The New York Mets won their fifth-straight game on Saturday, thanks in large part to the relief pitching of Jose Butto and Dedniel Nunez.
Host Ryan Finkelstein talks about their standout performance, and another struggle of a start for top prospect Christian Scott.
Speaking of top prospects, Brandon Sproat represented the Mets in the Future's Game, and threw a dominant inning.
Could Sproat fill a relief role for the Mets in the second half and be a true x-factor?
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It's the lockdown podcast network, your team every day. The New York Mets won their fifth straight game and Brandon Sproat shined in the future's game. On today's show, I'll talk about the Mets victory and his Sproat can be a secret weapon for this team down the stretch. You are Locked On Mets, your daily New York Mets podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network, your team every day. Hello to all you amazing Mets fans, you're listening to Locked On. That's part of the Locked On podcast network, your team every day. Thank you for making Locked On Mets your first listen every day, Locked On Mets is free and available on all platforms including YouTube. The Mets won their fifth straight game on Saturday, I'll break down that game in the first segment. Second segment, we're going to talk about Brandon Sproat who shined in the future's game and has been unbelievable in the minor leagues this year. I want to tell you a little bit more about his arsenal and why I believe he could be a reliever for the Mets down the stretch. We'll go through that as well in the final segment, why I would still prefer to keep Christian Scott in the rotation, slide Sproat in the bullpen at the Mets, need him as we get into the second half of the year after one more game on Sunday. Before we get to any of that though, I'm your host Ryan Picklestein, if you want to find any of my work, follow me on X at Picklestein. Ryan can also find some of my writing at justbasebo.com where I work as the managing editor where I'm going to write a piece tonight off of today's show talking specifically about Brandon Sproat and if he could be a secret weapon coming out of the bullpen from the Mets down the stretch here. We'll talk about that in the final two segments today, first things first, let's discuss the Mets fifth straight victory, if now one another series beating the Colorado Rockies in each of the first two games. They've moved a little bit closer to the Atlanta Braves, the Braves lost to the Padres on Saturday. So now the Mets are only three games back from the Braves, they're a half a game back from the Cardinals who beat the Cubs on Saturday. The Diamondbacks beat the Blue Jays, so the Diamondbacks are a game back from the Mets as are the Padres. It's starting to feel like those five teams are going to be the contenders this year in this wildcard race, although we can't count on any of the other ones just yet until we see what everyone does at the trade deadline. But really good win for the Mets and particularly coming from their bullpen because Christian Scott did not give the Mets a great start on Saturday. He was spotted four runs in the second inning. The Mets, they got some help too from the Rockies. Petalon's a lead off single, DJ Stewart draws a walk, Mark Vientos lines out, Ben Gamble draws a walk to load the bases, and Louise Torens hits a double play ball. But Brendan Rodgers boots it, then he throws it wide as he killed Tovar. That allows two runs to score and extends the inning. Then Jeff McNeil hits a double to really make the Rockies pay a score to him more. All of a sudden the Mets have a four nothing lead. But Christian Scott gave up a run very quickly after that, a lead off home run to Jake Cave. He settled in a little bit, overall it wasn't a horrible start. But what we saw from Christian Scott today, he just did not have his best stuff. He was too frequently leaving pitches over the heart of the plate a little bit too much. He got caught with a hanging slider against Charlie Black, who hit a two run homer later in his outing. There were some big moments. He struck out Jake Cave after the home run and they spot there's a couple batters on. But overall you look at the day for Christian Scott, he goes four and a third. He allowed seven hits, three runs on the two home runs, which continues to be as Achilles healed this year. We've seen it in his big league stint. We've seen it throughout his minor league tenure with in AAA. He's just given up a lot of long balls and it's one of two things. It's either hanging, breaking pitches, hanging sliders or sweepers or it's fast balls that just get too much play. Those are things that can get cleaned up over time. I will talk about Scott a little bit more in the final segment. As it relates to Brandon Sprote, you know, could Sprote replace Scott in the rotation? Why do I believe that Christian Scott should get some more runway here? We'll go through all that a little bit later. But the stars of the game were Daniel Nunez and Jose Budo. First it was Budo, who came out of the bullpen to bail Christian Scott out in the fifth inning where there was a couple runners on. He had given up that home run, the Charlie Blackman in that inning. Then after the home run, he gave up a double and a walk. That's when Mendoza had seen enough. There was only one out. Budo comes on with a couple runners on and he gets a double play ball. It was a 3-6-1. So Budo had a hustle over and cover first, got the out and yelled about it. He was fired up as he should be, goes back out for the sixth inning in a one run game, strikes out the side, goes back out again in a one run game in the seventh inning, has a 1-2-3 inning and it has two strikeouts. So across his first two and two-thirds, he had five strikeouts and a double play ball. It's really impressive stuff in the double play ball, stranding some inherited runners. So outstanding stuff from Budo. They tried to get a little bit more out of him. This is obviously the last time he's got a pitch before the all-star break. I did not mind the move at all by Carl Mendoza trying to see if he could squeeze one more out of Budo, potentially save Edwin Diaz for the day. You never know what could happen. He might have been able to save Daniel Nunez, but when Budo went back out there for the eighth inning, he gave up a single, then he walked a batter. Carl Mendoza pulled him from that point on and Daniel Nunez came in and what a Nunez do, exactly what Budo did for Christian Scott, he bailed him out, promptly gets a double play ball, then he gets a pop out, gets out of that inning. Really great work from Nunez, bottom of the eighth, Francisco Lindor hits a three run homer to give them at some breathing room, really to save Edwin Diaz for the day. Some sort of thing here, Daniel Nunez was not going to pitch again after going up a day before the break here. I don't think they would have had him available for the final game of this series. So it made sense to pitch him again in the ninth inning, avoid having to use Edwin and Nunez struck out the side in that ninth inning. So huge performance by Budo and Nunez. You can make an argument best bullpen performance of the year from the Mets from these two guys. They got 14 of the 27 outs, they each got a double play ball to string inherited traffic and they struck out eight combined. So of the 14 outs, they got 12 of them came via strikeouts and those huge double play balls that they got just dominant stuff. I tweeted this after he got through that seventh inning. It was something along the lines of Jose Budo probably deserves to start. I mean, you can make a case that Jose Budo should be in this rotation over Christian Scott. Absolutely. It is seven starts were better than Christian Scott's eight and he's been lights out coming out of the bullpen. But I said he has become indispensable for this Mets bullpen. They need him. He has been so good coming out of the pen and he's getting critical outs. And I also later tweeted out, you know, I'd prefer to see Jose Budo right now at the state of this bullpen, getting, you know, two appearances across one turn through the six man rotation. So when saying it comes back and he's going to throw a rehab game on Sunday on four days rest to allow him to get a rehab appearance in a live game instead of a sim game. So we'll talk about that on tomorrow's show. But once you go to a six man rotation, which could be on the other side is all star break. Instead of having Budo take Christian Scott spot in the rotation, I'd prefer to have him pitch two times over a six game span in critical junctures where the game is on the line like it was today because he has just been that good. I said there's a verb for what he's doing right now, where you are just too valuable to be pulled from the gold pen, even though you deserve to start. We call it get Lugo'd and I don't think that the Mets will hold Budo in a bullpen spot for the rest of his career. If he just continues to throw out the rest of this season, although it's always going to be in the back of your mind, he could be really good out of the pen. But I actually think next year we're going to see Jose Budo in the rotation. If you just think about the possibilities with Budo with David Peterson still being around. Shalmaniah, Korna Isenga, Christian Scott, Brandon Sproke, next year's rotation looks pretty good. But bottom line from this game, Jose Budo and Daniel Nunez were the MVPs to really carry the Mets and get a victory against a team that obviously they should beat. But the things weren't necessarily lining up with the way Christians got pitched to be able to get through this game to be in a position where the bullpen was going to cover that much time or that many outs with the way this bullpen has been. That's not a recipe for success for this team and those two guys really turned the game on its head. So great stuff from them. And speaking of some great pitching, we got to watch Brandon Sproke in the futures game. I want to talk about his performance and why I believe he can be a weapon for the Mets down the stretch. We'll talk about in just a minute. First though, a word from our sponsors. This episode of Lockdown Mets is brought to you by Booking.com, Booking.Yea with summer travel, heating up, especially travel for baseball games. It's time to explore those US cities. You've always secretly want to learn more about yes, we're talking about your rivals cities with hotels, bed and breakfasts, vacation rentals, resorts and so much more on Booking.com. You might just find your perfect stay even in your baseball rivals city. The Mets are going to be playing in Miami after the all-star break, a four game set that begins next Friday. You want to come in, you can watch some really good Mets baseball and Booking.com will be the place to go to find a great stay. The right stay can make you a fan of any US city, even your rivals. So book today on Booking.com on the site or in the Booking.com app. You know we love talking stats here at Lockdown Rockies. Here's one that's super simple to remember. Discover automatically doubles the cash back you've earned on your credit card at the end of your first year with cash back match. That means with Discover you could turn $150 cash back to $300. That's right you could put it towards some memorabilia you've had your eye on or treat yourself to a premium sports network. You earn and discover doubles. See terms at Discover.com/creditcard. If you're an everyday listener of the show make sure you become a Lockdown Mets insider. This is our Texting Service where you get updates from me. Anytime some news breaks on the Mets you can ask me questions anytime but go back and forth through the text. You also get these starting lineups sent to your phone each day in a graphic so you never have to go on social media to find out who's in the Mets starting lineup. If you want to be locked on Mets insider, find a link in the episode description. Go to subtext.com/lockdownmetz. Now for those of you who aren't aware, the futures game is a showcase that major league baseball has every year to kick off all star weekends showing the best prospects in baseball is an annual tradition and this year Brandon Sprote represented the Mets. He was their one player that was in the game. He pitched in the third inning and he squared off against Mariners shortstop Cole Young who is in double A to get like a 7.50 OPS in double A. Now Cole Young bats left handed and Sprote fell behind three in one. He then throws a fastball on the black at 98.6 miles per hour gets a called strike. Yes and now he's back in the county, it's the full count. He throws a sinker which is probably a two seam. It's registered as a sinker if you look at the box score or at the MLB.com's box score but probably a two seamer outside black 99.2 miles per hour that pitch is fouled off. So he went inside, got a called strike, went outside, got a foul ball. He then goes back inside on Young and throws another fastball at 99 miles per hour. This one about six inches inside, not on the black, moving a little bit closer knowing he's going to get a swing and trying to get a strike out. Young gets a piece of it but by getting a piece of it, he gets jammed to hell and his back gets shot off literally in half. It was incredible how you blew up that bat. Gets a pop out. That's the first out of the inning. Next batter he faces is a righty. He throws two sliders in the other batter's box, gets swings with a head O2. He then tries to throw a front door slider so he tries to freeze them and get a pitch on the inside corner. Instead it's just two inside, not a strike. He then goes back to the fastball on the black 99.2 miles per hour. It's hit to the shortstop. shortstop makes an error on the play. No sweat for Brandon Sprote. Next guy he faces is Samuel Bassio who is the top catching prospect for the Orioles, one of the top catching prospects in all of baseball. They get just baseball. We have him in the top 20, I think, very high on Bassio. My first pitch, hard fastball, down and away, gets a double play ball. He gives out of the inning in 11 pitches, just dominant stuff, and sort of showed you what he could look like as a relief pitch, and we'll talk about that a little bit, but first I want to focus on the Arsenal. His Brandon Sprote has two really good pitches and he's got five pitches, but he's got two plus-plus pitches, potentially here. His fastball is legit. He throws gas. In the year he's averaging 96.2 miles per hour on his fastball. Over his last five starts he's averaging 96.7 miles per hour. I got a lot of data on his pitch mix from just baseball from R&L, and so I was able to get some stuff that you're not going to find on milb.com. This was sort of insider stuff that you're only going to find that someone has access to the information, so I was lucky enough to get it. The thing that jumps out with Brandon Sprote is how much he can just pound the zone with his fastball and get strikes. On this season, he is his in-zone percentage on the fastball, so how often that fastball is in the strike zone, 62.1% of the time. In-zone with percentage on his fastball, so when it's in the zone and guys swing at it, in-zone with a 25.6% that's really good. About a quarter of the time on fastballs in the zone, they're not able to put any bat on ball. Chase rate for the year, 24.3%, bad bit, so a batting average on balls put in play is 204 on his fastball. The hard hit rate is a little bit high on his fastball, but most of the time it's on the ground. Now over his last five starts, there's been an uptick in velocity there, so 96.7 miles per hour. Now, here's the crazy part. He's gone from landing that fastball for a strike at a 70.6% clip across the whole season, and this is obviously taking into account the last five starts as well, but it's jumped. We had to imagine that his strike's percentage was probably below 70%, and his last five starts had pushed it over. His strike percentage on his fastball over his last five starts, 76.3%, so three out of every four fastballs are landing for a strike, whether that means it's in the zone and it's called a strike. It's fouled off or guys chasing outside of the zone, and speaking of that, he has to chase rate lately even better than for his season at 27.7% on his fastball. In zone with still good, 21.1%, in zone percentage has gone from 62.1% on the year, which again includes these five starts. In these last five starts, his in zone percentage is 68.6%. So he's nearly landing that fastball in the zone close to 70% of the time, getting a strike on it 76% of the time, getting swing and miss in the zone and out of the zone on the pitch, and the batting average on balls put in play against his fastball over his last five starts is 179. Now, the only pitches he's given up for a homerun this year, it's the fastball in his curveball, but his homerun percentage overall is 4.2%, that's not that bad at all, and what he can pair his fastball with in particular is a disgusting change-up. For those of you who know Pulf Skins and have seen in pitch, which we all did just recently, he's been a lot made about his splinker. That's splitter in the sinker combination because he throws it so hard. That split change, whatever you want to call it, splinker for Skins. Arm Layton, who again covers prospects better than anyone at just baseball for us. He dives into film like nobody I know, and he has been raving about this change-up and he said it's the closest thing he has seen to Pulf Skins splinker. That is how good Brandon Sproach's change-up is. You look at what he's done with that pitch this year. He is landing at first strike 56.8% of the time, but it's only in the zone 36.2% of the time. Okay, so that's showing you the great chase that he's got on the pitch. Hard hit rate, 37.5%, ground ball rate, 68% on his change-up. Pulf's only put in play at 12.6% of the time, most of the time, on the ground. Lately, his strike percentage has gone up slightly on that change-up. His in-zone whiff percentage is up to 39.1% on his change-up over his last five starts. Now, he's able to throw it in the zone for a strike, so it can be called the strike, but it guys try to swing at it almost 40% of the time, they're swinging through it, and they're chasing it 31% of the time. From this season, it's fastball 51% of the time, change-up 18% of the time, cutter 16% and then he's got a slider and a curve over his last five starts. The arsenal has changed a little bit. He's up the change-up usage. He's taken the fast blue switch down a little bit, but it's marginal, 49% fast balls, 21% change-up. So those two pitches have been 70% of his arsenal over his last five starts, where he's gotten great results. Meanwhile, he's got a slider and a cutter, 11% each, curve ball, 8%. Again, I will note that there's really two fast balls. There's a four seam that can throw up in the zone and a two seam, more of a sinker, that he can throw down on the zone, get ground balls. Change-up comes in at 89.5 fast ball, I mean, he can touch 99 and he gets it over 100 with regularity still, but averages 97, basically, over his last five starts 96 on the season. Bottom line with those two pitches and being able to throw a slider to change it up in the other batter's box, like we saw today, maybe get a chase. I don't know if a big leader is chasing that, but a bad hitter on the team might chase that and he can still throw that slider and hopefully, you know, backdoor it on some lefties, steal some strikes, same thing with his curve ball. Those are the nuances that I think he'll still have to work on, similar to what we're seeing with Christian Scott right now. But you could see a Devin Williams style reliever, although I think he'd throw the fast ball more than Williams. Williams throws his change-up like almost 60% of the time, fast ball, mostly the rest of the time. But you could see that type of a mix of just fast ball change-up primarily as a reliever this year, they could get a lot of outs. On the season, batters are hitting 168 against him, they're slugging 280, 534 OPS, Bad Bip, which is batting average of balls, put him play again, across all of his pitches at 222 ground ball rate, 52.1%. On the season, he has a 1-7-1 ERA across high A and double A, that's in 73 and 2-3 innings pitched, 85 strikeouts, a whip under one that's walked and hits over innings pitched. So if you're allowing less than a base runner per inning, you're doing something right. He walks 16 batters in high A. He's only walked 12 in double A in about double the amount of innings, which is really impressive that he's really honed in on the strike zone. Once May 21st, across seven starts, he has gone at least six innings in six of those starts. He's gone seven three times in four of those starts, he has at least eight strikeouts. Brandon Spro might be a better pitching prospect than Christian Scott. I wouldn't say that just yet because we're watching Christian Scott struggle on the big leagues. That's a tough jump. I don't think that Brandon Spro is going to enter a big league rotation right now and have more success than Christian Scott. I don't believe that. Long term, though, he might have better stuff because he throws harder and he's got a pitch in the change up that will be a weapon against both righties and lefties. Christian Scott has incredible stuff against righties. Lefties can get him a little bit. Two home runs a game today, lefties. So I can see Spro being able to thrive in a way that I can't see Christian Scott thriving out of the bullpen. So I want to talk about those two guys in the final segment here. Also Spro was asked today about potentially pitching out of the bullpen. So I want to go through that. Could Brandon Spro come up and be the answer for the Mets bullpen as a lockdown reliever? We'll talk about that next. First, though, a word from our sponsors. Today's episode is brought to you by FanDuel. I love sports. I love them so much. I never want them to stop. But as the playoffs have now winded down in the NBA and NHL, we just get fewer games and the sports aren't sportsin like I want them to, but FanDuel lets me keep the sports going whenever I want because all I have to do is open up the app and dream up bets anytime I'm in the mood and this summer FanDuel is hooking up all customers with a boost or a bonus daily. That's right. There's something for everyone every day all summer long. So head over to FanDuel.com/locked on and start making the most out of your summer FanDuel official sports betting partner of Makes Lee baseball. Grab wonderful pistachios and elevate your snacking game today. Visit wonderful pistachios.com to learn more. If you want us to have to date with all the latest in the world of sports, make sure you check out Lacton Sports today streaming 24/7 on YouTube. Brad Esprit was asked directly today about coming up and being a relief pitcher for the mess down the stretch. Here's what he said, quote, "Whatever chance I can get to get to the big leagues as quick as possible, whether that's starting or relieving, I'm definitely not going to complain about it." He says, "I'd figure out a way." Now that's obvious, okay, as much as guys want to start. If you're telling them that they can pitch in the big leagues tomorrow as a reliever instead of staying as a starter in AA or AA, the answer is always going to be a resounding let. Yes, everybody wants to be in the big leagues, okay, so he's not going to have a problem but they decide to go this route. Now, I understand if you just watch Christian Scott have admittedly more of a clunker of a start and has yet to win a game this year and think is Christian Scott the best answer for the Mets rotation? I have been as staunch of a Christian Scott supporter as you're going to find. Of course, I'm not going to talk down on the guy after one bad start where he still had some strikeouts, made some big pitches, didn't have his best stuff. It was starting on four days rest in a consecutive start for the first time in his entire career. He has now made three starts on four days rest, one before he got promoted the first time and two is the last two turns to this rotation as the Mets wanted to stick with the five men to get to the all-star break. So, I personally believe even though he's got a 4-3-6 ERA, I think there's more there with Christian Scott. We've seen him pitch deep in the games in a way that other starters from the Mets didn't earlier in the season, so he still has shown that ability to keep his pitch count low and work deep into a game. You have to say Brandon Sproke can't do that but I'd rather take the guy for August and September who already has eight big leagues start under his belt, who's started to take his lumps and can keep developing off of that, then take the guy straight from double A and slide him into the rotation, especially when I think there's more upside for him this year in particular, pitching out of the bullpen. With Christian Scott the way I look at the rest of his season here, he now gets a much new to rest for the all-star break and he's not going to be the first pitcher going when you come out of the break, he's probably going to be fourth or fifth in line and then you have Kodai Sangah who again could be back on the other side of the break. I think they might want to squeeze one more start out of him, so I did the math on this before. He's going to start now on Sunday which means they could actually even move him up, pitch him on six days rest, let's say the minor league season would resume the same thing as the big league season, so he could pitch on Saturday the 20th, turn right back around, pitch on the 26th against the Atlanta Braves. Where the Mets can line things up where he would slide into the rotation before Christian Scott, give Christian Scott his extra day, everybody else you potentially could just have start their first time out on four days rest, or excuse me, their second turn out of the break, it might be on four days rest, but there's a way that you can basically have your six-man rotation that we've been talking about with Severino, Scott, Sangah, Maniah Quintana, Peterson, good to go throughout the rest of July all the way through August. And here's the thing, the Mets are going to play coming out of the break, 24 consecutive games, that'll take them to the middle of August, it's without a day off, that's four turns through the rotation for Christian Scott. Now if those four turns don't go well, yes, you can option them to triple A, and from that point on final seven weeks of the season, the Mets are going to have off days in five of those seven weeks, now also you can have two more turns in the rotation probably before the deadline. If you have enough relievers in this bullpen that you want to go to an eight-man pan, you can then option Scott if he still hasn't pitched well in his next two starts. Go to a five-man rotation with a bullpen day essentially whenever you need to give Sangah that extra day, assuming he's going to need it, which you probably will. So the Mets can navigate this thing where assuming health, they can roll with the six starters that we're talking about here, whether it's in a six-man or if Scott gets pulled from it, a five-man rotation where guys like Budo and Houser can potentially cover you in bullpen games when necessary down the stretch, where you have a five-man rotation. So that's what I look at moving forward, and I don't see a reason why the Mets should force Brandon's throat into a big league rotation. That's a big jump. Now pitching as a reliever, that's a different story, it's one inning, his stuff's going to play up, so instead of seeing him average as fastball at 97, all of a sudden, he might average 98, 99 on a fastball for all we know, okay? He's got the change-up. He could pitch off of those two pitches primarily with the occasional slider, curveball cutter to steal some strikes to keep hitters off balance. I talked about this on a previous show. I did a podcast, two prospects who could help the Mets down the stretch. I talked about sprout and I talked about Akuna, and both of them not being starters. I talked about Akuna in sort of an ancillary bench role potentially. Maybe he does start some, but with sprout as a reliever in that podcast, I talked about this. Corbin Burns did this for the Brewers back in 2018. The Brewers, led by David Stearns, went to game seven of the NLCS before they lost to the Dodgers. Paul Burns was a consensus top 100 prospect heading into that season. He was further along in his development in 2017. It was like 140 innings. I can't remember if that was split between high and double-ed, but he had thrown a lot of innings. Started off 2018 as a starter, but they converted him. He made six relief appearances in Triple-A and got himself ready. He gets called up, did not allow a run in his first six big league appearances, had some difficulty in August, pitched to a 4-7 O ERA, then he settled in, had a 193 ERA in September across 12 appearances. Then in the playoffs that year, he made six appearances, did not allow a run in five of those six appearances. What's great coming out of the bullpen. I could see a very similar thing with Brendan Sproke. Why trade? I'm going to like to get Chad Green, although I actually really like Chad Green, but just for the purpose of this exercise. Let's say you're calling the bludges at the deadline and they're not budging, they want blade-ted well for Chad Green, or they want Ronnie Mauricio or Brett Beatty for Chad Green. I'm not trading a guy that could be a starter for five years, six years on my team for a reliever for a year and a half. Not doing it. Now, if you can get a trade done with the bludges by giving up some guys that are further down your system, maybe they're like an 18-year-old that you have and you can deal with someone that's not going to hurt as much or maybe you can make a trade for Mike Vassal, a guy that is depth right now, probably still the top 20 prospect in the system for sure, but not a guy that you're going to regret because it's going to be an ace for the bludges. If you could swing that deal for Chad Green or any other reliever, by all means, you make those trades. If you know in your back pocket, if you're David Stern's, you have a kid who can throw a hundred miles per hour with a disgusting change up and some other good pitches that will want to compliment that arsenal, that you could slide into a bullpen like you have in the past in your career and potentially get a standout performance and you continue to sort of build internally where you have Edwin Diaz, Daniel Nunez, Jose Budo, Brandon Sprott, while still having Phil Mayton maybe out of Montebino and you spackle it together, I think that the Mets might decide to go that route and the funny thing about it, not the funny thing, but you don't have to do one or the other. You can do both. You can add some arms in the deadline, absolutely, but arms that you are okay with the price to acquire them, right? So Andrew Chifen might be out there. We're going to talk about this upcoming week, five teams that the Mets could target for relief help. So I'm going to go through a lot of options, but the Tigers are one of them and I'm going to talk about Jason Foley on that show, but Andrew Chifen is another piece that has this year in a club options, very similar to Phil Mayton. The Mets by just absorbing that contract, maybe even taking Mark Cannon back because he's not playing well, the Tigers don't seem to be going anywhere to making a lot of money. They can absorb dollars and potentially send very minimal back to get a left-hand reliever to replace Jake Deakman. So they can make moves like that knowing that they have sproted in their back pocket. They might be able to get a Jason Foley or a chaggery or somebody's other better relievers we're going to talk about this week. And that's fine and well, but you always still have that same card in your back pocket. So if you don't need Brandon's throat, let him keep developing. It's going to be good for your rotation next year. Maybe call him up to AAA, let him get some starts there. By all means, you don't absolutely need him if your bullpen's not an issue, but if your bullpen continues to be an issue, Brandon's throat is absolutely a card the Mets could call on. And one that I would love to see because I think he'd had the chance to really blow people away, give you that incredible first audition in the big leagues as a relief pitcher. And then next year in camp, he could be fighting for a starter spot on the opening day roster. I think that's the ideal outcome, I honestly do. And I'd prefer, honestly, for the Mets to use sprout instead of giving up a prospect that's going to hurt Borlea at the deadline. If they can get trades done with Mike Vassil and Kevin Parada and some of these other prospects that I'm not the biggest fan of, yeah, I'm going to love that. But I'd hate to see even someone who's got his value down like Brett Beatty traded for a relief pitcher, especially one without control. So we'll be discussing all of these things throughout this week. It's going to be a big trade down line week as there's no games to discuss. First things first, there's a final game here before they all start break that I will be talking about tomorrow's show. German Marquez makes his long awaited return off of Tommy John. So interesting to see how he pitches, how Quantrell could piggyback him. He was going to get the start. The Mets will have Jose Quintana going, who's been great lately. We'll see how they end up fairing in that game if they can finish the job and advance to five games or 500 heading into the break. But that'll all be discussed on tomorrow's show. I appreciate all of you who tuned in today. Make sure you follow, rate and review, wherever you get your podcasts. If you are watching on YouTube, hit that subscribe button or new goals to get to 10,000 subs by the end of the year. So I appreciate all of you who continue to subscribe. Want to be locked on Mets inside or find a link in the episode description, go to subtext.com/lockdown-mets. You want to follow me on social you can do so at Finkelstein Ryan, follow the show at locked on Mets. Thank you for making locked on Mets. Your first listener, your first watch every day. Now for your second watch, head over to YouTube and check out locked on sports today, which is streaming 24/7 covering everything in the world of sports with the local experts on each team in our league web, first on each league. You find locked on sports today streaming 24/7 on YouTube and Amazon Fire TV. A Prime members, you can listen to this locked on podcast ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. [MUSIC PLAYING]
