clears up, they'll they'll find room for him. But it
was starting to feel a little bit like, you know,

(18:38):
we've waited too long. This feels a bit like maybe
what's the come for this, Like you know, Peyton Manning
winning that second Super Bowl, you know where it seemed
like the window had gone and then and then he came.
And not that he had that much to do with
that Super Bowl, that was all the defense, but you
know what I mean. We had to wait, but finally
it's happened.

Speaker 2 (18:58):
I like it.

Speaker 1 (19:00):
Yeah, I think you mentioned it like I think he
is probably like breakout candidate, breakout candidate, breakout candidate, breakout candidate,
and the joke of somebody who actually probably still is
a breakout candidate because he's not broken out so many
times that if you call it, it's like the what's
the other one? It's like a clock is a broken
clock is right two times in a day. So if

(19:23):
you say he's going to break out every single time,
like at some point someone might just break out. But
you know, it's good to see him do that. And
obviously with the race setup it's always a bit of
a with then wheeling and dealing and moving players in
and around quite often. This he's finally got this opportunity
to to do well. Ben, who have you gone for

(19:45):
as a first baseman?

Speaker 3 (19:46):
It was a roundabout way of getting there, But now
he's broken out. Sorry, I was workshopping in my brain
for the last sixty seconds, but I think I would
have stuck the landing the player I've gone with. I
don't know if this is the one Darius was considering,
but it's Spencer Talk. We have talked about him on
the pod before about his sort of breakup start of
the year. Again, another guy, maybe even more so than Miranda,

(20:08):
that we all had been waiting for the breakout to
come from. He was once i think one of the
top hitting prospects in baseball, certainly a guy that was
seen as almost a can't miss hitter. Like you know,
there's always the question about he's not going to be
a great defender. He may be a DH fairly soon,
but he's going to rake at the big league level
and he just had not been able to do that
until this season, and it kind of felt like this
was very much his last chance. But he's tapping into

(20:30):
that power. I think he's up to twelve or thirteen
home runs now. His statcast page has a ton of
red on it. It's, you know, all the good stuff
when it comes to barrowing the ball up and hitting
the ball hard. He draws walks, he's cut the strikeouts down.
So yeah, there's reason to believe that this is a
real breakout. And as we say, maybe not shocking because
a guy that everyone knew about and who had been

(20:52):
you know, talked about as the next great hitter on
the Tigers for a number of years now, but he
really made us wait for it. So yeah, my comp
was actually Spurs in the Europa League. Like, you knew
the talent was there, but you didn't think it would
take this long for it to happen. So yeah, good
for Spencer Talkerson to to finally have his moment and
a big part of why the Tigers obviously have had
such a good start to the season.

Speaker 1 (21:11):
Yeah, another guy who is what a very very high
prospect at some point, was he who had been the
top ten at most places he.

Speaker 4 (21:20):
Would have been Yeah, I don't I don't know if
anybody would have had him number one overall, but I'm
sure people would have had him top five. He was considered, Yeah,
can't miss, no doubt, slam dunk, you know, middle of
the autoto hitter. Yeah, it looks like MLB had him
third at one point. BA had him fifth two consecutive years.
We had him fourth at BP the year before he

(21:42):
was called up, So yeah, everybody thought this guy was
a you know, no doubt, going to really succeed right away,
really polished college hitter, and actually it took him four years.
Baseball is hard.

Speaker 2 (21:53):
Baseball is hard. Okay, we were on a second base.

Speaker 1 (21:57):
I'll let somebody else go first this time, Darius, who
you want to take a pick from?

Speaker 4 (22:01):
I'm going to take Tommy Tanks. Tommy Edmund somehow becoming
a power hitter at this point in his career, which
a just if you said at any point in Tommy
Edmund's career that he was a power hitter, I think
people would have been like, what, because you know, we've
all seen Tommy Edmond. He's not a big guy. He
looks like most of what Tommy Edmund's game is, which is,

(22:23):
you know, speedy, utility guy, guy that you love to
have in your team, does a little bit of everything.
Definitely not going to hit more than thirteen home runs,
which is his career high. He has eight through one
hundred and thirty five plate appearances, and he seems to
have figured out how to really tap into the limited
amount of strength he does have, and he seems to

(22:45):
have done it a bit by sort of embracing that
his power from the right hand side of the plate.
Ben Clemens wrote a good I think was Ben Cubins Now.
Dave Andrews wrote a good piece about this at fangross
about Edmund sort of really leading into swinging hard from
that side of the plate. So he's got this massive
platoon spit where he's sort of got no power as

(23:05):
a lefty switch here and lots of power as a righty,
which is quite interesting in itself. So always kind of
like Tommy Edmund, fun guy to watch play. Obviously, the
poor Dodgers need another breakout candidate, So Dodgers, it's so Dodgers. Yeah, absolutely, So.
I feel like this is a bit like when Ryan

(23:27):
Giggs was sort of, you know, the speedy winger was
that was what he was, and he was coming into
the twilight of his career and he suddenly just became
this like genius central midfielder, playmaker type, completely different from
what he was in the rest of his career when
everybody was like, oh, he's, you know, thirty four, he's
going to retire soon, and then suddenly he was a
different guy completely.

Speaker 3 (23:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (23:47):
I think obviously like beloved in LA for his involvement
in obviously getting the that World series last year, but
it was it's remarkable to see like how much when
I was out of the games, like how much they
did like love him, like he was one of the
people who got like the response that you would expect
like some of the top players to get, but.

Speaker 2 (24:09):
Him and Key k.

Speaker 1 (24:11):
Were beloved by that Dodgers fat group, Ben, who is
your second base?

Speaker 3 (24:17):
I'm sticking with the Tigers. I'm taking Clavor Torres again.
I'll hear arguments that he doesn't count, because you know,
he's been a good player for a while, and before
that was a well known prospect, so it's not exactly
a name that people won't have heard of. But he's
shown signs of being a very different and more productive
player so far this year with the Tigers. He's actually

(24:37):
walking more than he strikes out so far this season,
which he never showed that kind of plate discipline with
the Yankees, and those are some of the quickest metrics
to kind of stabilize over the course of the season.
So although it's a fairly small sample, I think we
can probably safely say he's made some kind of adjustment
the plate that allows him to yeah to see the
ball a lot better, draw more walks, and strike out less,
which is always a good recipe as as a hitter.

(25:00):
Obviously passed its one hundred and twenty nine, which is
obviously a good number, and yeah, he you know, he's
not flashy. Still, it's not going to be thirty home runs,
it's not going to be thirty steals. But he plays
okay defense and he's putting a bat on the ball
and hitting it hard and walking a decent clip. So
that's a good productive player. And you know, not that
he was a bad player with the Yankees, but I

(25:20):
think we all saw him into free agency as like
a stay away candidate because his profile didn't look great.
He's obviously entering the back end of his twenties. There's
all the height that always comes with Yankees players, where
you kind of think once they go somewhere else, they're
not going to be quite as good. But actually he's
been nothing but productive so far, along with Torcusin, along
with bayas players who've stepped up when the Tigers needed

(25:42):
them to and become really important, you know, members of
that lineup. So, yeah, not the sexy pick of a
guy that no one heard of coming into this season,
but I wanted to shout out Labor for showing signs
of becoming a much more polished or round hitter, and yeah,
a very good player for for the Tigers. Oh my
comp this is like a huh ah, didn't expect that.

(26:02):
So I've just put this down as Southampton holding city
to a no and Neil draw a couple of weeks back, Like, oh, yeah,
I mean that will happen sometimes. I just didn't think
maybe the once to do it.

Speaker 1 (26:11):
Yeah, I think that's a pretty reasonable comparison. I think
I might have said this at least to Darius and
a few other people, that I've been a believer in
Labor for probably too long in the last like three
years to be that like now, his underlying metrics show
that like he's he should he should bounce back, he
should bounce back, he should bounce back, and well this

(26:31):
year he finally has. Maybe it's the same way were
seeing it around as a breakout Candida Labor has been
that bounce back. Karen did it for for a few years.
So this one is the one that I've believed in
but didn't necessarily know that was gonna was gonna happen for.

Speaker 2 (26:45):
For for a while.

Speaker 1 (26:46):
But uh, I wrong early, Yeah, Darius, any thoughts on Labor.

Speaker 4 (26:53):
Yeah, it's it's interesting to see the evolution. I think
Scott Harris has done a pretty good job with the
players he's acquired. You know, he hasn't done a lot
of missing. I think he's obviously a pretty shrewd talent evaluator.
And yeah, Glabur's improvement seem pretty legit. He has always
been kind of a devis divisive guy, I think, so, yeah,

(27:15):
good to see him rebounding and making this Tigers team
actually pretty much like a genuine threat to go Viara
in the postseason this year, which is a weird thing
to be saying, but I seem to be keeping it up,
so yeah, long may it continue?

Speaker 1 (27:31):
Yeah, it's for me, It's like And then I looked
at second second base and I looked at a few
people to be like, is there actually anybody really massively
standing out in this position to be what kind of
was better than they were? And I kind of just
came back to I think we just have to talk
about Brendan Donovan being like he's being He's progressing from
being good to potentially being like great, Like this could

(27:54):
be like a five war season out of him. This
could be like someone who is like should be on
that All Star team come the end of the season. Now,
and he's played a lot of positions and whether is
he probably still actually technically a second baseman, probably just
but I think looking at like some of his numbers

(28:16):
this season, like he's actually kind of like getting there.
He doesn't have a he's got a pretty still got
a reasonable babbit that's above maybe what you would expect,
but it's not looking like to outlandish from kind of
like the underlying figures. And so him kind of taking
that step further forward and that kind of like that
continued kind of progression is you're kind of going like, oh,

(28:38):
like this is actually now something that like we should
kind of really think about and actually do we have
to start to consider him about being kind of like
one of the the bigger hitters, Like my, my, My
sporting comparison would be like, oh, it's like do we
think not Ingham Forest might actually be like a good
football team watching their performances in the last qw s

(29:00):
in the Premier League, being like, oh, actually, do I
have to think about them being a tough at bad
or a tough team to play against next season?

Speaker 4 (29:08):
Devil Magic, Yeah I can say that, all right, well answer.

Speaker 1 (29:11):
But yeah, we'll moved swiftly on to third base. Then, Ben,
do you want to lead us off this time, I can.

Speaker 3 (29:18):
Yeah, I struggled a bit with this one. I could
re see anyone that I loved who You know, I
didn't come into this year thinking would be would be
rubbish and has turned out to be great. So I've
maybe gone for a bit of a cop out answer
in isaac parades of the Astros. Who again, I think
we all thought was going to be pretty good this year.
He's he was pretty good last year, has been pretty
good for a few years now. But I think rightly

(29:40):
we all saw his pool heavy, right handed swing and
thought that's going to line up well with the craw
for boxes in Houston, and sure enough it has. And
you know he's he's hitting for power using that that
short porch. But he's also showed improved plate discipline again
that walks up strikeouts down. He's making hard contact to well,

(30:00):
I was gonna say to all fields, but it's mostly
just to left field. But yeah, he's showing signs of
being maybe even better than he was the last couple
of years and taking his game to the next step again,
like he's probably gonna put up career best power numbers.
How much you want to attribute that to yeah, the
ballparker is up to you, but I think, you know,
like at the end of the day, run production is
run production wherever you play, and I think he deserves

(30:21):
credit for matching up his skills with the field he
plays at. So yeah, shout out to Praide's a guy
who I think we all saw as a guy who could,
you know, if not break out, have a career year
this year taking advantage of where he's playing, and he
seems to be doing it.

Speaker 2 (30:35):
Darius, your third basement.

Speaker 4 (30:38):
I have gone for the Kansas City Rars. Mike el
Garcia's currently hitting three point fifteen been worth one point
six war. Looks like a very handy piece for that team,
which is, you know, not scuffling a bit, but yeah,
approach of the plate, it's great, doesn't strike out a lot,
and just kind of a good all around guy. I

(30:59):
don't think this will continue. It's not the kind of
thing that I'm looking at the stats and going, yeah,
I think this guy is going to be like the
third best third basement in baseball at the end of
the year. Seems like it's a mirage, but fun to
watch what it lasts, and I think it's a He's
a good, good complimentary piece for that that world's.

Speaker 1 (31:19):
Too yes and to or go finish this kind of
quick fire round of the basement, I'm going to take
Zach mcinstry. Do I think that his performances are going
to continue? Kind of know, when you have a twenty
five percent strikeout rate, and in Major League Baseball, it's
never really a good sign that things are going to come.

(31:42):
But he has hit well, has it like and it's
kind of like has a good solid walk rate for
him up in twelve percent. Another one of these players
that's just kind of doesn't really have like power, doesn't
really have speed, but it's kind of been a solid
part of that line up at Detroit this year and
it's kind of enabled kind of has been driven in

(32:05):
if a few times by the other guys on that
lineup that have kind of taken that that approach. So
for one for me that I was I was surprised.
I thought kind of mcinstry's days as were numbered as
kind of one of these kind of like utility players
who probably isn't quite good enough to to get an
actual kind of like starting position, but he seems to

(32:25):
have got that in pretty much lockdown now at Detroit
obviously kind of still in that super utail role, but
has has definitely probably potentially playing like the season of
his career.

Speaker 4 (32:38):
We're picking a lot of Tigers here. I don't know
what this says about the Tigers.

Speaker 2 (32:44):
It says we were all a little bit surprised.

Speaker 1 (32:48):
Does say that, yeah, okay, we were final position of
the infield to shortstop And I'm going to go first
so I can get the really easy answer, Heraldo Padomo.

Speaker 2 (33:02):
Do we all just want to say snap?

Speaker 3 (33:03):
Here?

Speaker 1 (33:03):
We can move quickly on if someone actually definitely snap.

Speaker 4 (33:08):
Yeah, this is by far the most surprising thing that's
happening sure stop this year.

Speaker 2 (33:11):
Yeah, I did.

Speaker 1 (33:14):
I did a tiny bit of analysis for this, comparing
the Zips productions to the start of the season to
what effectively kind of like they're on pace productions are
for the rest of the season. And Poedomo had a
basically a two point was it two point two war
protection for the start of the season. He has kind

(33:34):
of already passed that at two point eight, and currently
the estimate that I have him roughly at is about
nine point one. If he was to continue this for
kind of like potentially like for the rest of the season,
which is a bit ridiculous when you.

Speaker 2 (33:51):
Think about it.

Speaker 1 (33:53):
I don't think anybody quite thought that Harald Podomo was
a close to ten War player. Even probably the mother
did not think that highly of him. So it's one
of those ones where you're just like, they gave him
that contract, and I think everybody was a little bit
just like, oh, yeah, okay, he's a good bit part
player like that. That's a solid thing to kind of

(34:16):
like you've got to have a few of those guys
to kind of like fill in and be like the
bottom of the lineup. But it's good to kind of
know who those guys are going to be. Oh wait, no,
he's actually now the best player on your team. He's
better than Corby and Carroll is better than can Tell Marte.
This this, this one is is a shock to me.
This is this is a like a wig In winning

(34:37):
the FA Cup sort of level of kind of like
a level of shock to me.

Speaker 2 (34:41):
Ben.

Speaker 3 (34:42):
You know, yeah, I keep waiting for him to plummet
down the War leader board, and he keeps rising higher.
If anything. This yeah, it's been a pretty remarkable start
to the season. I think in my brain I see
his name and I think of Luis Paedomo, and I'm like,
that guy's not good at baseball. Just looked him up.
He's apparently playing in Japan now. But yeah, Heraldo clearly

(35:02):
legit this. This has been really impressive to start the season.
Like you say, I mean, the Dbacks have some very
talented young players, and he maybe is looking like being
the best of them. I mean, a nine win pace
is insane. He's put himself among the game's elite shortstops.
And look, let's not get totally carried away. It is
still only a couple of months into the season, and
I imagine he will slow down this pace somewhat over
the rest of the year. I don't think he's a

(35:22):
nine win player. I'm happy to be prove him wrong.
But yeah, what an amazing breakout year he's having that
it does feel like people aren't really talking about I like,
maybe that's just because all I ever see on social
media is Otani's recent home run or you know, Mets
fans being Soto. But it kind of feels like it's
gone a bit under the radar because I guess he's
not hitting tape measure home runs and he's not doing

(35:42):
the stuff that they really grabs your attention from a
highlights perspective. But yeah, he just keeps putting up quality
at bats and racking up the wins above replacement and
at this point we can't ignore it any longer. So
I also had him as my shortstop breakout candidate Darius.

Speaker 4 (35:56):
Yeah, I also wrote down Pidomo this is pretty shocking.
I think, like you, it was. You know, he's fine,
It's a decent like you know, averagish kind of players,
good defender, not going to hit him a lot. So
I am shocked to see this level of performance. I
think if he made it to the end of the season
then it would be like this. Then it would be

(36:17):
Leicester City when the Premier League levels performance we'll see
as a long way to go yet, I think I
don't think that that hitting will be where it is
now in four months time. But incredibly impressive start and
Diane Baxter looking very clever right now. I guess the
other guy I was thinking about is Jacob Wilson for
the AIDS. Also looks like a very handy ball player,

(36:42):
and I think you know he was he was a
good prospect. But I think everybody said, you know, the
question is is he going to hit enough? And right
now he does look like he's not only going to
be that, you know, Luisa Rice Stephen quan type player,
but also that he might might have a little bit
more power than people thought. And I think if Wilson's
even a double digit home run guy with his defensive skills,

(37:05):
then he's going to be a very good player of
the A's for a very long time. So I'm also
surprised to see how well he is hitting.

Speaker 1 (37:10):
So yeah, I think I can maybe take an early
victory lap on One of my breakout players that we
predicted ear the on of the season was Jacob Wilson.
I can be completely nottly benched and probably thrown into
the the rubbish bin for my predictions on Brian Rochio
as another short stop.

Speaker 4 (37:34):
Do they cancel each other out?

Speaker 2 (37:35):
They cancel each other out?

Speaker 1 (37:36):
Probably probably predictions point of view, doesn't really cancel each
other out. From Cleveland's point of view, sadly, the one
that basically has basically been garbage and has been demoted
to driple a is the one on my team. Okay,
let's hit the outfield. I don't know, I don't particularly

(37:57):
kind of want to go left field, right field, center
field here. So we'll just kind of work our way
through multiple different outfielders. If we've got probably nine in
total that we'll kind of talk through. Ben, I'll let
you go first.

Speaker 3 (38:10):
I'll take the easy one. Then I'll take Pete crow Armstrong.
I think we all liked him as a player as
a prospect and thought he was going to be good.
I don't think we thought he was going to be
one of the best players in baseball good in his
rookie season, which is kind of what he's been. And yeah,
he's got it all. He's got the hitting ability that
I think is far beyond where we thought he was
going to be for this stage of his career. He's

(38:32):
putting up great numbers at the plate, partly because he
stretches every single into a double and every double into
a triple, which does help your batting line. But also
he's just, yeah, I think much more advance as a
hitter than we thought he was going to be. And
then you add on to that obviously the speed and
the defense, which you know, the metrics absolutely love him
out there in center field, and the he passes the
eyetes too, like he is making game changing players for

(38:54):
the Cubs seemingly, you know, almost every night at this point,
so rare that you see a guy as a rookie
become immediately the best player on their team. And the
only appropriate comeback to think of, and I almost feel
bad putting this on him at this point is Mike
Trout putting up ten wins as a rookie. It kind
of feels like Petekra Armstrong is doing Mike Trout's sort
of stuff so far this season. Not gonna drag that

(39:17):
comparison out too much because again unfair to PCA, but
he's he's looking like, yeah, that kind of one of
the best players in baseball players at this station in
his career, and that is a very exciting prospect for
Cubs fans.

Speaker 1 (39:28):
Yeah, last week I was wax and Miracle still continues
to do amazing he is. To me, it's it's Ken
Griffey level stuff at center. It's like it's that combination
of defense, speed, and power, which as much as we
love Trout, he never quite kind of like combined all
of those three things together. Like at the same time, Darius,

(39:49):
are there any more superlatives that we need to say
about PCA?

Speaker 4 (39:52):
I don't think so. No, much like Wilson. I guess
the question was how much is he going to hit?
I don't think anybody doubted how good he was defensively,
and so far it looks like he's going to hit
quite a bit. Doesn't need to hit this much to
be an immensely valuable player, but if he does, then
he's going to be, you know, a perennial All Star
MVP candidate. He can keep up anything like this level

(40:13):
of offensive performance.

Speaker 1 (40:14):
Yep, all right, onto you, Darius, to give us another outfielder.

Speaker 4 (40:18):
I've got another Rocky. I did actually have a look
at leftfield, Tenierfield and Ryefield and the left field I've
put Jordan Beck, who is much like his mate Hunter Goodman,
doing his level best to have a respectable season amidst
this absolute train wreck of a team. Yeah, Jordan Beck
is he's got an eight to sixty three APS. Is

(40:39):
one of the very rare Rockies who's actually above average offensively.
I think there might only be three of them, and
Ezequiel Tabor is barely there, so it's basically just Beck
and Goodman. Ben may have more to say about what
he thinks of the long term longevity, but yeah, he
seems like he's got a good, good all around game
and he's twenty four year old, to a little bit

(41:01):
of hope for the future maybe maybe.

Speaker 3 (41:03):
Yeah, it's been good to see from god Don Beck,
and I will hold my hands up. I did not
have him down as a Rocky I thought was going
to be doing this this season. You know, at first
I thought he was honestly blocking playing time for Zach Viane,
who felt like a much more likely breakout candidate, and
that has not been the case at all. And Beck
has really hit the ball hard, So yeah, I agree
that I don't know he's going to keep this up

(41:25):
long term. The strikeout rate is pretty alarming, but the
power is legit, and you know, he's young and he'll
have time to work this out a little bit more.
It's certainly a very good step forward from where he
was last season, where he looked very lost at the
plate in the sort of limited playing time that he got.
So yeah, look, not many silver linings on this extremely
dark cloud of a season for the Rockies, but Beck
can put his hand up and be pretty proud of

(41:46):
his performances so far. So yeah, hopefully he can continue
to Rake in the rest of the season.

Speaker 1 (41:51):
Yes, so I will take I will go to another
team that has not particularly played well, but someone has
showed not any ridiculous level of before so far, and
that is Kyle Stowers for the Miami Marlins. Stowers came
across with Norby and the Trevor Rodgers deal and did
not look particularly good at playing baseball last year. And

(42:14):
once again I was doing the have Miami somehow managed
to get a good player trade them and somehow immediately
lose the trade like they seem to do in every
single major trade that they've ever done. But in this season,
he's after coming out with he's hit ten home runs already,
to have like power that we just not would not

(42:36):
be expecting like at all. And yeah, I think he's
He obviously still has that high strikeout rate, which is
the the alarming side to it. He's got a pretty
high babbit behind what he's done so far, but having
that one hundred and fifty five WRC plus is just
something that was not expected like whatsoever and kind of

(42:59):
was really kind of like expecting him to kind of
just be another one of those kind of failed rejects
at kind of at that kind of like at that level,
but as somehow kind of shown that maybe like he
there is a little bit more to him than then
meets the eye, and maybe Baltimore were a little bit
loose in letting him go early. I try to think

(43:21):
back on like who this could be or something like
that I maybe go with. I'm trying to think of
some of the footballers who've been loaned out and then
turned out they had to buy them back. Not quite
going to say he's sadder level of a bad business yet,
but that could be.

Speaker 2 (43:37):
I could be where this where this is at at
some point.

Speaker 4 (43:39):
That might be in the pressure a little bit too
high at this point in his career, but the Orophones
could certainly do with some offense right now.

Speaker 3 (43:46):
Styles on my list as well. Yeah he's he's been
really good, and yeah it's like nice, you know, for
their minds to have something to cheerful a team that
have not had a time of players who've lived up
to the prospect hype. I think I'm probably sick of
acquiring guys who have got pedigree and then seeing them
sadly flame out of the major league level. Star wars
seems to be at least for a short period bucking

(44:07):
that trend and looking comfortable against major league pitching. So yeah,
I don't know how much this will continue at the
current level given the strikeouts, but he's, you know, he's
I think he's going to be a legit power hitter
and that that will play so good for him and
good for Marlins fans.

Speaker 2 (44:24):
All right, Ben, give us another one.

Speaker 3 (44:25):
Then we should talk about James Wood. I guess I
thought this guy was going to suck. I don't really
know why. I think I just saw how big he
was and that he struck out loads in the minors,
and I was like, this is just not going to
work on a major league level, Like he's going to
get figured out by you know, elite level Velo's going
to get figured out by elite level pitching, and he's
going to be, you know, a Joey Gallo type who, yeah, okay,

(44:46):
hits the occasional take measure home run, but just isn't
contributing enough outside of that to be worthy of the
prosper ranking he was given and worthy of obviously being
the sort of blockbuster name in the Soso trade. Well,
I was dead wrong. He looks at every part the
accomplished power hitter that the power is obviously thegit. I
think his stack cast exit vela numbers are like gian

(45:08):
Carlo Stanton esque in terms of the upper end of
those figures, which hugely a good sign when you hit
the ball that hard. But he's also you know, he
is still striking out a lot, but he's drawing walks
and he's somehow maintaining pretty high babbit so you know,
he's hitting to eighty five, it's not like he's hitting
two hundred and so he's turned into, yeah, a really
legit player, stealing a few bases too. He looks like

(45:29):
he's a decent athlete in the outfield too, certainly got
a strong arm, So yeah, look a Maya kulper I
thought Wood was going to be someone who took a
while to figure out major league pitching and maybe never would,
and he seems to have figured it out in his
second season and looks like he's going to be at
the heart of that that National sign up for years
to come. So probably not a shock for guys like

(45:49):
you who actually thought Wood was as good as as
the prospect list said he was, but for me a
bit of a surprise to see him be quite as
accomplish as he has been so far this year.

Speaker 2 (45:58):
I think Darius can take us.

Speaker 4 (46:00):
Well, I'm not surprised why James would been good.

Speaker 2 (46:01):
So I think maybe you're surprised he's this good like
me straight away.

Speaker 4 (46:07):
I'm a little bit surprised he's this good this quickly.
Like you know, I think you expect some level of
learning curve. But yeah, I don't think if you'd said
to me James would will be one of the best,
it is the best forall this season. I would have
been that shot.

Speaker 1 (46:22):
To be honest, Darius, give us someone who has been
surprising to you, then.

Speaker 4 (46:27):
Well let me tell you Trent Grisham, what is happening here.
Trent Grisham wasn't even supposed to play, like he was
just going to be the fourth outfielder for the Yankees,
and you know, they've had some injuries and Aaron Judge
isn't really a center fielder, and Trent Grisham's just kind
of forced their hand and made them play him every

(46:49):
day because somehow he is not only return to former
levels that you know, made people think he might be
a great player enter in his career, but faster pass
them is it twelve home runs already, he's got a
nine forty two ops. This is all like, yeah, age
age twenty eight, mega breakout, it seems like, and it

(47:12):
sounds like it's mostly happened just because he's decided to
be a bit less passive at the plate. He's not
taking quite as many walks as he used to, but
he's more than made up up for it with that power.
So yeah, well we'll see whether we can keep it
up all season. I know a lot of people were
sort of on the Grishian bandwagon for a long time
and he bounced around and never quite seemed to keep

(47:33):
up that level of talent. But yeah, I thought Tranent
Grisham was going to get like two hundred and fifty
play appearances this year. I certainly didn't expect him to
be one of the better center fielders in the Mages.

Speaker 1 (47:43):
Yeah, I think it's one that's definitely shocked a lot
of us. Given like that outfield, there was possibilities because
did you, like, what do you think of like you're
going to get from Jason Domingers and a few of
the others that were there. But Grisham, he's had had
to earn that seat, and he's kind of kept it in,

(48:03):
kept it going. I think I'll go for something that's
maybe quite similar to that. Then in Javier Baias, like
what on earth's going on here?

Speaker 2 (48:15):
Like he is.

Speaker 1 (48:18):
Having his kind of like season. He's probably surpassed his
war for the previous seasons combining the first previous three
seasons combined for a Detroit. I know he hasn't quite
yet because he actually the first season was he was reasonable.
It wasn't amazing, but he was reasonable. But like the
last two seasons Detroit were ugly, and I don't quite

(48:39):
know what's changed because he's still basically is striking out
twenty twenty five percent of the time. He has a
three percent walk rate. His babbit now is actually in
the three hundreds, which is where like it used to
be a not in the low two hundreds like it
was last year, So it may bit of block's gone
back in the direction. But he's got a one twenty
five WRC plus that's something that Abby Bias has not
done at any point in his career. I Prorom like

(49:00):
his breakout. He's probrom his big season in twenty eighteen,
so it's like this is this is utterly like me
talking about like gold Schmidt earlier on saying that he
was done, like Bias was done, Like.

Speaker 4 (49:13):
Yeah, yeah, if if Chris, if Christian wasn't going to play,
then there was an argument we made for just cutting
Bias from the team completely, right, Yeah, if he didn't
have the contract, was that bad?

Speaker 1 (49:21):
Yeah, he didn't have the contract that he had, and
the optics probably of defaying him, he would have been gone.
So I'm trying to think of, like you have somebody
who's basically just being paid a lot it has basically
done nothing and then just suddenly pops back up again
and kind of like does something like utterly amazing, Like

(49:43):
this feels that like it's kind of the end of
Like I don't want to if it's a bit harsh
on saying things like David Beckham's time at like AC
Milan or whatever, where he's basically just gone there to
have some jollies and then done nothing and then just
pops up with like an main incredible moment every now
and then. But I'm struggling to find the other comparison
in sport to this, because it was just like he's done,

(50:06):
Like this was not supposed to happen.

Speaker 3 (50:09):
I'm loving it. I mean, he got he's been getting
such stick with the Tigers, and you know, not without
due course. He's been singing at pictures that have bounced
halfway to a play at times. But we all thought
his career was done right, and like you said, Darius,
like people were calling for him to be just cut
from the team and just eat the money and pay
him to go play for someone else, and so fair play,
like not only did he move to another position without

(50:30):
complaining and seems to be pretty legit out in center
field or certainly making some eye catching plays. But yeah,
he's starting to put it together a little bit with
a bat again. How sustainable it is, I don't know,
But I always loved watch him by his player Like,
no think I've ever seen anyone who made playing the
in field look so cool. So to see him now
and make the outfield look just that call to ten

(50:51):
years later is just really cool.

Speaker 2 (50:53):
All right, Ben, give us your last outfielder.

Speaker 3 (50:55):
Last one. I'm going to shout out Tyler Sodastrom. I
was unsure has to put him into the first base
or outfield c casgory, especially because I think most of
his production came at first base, but he has now
moved to the outfield, and I think he has now
hit at least one home run as an outfielder, so
I'm gonna call him out here. He slowed down after
his initial tear. I think he was like leading the
majors and home runs after the first three weeks, but

(51:17):
he's still having a really good season. Another guy alongside
Jacob Wilson who looks like he's going to sort of
help Banker that A's lineup for a little while here.
The the bat is really good. I have no idea
what he's like playing in the outfield. I'm going to
assume not good. The bat is legit, he draws walks,
he hits for power, and yet he seems to have
kind of figured out whatever that mini slump was that
he had after his initial move to the outfield. So

(51:40):
certainly not a guy that was on many people's radars,
mostly because of where he plays team wise, but he
seems to be showing that he's going to be a
useful bat at the very least, and maybe more than
that if he can can make more Jostinson get back
to that history was for the first three weeks too.

Speaker 1 (51:56):
Yeah, Daris, do we think it was a there's a
lot of discussion now it being a bad decision about
taking him from first phase and putting him in the
outfield and actually being like, yeah, you know what, do
some movement and it's like you could just let the
guy who was raking just continue with what he was doing.

Speaker 4 (52:11):
Yeah, I understand the impulse. It's nice to see the
reason they did it was to get Nick Kurtz and
the like that. You know, we always complain about teams
not promoting their prospects who are obviously need to be
in the majors, and I think Kurtz probably is also
going to be a very good hitter. So I understand
that they wanted to do that to create the space.
But I did feel a bit bad for Sodastrum, whose

(52:32):
reward for being one of the best sittings in baseball
for a months was to have to do a position
change mid season, which seems a little bit mean. But
maybe he'll say, Aileen, yeah, I don't. I don't think
he's going to be a very good outfielder. But while
they've got Brent Ricker on this team, while they've got
Kurts on the team. If they're not going to put
him back behind the plate, which presents its own problems,

(52:52):
then they're kind of stuck with this. And if he
can be an passable outfielder, then he has got home
of power in the bat, which is what you need
to carry that corner out front spot. So yeah, I
hope it won't affect him longer term. I think he
still has only hit the one home and since they
stuck him out there, but hopefully that turns around and

(53:13):
you can kind of recapture some of that early season.

Speaker 2 (53:14):
Four, I don't give us your last outfielder.

Speaker 4 (53:18):
I think I'm going to have to go with William A.
Brew and a. Brewer had a pretty nice little season
last year, but not to the extent that he has
been having this season. The Red Sox continue to sort
of use him as a strong side platoon guy, so
they are shielding him from those lefties. But he's actually
been kind of unlucky this season, and that's you know,

(53:40):
he's got in the eight fifty ops, so that tells
you the kind of year is having. He's up to
eleven homes already on the year. Just looks like a
good consistent offensive force. I wasn't quite sure what to
believe about him after last season and the strikeout rate
was a little bit high, but he seems to have
brought that down and looks like one of the bigger
threats and what it's pretty post Red Sox lineup, so

(54:01):
it seems like he's here to stay. And yeah, not
not shocked that he's a good hitter, but I'm mildly
shocked that he's a great hitter.

Speaker 2 (54:08):
Yeah, I think that's one is the one. Like the.

Speaker 1 (54:11):
Some of it, you're like, the numbers have definitely protected
by not platoon being slightly like platoon and not having
to kind of get that, so you kind of he
doesn't get some of the maybe the negative equity that
other players do get from being forced to kind of
go against that. But now he's been one of the
highlights of that Boston team so far, and to finish

(54:34):
off the outfield, I kind of feel wrong, but I
kind of feel like I have to say Aaron Judge
because like, to me, this is like my I actually
thought I thought about this, and I think that this
is basically like this is like Aaron Judge is Manchester
United in the late nineties, Like he's gonna win things.

(54:55):
He's gonna be amazing. But Judge right now is potentially
like the treble winning team. Like it just everything is
like going like to the point where he could be
having like a thirteen or fourteen war season, which is
just unprecedented.

Speaker 2 (55:14):
Like we all know that he's great.

Speaker 1 (55:15):
We know that he could kind of like probably get
two thirds of the way there, like he could win
the Premier League and get the FA Cup, but getting
that Champions League on top of it, getting his few
extra war that has kind of like eluded him so far.
He's had two eleven war seasons. Like, yes, he needs
to stay fit and played like the entire season, but
like if he gets to that kind of twelve thirteen
fourteen character like level, I'm sorry, it's like we didn't

(55:39):
predict this, Like it is like Bonzian level stuff that
we're talking about here, and it's just it's just ridiculous,
and I think we still need to say that, Like
what he's doing is ridiculous and it is more than
we anticipated.

Speaker 4 (55:56):
It is sort of like any of the truly elite
guys when when Ronaldo and Messi were kind of hitting
their peak, or Federer and Nadal Djokovic, whoever. It is
the guys who you're sort of like, oh, they're already
so good, you know, they can't possibly get any better.
And then somehow they come out and they get better.
You know, they just take over games and they raise

(56:16):
it to yet another level. And that that does seem
to be what Judge is doing. And yeah, nobody is
surprised that he's the best hitter in the game, but
I think you're right to say that the fact that
he is this good is pretty astounding because we know,
in any of our times as baseball fans, we have
never seen anybody this good at hitting. I think it
is worth mentioning that as often as we can.

Speaker 1 (56:38):
Yes, and just to quickly go back to Havier bayas
they do have something to compare it against that I
worked out in my head it's Roger Federer to me,
because it's the point that he was good, had the
dip like in his kind of like early like late
early thirties or whatever. And I actually told a lot
of my friends, I think he should retire before he
gets like before he kind of goes bad. And then

(57:00):
he came back and won more titles afterwards. But it's
not quite to that level, but someone who had that
mid level dip. Okay, that is all of our position players.
Let's move on to pitching. Then, let's just do to
give a short stiff to the many and plethora of
pitchers that are out there. We're just going to do

(57:21):
one picture and one reliever each. Darius, do you want
to start us off with your starting pitcher?

Speaker 3 (57:27):
Yeap.

Speaker 4 (57:27):
I found it difficult to picture just one, but in
the end I went with Chris Boobach of the Royals,
who has been hurt for a while. He was kind
of one of those that quite a big group really
of you know Royals pitching prospects that were supposed to
sort of come along and save them, and none of
it seemed to pan out, and he had some real
struggles and the rotation never really looked like he was

(57:49):
going to go anywhere. They tried him, been relief for
a bit, then he got injured. But now he's come back.
He's made ten starts, he's got one forty seven ERA
so far, and it looks like he's finally putting things together.
So YEP, didn't really see this coming at all. Wasn't
expecting him to kind of force himself into this Royal's
rotation picture the way he has, but he looks like

(58:11):
he's made himself a fixture. And I feel like pitching
is always the easiest area for this every year, is
that there's always going to be somebody at the top
of those leaderboards every single year on the other pitching
side that you're just like, oh, yeah, he's not even
going to start. Yeah, and then suddenly, you know, twenty
five thirty starts later there in the inside Young contention
or and they're in the top tenor in IRA or something,

(58:33):
and Boobitch is one of those guys this year. So
fair play to him. It's been quite a long road
and it's good to see him succeeding.

Speaker 3 (58:40):
Royals are good at developing pitching, aren't they.

Speaker 1 (58:43):
Well, yeah, how they do they keep them? If they
keep them on the field, that's the.

Speaker 3 (58:47):
But they do. I was torn between a couple of guys.
I think Lizardo is an easy answer because I think
he's currently leading pictures in War, which is pretty amazing
to say, Like, what an amazing job that policea dino.
He's always had this stuff but seemed to figure it
out as a starter until this year. So you know,
the rich get richer from that perspective for the Phillies.
But I'm actually going to sell you on a gentleman

(59:09):
called Tyler McGill at the New York Mets who his
era doesn't necessarily stand out. I think it's mid threes
right now. Yet his under line numbers are little bit
better than that, but he's striking out twelve per nine.
The walks are still pretty high, but he's taking the
ball every five days and for a rotation that we
looked out at the start of the year and thought
that that does not look great. He's maybe been their

(59:30):
most impressive picture so far, but play Homes has also
been awesome. But I think it was having a guy
who they can rely on to go out there, give
them innings, give them depth. We didn't think McGill was
going to be that guy because we kind of thought
we knew what he was at this point. But he
seems to have found a new level this year of
production that we had necessarily seen from him in the past.
And I'm not saying he's going to become an ace,
but I think if he can be a guy who

(59:51):
throws one hundred and eight two hundred innings puts up
four or five wins like that is really really valuable
for the Mets with the current state of their rotation.
He's already equaled his career high in in wins above replacement,
and as I say, with some of the stuff he's
showing this year, there's reason to believe it's legit. Yeah,
not a guy anyone came into this year thinking was
going to be a really important member of that rotation.

(01:00:11):
But I think he's maybe showing that he is going
to be, yeah, at the very least one of the
most reliable guys and hopefully you can stay healthy and
turn it into a career year for himself.

Speaker 2 (01:00:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:00:20):
No, I think he's had that fantastic season. I was myself.
I was split between two as well. I was split
between Mackenzie Gore and Matthew librator And I think just
more because like Gore had a good last season last
year that to me, I think Libratoria was kind of
just really pushes it as something that I've just been like, oh, like,

(01:00:41):
you've looked good this year and kind of the aside
to it where it's like he's really dropped the walk rate,
which has been kind of what's cost him a lot.
He's never been like a massive K like pitcher and
kind of command basically had to sharpen for him to
be something like that and potentially somebody who can throw

(01:01:02):
the kitchen sink at you with it, like his variety
of pitches or whatever. But the command had never quite
been there, and it seems to be there right at
the start of the season. And his sub three ra
along with us up like three FIP for the start
of the season, is one of the reasons why the
Cardinals are in a position to maybe challenge for for

(01:01:24):
that division, which is something that I definitely didn't expect,
and I didn't expect him to be one of the
leading figures in the pushing the similarist team towards that position.
Darius sim I just picking a freaking first rounder and
saying like, oh, isn't it amazing that, like he's actually
now like a great player.

Speaker 2 (01:01:42):
It's not really hard, is it.

Speaker 4 (01:01:43):
No? I think I think the shine had definitely come
off Librattal what once people saw him in the made
just did kind of look like this, maybe this guy's
you know, like a four if it all works out,
And maybe that still is what he's going to be,
but I think, yeah, he was far enough and moved
from his prospect pedigree that people had kind of, you know,
slept on him.

Speaker 1 (01:02:03):
Okay, let's move on to relievers to finish us off. Ben,
where would you like to start?

Speaker 3 (01:02:09):
Well? Can I sell you a funky left hander named
Gabe Spier? Am I saying that right? For the Seattle Mariners?
Who does you know? The funky left handed stuff? He
has kind of a low arm slot, he has fastball
and a slider. He's got a high velo fastball, and

(01:02:31):
he's a nightmare to face if you're a left handed hitter.
But he also this year seems to be a bit
of a nightman's face your right handed hitter too. He's
been really legit in that Seattle bullpen. There is another
guy who maybe is taking the headlines in that bullpen
for reasons that hover around zero point zero zero. But
I wanted to shout out, you know, the lesser heralded
guy who's doing a lot of the work in the
seventh and eighth and then to put out fires before

(01:02:53):
before Minnals gets into the game. So yeah, shout out
to Gabe. I always love a funky lefty, especially one
with long hair who looks a little bit crazy, and
I and I feel like, you know, Spier hits that
mold spot on.

Speaker 1 (01:03:03):
Yeah, I think he's he's He's definitely given Seattle the
edge in some of the games.

Speaker 2 (01:03:08):
Is obviously min Yez is now.

Speaker 1 (01:03:11):
What appearance twenty one twenty two appearances without an run
so far, he's got two wee earned, but is what's
probably calling a lot of people right now. Still got
a long way to go to get to the thirties
odd that we saw a few times in the in
the twenty tens. It's like amazing starts to the season. Darius,
who's your cavalcade of webs or albas that you want

(01:03:34):
to tell us about?

Speaker 4 (01:03:35):
Well, not to be too much about Homer, but I'm
going to go with Randon Rodriguez, who is a go
and to reliever, and he has been absolute filth. He
has a thirty eight point five percent strikeout rate right
now in a three point eight percent walk right, That
is pretty good. He kind of simplified the arsenal a bit.
I think he was throwing four pictures last year, mostly

(01:03:57):
a passibal slider, but just said get rid of those
we're going only fastball slider. Now he's cooking sitting ninety
seven slider is filth fastball up on the zone, and yeah,
it is working for him right now. He doesn't quite
have the zero ARA, but he does have a zero
point eighty seven the iron through just over twenty innings.
And yeah, I'm never that surprised by any relieve it's

(01:04:18):
just randomly being great. But Randy Roderigan's certainly a lot
on my list of this guy is going to be
they filthy and run over in baseball this season. So
I'm excited desone the Giants.

Speaker 1 (01:04:29):
Yeah, it's always a good one to see. All Right,
I'm going to finish us off and I'm going to
go back to the Bronx and talk about Mark Lighter Jr.
Think he's somebody who has effectively we know he's not
going to be effectively moved from his positions of being
like a starler pretty early on in his career, been

(01:04:51):
to that ballbend and has kind of just been solid,
like nothing, kind of like outstanding a.

Speaker 2 (01:04:58):
Lot of very high strikeout guy.

Speaker 1 (01:05:00):
The walk rate has usually been the concern to go
with it, but like this season, he's kind of that
walk rate has dropped a little. Is he going to
stay that way? I don't know, not really giving up
the big bombs that he does a few more and
more often than not. But as a player who is
potentially eligible to play for GV in the World Baseball Classic,

(01:05:22):
he's somebody that I will will follow and seeing him
kind of put out performances like this, it's pretty exciting.
And definitely he kind of like looks like he's going
to do well. I was literally looking to see if
he's done. He was pitching kind of like today as
we were talking, and I'm like, okay, at least he
gave it two hits but complete.

Speaker 2 (01:05:42):
Another zero runs allowed in the inning.

Speaker 1 (01:05:44):
But yeah, he's had that pretty amazing start at the season,
which has kind of helped the Yankees given how bad
kind of Devin Williams has been.

Speaker 3 (01:05:52):
Doing, I'm gonna say finding a relief pitcher has been
good this season. It's not easy if like every high
highly regarded closer has had at least one extremely public
meltdown at some point this year, So definitely a year
for the un heraldic guys to step up.

Speaker 2 (01:06:07):
Well.

Speaker 1 (01:06:08):
It was I think when I was looking at it
was lighter or the greater Ben Casparius was was the
man I was going to potentially shout out for doing
multiple innings of relief for Dodgers in some important games
so far this year.

Speaker 4 (01:06:21):
Yeah, I like Asparius, big fan.

Speaker 1 (01:06:23):
Yeah, I think just to put a final twist on this,
as we always like to end everything on a bad
who's been your most disappointing player of the season so far?
I don't have not given you a chance to research
this one, So maybe I'll go first, And I think

(01:06:43):
I have to say, like Christian Yelich is probably one
for me, where like I think there are moments last
season where we were like, oh yeah, like Yelich is back,
and this season I think he's got a six hundred OPS,
which is.

Speaker 2 (01:06:59):
Not very good.

Speaker 1 (01:07:02):
And optimal suboptimal and someone who's pretty much got full
game time as well.

Speaker 2 (01:07:10):
That's that has hurt the Brewers.

Speaker 3 (01:07:13):
This is half. I feel like I have to choose
someone on the Orioles just because they've been so disappointing
as a team. But it feels harsh to put it
on any of their young players in particular. I mean
like Rochman. I guess like considering how great he was
as a rookie, and it was like, Oh, this guy's
a second coming of Buster Posey. He's going to be
a legitim middle of the order bat who also is
one of the best defensive catchers in baseball, which you

(01:07:34):
know is extremely rare, and he kind of just hasn't
been able to get back there since. I don't know
exactly where his season nine is sitting right now. I
don't think he's been a bad player by any means,
but I guess he's someone that comes to mind when
you think of like where the Orioles were this time
last year, or even at the end of the season,
you think about, like, they're so set for the next
five years because they have some of these guys Gonna
who you know, has also been a little bit disappointing

(01:07:55):
so far this year, but also Rochman, who yeah, just
hasn't really been able to kick on as as a hit.
It would seem so, yeah, I look a bit harsh
because he's not exactly horrible back there, but I think
considering we thought he was going to be well, he
looked like he was going to be like future MVP candidate,
it just hasn't really come together. For him, but hey,
there's plenty of time left.

Speaker 4 (01:08:13):
Yeah, this is I mean, this is a long list,
isn't it, Like so many players I think. I think
Marcus Simeon, he obviously didn't have his greatest season last year,
and I wasn't expecting him to go back to peak
semion necessarily in his mid thirties, but starting to get
a bit like the Rangers in trouble here. You know,

(01:08:34):
they've got a lot of years left in this deal
and things are going very rapidly in the wrong direction.
He has a forty nine WRC plus right now, so
extremely ikes on that. I think the other one from
a sort of more young player upside that I've surprised
he has been so ineffective is Junior Kameni. He has
it runs, but he's basically a replacement NOMAL player right now,

(01:08:56):
and I think the talent is still in there for
him to be an elite level back that. You know,
he's a guy that you consider a top ten to
fifteen player in baseball at some point, certainly on the
offensive side. So to see him struggle to the extent
that he has has been pretty disappointing and surprising to me.
So hopefully he can turn it around for the race.
But yeah, I could. I could probably go on all

(01:09:18):
day with the guys who suck.

Speaker 3 (01:09:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:09:20):
I think my my analytical list was is jor Dan
is the worst, Andrew Vaughn, Bryan Reynolds, Anthony Sander, Christian
Yelich was basically like mon five.

Speaker 4 (01:09:32):
Andrew Bawn, Oh my god, that's Andrew Bowne is what's
meant to Talkerson could have been right negative one point
three war.

Speaker 1 (01:09:40):
Yeah, a forty four w RT plus over one hundred
and ninety three plate appearances like the.

Speaker 4 (01:09:45):
White Sox are like, we don't care you are going
out there. He's gonna find which, to be fair, why not,
He's got to find it any day now, any day.
I mean, Leti's Robot not much better either.

Speaker 1 (01:09:56):
No, you're thinking that they don't even have trade trade
prospects to go out there. Yeah, I think to just
go to your point, Ben like Rutchman is like on
my list of like players, you've actually still like been okay,
but we're expecting to be better. It is literally like
Adlie ruschbund Gunna Henderson wan So though so and then
Corey Seeger with same in the bottom but seems not

(01:10:19):
even been good.

Speaker 4 (01:10:20):
So that has been hurt again.

Speaker 3 (01:10:24):
All right, good glimpse this podcast could have been.

Speaker 2 (01:10:28):
Ah well, when I.

Speaker 1 (01:10:30):
Was coming over the surprise nine, I kind of I
was like, do I want to do a depressing nine
as well?

Speaker 4 (01:10:37):
I'm disappointed to the show. Isn't pitching it rubbish? Get
him out there?

Speaker 3 (01:10:41):
I agree?

Speaker 1 (01:10:42):
How dare he claimed to be a two way player
and we've not seen it in so many years? Like
the fact that MLB changed the rules just to stick
with the fact that he's been injured and still can
be class as a two way player.

Speaker 2 (01:10:54):
It's an a freaking outrage.

Speaker 1 (01:10:56):
All right, boys, thank you so much for joining me
once again for this podcast. As always, our listeners and
watchers can you can see us on YouTube now with
this with all of our podcasts that are up there
live you want to see our reactions as they go along.
Players always go to the website backplips and nerds dot

(01:11:16):
com for plenty of articles going up about the season
from our intrepid writers. There are some great ones out there,
seeing ash publishing more things about the San Francisco Giants
and given the fact that they're back to being rivals
with the Dodgers again by playing good baseball. It's a
it's always good to season. Words from from Ash so Yeah.

(01:11:37):
As always, you can find us on Bathforts, Uners, does
and Twitter and backflops ands dot com. Thank you very much, gentlemen,
See you next time.

All Episodes

Episode 377 - The 2025 All-Breakout All-Stars

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Episode 377 - The 2025 All-Breakout All-Stars