The New York Mets won again on Friday night, marking their fourth-straight victory. Host Ryan Finkelstein recaps the game, with how the Mets got a great offensive performance, a solid start from Sean Manaea, but another clunker from the bullpen.
Ryan also discusses the loss of four top prospects for the Mets this year, who could be playing a role on this team right now.
Could Nate Lavender have filled the need for a left-handed reliever in the Mets bullpen this year?
Where would Ronny Mauricio, Jett Williams, and Drew Gilbert have factored in?
Finally, with Gilbert finally back on the field, could we see one of these top prospects play an impact down the stretch?
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It's the lockdown podcast network, your team every day. The New York Mets slugged their way to their four straight victory on Friday night on the show today. I'll talk about the game. And also, I want to go through four top prospects in that tab that have been hurt this year that would have played a big role on this team. 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 Mets, 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 bludgeon their way to another victory on Friday night. I will talk about that game in the first segment. Second segment, we're going to talk more about this bullpen that continues to struggle, but also we'll get into four top prospects in that tab that have been hurt this year that are sorely missed. Talk about Nate Lavender and Ronda Mauricio in the second segment, then the final segment, the top two prospects in this system going into the year, Jet Williams and Drew Gilbert. They'll give you an update on all those guys and the role they could have played and their outlook moving forward. Before we get to any of that though, I'm your host Ryan Fickelstein, if you want to find any of my work, follow me on X at Fickelstein Ryan, you can also find some of my writing at JustBaseable.com where I work as the managing editor. This episode of locked on Mets is brought to you by Booking.com, Booking.ia, the right state can make you a fan of any city, even your rivals, check out Booking.com for your stay today. Other New York Mets continue to rise in the wild card standings. They now won four games in a row, and by winning tonight, they moved a game up on the Cardinals and the Padres. The Cardinals lost to the Cubs, said on the Mets are even with them for the second spot in the wild card race right now. The Padres lost, but they're playing the Braves. So the Padres are now a game back at the Mets. Meanwhile, the Braves are four games up on the Mets. I talked about that a lot on yesterday's show. But the Mets toppled the Braves this year and move into the first wild card seed. The only team in their sights right now after the Cardinals and Padres both slid down today. So it is possible, but we'll be talking about that over the coming weeks here. Let's focus on the game tonight because it was your typical 2024 New York Mets game. They got a great start from their starting pitcher. They got really good performance from their lineup, a ton of home runs tonight. Meanwhile, their bullpen continue to show its warts. So let's start with Sean Menaya. He was great. Gave up a two run homer in the second inning. He had a solo shot in the seventh. In between, he only allowed three singles and he issued one walk. That was it. Five hits allowed. Three runs on the two homers. Got through seven innings on 107 pitches, struck out nine. He now finishes the first half of the season for himself here with a 3-4-6 ERA. And he has 96 strikeouts to lead the Mets. If you were to told me on opening day that Sean Menaya would be leading the team in strikeouts, I don't think I would have bought that. I think I would have expected that to be Luis Severino. The Severino has turned into more of a ground ball pitcher this year than a strikeout artist. So Menaya having that one, I guess, wouldn't have been as surprising, but a 3-4-6 ERA, I would have signed up for that. He has been really good, particularly lately, and to get him through seven was big because it was just less outs at this bold penalty cover. Meanwhile, the offense, they were trailing 2-0 after Menaya gave it that homer in the top of the second. While they stormed right on back, Marc Vientos and Jose Iglesias hit back-to-back home runs. Jeff McNeil grounded out. Then Harrison Bader hit a third home run for that inning to give the Mets a lead that they would never give up. Bottom of the third, Francisco Alvarez and Marc Vientos hit back-to-back doubles. The Vientos driving in another run there. Fourth inning, McNeil hit a lead-off single, Harrison Bader went yard again, and then the fifth inning, Jose Iglesias went yard again to lead off that inning. It was the 16th time in franchise history that two teammates have each had a multi-home run game in the same contest. So really cool stuff from the offense. Funny thing about the Mets line tonight, Pete Alonso and JD Martinez went 0-6 with five strikeouts. Martinez got hit by a pitch, Alonso drew a walk. But for those two guys to go hitless in the strikeout in almost every abat, and yet you still pile on seven runs on 10 hits, it just shows you how good this lineup is right now. I have no notes on what this team has to do offensively, but there is still some bullpen issues. Carlos Mendoza was ejected for the first time as a Mets manager. Got a nice rousing applause from the crowd that was fun to see. So John Gibbons had to handle the end of the game, and he goes to Jake Deakman in a seven to two game with some lefties coming up, made complete in total sense. But Jake Deakman did Jake Deakman things. He gave up a lead-off homer in that inning, then gave up a double, got a ground out, but Gibbons had seen enough. He goes to the bullpen to get Phil Mayton in that eighth inning, and Mayton gets a line out that was well struck. And he gives up a two run homer, and all of a sudden, just like that, as soon as Benite exits, a three run score in the lead evaporates, and it's a seven to six game. Mayton did get a strikeout after he gave up the homerun, so he got out of that inning and was able to pass the ball off the D as for a save opportunity. I will note that I have talked about Phil Mayton splits in the past when it comes to innings. Eight innings have not been kind to him, but he almost did his job here. As crazy as it is to say, giving up a two run homer is doing his job, but other Mets relievers would have given up that homerun and then walked the next guy. The fact that he struck out the next guy and got through that inning, I almost call it a job well done. As crazy as it is to say, but that is just how low of a bar you have for this Mets bullpen. I do believe moving forward that not pitching him in the eighth inning would be wise. He should be your seventh inning guy. You call on him to get those three outs, your starter will go to six, Phil Mayton should come in. And I also wanted to look up how he's done him back to backs. I mentioned that on another show recently. I wasn't sure how he had done in his career and back to backs. Turns out he's been pretty good this year, not so much, but in his career, he's actually been better and back to backs than coming in on one day's rest for whatever that's worth. So I don't think that's an issue. I think you can pitch him on back to backs, but eighth inning, try to keep him away from it whenever you can. Some instances though, I'd still rather call on Mayton, even with his track record in the eighth, then go to Eric Orsey in that spot. I mean, who else are you going to pitch if Daniel Nunez wasn't available and you didn't want to have Edwin Diaz come in when it wasn't even a save opportunity yet? I guess I guess it would have been, right? It was seven three, then D can give a homer. So it would have been, but still asking six outside of Diaz that might have burned him until the break. So you end up fire away through that eighth inning. The Mets can't score in the bottom of the eight. So it comes to Edwin Diaz in the ninth and he made it a little bit scary. He walked the couple, but he ultimately got the big strike out against Ezekiel Tovar to end the game with the two runners on and he notches his 10th save of the season. So Diaz did his job tonight. The rest of the month, that's bullpen did not to continue to issue. We're going to talk about that a little bit in the next segment as we move into our prospect conversation for the day, which is four Mets prospects that have been hurt this year that would have held the big league club. One of them is a left-hander reliever. I'll talk about it in just a minute, first though, a word from our sponsors. This episode of Lockdown Mets is brought to you by booking.com booking. Yeah, with summer travel heating up, especially traveling for baseball games, it's time to explore those US cities. You've always secretly wanted to learn more about, yes, we're talking about your rival cities. After they all start break the Mets are traveling down to Miami to face the Marlins, I actually live in South Florida. So if you want to come give me a shout, why don't you book a trip at booking.com, head down to Miami and catch some Mets games with hotels, bed and breakfasts, occasion rentals, resorts and so much more on booking.com. You might just find your perfect stay, even in your baseball rivals city. The rest they can make you a fan of any US city, 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 can 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. [music] Today I'm today with all the latest in the world sports by checking out Lockdown Sports today streaming 24/7 on YouTube. Speaking of YouTube, I want to give the audience a huge shout out on yesterday's show. I told you that we were 25 subscribers away from our goal of 9,000 subs by the All-Star Break. You guys pushed it on through. The channel has cleared 9,000 subs so I really appreciated it now. Our goal is set towards 10,000 subs by the end of this season. Hopefully even before that but I appreciate all of you who continue to subscribe. Let's talk about some injuries and also a paternity leave. David Peterson, he is the king of timing his paternity leaves. I was looking up just to see the story here on David Peterson who went on paternity leave today. When I looked up David Peterson paternity leave, I found a story from 2022 where David Peterson pitched a game and the Mets won 6 to nothing and then immediately went on paternity leave. He is again making a start, getting a great Mets victory and then not only does he go on paternity leave but he doesn't leading into the All-Star Break. That is a well timed child. So congratulations to David Peterson but this now allowed the Mets to add a ninth reliever to the bullpen for this series and Eric Orzy was able to come right back up. Hopefully he gets an opportunity because this guy had a really rough first outing but I still believe there is a chance that the Mets have something here with Orzy. You might not see it this season, you would hope the Mets would add to this bullpen more and a guy like Orzy would not get his chance until next year but he is a pitcher that could handle left-handed batters and so I'd like to see him hopefully get another shot in this series to maybe give you at least a better look at what he can do and potentially the Mets might make the decision to leave Jake Deakman in the first half and just wave goodbye to him. Let's see what happens. Jake Deakman has got to go. I've talked about enough on this show but man, another brutal outing tonight. It just stretches the need for another lefty. You have Danny Young in the bullpen right now, he's had very mixed results this year. It doesn't seem to be a completely finished product that's ready to contribute right now in the big leagues. He might not ever get there. I still believe that there's some potential there with Young but the guy that Mets are missing which leads us into our conversation about injured prospects is Nate Lavender and really the injuries can stretch beyond prospects and the loss of Brooks Rayleigh is so massive with this club but Nate Lavender, how do you not gotten hurt? I think he'd be thriving in the big leagues right now. We saw him in spring training. He had three appearances, three perfect innings, faced nine batters, struck out seven of them in his minor league career. He has a 2-4-1 ERA, 174 strikeouts and 115-2-3 innings pitched. He was confident in spring training, he became a viral sensation with his clip talking about throwing 92 with conviction and purpose but really it's throwing 92 with a lot of ride. This was a prospect that really jumped out in spring and we thought he could have even made the team out of spring, he looked so good. And then he gets hurt, needs Tommy John and who knows when we see Nate Lavender again. But that's a big loss for this team when you really look at how this season has ended up shaking out since then because when Brooks Rayleigh went down, Lavender could have slid right into the bullpen and if he had been healthy this year, I would not even be surprised if he was pitching in leverage at this stage. The same way Daniel Nunez has come up and played such a big role, Lavender would have been right there with Nunez I think so that has been a really big loss for this team and I actually wasn't going to include him in the episode today. He slipped my mind when I first thought about this concept by T's today's show yesterday talking about going through three prospects who have been hurt this year but when Deak McGill at the home run somehow it sparked a Nate Lavender light bulb in my head and I'm like man there's four guys that the Mets could have desperately used this season. The other one that we're going to talk about for this segment is Ronnie Mauricio though because Ronnie Mauricio could have absolutely played a role in this team. David Stearns was asked about this in his most recent press conference of the media. He said quote, "I think the most likely situation is he probably does not come back. We certainly don't want to rush Ronnie back to get a couple of weeks in September but if his rehab progression goes that way then that's a good outcome." There's the old gift right, the dumb and dumber one. So you're telling me there's a chance? A couple weeks in September there is a possibility that we see Ronnie Mauricio this year. I believe that as this season wears on there is going to be a bench spot whether that is one that is held by DJ Stewart or Ben Gammell or somebody that could get replaced by the playoffs with a September call up. Now, that could be Louisa Hellucunya, that could be Brad Beatty, that could be Luke Ritter, could be Ronnie Mauricio if he gets healthy and Ronnie Mauricio would bring something in a bench role. I've been down on Mauricio throughout his tenure as a Mets prospect. I was never the high man on him at all. I will say, and I've told this story before, but I was always down on Mauricio because of his numbers because he never had a great O.P.S. with never the best hitter would make a ton of errors in the field. I just didn't get it and then I watched him in person and this was in 2022, I believe. Yeah, 2022. And I fell in love when I saw him in person and I got why scouts fall in love with him because he had such an athletic body, such a big kid who really just oozes confidence. And then we saw that in the majors last year because I personally believe that Mets fans think this guy is going to be unbelievable because of how he looks. It's like scouts have because he didn't actually perform that well. You might remember him as a 300 hitter with five home runs in September, but he hit 248. He got on base at a 296 clip. He slugged at a 347 clip, hit a 643 O.P.S. He wasn't even that much better than Vientos or Beatty last year, smaller sample size, much smaller, but still now the flashes were brilliant because he hit a monster home run. He sold a bunch of bases and he made some plays in the field. I understand why people love Ronnie Mauricio. I believe that his best role in this team long term is sort of the 10th man, almost equivalent to the sixth man on an NBA team, a guy that can fill in a bunch of places on the field. When your starter goes out, Ronnie Mauricio can start for you for two months and he might have a hot month in there where he hits a bunch of home runs. And maybe he's better than that. Maybe he is the second baseman of the future or the third baseman of the future of Vientos is at first. We don't know, but losing it for this season lost valuable time of getting to know what Mauricio could be because Ronnie Mauricio could have made me eat my words entirely and he could have been the guy that replaced Brett Beatty for all we know and have been the starting third baseman of the team who could have had as much success as a Vientos. But he lost that opportunity and it sucks because 2025, there's going to be more guys competing for those opportunities. So I really don't know what happens with Ronnie Mauricio moving forward. What I will say is I called him during his minor league career, right field Ronnie. The reason why I said right field Ronnie is because I believe he has the physical attributes to thrive in right field. He's got a big arm. He's got speed. I know the early returns have been playing, I think it was some left, but in the minor leagues that did throw him out in the alpha a little bit, they weren't great. And so he ended up moving back to the dirt more prominently. I feel like had Ronnie Mauricio been healthy this year, there would have been a point in time where the Mets would have optioned him to triple A if he didn't just start the year there. And I think they would have really played around with his versatility and tried to get him on board to play a right field, particularly when a Stalling Marte goes down where he's where you could have plugged in Ronnie Mauricio potentially to be a starting right fielder if he had learned that position. If not, he could have been at second base, but maybe the Mets don't have an issue there because Jose Iglesias has been unbelievable. So maybe Ronnie Mauricio would have just stopped that from happening because he probably would have been in that role of backing up second, short third, getting some time all over the place. But we'll never know what it could have been. We'll see if he does come back on the stretch because I'll tell you what, if you're talking about a spark plug to put on your bench for the playoffs, a guy that can not only steal a base, which Luis and Hella Cunha can do at a better clip than Mauricio. But the difference is I don't see Luis and Hella Cunha pinch hitting in a playoff game hitting a home run. Ronnie Mauricio has that level of power. So be great to get him back at some point this season, but his loss has definitely been felt. This team has been thinner because of it. And there's two more guys that they have certainly missed as well when it comes to their top prospects. Actually, by some accounts, the top two prospects in the system. So I want to talk about those guys next because one of them is finally back. We'll go through in just a minute first, though, another word from our sponsors. Today's episode is brought to you by game time. 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If you want to be locked on Mets insider, find a link in the description, go to subtext.com/lockonnets. Now there have been two major prospects who have not seen the field really at all this season, and it's Jet Williams and Drew Gilbert. These guys came into the season as the top two prospects in the Mets system. Right now, if I had to re-rank it, I think I'd still keep Jet at number one, but Christian Scott probably two now, although he's going to graduate soon, and then Brandon Sproat might be number three for me over Drew Gilbert Sproat, and he's looking like potentially a better pitching prospect than even Christian Scott. He's been unbelievable, he's going to represent the Mets in the futures game, which takes place on Saturday later today as you guys are listening to this. I will be talking about Sproat on tomorrow's show, because I got some minor league dad on him from a friend arm laden with just baseball prospect analysts. He gave me some interesting information, geez, interesting information. Anyway, it's some good stuff that I have on Sproat, so I'm breaking it all down on tomorrow's show, especially after watching whatever he does in that futures game. Now, when it comes to the two guys who have been hurt though, Williams potentially the number one prospect in the system still drew Gilbert at least a top four prospect in the system, and some might still have him higher than one of the two pitchers. These guys have not been on the field, Jet Williams don't think he played at all if he did his game or two before there was a wrist injury that required a cortisone shot. He then got a second cortisone shot and then needed surgery as that wrist just would not heal. Now, there is a chance we see him this year, I doubt it's in the big leagues, it would probably be in Bighamton, remember he has played in AA, but it was at the end of last season as he skyrocketed through the net system. I believe he started in St. Lucie ended up in AA, 19 years old. He did play about a week of AA games and then had the playoffs in AA. He still needs some seasoning in the upper levels of the system here, but he was a fast riser before and he set a goal to be up this year. If Jet Williams was healthy, he could be the starting second baseman right now. Again, you know with Jose Glazius playing as well as he has, maybe that's not as much of a necessity, but I just think this guy could have forced his way on the roster. I don't know if he could have handled a right field, I really don't. I know he can certainly play center, but there's a world where even that would have worked out, where maybe he could have been the replacement and right. Jet Williams is the top prospect in this system for a reason. He's got elite play discipline, great bat the ball skills. I think he's going to grow into some more power. He's got incredible speed on the basis too. So, to see him lost for the year is a real shame. There's again, some hope that maybe you'll get a little bit of action from Jet in September. Early as possible at the end of August, but it seems more like the Mets are just going to prepare him to get ready for the Arizona Fall League, where he's going to be one of the biggest stars there. Hopefully he has a great Arizona Fall League at your spring training with an outside chance in making the team. Most likely he needs to go to at least AAA, if not still spend time in double, he really has it, but I'd expect him to play a role next year assuming health, but it's a season where he could have found his way on this big league roster. I absolutely could have seen him outperforming Luis in Hellucunya and leapfrying him and getting to the big league first. Now, Okunya's got the inside track because I would imagine if nothing else, we're going to see Okunya as a September call up. Now Gilbert is actually back, so he was really the genesis of the idea to talk about these guys on today's show because we might see him. He played in the Florida Complex League on Thursday, got three at bats, went 0-2 with a walk, played five innings in center field. Not to mention he'll continue to move him along and hopefully get him up to AAA very soon. Poor at St. Lucie, he might be able to control things a little bit more, so maybe he gets a little bit of running in St. Lucie and then jumps all the way up to AAA soon here. And then we'll see what he has. I mean, Drew Gilbert last year got traded to the Mets in the Justin Verlander deal and hit the ground running. He batted 325 in AA with the Mets, 423 on base, 561 slug, had a 984 OPS down the stretch and was a big reason why Binghamton made it to the playoffs. I really believed he was going to be on the big league team this year, not on opening day obviously, but I think in my bold predictions, I believe I said that Drew Gilbert was going to be starting by either the all-star break of the trade deadline. And you could have seen the exact narrative that would have fell into place for Drew Gilbert to take over as the starting right fielder, potentially the future, this year when starring Marta went down. If Drew Gilbert was healthy, and let's say he had replicated that slash line and he was hitting over 300, getting on base over 400 clips, slugging at a 500 clip, hitting home runs, playing great defense, and Marta goes down. Kind of calling Ben Gamel and relying on Tyrone Taylor to be the pseudo starting right fielder. The Mets, I believe, would have taken Drew Gilbert had he been successful in AAA, pulled them right into the starting lineup every single day and they would have seen what they had there. Because the thing about Drew Gilbert, he is an elite defensive outfielder. And I think his long-term home probably isn't right because you have them out who's going to hold down left field for the rest of this decade, and then you have a lot of speedsters that can end up in center with Jett Williams with Elisa Hellacunya, even further down the system, Nick Moribido. But I really believe that right field is where he's going to end up because he has a big enough arm to play out there. And it's a shame because I think he absolutely could have played a role in this team. He still can. There's still a chance, but he's not going to be in mid-season form until August at best. So he would have to tear the cover off the ball in August to force the Mets hands and promote them. If they were desperate, sure. The thing about it is Starling Marte is the piece the Mets need, okay? I've been looking, scouring the market all about free time, trying to find the right field of the Mets could add because they have a clear problem on this roster right now. Again, second base, not so much. Iglesias is a good option to be the starter for the rest of this season. Acuna is still sitting there in AAA, Luke Ritter could play second base in AAA, Ryland Bayonin could play second base. All these guys are there. So there's depth and Iglesias is such a good defender. He's swinging such a hot bat. You might as well just set it and forget it. But right field, right field, you have Tyrone Taylor who can't hit a lefty. Centerfield, you have Harrison Bader who this year has struggled against lefties. That Bader has a track record where he has splits against left-handed pitching where he's crushed lefties and has not hit against righties. I'll take this version of Harrison Bader. I'd rather him crush righties as the everyday centerfielder of the Mets. And I would think that it's going to come around against lefties. The way he's swinging it, I just imagine that he's going to start hitting in those spots. But Taylor has just looked awful against left-handed pitching. DJ Stewart and Ben Gamel aren't really helping things. Gamel did have pretty good numbers against lefties in AAA, but the Mets have not gone to him. I do want to point out that the fact that the Mets have not given Gamel a chance here tells you what they think about that league in Syracuse. Because Gamel had as good of numbers as any hitter in that lineup. So everyone who's clamoring for Ritter and Ben, and I know I just mentioned them myself. And I do believe they are decent depth. To think that they would put up the same numbers from AAA in the big leagues, I don't think that that's an accurate representation of what these guys really could bring to the table, otherwise we'd see more of them getting auditions. So Gamel probably not an option. Stewart not going to hit lefties. We know that. Taylor hasn't hit lefties. And they're going to probably keep giving them opportunities until Marte comes back. But having a bat that can hit left-handed pitching in right field is a necessity. And there is no clear option on the market. It's Lane Thomas from the Nationals. Kevin Polar from the Angels. We all remember him well from 2021. Then you have Tommy Famm and Mark Hanna. Like I'm yes, I am just circling the wagon on old Mets here. But those are the guys that have decent splits this year against left-handed pitching. None of them. None of those four is a good defender in right. Polar's probably the closest. Thomas has had good numbers prior to this year. His numbers this year have been awful, but he does have speed and he does have a strong arm. So he probably is the best fit. You have to give up to get Lane Thomas who doesn't hit right-handed pitching. And you're probably going to have to pay a starter level package. It's like an everyday package to get a guy who has control for next year for Thomas from the Nationals team in your division. Because he's one of the best bats on the market because there's just not a lot there. Starring Marte is the guy that the Mets really need back. The latest update. I didn't mention this on yesterday's show. It eluded me. So I finally caught up on it. Charles Mendoza said that there was still inflammation in that knee. He's feeling it when he's doing some of the activities. So he's not clear for normal baseball activities. He did say that he could ramp it up quick once he has no pain in that knee, but it's still a waiting game. And when a guy's in his mid-30s, those waiting games typically last a little bit longer. I think the line up the Mets had tonight might be their best one and wasn't against lefty, but I would want it out there against a lefty with a glacier starting at second and Jeff McNeil may be your starting right fielder because he's going to give you good enough defense out there. And I actually believe he'd get you better at bats versus left handed pitching. The Tyrone tailored us. But we'll talk about all of that at a later date. I'll be breaking down Saturday's night game on Sunday's show. I'm also going to talk about Brandon Spro. We might talk a little bit more about Marte. We'll see how much I can fit into that show. So I appreciate all of you though. We're going to tune into that one and those of you who tuned in today, you don't want to miss any episode of Lockdown Mets and you're listening on the audio side. Make sure you follow wherever you get your podcast. Also appreciate if you rate the show, review it. If you're watching on YouTube, keep hitting that subscribe button. The new goal now is 10,000 subs, but I appreciate all of you who helped me get to the goal of 9,000. Really appreciate that. If you want to follow me on social media, you can do so at Finklstein-Ryan on Twitter. You can also follow the show at Lockdown Mets. Thank you for making Lockdown Mets your first listener, your first watch every day and after your second watch. Go over to YouTube and check out the first ever 24/7 streaming channel that covers everything. The World of Sports, talking about Lockdown Sports today with our local experts from each team and our league wide experts from each league. If I lockdown sports today streaming 24/7 on YouTube. Hey Prime members, you can listen to this Lockdown podcast ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. (upbeat music)
